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Colonel Julian and Other Stories (1951)

door H. E. Bates

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Colonel Julian and Other Stories was Bates's first collection following World War II, containing stories he wrote between 1941 and 1951. The New York Times called the collection 'distinguished...Mr. Bates avoids the sensational or the melodramatic; through an unerring selection of the exact gesture or thought or act or incident, he reveals the very essence of his characters' thwarted personalities.'The title story 'Colonel Julian' sees an eighty-three-year-old veteran of service in India now hosting pilots in his mansion. Here the old generation meets the new. The Colonel is fond of a young pilot, but also bewildered: by his enthusiasm so different from his own business-like relationship with war, by his lack of perspective on his role in a larger military strategy, and by an apparent absence of ethics.'The Bedfordshire Clanger' sees the welcome return of Uncle Silas after a ten year hiatus. Bates has Silas regaling his young nephew with a typical tall tale, this one involving a buxom landlady and disappointing meal with a pudding that is 'hard as a hog's back' called the Bedfordshire Clanger, but with a conclusion in which Silas, from then on, is 'never in want fur the nicest bit o' pudden in the world.'The collection also features bonus story 'For Valour', where the narrator, on a visit to an old airfield some years after the war, meets a café owner who shows him the medals she received after her pilot son was killed over Arnhem, and tells tales of countless soldiers, and now travellers, who continue to pass by.… (meer)
Onlangs toegevoegd doorColeridgeB2, baswood, ctipng, Squeak2017, Oryphany
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H. E. Bates was a prolific writes of novels and short stories from his first novel [The Two Sisters} published in 1926 to his final collection of short stories [The Yellow Meads of Asphodel] published in 1976 two years after his death. There was bound to be something published in 1951 and it was his first collection of short stories published after the second world war. Colonel Julian and other stories originally contained 15 short stories and the kindle version I read has one bonus story.

Colonel Julien is a war story and there are a couple of others, but these tales are far ranging; Switzerland, Burma, India and many parts of England. One expects a collection of stories like this to be uneven in quality, but there were none that were badly written and I counted ten of the sixteen that I really enjoyed. In many ways the first one in the collection The Little Farm has many of the ideas and themes that run through the rest of the stories. Tom a man in his thirties has been left a farm after the death of his parents. He is a shy man living on his own who struggles with illiteracy, but works hard to keep the farm just above subsistence level. He decides to look for a female helper to work with him on the farm and to clean and cook. With the help of the local news agent he places an advert in the personal column of the local paper and gets a reply from a strongly built young woman, who agree to work for bed and board. She immediately sets about cleaning up the farm and sorting out his paperwork, she has ideas about restoring the farm building and using the neglected orchard to make money. She easily betters Tom's part time employee who has been cheating him for a number of years. Tom is a gentle kind, man and soon falls in love with Edna who is just the woman he has dreamed of to help run the farm, but she has a past.......

Gentle hesitant men are often compared to stronger more self willed women in these snapshots of time. One can almost guess the ending once the story gets into its stride, but this does not matter, because it is the down to earth characterisation and the quickly sketched descriptions that carry the weight of the tales. Bates has the ability to set the scene and create an atmosphere right from the first page. Once I had finished the collection I found that many of them had stayed in my mind. I loved the story of Jo Johnson who has worked hard at his fruit and vegetable shop, but throws it all away when he chases after a younger woman. The female music teacher who sells sheet music above a shop and takes time to track down a song for a young man despite fending off another man anxious to take her to a party. The Girl called Peter who has been brought up by her father; who modelled her to be like her brothers, and discovers her femininity when she meets a sensitive young man.

There is no doubting the charm of these stories, the innocence of many of the male characters, but they avoid being sentimental or twee. I was surprised how much I enjoyed them. Certainly they may be considered light weight, wistful perhaps and few readers will be shocked by the outcomes, but they are not juvenile and I rate this collection as four stars. Comfortable reading. ( )
1 stem baswood | Apr 21, 2022 |
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Colonel Julian and Other Stories was Bates's first collection following World War II, containing stories he wrote between 1941 and 1951. The New York Times called the collection 'distinguished...Mr. Bates avoids the sensational or the melodramatic; through an unerring selection of the exact gesture or thought or act or incident, he reveals the very essence of his characters' thwarted personalities.'The title story 'Colonel Julian' sees an eighty-three-year-old veteran of service in India now hosting pilots in his mansion. Here the old generation meets the new. The Colonel is fond of a young pilot, but also bewildered: by his enthusiasm so different from his own business-like relationship with war, by his lack of perspective on his role in a larger military strategy, and by an apparent absence of ethics.'The Bedfordshire Clanger' sees the welcome return of Uncle Silas after a ten year hiatus. Bates has Silas regaling his young nephew with a typical tall tale, this one involving a buxom landlady and disappointing meal with a pudding that is 'hard as a hog's back' called the Bedfordshire Clanger, but with a conclusion in which Silas, from then on, is 'never in want fur the nicest bit o' pudden in the world.'The collection also features bonus story 'For Valour', where the narrator, on a visit to an old airfield some years after the war, meets a café owner who shows him the medals she received after her pilot son was killed over Arnhem, and tells tales of countless soldiers, and now travellers, who continue to pass by.

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