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Originally Posted by paola
I definitely have to agree - in fact it is probably one of the stories I liked best, and also very contemporary in spirit.
I have a general question: I did find all the names (and surnames) quite bizarre and at times funny, but as a non native speaker I am not quite sure how they sound to more trained ears, and wonder whether they convey any specific nuances in tone to those of you whose first language is English.
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The names were definitely silly sounding. I knew that some of that was intentional, but I also wondered how much of that was common to British typical names and of that time-period compared to American modern names. So it wasn't just an English as a first language question.
Actually, I was initially concerned about the content of the short stories just because of the title
Beasts and Super-Beasts, and the fact that animals is a common theme. Not that I don't like animals (says she with the cat avatar)... I didn't know what to expect since I wasn't sure how the title and animals were going to relate to high society in Edwardian England. Well, the animals weren't gun-toting, vodka-drinking, talking cats like Behemoth in
The Master and Margarita. I liked that the stories really focused on the humans, and the animals were a device to help advance the satire. Sometimes the animals were minor in the background, and sometimes they were more prominent.
I need to refresh myself with the stories because it's been too long since I read them. I enjoyed the stories more than I expected to, although I read them just a few at a time. I even recommended them to a friend. I started to read
The Chronicles of Clovis, and I'll go more slowly with that collection. The ones that stick that I particularly remember are The Open Window, The Story-Teller, The Byzantine Omelette and Tobermory (although I did not like the ending of that one!).