I first read Lord Dunsany’s Two Jars of Relish back when I was in high school. I think I hunted it down because Isaac Asimov (or Harlan Ellison?) wrote that it was a mystery story critics couldn’t ignore, even if they wanted to.
And I have to give it this, the story has stuck with me.
I am not going to spoil the story but I will say that the actual solution to the mystery is not remotely surprising. The strength of the story is the solution isn’t spelled out. It’s implied and the reader has to put the pieces together themselves.
Honestly, the last line, which is referenced every single time I read anything about the story, is the entire selling point of Two Jars of Relish.
Many years after I read the story, I found out that it was the first in a series of mystery stories. The Little Tales of Smethers and Other Stories contains nine Smethers stories (Smethers is the Relish narrator) and seventeen other mystery/crime stories.
And Two Jars of Relish is easily the best story in the book.
Lord Dunsany can be an incredible writer. His fantasy works didn’t just help create the fantasy genre. They also hold up and are some good reading. His later Jorkens stories are also jolly good fun.
So when I say this was the weakest Lord Dunsany book I’ve read, there’s still room for greatness. But no, the Little Tales of Smethers is mediocre.
They read like they were written in a world where Trent’s Last Case was never written, let alone the whole hard boiled revolution. Which still leaves room for great stuff but that isn’t there. The puzzles and solutions aren’t good and I didn’t find the characters interesting.
A number of the stories felt like someone was trying to imitate G. K. Chesterton but without the charm or whimsy. When you consider the number of people who have tried to write like Lord Dunsany, reading him seem to trying to write like someone else is weird.
And, from what I can gather, he was writing the Jorkens stories around the same time. So I am not going to accept that ‘Oh, his later stuff wasn’t as good as his older writings’ I have read that Dunsany only wrote a first draft and never revised and this collection shows that doesn’t always work.
There is so much profoundly good stuff to read by Lord Dunsany. The Little Tales of Smethers just isn’t one of them.
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