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Best for winter: A selection from twenty-five years of Winter's tales
429 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1979
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 15, 2023
Too Much Trouble by His Magnificence Sir Kingsley Amis, author of Stanley and The Women http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/02/s... and another twenty masterpieces
10 out of 10
Too Much Trouble is part of the Collection of Stories that has started with a military miniseries that exposed excesses of officers – one has the general who claims to use a special courier for official business, when in fact he sends the man to take his dirty laundry to Brussels, during World War II, when tens of millions have died, and wants his cigars and wines form the returning envoy – from My Enemy’s Enemy http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/11/m... to Court of Inquiry...
Before Too Much Trouble we have two brilliant tales, The 2003 Claret and The Friends of Plonk, in which Simpson travels to the future and then back, to discover the situation with wars – there will have been one nuclear calamity in the latter story, and alas, it is possible to have such a conflict – Putin and his monsters keep threatening and though so far it has been just talk, we could not know what the lunatic in the Kremlin has in mind, except that his callousness and that of his soldiers has been documented in this current war and in others, from World War II, when they would not help people in Warsaw and showed cruelty in many instances, to the bombardments in Syria, where they have not cared about civilian or any casualties, carpet bombing enemies, noncombatants into oblivion…
In The Friends of Plonk, the atomic war has wiped out an area the size of Europe, crops have been destroyed, there are no vines, barley and therefore drink is something disgusting - there is on offer a carnivorous-lemon juice for the adventurous – the future humans will have lost tradition, the knowhow of making wines, beer, and there will be a Rosicrucian elected as American president and a new Prohibition proclaimed.
When Simpson meets with The Friends of Plonk – ‘Established 2139 for the drinking of
traditional liquors in traditional dress and in traditional surroundings’- the creations they have are explosive…one is like a ‘tear gas shell exploding in your mouth’ and another is like ‘having your face pushed into a bath of acid’ and they are made using…shoe polish and some sort of bread as filter and ingredient…
Too Much Trouble has Simpson travelling again into the future, where people have become procrastinators, if you want something done; you have to do it for yourself, because the others would not get involved.
If one has a broken leg during the Slack period, there is nothing to do about this, and satire is highlighting a problem we could have, albeit advanced economies depend on services in increasing ways.
Manufacturing had long moved to less developed places, China, Vietnam, Bangladesh for clothing and it is hard to conceive a future where services are terminated, but this is just about what happens in this story.
If one wants a drink at the pub, they have to come with exact money, because nobody makes the ‘effort’ to give one or a few coins back, the insults will have changed to ‘power structure elitist, irrelevant authoritarian’
Just like we have powder, instant coffee, now there are packets to be dissolved and then that is the drink people have, when a machine malfunctions, it is replaced with another one, they do not take ‘the trouble’ to fix it
10 out of 10
Too Much Trouble is part of the Collection of Stories that has started with a military miniseries that exposed excesses of officers – one has the general who claims to use a special courier for official business, when in fact he sends the man to take his dirty laundry to Brussels, during World War II, when tens of millions have died, and wants his cigars and wines form the returning envoy – from My Enemy’s Enemy http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/11/m... to Court of Inquiry...
Before Too Much Trouble we have two brilliant tales, The 2003 Claret and The Friends of Plonk, in which Simpson travels to the future and then back, to discover the situation with wars – there will have been one nuclear calamity in the latter story, and alas, it is possible to have such a conflict – Putin and his monsters keep threatening and though so far it has been just talk, we could not know what the lunatic in the Kremlin has in mind, except that his callousness and that of his soldiers has been documented in this current war and in others, from World War II, when they would not help people in Warsaw and showed cruelty in many instances, to the bombardments in Syria, where they have not cared about civilian or any casualties, carpet bombing enemies, noncombatants into oblivion…
In The Friends of Plonk, the atomic war has wiped out an area the size of Europe, crops have been destroyed, there are no vines, barley and therefore drink is something disgusting - there is on offer a carnivorous-lemon juice for the adventurous – the future humans will have lost tradition, the knowhow of making wines, beer, and there will be a Rosicrucian elected as American president and a new Prohibition proclaimed.
When Simpson meets with The Friends of Plonk – ‘Established 2139 for the drinking of
traditional liquors in traditional dress and in traditional surroundings’- the creations they have are explosive…one is like a ‘tear gas shell exploding in your mouth’ and another is like ‘having your face pushed into a bath of acid’ and they are made using…shoe polish and some sort of bread as filter and ingredient…
Too Much Trouble has Simpson travelling again into the future, where people have become procrastinators, if you want something done; you have to do it for yourself, because the others would not get involved.
If one has a broken leg during the Slack period, there is nothing to do about this, and satire is highlighting a problem we could have, albeit advanced economies depend on services in increasing ways.
Manufacturing had long moved to less developed places, China, Vietnam, Bangladesh for clothing and it is hard to conceive a future where services are terminated, but this is just about what happens in this story.
If one wants a drink at the pub, they have to come with exact money, because nobody makes the ‘effort’ to give one or a few coins back, the insults will have changed to ‘power structure elitist, irrelevant authoritarian’
Just like we have powder, instant coffee, now there are packets to be dissolved and then that is the drink people have, when a machine malfunctions, it is replaced with another one, they do not take ‘the trouble’ to fix it
Want to read
December 9, 2023Read so far:
*The satisfactory / V.S. Pritchett --
My enemy's enemy / Kingsley Amis --
The Portobello Road / Muriel Spark --4
Something special / Iris Murdoch --
Death of a duchess / Pamela Hansford Johnson --
*Outside the machine / Jean Rhys --
A survivor in Salvador / Frank Tuohy --
*Mrs. Fortescue / Doris Lessing --
*Sister Imelda / Edna O'Brien --
A romantic hero / Olivia Manning --
*Guzman, go home / Alan Sillitoe --
Suspense of judgment / Zeno --
The element follows you around, Sir! / Malcolm Lowry --
*Variations on a theme / Frank O'Connor --
A reference for Mellors / Anthony Powell --
A woman's hand / Patrick White --
Crime and sentiment / Stephen Vizinczey --
*The Mark-2 wife / William Trevor --
*Johnny Panic and the bible of dreams / Sylvia Plath --
The gift horse / Harold Acton --
*The custodian / Susan Hill --
Parthenope / Rebecca West --
*Town and country lovers / Nadine Gordimer --
*Alopecia / Fay Weldon --
A crush on Doctor Dance / Shirley Hazzard--
*The satisfactory / V.S. Pritchett --
My enemy's enemy / Kingsley Amis --
The Portobello Road / Muriel Spark --4
Something special / Iris Murdoch --
Death of a duchess / Pamela Hansford Johnson --
*Outside the machine / Jean Rhys --
A survivor in Salvador / Frank Tuohy --
*Mrs. Fortescue / Doris Lessing --
*Sister Imelda / Edna O'Brien --
A romantic hero / Olivia Manning --
*Guzman, go home / Alan Sillitoe --
Suspense of judgment / Zeno --
The element follows you around, Sir! / Malcolm Lowry --
*Variations on a theme / Frank O'Connor --
A reference for Mellors / Anthony Powell --
A woman's hand / Patrick White --
Crime and sentiment / Stephen Vizinczey --
*The Mark-2 wife / William Trevor --
*Johnny Panic and the bible of dreams / Sylvia Plath --
The gift horse / Harold Acton --
*The custodian / Susan Hill --
Parthenope / Rebecca West --
*Town and country lovers / Nadine Gordimer --
*Alopecia / Fay Weldon --
A crush on Doctor Dance / Shirley Hazzard--
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews