Reviews for The Unbearable Bassington

The average rating for The Unbearable Bassington based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-06-14 00:00:00 Jon Schneider The Unbearable Bassington is like hanging out with Oscar Wilde at 4 in the morning at a bar after he's had a bad breakup. It's laugh-out-loud funny, it's got snarky put-downs in spades, and it has an undercurrent of cynicism, even bitterness. It's great entertainment (clearly, humor is Saki's defense mechanism, too!) but it's got a bitter aftertaste as well. I find something very human and relatable about Saki's writing, and this is a keeper.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-10-10 00:00:00 James Curry I read this in the "Complete Works of Saki" but I think it warrants its own comments. In re-reading the complete works of H.H. Munro, his short stories teem with irony and mockery regarding human nature and the foibles and essential superficiality of social behaviors, respectively. Perhaps he is merciless but not malicious, as some have described him. Maybe Reginald and Clovis, and even Vera, enjoy upsetting the artificial norm of Victorian/Edwardian behavior, but there is often an undercurrent feeling of justice or at least just desserts in many of his stories. This longer story, novella, goes beyond the more typical vignette that captures a situation or circumstance, and shows just how clearly the author saw the habits and behaviors and justifications that human nature is subject to. And in following his story longer and his characters more closely, instead of the reader (or at least THIS reader) being left feeling amused or satisfied or even superior - the story reveals itself as something more. All the bon mots, clear-eyed dissections and witty observations ultimately serve to present a little jewel of a human tragedy, even several, whether from short-sightedness, selfishness, lack of awareness or self-knowledge, self-deception... The cost of those failings are contrasted with those whose lack of awareness seems to insulate them, although I suspect Saki could as easily peel back those layers to a deeper story as well, as insulating behaviors can also be self-administered where not supremely unconscious. The lightness of tone and sharpness of observation are a bit deceptive in that they bite deeper than the short stories. But, at the same time, it seems, the author reveals sympathy towards the characters trapped in the worlds of their choosing or in which they can never entirely fit - and the ending, which has a certain and expected irony, also reveals more heart than the author's short stories typically let us see. That he could see the cost of the "hipness" of the day and the superficiality people use to hide themselves and pursue acceptance or hide their supreme selfishness and self-interest - shows more than a witty, malicious, observant genius - but a man with heart who was lost too soon.