Complete collection of short stories. From the introduction by Helen Simpson: “Her writing is reflective, complex and subtle, full of literary and historical references”. A bit too much – not my cup of tea. But I enjoyed some of the stories, specially the ealiers ones such as “The Journal of Mistress Joan Martyn” and “Solid Objects” (a distracted politician so caught up with objects that he gives up politics). Some short stories deal with the party guests from “Mrs Dalloway”, so perhaps one day I’ll read the novel. Something interesting from the introduction: Virginia Wolf wrote in a review of some translation of Checkov’s “The Bishop and other stories” (with I read last month) – “inconclusive stories are legitimate; thought they leave us feeling melancholy and perhaps uncertain, yet somehow they provide a resting-point for the mind – a solid object casting its shade of reflection and speculation”. Now I’d like to read some of Katherine Mansfield’s short stories.

In the introduction, the writer mentions this was the only book he wrote “for fun”. Considering how many the man wrote, this was a sad confession. Man meets his self-absorbed, manipulative and irritating aunt, but he finds her fascinating and embarks in some adventures with her. Or something like that.

This collection includes the following stories:
- The Party (1888)
- Lights (1888)
- The Princess (1889)
- After the Theatre (1892)
- Three years (1895)
- The Artist’s Story (1896)
- Home (1897)
- A case history (1898)
- All friends together (1898)
- The bishop (1902)
- A marriageable girl (1903)

Some sad and painful stories about marital disharmony (The Party, Three Years) or people avoiding getting married. I enjoyed most the ones away from the marital theme, specially The Bishop and The Princess (vain selfish Princess sees herself as kind and generous).

Most of these writtings can be found online at 201 Stories by Anton Chekhov or at ReadPrint. Sometimes the stories are presented with different names so A case history is also known as A doctor’s visit.

From “The Artist’s Story”: “Hundreds of miles of desolate, monotonous, burnt steppe are less demoralizing than one man sitting and talking if you have no idea when he is going to leave you in peace”.

The plot was so unbelievable, it left me wondering if this was a remake of an older film from before mobile phones and emails. Still an enjoyable film about obsessed people. Stalking can be cute or scary.

Dark and sad movie about revenge and obsession. I was planning to skip this one due to Scarlett Johansson, but I’m glad I saw this. Christian Bale was great as usual.

Very interesting short stories, some take place in London, some in the Caribbean (Guyana and Jamaica). To me both The conversion of Millicent Vernon (girl in need of money to fix her teeth) and McGregor’s Journey were the most touching. From the last story (Eat labba and drink creek water): “We return and leave and return again, criss-crossing the Atlantic, but whichever side of the Atlantic we are on, the dream is always on the other side”.