SAKI'S OPEN WNDOW

 

“The Open Window” by Saki (H.H. Munro) is a ghost story perfect in its simplicity, succinct storytelling and economic pacing. It is also not really about ghosts at all. It is about the power of suggestion and the creation of our own reality. It’s a gem.

To describe it is to risk spoiling the fun so the premise will have to suffice. A Mr. Framton Nuttel arrives at a lonely inn in the Scottish Highlands to relieve his nerves and anxiety. Unfortunately, he arrives at the wrong inn. Vera, the teenage niece of Ms. Sappleton who runs the inn, begins telling him why her aunt insists on leaving a certain window open in the October frost. Three years earlier to the day, her aunt’s husband along with her two brothers went off for a shooting trip and were drowned in the marshes. In denial, her grieving aunt still leaves the window open upon each anniversary of the tragedy convinced that her husband and brothers (and their dog) will one day return.

Indeed, the set-up will sound familiar to any fan of the classic ghost narrative. The surprise in “The Open Window” is not only in the twist ending but the breezy approach Saki takes to get there. His original ending is in itself a play on a trope; the tricks imagination can play on a suggestive mind.

The brevity  of “The Open Window” is a result of, not the cause of, its brilliance. It is among Saki’s most anthologized works ever since it first appeared in the Westminster Gazette in 1911.

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