In a German Pension
Written by Katherine Mansfield
Narrated by Cathy Dobson
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Katherine Mansfield
Katherine Mansfield was a popular New Zealand short-story writer best known for the stories "The Woman at the Shore," "How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped," "The Doll’s House," and her twelve-part short story "Prelude," which was inspired by her happy childhood. Although Mansfield initially had her sights set on becoming a professional cellist, her role as editor of the Queen’s College newspaper prompted a change to writing. Mansfield’s style of writing revolutionized the form of the short story at the time, in that it depicted ordinary life and left the endings open to interpretation, while also raising uncomfortable questions about society and identity. Mansfield died in 1923 after struggling for many years with tuberculosis.
More audiobooks from Katherine Mansfield
Short Stories about Isolation & Loneliness: In a crowded world we can still be alone and ignored Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Poetry of Wind and Rain: Poets wax lyrical on the elements of showers to storms Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield: The Garden Party; Life of Ma Parker; Mr. and Mrs. Dove Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Classic Women's Short Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Top 10 Short Stories - Love: The top ten short love stories of all time Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Garden Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Pearl Button was Kidnapped Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stories About Animals: Classic tales from innocuous flies on the wall to murderous wolves Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Top 10 Short Stories - The Twist: The top ten short house stories with a twist of all time Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Singing Lesson (Unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Top 10 Short Stories - Sadness: The ten best short stories of all time about sadness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Miss Brill: Iconic story of a lonely woman and her place in society Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Doll's House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to In a German Pension
Related audiobooks
Katherine Mansfield - The Short Stories - Volume 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPension Séguin Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Spring Pictures Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sister of the Baroness (Unabridged) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Of Human Bondage Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Little Girl and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTen Stories by Katherine Mansfield Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Something Childish but very Natural Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Daughters of the Late Colonel (Unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAt the Bay (Unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShort Stories: The Brilliant Wit of Katherine Mansfield Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Young Girl (Unabridged) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bank Holiday (Unabridged) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bliss, and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kite Spirit Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An Ideal Family (Unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Garden Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Katherine Mansfield - Chapter & Verse: Poetry and prose together from literary greats. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMr. and Mrs. Dove (Unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Marquise Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Simple Soul, a French Short Story by Flaubert Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Little Girl Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Miss Brill (Unabridged) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Women's Short Stories Volume 4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDaisy Miller Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Voyage (Unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Stranger (Unabridged) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Villette Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Portrait Of A Lady Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Classics For You
The Complete Sherlock Holmes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bell Jar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Their Eyes Were Watching God Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Picture of Dorian Gray: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: A New Translation by Caroline Alexander Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fountainhead Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Series of Unfortunate Events #1 Multi-Voice, A: The Bad Beginning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Thousand Ships: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frankenstein Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Crucible Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Atlas Shrugged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Perks of Being a Wallflower Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Flowers in the Attic: 40th Anniversary Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Clockwork Orange Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pride and Prejudice: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Tale of Two Cities Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5War & Peace - Volume I Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5To Kill a Mockingbird Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sense and Sensibility Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/520,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cider House Rules Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Gatsby Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Emma: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Schindler's List Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stone Blind: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for In a German Pension
89 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5From the first paragraph of the first story, it is clear why this little collection caught the attention of the literary world. Katherine Mansfield dissects social interactions in a pithy and unapologetic way. She is particularly rough on men. Very ahead of her time, she has little respect for the institution of marriage or for family life and from her stories it would be hard to tell if she's ever seen a happy marriage or family. Some of her stories are funny, some pathetic, some beautiful and some devastating. She is a master of her craft and she leaves me cold.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is a collection of short stories that are loosely tied to a group of guests who are "taking the cure" at a German pension. I liked them okay, but didn't love them. Some are darkly funny, but most are just depressing.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5118/2020. A solid 3/5 for this earliest collection of Katherine Mansfield's short stories, which is well-written and was no doubt insightful, even daring, at the time but without so much to say to a society that's moved on.QuotesBrass: 'He stood in the kitchen puffing himself out, the buttons on his blue uniform shining with an enthusiasm which nothing but official buttons could possibly possess.'Edible: 'her yellow hair tastefully garnished with mauve sweet peas.'Motherhood: 'She turned towards Karl, who had rooted an old illustrated paper out of the [rubbish] receptacle and was spelling over an advertisement for the enlargement of Beautiful Breasts.'Legs: ' "I never walk," said the landlady; "when I go to Mindelbau my man drives me - I’ve more important things to do with my legs than walk them through the dust!" '
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the introduction, John Middleton Murry says that Katherine Mansfield was critical of these early stories. I would not ever challenge Mansfield’s judgment, but I did enjoy reading them. Some do take place in a German pension in which a young English woman narrates the goings on and her own observations of the comic social scenes. Others are purely German characters in a non-pension setting that raise more serious questions about marriage, childhood and love.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was Katherine Mansfield's first collection of stories, published in 1911 when she was in her early twenties. The sto ries are told by a young married Englishwoman who is staying alone at a pension in a German spa town while taking the cure. As the guests tend to stay for weeks or even months, she has plenty of time to get to know their foibles, and the stories take a satirical look at her fellow guests, concentrating on their snobbish and obsequious regard for the aristocracy, and their withering disdain for everything English. The narrator is criticised for the huge breakfasts eaten by people in England and the habit of warming the pot when making tea, since after all we are not going to eat the teapot! Her fellow guests also dislike the cold temperament of the English, their unmusical nature, attitude to romance and dislike of discussing their health, although one lady did findsomething complimentary to say."Fish-blooded," snapped Frau Godowska. "Without soul, without heart, without grace. But you cannot equal their dress materials. I spent a week in Brighton twenty years ago, and the travelling cape I bought there is not yet worn out—the one you wrap the hot-water bottle in, Sonia."I found most of the stories funny, but the bit that made me laugh the most was the narrator's refusal to pander to Fräulein Sonia when she fainted theatrically in the street in "The Modern Soul"."I am going to faint here and now."I was frightened. "You can't," I said, shaking her."Come back to the pension and faint as much as you please. But you can't faint here. All the shops are closed. There is nobody about. Please don't be so foolish.""Here and here only!" She indicated the exact spot and dropped quite beautifully, lying motionless."Very well," I said, "faint away; but please hurry over it."She did not move. I began to walk home, but each time I looked behind me I saw the dark form of the modern soul prone before the hairdresser's window. Finally I ran, and rooted out the Herr Professor from his room. "Fraulein Sonia has fainted," I said crossly."Du lieber Gott! Where? How?""Outside the hairdresser's shop in the Station Road.""Jesus and Maria! Has she no water with her?"—he seized his carafe—"nobody beside her?""Nothing.""Where is my coat? No matter, I shall catch a cold on the chest. Willingly, I shall catch one... You are ready to come with me?""No," I said; "you can take the waiter.""But she must have a woman. I cannot be so indelicate as to attempt to loosen her stays.""Modern souls oughtn't to wear them," said I. He pushed past me and clattered down the stairs.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This collection is the third and last part of my Kindle edition of "Selected Stories" (the first 2 parts, "The Garden Party and Other Stories" & "Bliss and Other Stories", I read in 2013). I found this collection distinct from the other 2 in that the stories are almost chapters in a "slice of life" novel, describing the various characters & events that occur while the main character, an Englishwoman, is staying at this pension (sort of like a boarding house).
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mansfield is a great writer, she has facility and wit. The stories flow, they are about ordinary things, yet extraordinary.However, this collection contains a story - The Child Who Was Tired - that also appears in a collection of Chekov's short stories. This bothered me years ago and it still bothers me, along with V. Woolf's comment that K. Mansfield's fingernails weren't any too clean.