The Garden Party and Other Stories

When I first read this collection of short stories 25 years ago I was so impressed by the character 'Kezia' that I decided if I ever had a daughter I would name her Kezia. My daughter Kezia is now 22 and bears the same character traits that I so admired in Mansfield's character! I was recently in Indonesia interviewing a tea exporter for a history I am writing and I discovered that his granddaughter is named Kezia. I bought a copy of The Garden Party to send her. Katherine Mansfield is a master of the craft of short story writing and any-one interested in this genre should read her works.

Mansfield was in competition with Virigina Wolf during her short life - the one female writer who could compete with the proverbial literary giantess of the pre-war era (as Wolf herself admitted - she respected the former's talent). I think Mansfield ranks as true literary bloom of the first quarter of the 20th century as a generality, hobnobbing with Irish talent like Joyce and fitting into that stage that also held T. E. Lawrence and John Buchan - the male writers always dominating. Mansfield represents the rank outsider, not male, not "English" but breaking through into recognition while she lived. Her writing is distinctly impressionist in flavour. Sentences broken and stories only half complete. But she writes beautifully, often echoing her impending death from TB. An outsider with her sexuality in how she experimented including a brief pretence of motherhood and her spirituality. She attended Gurdjieff's centre and was obviously fond of the pragmatism of certain Eastern traditions compared to the prevailing cult. But she only reveals so much in her writing. So much remaining unsaid. Happy stories like "Bliss" and funny stories like "The school mistress". So many details from life at the time like ships, parties, schools, courtship, and the lives of ordinary people from the well bred elites to the downtrodden poor. Mansfield frequently displays a sympathy for the underdog and cries out about the transience of things and the lack of stability in pleasure - vaguely Buddhist even ... But her stories are yet so English with glimpses of her native New Zealand from which she was divorced. She write well about the dazzle of things like summer or flowers, children, sounds and people - everything highlighted. She is so good with colloquial speech and represents it well ... conversations that bring out sentiments of characters and in the reader. You can't get enough of this genre. The only genre she knew. Little cartoons of short stories, almost always making a point, sometimes sharp but not overtly moralistic. Everything is so precise, a melody from the heart. This like any other collection of her work is worth attention, to read or as a gift. The introduction is good and Mansfield will probably for ever remain not too well known but a gem to those who find her.

If you've never read her short stories (she never wrote anything else), please do, and then read her journal. There is really something incredible that's underneath the surface of her short stories. If you just looked at the surface you might think they were cutesy or affected (little girls figure largely), but you would be completely missing the point. It's hard to explain what's so moving about them. When she describes some lazy afternoon, she just gets it so right that all the vast range of human experience seems to be contained in this afternoon (whereas in any Great American Novel-esque tomes you read only a fraction of that experience is ever expressed). But at the same time, it was just this cute little vignette that had very satisfying descriptions of flowers and little girls playing. The journal will help you understand her sadness as it's expressed in her work. You know when you are very, very upset, and you see something so beautiful or even funny, you're likely to become on the verge of tears? That's how Mansfield sounds in her stories - the stories are that beautiful thing that she sees. She is most often compared to Chekhov, and it's not difficult to see why. I truly believe that Mansfield innovated and practically invented the English (language) short story.

I came across K.M. as she liked to be refered, 60 years after her death. Very late,but better late then never. And especially for K.M. In a german Pension indrigued me first,a review told me, she could have made a lot of money, to publish it again, during the WWI.she declined. She had lost her Brother at the somme, but could not bring herself to more war mongering.Then I read The Garden Party, and new nearly instandly what kind of person she might have been.She disliked being priviliged, down the Street, kids her age where starving. The Garden Party gave her an opportunity to disclose Society as what it was. The gap between the Have and Have not.And this in the early 20th century in New Zealand.And the Garden Party is on of the few stories at the backdrop of New Zealand scenery. Her Stories make still a highly interesting read, very modern issues with an unbelievable talent for drama, as well as a very dry Sense of humor, like in 'A german Pension'One or two stories of her are always my companion.

A great book of short stories by a great New Zealander author who is widely unknown. Her short stories will touch your life! Reading closely, I could find the nature of human being. I was almost overwhelmed. Her expressing skill is very outstanding. Specifically, I recommend "The Garden Party" and "The Doll's House" to you.