Obviously this is a joke. For these stories–most of them trick stories –all indicate the author’s rather sardonic sense of humor. People will be fools, he seems to be saying, and, moreover, most people get their own way regardless of how destructive their way may be. Sentimentality is ruled out by this author as not useful to most persons, but it is nevertheless shown to be a kind of self-delusion in most characters, an emotion short-circuited, as it were, by the desire to survive pleasantly.
People can and do rationalize anything. This, surely, is Evelyn Wash’s feeling. Most of the tales in this book are short; almost all of them have a surprise ending. They are stories of middle-class English people and of a few rather worn-out English aristocrats, rather superficial stories, on the whole, of rather superficial lives. Mr.. Hugh is economical in writing. He knows how to get a person or a situation down in a few words. There is the first story of the lunatic, confined for years because he once committed murder. A well-meaning young woman, just a bit sentimental, obtains his release.
He is, she argues, sane, and true enough, he has been sane for twenty years or more. What does the man do once he is released? It is easy to guess. He commits murder again in precisely the same way as before. Back he comes to the asylum quite content. There is the story of the man who meant to have a scene with his wife but fell asleep instead and thus condoned her offense. There is the tale of the old lady who reads naughty novels but because they are much less naughty than life. There is the yarn about a girl loved for her nose. Her lover, to keep her faithful, gives her a jealous dog.
The dog bites the lady’s nose. She remains faithful and a spinster. There is an account of a honeymoon sad for a man, but completely satisfactory for a woman. There is a story of a mother turning completely upside- down the lives of her two sons, reversing their positions and their wives. Clever, very clever–all of these–but this is merely hard-boiled literature made very sophisticated indeed. One watches the author pull out his cards and win the game. Never is one really emotionally moved. The reader gets a kind of mental tickle but no tears.
True enough, these stories are intended to e comic, but they lack any mingling of comedy with pathos. The characters are all shallow, one-dimension people, real enough in their attitudes and their characteristic talk, but not much more than the author’s pawns after all. Mr.. Hugh was better able to illustrate his cleverness when he had a novel to write. Here his work is just a little too easily analyzed. Link https://www. Anytime. Com/books/99/10/10/specials/Hugh – loved ay. HTML Mr.. Lovely’s Little Outing by Evelyn Hugh By elenabarkovskaya November 201 3 Mr..
Lovely’s Little Outing by Evelyn Hugh The story under consideration is “Mr.. Lovely’s Little Outing ” by Evelyn Hugh. A prolific English novelist and short-story writer, he is admired for his elegant style, brilliant wit, satire and humor. “Mr.. Lovely’s Little Outing first published in 1 936 in В« Mr. Lovely’s Little Outing. And other sad stories collection, is a perfect example of his style. Like many other Wash’s best stories, “Mr.. Lovely’s Little Outing ” takes place in Britain at the beginning of the twentieth century. The story follows a young lady, Angela Moping who visits her mentally ill father in an asylum.
Visiting her father, who has been in an “asylum” for many years for the attempt to commit a suicide , Angela meets Mr. Loved, her fathers caretaker. Mr. Loved, who produces the impression of an absolutely sane person, is also an “inmate” (patient) of the asylum [salaam] because of committing a murder. Angela thinks that the thirty-five years Mr. Loved has spent in the “asylum” cured him, so she arranges his release. Once released, Mr. Loved goes on his outing and commits another murder. The story falls into three parts each being a logical development of the previous one. The opening paragraph represents a special source of interest.
Being incommunicado in a form Of a dialog, it captures the readers’ attention, immediately involving them into the story and engaging them emotionally. The immediate setting at the beginning of the story also serves as a background and presents a vivid, highly emotional description of time, place, people and the main characters. The setting is revealed through an array of flashbacks which not only depict necessary information but determine the tone and the mood of the whole story. The author deliberately creates gloomy, somber, dark, unstable, changeable atmosphere which conveys the general mood and warns the readers…
