Reviews for The Darling and Other Stories

The average rating for The Darling and Other Stories based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-03-15 00:00:00 Sandro Parodi "Coleridge, I think it was, was once asked by a lady if he believed in ghosts, and he replied, 'No, madame; I have seen too many of them.' Which is my case exactly." Unless you are out searching for older macabre writers you might not have run across this gem of a classic. Bangs, tries and succeeds excellently to portray visitations by ghosts that come to him, are drawn to him for different reasons throughout his narration. It would seem to the reader that he is being haunted for the impeccable act of truth telling. "I hold that it is a man's duty in this life to give to the world the benefit of his experience. All that he sees he should set down exactly as he sees it, and so simply, withal, that to the dullest comprehension the moral involved shall be perfect obvious." Now, having written that and given his quote about the pains one should take upon themselves in the exactness of retelling; one cannot overlook the fact that the ghosts were not interested in his writings as he imagined they might have been. During one such conversation with a specter in his room in the summer of 1895, the ghost admits that it holds him in high regard for the spirit of truth in which he writes, however, makes it clear that while his writing might be truthful it was not interesting. Throughout Bangs's stories he makes the supernatural into an everyday occurrence that simply cannot be avoided when you are able to see them, such as, is narrated. Even though this may seem to some reader's humdrum, I beg to differ. He truly understood that life is not filled with phantoms the way we see them now portrayed in novels, short stories and movies, yet as common, on occasion comical and sometimes irritating. The simple fact that these stories are marked by some, flawed and fanciful makes them all the more closer to reality than we can wish to read. "If we could only get used to the idea that ghosts are perfectly harmless creatures, who are powerless to affect our well-being unless we assist them by giving way to our fears, we should enjoy the supernatural exceedingly, it seems to me." What an intriguing thought, no?

Review # 2 was written on 2008-09-23 00:00:00 Timothy Shearer I was looking for short stories at my uni library, because I'm really busy and don't have alot of time to commit to a novel! I randomly happened upon this one, was intrigued, read the first paragraph, and died. This anthology is about ghosts, but when I read it I find alot of strength from it-- for me, it's really about not letting life's challenges defeat you. The first story is about how the author has met many ghosts and how they have physically affected him (i.e, the hair stands up on the back of his neck,) but he is strong enough not to let them mentally control them-- for me,that means, someone can hurt me temporarily or physically but they can never do so permanently. So, I took alot of meaning from it! Besides this, which I'm not sure every reader would discover, these stories are wonderful! They are late 1800s ghost stories so they are rather vanilla, but frightfully delicous. In each one the author makes fun of himself and his critics. Very light hearted and humerous, but I won't lie and say I wasn't scared at times. The only down side to this book was of course racism and sexism, which is to be expected in that time period. It is particularly offensive to blacks, Chinese, and women.