Resumen
Resumen de El insoportable Bassington
Para quién es
For readers who love dry wit, society gossip and elegant sentences, and for anyone who enjoys a comedy of manners in which every guest at the dinner table gets a memorable portrait.
De qué trata este libro
The Unbearable Bassington is a comic novel by Saki, the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro, who died in 1916. It was first printed in the years before the First World War and it follows a charming, idle young man through the drawing rooms, clubs and parks of Edwardian London. The author warns at the start that the story has no moral. If it points out an evil, he says, it suggests no remedy.
You meet Francesca Bassington, who loves her house and her treasures more than anything. You meet her son Comus, whose gaiety wins every room and whose carelessness ruins every plan. Around them move gossips, hostesses, politicians and an heiress who cannot decide whom to trust. Saki gives you sharp talk, quick portraits and a growing sense of dread under the laughter. The first key point is the room that Francesca calls her soul.
En este resumen
- 1A drawing room that is a soulFree
- 2Comus rules at school and wrecks the plan
- 3A letter in The Times closes a door
- 4Two suitors, a bread dish and a farmhouse
- 5The loan that costs Comus the heiress
- 6Ruin at home and a sentence of exile
- 7What the story is about and how Saki tells it
Idea clave 1 de 7
A drawing room that is a soul
Francesca Bassington sits in her drawing room in Blue Street with her brother Henry Greech, an MP, over China tea and cress sandwiches. She is forty, once the beautiful Miss Greech, and her friends and enemies agree that she has no soul. If she had to describe it, she would describe her drawing room. It holds a bronze by Fremiet, Dresden figures, Persian rugs and old silver, and each piece carries a memory of a lucky win or a kind admirer.
Above them all hangs a great battle scene by Van der Meulen, which came to her as part of her wedding dowry. Francesca cannot picture the room, or herself, without it. Yet one thorn spoils her peace. The house was left to her by her friend Sophie Chetrof only until Emmeline Chetrof marries, and then it passes to the girl as a wedding present. Emmeline is seventeen, so the clock is already ticking.
Francesca has planned a bridge across that coming disaster. Her schoolboy son Comus might one day marry Emmeline, and then Francesca could stay on and go on ruling the house. The trouble is that Comus is the only span of the bridge. Henry, solemn and dull but reliable, tells her the boy will never stick at anything and had better marry an heiress.
So she writes a hasty letter to Comus at his school, Thaleby. Emmeline's little brother Lancelot is joining the school, and Francesca asks Comus to be kind to him, since that is a sure road to the sister's heart. Henry warns that Comus does not follow instructions. Francesca knows it, but no woman can bring herself to waste a clean penny stamp.
That’s 1 of 7 key points.
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Questions about El insoportable Bassington
What is The Unbearable Bassington about?
It follows Comus Bassington, a charming, idle young man, and his mother Francesca, who needs him to marry an heiress. Through dinners, bridge games and parks, Saki shows how his carelessness shuts one door after another.
Who is Comus Bassington?
Comus is the son of Francesca Bassington, named by his late father after the Greek spirit of revelry. He is handsome and witty, with a fondness for mischief, and he never finds a purpose to match his gifts.
Is The Unbearable Bassington a funny book?
It is full of wit. Lady Caroline Benaresq's remarks, the bores at parties and the gossip about engagements are very funny, and the laughter sits beside a more serious story about a mother and son.
When was The Unbearable Bassington written and who is Saki?
It was written by Saki, the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro, in the years before the First World War, and it is set in Edwardian London. Saki died in 1916 and is better known for his short stories.