Talk:Tales of Men and Ghosts
| Information about this edition | |
|---|---|
| Edition: | New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1914. |
| Source: | Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg |
| Contributor(s): | veni.vidi |
| Proofreaders: | re.vidi |
Reviews[edit]
The Nation, November 24, 1910:
The enervating influence upon our popular story-writers of American magazine "policy" does not decrease with the seasons. One recalls the announcement, made something like a year ago, that Mrs. Wharton had been booked to write a series of ten or a 'dozen stories "about men." Here they are in the predestined number, capably turned out according to contract. They are ingenious and readable: so much the most doubtful forecaster must have been sure of. But their ingenuity is altogether too patent: they are too clearly trumped up out of the author's fancy; even the doubtful forecaster must have hoped for better things from the writer of "The Valley of Decision" and "The House of Mirth." Her use of the short-story form is not to be complained of, since it is true that she is naturally an interpreter of the episode and the situation, rather than of action upon a large scale. Her latest essay in the novel, "The Fruit of the Tree," resulted in a not very happy patching together of several distinct and obstinately detached episodes. But the book left one with an impression of earnest endeavor, if not of actually lofty achievement. Mrs. Wharton may have enjoyed the writing of these "Tales of Men and Ghosts," but we venture to suppose that her enjoyment was upon the comparatively trivial plane of technical facility.
Not the least puzzling thing about this collection is its uncertainty of style. Two of the stories, "Afterward" and "The Letters," are (rather ineffectively) in her earlier manner—that Anglo-Gallic manner, with its nuances, its compunctions, its hiatuses; which reminds us of Bourget, when it does not go farther and fare worse by reminding us of Henry James. In "The Valley of Decision" this style seemed to have been so thoroughly assimilated by Mrs. Wharton, that one regarded her simply as one of the "psychological" school, as the cant was. Now one almost comes to doubt the spontaneity of that manner, with her. At all events, the rest of the stories here collected show hardly a trace of it. Their style is rather that alert and commonplace style of the magazine fiction of the day as turned out by an army of skilful practitioners.
The Literary Digest, November 19, 1910
Mrs. Wharton's short stories, like her novels, are of serious character and deal with problems that beset the ordinary mind and every-day life. Her treatment of her subjects is always original and sometimes startling, but she maintains a high literary standard and is very careful as to form, diction, and symmetry of development. In this collection women appear in only two stories, but their absence from others is not felt as a detriment. The author's ghost stories are thrilling but not spooky, probably because they seem symbolical of real and tangible facts. Her analysis of motives and undercurrents in the lives of her characters is masterly, but her appeal is to the head not the heart. The effect of the imagination in distorting facts into specters, the power of habit, and the elemental passions are all utilized in a collection of great merit, particularly "The Bolted Door," and "The Legend."