Collected Tales and Fantasies of Lord Berners: Including Percy Wallingford, the Camel, Mr. Pidger, Count Omega, the Romance of a Nose, Far from the Madding War - Softcover

Berners, Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1885983387 ISBN 13: 9781885983381

Publisher: Turtle Point Pr, 1999

Synopsis

In his delightful Collected Tales and Fantasies, the legendary eccentric English writer and composer Lord Berners (1883-1950) maintains a quiet grace, razor-sharp wit and unique sense of the absurd that is entirely sui generis. Berners offers an unforgettable cast of characters in these gem-like works of short fiction collected here. In Far from the Madding War, set in Oxford during wartime, the heroine, Emmeline Pocock, looks "like a nymph in one of the less licentious pictures of Fragonard, " while in Count Omega we read of composer Emanuel Smith (based on William Walton), who becomes infatuated with a young giantess named Madame Gloria, who is guarded by a jealous millionaire's eunuch, and whose virtuosity on trombone seems to offer the perfect climax to the symphony Smith is composing. In The Camel, a baroque Victorian tale with utterly macabre undertones, a humped quadruped takes a Fancy for a vicar's wife, while in The Romance of the Nose, Cleopatra herself appears. And these are only some of the fanciful creations that populate these literary treasures!

About this title

Review:

During his life, Gerald Tyrwhitt, the 14th Baron Berners, made his reputation as a composer of ballet and opera scores, but he was also an entertaining memoirist and a crafter of sly and funny tales. In First Childhood and A Distant Prospect, he depicted the realities of growing up Victorian; in Collected Tales and Fantasies, he examines his privileged world through a medium that is no less true for being fiction. Berners relies on humor to make his points, but there's nothing remotely gentle in his mockery. Take, for example, "The Camel," an absurd tale of an ecclesiastical couple whose life is undone by a dromedary's mysterious appearance on their doorstep. Or "Percy Wallingford," in which the title character, a young man entirely without fault, begins to crumble when he discovers his wife has amazing night vision and can see him at his most defenseless: while he is asleep. In the world of Berners's making, even the most innocuous or ridiculous of events can lead to serious consequences indeed, and each of the six tales included in this volume has its dark side. Misdirected love letters, antique embroidery, little dogs that are loved and loathed in equal measure--from such off-kilter seeds, full-blown satire blooms, and readers who like their humor spiced with just a dash of arsenic will embrace this underappreciated writer. --Margaret Prior

From Kirkus Reviews:

Bernerss follow-up to his memoirs (First Childhood; A Distant Prospect; both 1998) displays his gift for pleasantly campy patrician fiction in the form of the short novel. His real name was Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners (18831950). He was called ``the English Satie'' (composer of an opera with Gertrude Stein, a ballet for Diaghilev); he painted capably in the manner of Corot; he was lampooned by Nancy Mitford, in The Pursuit of Love, as the whimsical Lord Merlin; and he kept hundreds of brightly dyed pink pigeons on his lavish country estate at Farringdon. The winking little comedies here (apparently in their first US publication) at times present the authors young male friends as naughty schoolgirls with Berners himself as their headmistress. ``Percy Wallingford'' draws a picture of the perfect specimen, a male of absolute accomplishment on the playing field and everywhere else, whose supreme charisma can draw guests to an otherwise dull weekend gathering. The infallible Wallingford, who cant stand to be bested at anything, marries Vera, who, alas, can see in the dark and observe Wallingford while he sleeps. This so torments, disorders, confuses, and cramps him that he begins to suspect that everyone else has at least one secret gift superior to his. When Vera dies of accidental suffocation, Wallingford falls into suicidal remorse on the eve of WWI. In The Camel,'' a humped four- legger appears on a vicarage front porch and becomes a surreal good fairy. When Antonia, the vicar's wife, begins riding the camel about the parish, the thankful animal makes all her wishes come true, though its absurd abilities lead at last to tragedy. ``Count Omega'' finds Berners lampooning fellow composer William Walton, who falls in love with Gloria, a larger-than-life trombonist who, like the archangel Gabriel, emits a golden light when she plays. Should lead to a gala Berners rebirth among cultists of the ultra-elegant. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Turtle Point Pr
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1885983387
• ISBN 13: 9781885983381
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 434