Book Review: "The Complete Short Stories" by Robert Graves

Robert Graves has always been a divisive writer for me. I once found his book I, Claudius unreadable and yet, Goodbye to All That was fantastic. His historical novels seem to be the worst possible historical novels - no imagination has gone into them and they read more like a textbook of fictions rather than a historical fiction masterpiece. Whereas, when he wrote Goodbye to All That you can definitely feel that his writing style is one of brilliance and atmosphere. Oh, and I have not forgotten about the comments he made about a young Bob Dylan.

One of the stories I enjoyed was entitled Avocado Pears and has some very overt revolutionary political themes. Be that as it may, the story itself is one of confusion in which a man walks about Paris, discovering his way with a bunch of what would be considered outlaws. This proceeds into a weird social oddity with a young boy who asks for avocado pears. I am honestly not sure why the story descends into this and it was quite confusing towards the end, though I did like that it was an outsiders point of view and so, I wasn't alone in my analysis of the story starting off as enjoyable but ending up as quite detached and strange. It was perhaps though, the most interesting story in the whole book and that is seriously saying something.

Another story that was pretty good, I guess, was titled Treacle Tart. This is a story which centres on the main conversation being regarding a treacle tart. It's so short that you can barely digest it (pun intended) and yet, it serves to be one of the more imaginative stories in the text. It serves as both perfectly plausible and yet has some deeper meaning inside it that requires a definite second reading. Unfortunately, not a lot of the other stories were as interesting as this one.

Here's the issue I have with the writing of Robert Graves expanded: for one he is completely unimaginative. This is something that is put forward in the introduction written by Lucia Graves. Instead of seeing it as an issue, his daughter reports that he often drew from real life experiences, especially where the stories of Majorca are concerned. I'm not saying that it isn't a good idea to draw from experience (of course, that always helps). What I am saying is that his writing is mostly and completely uninspired. Goodbye to All That was so brilliant that I honestly could not believe it was written by him. The stories regarding Majorca, many of them written as a letter from the point of view of someone called Margaret, are honestly some of the most boring stories I've ever read.

Only Robert Graves could make a story about the Matador boring.

When it comes to his stories regarding the 1950s, there are several which don't explore the cultural landscape or, they are too short too. I'm not going to lie, I am a huge atmosphere girl - I like a backdrop, I like a philosophical sidenote, I like a mood and tone being established. I just feel like there was nothing apart from '1955' or something in the title of some of the stories to tell me it was set in the 50s. I probably would not have realised it otherwise because there were no markers to call me to it.

Only Robert Graves can make 1950s Spain boring.

And I apologise to the Robert Graves fans. This is something I have wrestled with for a while and I have constantly tried to revisit Robert Graves in order to appreciate him like I feel I should. But honestly, I get so sick and tired of trying because his writing is so empty and bored. I would ask of you this: if you are a fan of Robert Graves, what is it that you enjoy about his work? Am I missing something? This is really bothering me. I'm sure I am meant to enjoy his writing but every time I read his works I am completely and utterly put off. As I have said previously, his historical fiction is unreadable.

Again, I'm very sorry about this.