“Death, Fire and Life” by Arnold Bennett #GBS07/27

“Death, Fire and Life” by Arnold Bennett

Number 7 of 27 Great British Short Stories 

Premise: An out of work sixty year old is visiting a chemist…

Review: Very nicely done. Mixtures of pathos and pathos, foreboding and plausible happy-ish (the ish is doing a lot of work there) endings.

Outa ten: 9

Keywords: poverty, pride

Quotes: 

“Of course he had not openly resented the omission, for he was not a fool” P70

“He had always had posts such as watchman, doorkeeper, timekeeper, inspector – posts which meant doing nothing with dignity. Hence no doubt his feelings of superiority to people who actually did things. P.70

“Strange to say, Mrs Curtenty’s thriftiness disappointed him, because he wanted another grievance, he wanted dozens of grievances, to gather into his breast as St Sebastian gathered arrows.” p77

Words: sulphanol, thysen

Look up: St Sebastian arrows)

Afterlives of the story/connections to other stuff: Kinda had an O Henry vibe to it, tbh.Is it online? Couldn’t find.