Village stories

Louis de Bernieres (Harvill Secker, £12.99)

De Bernieres,best known for his novel Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, has produced a collection of 20 pieces published or broadcast before 2004. In his afterword he says that his previous stories had all taken place abroad “because custom had prevented me from seeing how exotic my own country is”.

Notwithstanding is based on the village in Surrey where he grew up. The action takes place between 1960 and 1980 when “everyone knew every else” and lived together in a small community. Many of the characters appear in each other’s tales, giving the work cohesion and a unity.

In The Girt Pike, the beautiful Mrs Rendall, who lives in the Glebe House, befriends young Robert from a council house. In an epic struggle, he catches a great pike, but is left with a sense of guilt and pride when he presents it to his delighted family.

In Silly Bugger (1), Robert tames an anarchic, playful young rook who murmurs harsh endearments into his hair and then, unaccountably, disappears. Another endearing animal is George, the quiet spider, to whom young Sylvia confides her secrets.

In the disturbing tale Mrs Mack, a spiritualist lives with her late husband, who goes everywhere with her and helps her to care for the graves.

The Happy Death of the General is an evocation of old age; one day the retired old man goes shopping without his trousers and is finally put in a home where Bella, his old blind labrador, comes to visit him every day.

De Bernieres injects both beauty and horror into his tales. Humans and animals — dogs, squirrels, moles, a spider and birds — suffer or sadly die. He insists that “literary truth lies not in the details but in the flavour” and his idyllic moments are “all more memorable for their rarity”. What lives on the page is the atmosphere of another time and a far away place.