Reviews for Porch Swing Stories

The average rating for Porch Swing Stories based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-07-17 00:00:00 Stephan Graham E.J. Banfield was an Australian journalist and politician who basically got pissed off with everybody and went to live in seclusion on Dunk Island on the Queensland coast, where he became an amateur naturalist and self-professed 'beachcomber.' Tropic Days is one of a few love letters he wrote to his chosen home, half-memoir rhapsodising his favourite stretches of coast and their flora and fauna, half-storybook revealing the customs and behaviour of his Aboriginal neighbours. Banfield appears to have been more of a keen botanist than anything else, so the bulk of his observations while taking his daily rambles focus more on the flora, a topic of little interest to me. He continually refers to himself an amateur, 'an unversed student of Nature,' but he wrote a beautiful if old-fashioned prose. The stories were brilliant. He tells us of hillmen descending to a coastal festival and seeing the ocean for the first time ('The Corroboree'); the paranoid ravings of a once-respected old man ('The Canoe-Maker'); and 'Time's Finger' distinguished itself by being absolutely positively the only story I have ever read in which a man strangles a wallaby to death. 'Soosie' is the tale of a "white Mary," an Aboriginal baby deserted and brought up by a white family. She grows to detest blacks, yet can't resist her heritage, which sickens yet compels her. The narrator clearly sees this conflict as innate and inevitable, not considering the possibility that his own belief in white supremacy - which comes across very clearly - may have fashioned his foster daughter's prejudice. I didn't detect any intended irony in this story, there is every reason to surmise that Banfield himself, like most from his era, believed unquestionably in the superiority of the white race. Fortunately this was the only story which sullied by the odor of period racism. When he and his wife upped sticks and all but left civilisation for Dunk Island Banfield was diagnosed as having only six months to live, yet he thrived in his new environment for twenty plus years. He was blind in one eye, she was deaf in one ear. Oh what larks they must have had!

Review # 2 was written on 2016-08-06 00:00:00 Courtney Walters ENGLISH: In this collection of 22 stories by O.Henry, I liked three of them specially: "The discounters of money" about an ornithological millionaire (a millionaire through inheritance, i.e. because of the stork) who woos a young lady who despises money. "A retrieved reformation" about a safe-cracker who reforms when he falls in love. "Friends in San Rosario," a tale of two friends, worthy of comparison to famous stories about great friends, as that by Don Juan Manuel in Spanish literature, or as the old story about Damon and Pythias, in the time of the tyrant Dyonisius of Siracuse. For me, this was the best story in this collection. ESPAÑOL: En esta colección de 22 cuentos de O.Henry, me gustaron especialmente los tres siguientes: "Los que no tienen en cuenta el dinero" sobre un millonario por herencia que corteja a una joven que desprecia el dinero. "Una reforma recobrada" sobre un ladrón de cajas fuertes que se reforma cuando se enamora. "Amigos en San Rosario", la historia de dos amigos, digna de compararse con historias famosas de grandes amigos, como la de Don Juan Manuel en literatura española, o la antigua sobre Damon y Fintias (o Pintias), en la época del tirano Dionisio de Siracusa. Este fue el cuento que más me gustó.