Consider Her Ways And Others (2014) - Plot & Excerpts
'Consider Her Ways': *NO SPOILERS*A very intriguing story indeed.Apart from being somewhat Kafkaesque being a kind of metaphysical journey, where the protagonist is constantly questioning her own lucidity, it is Wyndham at his core. The insomnia being experienced by Mother Orchis lends easily to a narrative that proceeds from one moment to the next, without having any idea of what is to follow. She is our narrator, and thus everything that she sees happen in front of her is virtually everything that she learns and we know. That is, until her memory begins to return to her.Mother Orchis is our narrator, and due to her state of mind and situation, cannot be omniscient.For Wyndham, this allows him to make this unfamiliar world and setting more unfamiliar and discomforting. The unidentified kinds of people that exist coupled with their weird behaviour only sets the tone to a backdrop of peculiarity--nothing uncommon to a Wyndham story.Altogether, 'Consider Her Ways' is a psychological thriller with tones of dystopian science-fiction. It demonstrates why Wyndham is a timeless writer, here because he manages to challenge our notion of reality while offering hypothetical, gloomy results of human behaviour.(8/10) ________________________________________OTHER STORIES WITHIN THIS COLLECTION:'Odd'--(7/10)'Oh, Where Now Is Peggy McRafferty?"--(6/10)'Stitch in Time'--(7/10)'Random Quest'--(7.5/10)'A Long Spoon' --(6.5/10)
I've been working my way through all of Wyndham's stuff -- there's a flavour to it that makes it just wonderfully easy to read, despite being a little bit dated. This collection of stories wasn't, I suppose, terribly memorable: all based around the same gimmick of time travel, but it was fun to read and to see what different things he did with that idea. Some of the stories have nice little stings in their tails, which is something I always like to see.Not a must-read, by any means, but enjoyable.
What do You think about Consider Her Ways And Others (2014)?
This rating is only for the story "Random Quest".I listen to the British Invaders podcast, and they were recently talking about a modern adaptation of John Wyndham's short story "Random Quest" which is published in this collection. I watched the production on YouTube before listening to the second part of the podcast and really enjoyed it. Brian and Eammon mentioned that the story, naturally, was set much earlier in the 20th century, which made me interested to read it.Hooray for the library stacks!I was actually rather disappointed by the story as it was very much a case of telling rather than showing. Pretty much the entire story consisted of Colin Trafford telling his story to Dr Harshom, before he heads off to do more research and then returns to tell the rest of the story. It was a good idea, but it really is just a bare bones story. Having just watched a more fleshed out version, the story seemed a bit lacking.I guess it shows that the production was good, since it took this clever idea and ran with it to produce something more satisfying.
—Kerry
