Short stories, some with a few characters that are familiar from Thirkell's series. Those ones are particularly funny. ( )

A small collection of short stories that Thirkell wrote for various publications during her career. Approximately every other story was about the cast of characters in High Rising and set in Barsetshire; most of them featured Tony, Mrs. Morland's incredibly obnoxious youngest son. It's clear as crystal that child is going to grow up to be a pompous wind-bag.

A Private View, was my least favorite of the stories; I'm not quite sure what the point of it was as the story ended without any resolution at all and it included some incredibly distasteful racial slurs.

Christmas at Mulberry Lodge was a sweet story, written as though Thirkell is telling a story to children. As I was reading it, I thought I might read it to my nieces when they arrive for the holidays. Until I got to nearly the end and thought again. Didn't like the ending. At all.

The last story is A Nice Day in Town and I thought it was close to brilliant. This story takes place much later; WWII has begun and rationing of everything has set in. The author did a brilliant job making me feel the weariness and frustration and mourn what England was reduced to while the fighting raged on, yet she still managed to end the story on an optimistic note. ( )

Funny, but I didn't like this as much as the novels. ( )

Christmas at High Rising - Thirkell
3 stars

England between the wars, this is a collection of stories originally published in various magazines. Most of them use characters from Thirkell’s popular (at the time) High Rising series. Only three of the stories are actually about Christmas, but most of them were mildly entertaining. The heavy humor made me think of old radio shows, a kind of pre-television situation comedy. I could almost hear the laugh track.

I had a kindle edition which displays the cover of the Virago reprint. The cover art is my favorite part. I will probably look for more books in this series since England of the ‘30’s and ‘40’s is one of my favorite historical settings. ( )

This was a perfect little read for just before Christmas. Seven short stories – two having a Christmas theme, and an amusing essay about dinner parties in Shakespeare’s plays make up this lovely collection newly issued by Virago. All the pieces in this book were originally published in various journals and magazines between 1928 and 1942. The title – I imagine comes from the fact that five of these stories feature characters from the delicious novel High Rising – the first novel in Angela Thirkell’s series of chronicles set in Trollope’s fictional Barsetshire. I suppose the title could be seen as misleading in a way – but the fact that only two of the stories are Christmassy – and only one of those set in High Rising didn’t in any way spoil my enjoyment of this collection.

These five stories – especially the four featuring the hilarious young Tony Morland – one of the funniest and endearing child characters in fiction – are particularly delightful. However the other characters fans of the novel will recognise are just as good in my opinion, George Knox – the biographer – who is hilariously garrulous, the no nonsense Dr Ford, and dear Laura Morland – who I always see as a kind of befuddled Celia Johnson character. In these stories we see George Knox treating the Morlands to a Christmas pantomime, Tony Morland coming home from school to make valentine cards, attempting to show off his (own imagined)proficiency at horse riding and desperately keen to show his knowledge of electricity and radio waves to his elders also.

“Don’t do that, Tony’ said his mother, eyeing her son’s complacent face with some irritation.
‘But, Mother, that shows. What you need sir,’ he continued, addressing George Knox, ‘is a super het. It wouldn’t cost an awful lot, and it would cut out all that sort of thing. It’s all to do with electricity and you wouldn’t understand it, especially if I explained it, but a super het gets the wavelengths and makes them so that…’
‘Turn that thing off at once,’ said Dr Ford, who had entered unnoticed in the middle of Tony’s exposition and the continued Brocken performance of the wireless.
‘But sir I was just telling Mr Knox..’
‘Shut up’ said Dr Ford

I have to say I absolutely adore these characters and their relationships with one another, Tony’s ridiculous enthusiasm for just about anything that has just entered his head, Laura’s long suffering anxious adoration of him, and her friendship with George Knox and the wife he acquired as a result of events in High Rising and Dr Ford –are all beautifully and humorously observed. I just wish there were more books with these characters in – I have been told that at least one of Angela Thirkell’s books features the character of Tony Morland – and that is one that I shall certainly have to look out for. Angela Thirkell’s world is world that certainly no longer exists – that is if it ever did – but it is one that is quite delicious to immerse oneself in. ( )