Kiss Me Again, Stranger by Daphne du Maurier

Title: Kiss Me Again, Stranger
Author: Daphne du Maurier
ISBN: 0671753282
Publisher: Avon Books/1972
Pages: 318

Kiss Me Again, Stranger is a collection of eight short stories by Daphne du Maurier. Those short stories are suspenseful with that edgy mystery element and haunt the reader long after finishing the stories. Those stories manage that elusive element keeping us on tenterhooks. Very tight, compelling and with realist portrayal, one can even envision it happening.

~ Kiss Me Again, Stranger is about a young man meeting a girl in a movie theatre and befriends her. He falls in love with her and then discovers some unpleasant truth about her.

~ The Birds is about birds trying to destroy humankind. Hitchcock based his movie on this story.

~ The Little Photographer is about a Marquise who despite fame and money finds herself lonely and decides to take a lover at the fag end.

~ Monte Verita can be rightfully termed as a novella and has many twists and tturns as only a love triangle can have. With well developed characters, it takes us into a journey which covers many years.

~ The Apple Tree is about a rich landlord who wishes for the old apple tree on his property to be chopped off, after his wife who has been long neglected, dies. For some reason he senses that it represents his dead wife. The apples taste bitter to him although those taste just fine for others

~ The Old Man is about a family whose old neighbour keeps an eye on them. He knows some secret about his neighbour and they always feel his eyes on them.

~ The Split Second is about a woman and the her daughter. They seem to have a comoplicated relationship. The suspense is mantained and we can see the depth of of du Maurier’s writing.

~ No Motive is a murder mystery and despite the shortness, can totally engross the reader..

With her signature style, du Maurier captivates the reader with the irony and very realistic depiction of human quirks. Notwithstanding gender, social strata or moods or intentions. Some might find thse short stories dark and disturbing but that ought not deter them to read her books.

A Bird in the House by Margaret Laurence

That house in Manawaka is the one which, more than any other, I carry with me. Known to the rest of the town as “the old Connor place” and to the family as the Brick House, it was plain as the winter turnips in its root cellar, sparsely windowed as some crusader’s embattled fortress in a heathen wilderness, its rooms in a perpetual gloom except in the brief height of summer.

Title: A Bird in the House
Author: Margaret Laurence
ISBN: 0771099851
Publisher: M&S/1970
Pages: 191

A Bird in the House can be read both as short story collection or a novel as the short stories are interconnected and yet stand alone. The stories speak of childhood, and girlhood very beautifully, depicting, pathos, wonder and also the joys of growing up.

The protagonist Vanessa MacLeod, is a keen observer and she is attuned to everything that is connected to her. This books speaks of family love, duty and the pain of death too. The conflict too is shown in a very fine way. When Vanessa’s father dies suddenly due to flu, she misses him terribly and doesn’t know how to cope with her grief. Her relationship with her Grandfather Connor is interesting. He is forceful, dominating yet a steady force. No one expects him to die all of a sudden although he is ninety-four.

With plenty of interesting observations, Vanessa manages to tell us so much about Manakawa. Despite liking the book, I find it hard to review it. Each and every character has a place in the book and are necessary for Vanessa’s growing up phase. This book starts when she is 9 years old and finishes when she is around 40 years of age. Vanessa’s narration is filled with interesting snippets and beautuful poignant emotions.

Book 1 of The Canadian Book Challenge 3

A Bird in the House by Margaret Laurence

That house in Manawaka is the one which, more than any other, I carry with me. Known to the rest of the town as “the old Connor place” and to the family as the Brick House, it was plain as the winter turnips in its root cellar, sparsely windowed as some crusader’s embattled fortress in a heathen wilderness, its rooms in a perpetual gloom except in the brief height of summer.

Title: A Bird in the House
Author: Margaret Laurence
ISBN: 0771099851
Publisher: M&S/1970
Pages: 191

A Bird in the House can be read both as short story collection or a novel as the short stories are interconnected and yet stand alone. The stories speak of childhood, and girlhood very beautifully, depicting, pathos, wonder and also the joys of growing up.

The protagonist Vanessa MacLeod, is a keen observer and she is attuned to everything that is connected to her. This books speaks of family love, duty and the pain of death too. The conflict too is shown in a very fine way. When Vanessa’s father dies suddenly due to flu, she misses him terribly and doesn’t know how to cope with her grief. Her relationship with her Grandfather Connor is interesting. He is forceful, dominating yet a steady force. No one expects him to die all of a sudden although he is ninety-four.

With plenty of interesting observations, Vanessa manages to tell us so much about Manakawa. Despite liking the book, I find it hard to review it. Each and every character has a place in the book and are necessary for Vanessa’s growing up phase. This book starts when she is 9 years old and finishes when she is around 40 years of age. Vanessa’s narration is filled with interesting snippets and beautuful poignant emotions.

Book 1 of The Canadian Book Challenge 3

Short Story: Yvette by Guy de Maupassant

Guy de Maupassant in not unknown in the reading cirle. His short stories must have been read by one and all and at one time or the other. I have read almost all of his works and the endings are always twisted. They can be interpreted in various ways but not the way one has expected them to. However, I don’t hear about him in this blog world. Today I thought I would showcase him. I found a few of his stories online and chose to re-read Yvette after say 20 years.

Yvette is about a girl who is already dead at the start of the story. The narrator is talking to someone he knows about a so called Comtesse. Comtesse Samoris, who has killed her own daughter, Yvette.

“The comtesse is nothing but a common, ordinary parvenue originating no one knows where. A Hungarian or Wallachian countess or I know not what. She appeared one winter in apartments she had taken in the Champs Elysees, that quarter for adventurers and adventuresses, and opened her drawing-room to the first comer or to any one that turned up.”

“Madame Samoris is the type of these adventuresses, elegant, mature and still beautiful. Charming feline creatures, you feel that they are vicious to the marrow of their bones. You find them very amusing when you visit them; they give card parties; they have dances and suppers; in short, they offer you all the pleasures of social life.

She had a daughter who was just the oppositte, a simple, virtuous girl, who wasn’t aware of her mother’s loose morals. One day she overheard her some people taliking about the mother and her numerous men friends. Yvette confronts her and tells her that end the end of the month, they should retreat to an unknown village and lead a unsullied life or she will kill herself. The Comtesse disregarded this.

“At the end of a month the Comtesse Samoris had resumed her usual entertainments, as though nothing had occurred. One day, under the pretext that she had a bad toothache, Yvette purchased a few drops of chloroform from a neighboring chemist. The next day she purchased more, and every time she went out she managed to procure small doses of the narcotic. She filled a bottle with it.”

And one day she didn’t wake up. She was dead as she had claimed. The mother shed a few tears and resumed her old ways.

And what about the girl’s death?

“Oh! they pretended that it was an accident caused by a new stove, the mechanism of which got out of order. As a good many such accidents have Occurred, the thing seemed probable enough.”

Guy de Maupassant needs to be rediscovered because he was one of the greatest story tellers of all times.

And don’t forget to check out:

Short Story Sunday hosted by CB James
Short Story Monday hosted by John Mutford

Short Story: Yvette by Guy de Maupassant

Guy de Maupassant in not unknown in the reading cirle. His short stories must have been read by one and all and at one time or the other. I have read almost all of his works and the endings are always twisted. They can be interpreted in various ways but not the way one has expected them to. However, I don’t hear about him in this blog world. Today I thought I would showcase him. I found a few of his stories online and chose to re-read Yvette after say 20 years.

Yvette is about a girl who is already dead at the start of the story. The narrator is talking to someone he knows about as Comtesse. Comtesse Samoris, who has killed her own daughter, Yvette.

“The comtesse is nothing but a common, ordinary parvenue originating no one knows where. A Hungarian or Wallachian countess or I know not what. She appeared one winter in apartments she had taken in the Champs Elysees, that quarter for adventurers and adventuresses, and opened her drawing-room to the first comer or to any one that turned up.”

“Madame Samoris is the type of these adventuresses, elegant, mature and still beautiful. Charming feline creatures, you feel that they are vicious to the marrow of their bones. You find them very amusing when you visit them; they give card parties; they have dances and suppers; in short, they offer you all the pleasures of social life.

She had a daughter who was just the opposite, a simple, virtuous girl, who wasn’t aware of her mother’s loose morals. One day she overheard her some people talking about the mother and her numerous men friends. Yvette confronted her and teld her that at the end of the month, they should retreat to an unknown village and lead a unsullied life or she will kill herself. The Comtesse disregarded this.

“At the end of a month the Comtesse Samoris had resumed her usual entertainments, as though nothing had occurred. One day, under the pretext that she had a bad toothache, Yvette purchased a few drops of chloroform from a neighboring chemist. The next day she purchased more, and every time she went out she managed to procure small doses of the narcotic. She filled a bottle with it.”

And one day she didn’t wake up. She was dead as she had claimed. The mother shed a few tears and resumed her old ways.

And what about the girl’s death?

“Oh! they pretended that it was an accident caused by a new stove, the mechanism of which got out of order. As a good many such accidents have Occurred, the thing seemed probable enough.”

Guy de Maupassant needs to be rediscovered because he was one of the greatest story tellers of all times.

And don’t forget to check out:

Short Story Sunday hosted by CB James
Short Story Monday hosted by John Mutford

Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales by Eleanor Bluestein

Title: Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales
Author: Eleanor Bluestein
ISBN: 9781886157644
Publisher: BkMk Press/2009
Pages: 234

It is collection of ten short stories taking place in a fictitious south Asian country. Ayama Na is totally devastated from an internal coup, drought and corruption at every level. Citizens are trying to cope with the devastations left behind and do their best to rebuild their country where peace seems like an fragile commodity. Land mines still dot it and amputees are all over the place.

Each story deals with some aspect of it in one way or the other. Ordinary people are caught between the traditional values and the rapid spread westernization. Yet each one of them wishes peace, prosperity and growth for their country and would like to contribute toward it in any way they can.

In Pineapple Wars, Koriatt is a Car Salesman, who has left the pineapple fields to work in the city of Pin Dalie. He is fairly successful. His eighty year old father is still alive, living in the pineapple farms, Koriatt and his sister are not ready to take care of him. Koriatt has no wish to get his father to the city and his sister is not ready to live with the father in the village. Both squabble over it. Korriat finds a solution to their dilemma which is shocking…

Hamburger School has school students working in the joint for pocket money or to escape their life at home. AIBO or Love at First Sight has Dali-Roo working in factory that makes robots. He, like most others is forced to work there because of the droughts. His parched fields cannot yield anything. Dali-Roo is obssessed with building a robot for himself and ends up stealing electronic stuff. And his friend helps him not getting caught.

Skin Deep has an educated girl aspiring to be the Miss Ayama Na. She is prepared for that by her manager but somehow ends up telling the truth on the stage instead of platitudes. The Artist’s Story has an one legged prostitute rooting for the artist, who is an American lost in Ayama Na. He does not wish to return to his own country. And somehow has found freedom in a country which seems to be filled with strife.

The Cut the Crap Machine has two playwright collaborating to write a master piece. One is very old and the other is young and arrogant. Yet they need each other. The play is confusing as both try to write scenes in their own ways. In a way it speaks of the dilemma of that modern versus traditional.

The Blanks has a couple from US visiting Ayama Na for sightseeing. Both apparantly can’t stand each other and yet cannot live without each other. They are simply not interested to see the country. Their guide has a tough time dealing with them. He knows, their country needs the revenue brought by the tourists. I found A Ruined World most touching of all. It has two sisters who are always fighting. Each has a child, a son and daughter. Those two children are very fond of each other. The Shaman of their tribe discovers a body of a child and summons everyone to watch its cremation. When the younger sister finds out the murderer and the reasons behind it, she is devastated..

North of the Faro has a fortune teller who predictions go wrong. She leaves her home and becomes a wanderer. Only then she can understand her inner compulsions. And finally realises where she has to go. Tea has a seventeen year old girl seeking her brother’s support to talk to their father who wishes for her to meet a boy which might lead to marrying that person. Her brother makes her come to a place where they serve tea according to the mood of the customer. She goes there for five days and although her brother doesn’t say a word, she understands her own conflicts and is ready to meet the boy.

Each story encapsulates tiny lives. Although fictitious, it could have been in any place like Thailand, Nepal, Singapore or even India. In all those place Traditonal exist with Modern, conflicts are abound and yet we have to find the middle path. The stories are not at all sad or serious. They touch the seriousness of life yet with wit, wisdom and enlightenment. The story do end differently from what we expect.

The author has great imagination, she has made the fictitious place and people come alive. The names are hoots too. Although none of stories are connected in anyway yet there is a connection. Those who wish to read something out of their comfort zone, I would recommend it.

Also reviewed by:

Meghan
The Bluestocking Society
Bookstack
Nerd’s Eye View
Lotus Reads
8Asians
1979 Semi-finalist…
Ramya’s Bookshelf
Feminist Review
Trish’s Reading Nook
Savvy Verse and Wit

Watch this place for a guest post and Author Interview with Eleanor Bluestein. Thanks Eleanor for the book!

Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales by Eleanor Bluestein

Title: Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales
Author: Eleanor Bluestein
ISBN: 9781886157644
Publisher: BkMk Press/2009
Pages: 234

It is collection of ten short stories taking place in a fictitious south Asian country. Ayama Na is totally devastated from an internal coup, drought and corruption at every level. Citizens are trying to cope with the devastations left behind and do their best to rebuild their country where peace seems like an fragile commodity. Land mines still dot it and amputees are all over the place.

Each story deals with some aspect of it in one way or the other. Ordinary people are caught between the traditional values and the rapid spread westernization. Yet each one of them wishes peace, prosperity and growth for their country and would like to contribute toward it in any way they can.

In Pineapple Wars, Koriatt is a Car Salesman, who has left the pineapple fields to work in the city of Pin Dalie. He is fairly successful. His eighty year old father is still alive, living in the pineapple farms, Koriatt and his sister are not ready to take care of him. Koriatt has no wish to get his father to the city and his sister is not ready to live with the father in the village. Both squabble over it. Korriat finds a solution to their dilemma which is shocking…

Hamburger School has school students working in the joint for pocket money or to escape their life at home. AIBO or Love at First Sight has Dali-Roo working in factory that makes robots. He, like most others is forced to work there because of the droughts. His parched fields cannot yield anything. Dali-Roo is obssessed with building a robot for himself and ends up stealing electronic stuff. And his friend helps him not getting caught.

Skin Deep has an educated girl aspiring to be the Miss Ayama Na. She is prepared for that by her manager but somehow ends up telling the truth on the stage instead of platitudes. The Artist’s Story has an one legged prostitute rooting for the artist, who is an American lost in Ayama Na. He does not wish to return to his own country. And somehow has found freedom in a country which seems to be filled with strife.

The Cut the Crap Machine has two playwright collaborating to write a master piece. One is very old and the other is young and arrogant. Yet they need each other. The play is confusing as both try to write scenes in their own ways. In a way it speaks of the dilemma of that modern versus traditional.

The Blanks has a couple from US visiting Ayama Na for sightseeing. Both apparantly can’t stand each other and yet cannot live without each other. They are simply not interested to see the country. Their guide has a tough time dealing with them. He knows, their country needs the revenue brought by the tourists. I found A Ruined World most touching of all. It has two sisters who are always fighting. Each has a child, a son and daughter. Those two children are very fond of each other. The Shaman of their tribe discovers a body of a child and summons everyone to watch its cremation. When the younger sister finds out the murderer and the reasons behind it, she is devastated..

North of the Faro has a fortune teller who predictions go wrong. She leaves her home and becomes a wanderer. Only then she can understand her inner compulsions. And finally realises where she has to go. Tea has a seventeen year old girl seeking her brother’s support to talk to their father who wishes for her to meet a boy which might lead to marrying that person. Her brother makes her come to a place where they serve tea according to the mood of the customer. She goes there for five days and although her brother doesn’t say a word, she understands her own conflicts and is ready to meet the boy.

Each story encapsulates tiny lives. Although fictitious, it could have been in any place like Thailand, Nepal, Singapore or even India. In all those place Traditonal exist with Modern, conflicts are abound and yet we have to find the middle path. The stories are not at all sad or serious. They touch the seriousness of life yet with wit, wisdom and enlightenment. The story do end differently from what we expect.

The author has great imagination, she has made the fictitious place and people come alive. The names are hoots too. Although none of stories are connected in anyway yet there is a connection. Those who wish to read something out of their comfort zone, I would recommend it.

Also reviewed by:

Meghan
The Bluestocking Society
Bookstack
Nerd’s Eye View
Lotus Reads
8Asians
1979 Semi-finalist…
Ramya’s Bookshelf
Feminist Review
Trish’s Reading Nook
Savvy Verse and Wit

Watch this place for a guest post and Author Interview with Eleanor Bluestein. Thanks Eleanor for the book!

Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales by Eleanor Bluestein

Title: Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales
Author: Eleanor Bluestein
ISBN: 9781886157644
Publisher: BkMk Press/2009
Pages: 234

It is collection of ten short stories taking place in a fictitious south Asian country. Ayama Na is totally devastated from an internal coup, drought and corruption at every level. Citizens are trying to cope with the devastations left behind and do their best to rebuild their country where peace seems like an fragile commodity. Land mines still dot it and amputees are all over the place.

Each story deals with some aspect of it in one way or the other. Ordinary people are caught between the traditional values and the rapid spread westernization. Yet each one of them wishes peace, prosperity and growth for their country and would like to contribute toward it in any way they can.

In Pineapple Wars, Koriatt is a Car Salesman, who has left the pineapple fields to work in the city of Pin Dalie. He is fairly successful. His eighty year old father is still alive, living in the pineapple farms, Koriatt and his sister are not ready to take care of him. Koriatt has no wish to get his father to the city and his sister is not ready to live with the father in the village. Both squabble over it. Korriat finds a solution to their dilemma which is shocking…

Hamburger School has school students working in the joint for pocket money or to escape their life at home. AIBO or Love at First Sight has Dali-Roo working in factory that makes robots. He, like most others is forced to work there because of the droughts. His parched fields cannot yield anything. Dali-Roo is obssessed with building a robot for himself and ends up stealing electronic stuff. And his friend helps him not getting caught.

Skin Deep has an educated girl aspiring to be the Miss Ayama Na. She is prepared for that by her manager but somehow ends up telling the truth on the stage instead of platitudes. The Artist’s Story has an one legged prostitute rooting for the artist, who is an American lost in Ayama Na. He does not wish to return to his own country. And somehow has found freedom in a country which seems to be filled with strife.

The Cut the Crap Machine has two playwright collaborating to write a master piece. One is very old and the other is young and arrogant. Yet they need each other. The play is confusing as both try to write scenes in their own ways. In a way it speaks of the dilemma of that modern versus traditional.

The Blanks has a couple from US visiting Ayama Na for sightseeing. Both apparantly can’t stand each other and yet cannot live without each other. They are simply not interested to see the country. Their guide has a tough time dealing with them. He knows, their country needs the revenue brought by the tourists. I found A Ruined World most touching of all. It has two sisters who are always fighting. Each has a child, a son and daughter. Those two children are very fond of each other. The Shaman of their tribe discovers a body of a child and summons everyone to watch its cremation. When the younger sister finds out the murderer and the reasons behind it, she is devastated..

North of the Faro has a fortune teller who predictions go wrong. She leaves her home and becomes a wanderer. Only then she can understand her inner compulsions. And finally realises where she has to go. Tea has a seventeen year old girl seeking her brother’s support to talk to their father who wishes for her to meet a boy which might lead to marrying that person. Her brother makes her come to a place where they serve tea according to the mood of the customer. She goes there for five days and although her brother doesn’t say a word, she understands her own conflicts and is ready to meet the boy.

Each story encapsulates tiny lives. Although fictitious, it could have been in any place like Thailand, Nepal, Singapore or even India. In all those place Traditonal exist with Modern, conflicts are abound and yet we have to find the middle path. The stories are not at all sad or serious. They touch the seriousness of life yet with wit, wisdom and enlightenment. The story do end differently from what we expect.

The author has great imagination, she has made the fictitious place and people come alive. The names are hoots too. Although none of stories are connected in anyway yet there is a connection. Those who wish to read something out of their comfort zone, I would recommend it.

Also reviewed by:

Meghan
The Bluestocking Society
Bookstack
Nerd’s Eye View
Lotus Reads
8Asians
1979 Semi-finalist…
Ramya’s Bookshelf
Feminist Review
Trish’s Reading Nook
Savvy Verse and Wit

Watch this place for a guest post and Author Interview with Eleanor Bluestein. Thanks Eleanor for the book!

Short Story: Landscape With Flatiron by Haruki Murakami

I found Landscape With Flatiron by Haruki Murakami online.

Junko had run away from home on her third year in High School from Tokorozawa to this little seaside spot in Ibaraki Prefecture. She was working in a convenience store on coast highway.

To her mother she wrote: Don’t worry about me, and please don’t look for me, I’m doing fine.

After sometime she found another drifter Keisuke who was two years older. He to wasn’t interested in studies neither did he want to join his family business. They had a sweet shop. Keisuke wished for an easy life. He was a great surfer. Junko moved in with him. After a while, she met Miyake, a painter of sorts in his 40s. He had a Kansai dialect and hence was noticed by most. He kept his life private and did not interact with most.

A friendship develops between Miyake and Junko. He can light great bonfires and Ibaraki had driftwoods coming in plenty, so he had settled there only for those. Junko loved going to those bonfires. KIesuke accompanied her most of the times.

One day in the midst of bonfire, Keisuke leaves for home leaving her alone with Miyake. Junko feels some sort of bond with him but Miyake is noncommital. THey talk about his latest painting which is an iron in a room and is called landscape with flatiron. He does not explain what it means.

“I call it Landscape with Flatiron. I finished it three days ago. It’s just a picture of an iron in a room.”

“Why’s that so tough to explain?”

“Because it’s not really an iron.”

She looked up at him. “The iron is not an iron?”

“That’s right.”

“Meaning it stands for something else?”

“Probably.”

“Meaning you can only paint it if you use something else to stand for it?”

Miyake nodded in silence.

She falls asleep against him and tells him to wake her when the fire goes out. He answers:

“Don’t worry. When the fire goes out, you’ll start feeling the cold. You’ll wake up whether you want to or not.”

I found all three characters drifters in their own ways. They had longings but were not aware of those. All feel some kind of emptiness which isn’t fulfilled. Maybe the flatiron in a room, symbolises that.

Do check out Landscape With Flatiron by Haruki Murakami

Short Story: The Ugly Duckling by Hans Anderson

Most must have read The Ugly Duckling. I re-read it from the Fairy Tales by Hans Anderson. However, you can read it online by clicking on the title.

A duck is happy that her eggs have hatched and she loves watching her duckling frolicking and playing around. But one of the eggs is still there unhatched. She sits on it again and from there emerges a duckling so ugly that no one likes him at all. Poor duckling is pushed, bitten and bullied around even by his siblings. No one comes in his defense, not even his mother, who wishes he was never borne.

The poor duckling was driven about by every one; even his brothers and sisters were unkind to him, and would say, “Ah, you ugly creature, I wish the cat would get you,” and his mother said she wished he had never been born. The ducks pecked him, the chickens beat him, and the girl who fed the poultry kicked him with her feet. So at last he ran away, frightening the little birds in the hedge as he flew over the palings.

He leaves his home and flies into a large moor. Even there he is not treated well. One day he sees a flock of Swans, so beautiful and graceful. Somehow he feels a kinship with them.

He knew not the names of these birds, nor where they had flown, but he felt towards them as he had never felt for any other bird in the world. He was not envious of these beautiful creatures, but wished to be as lovely as they. Poor ugly creature, how gladly he would have lived even with the ducks had they only given him encouragement.

Then one winter unable to swim in the frozen river, he is almost frozen to death when a kind peasant picks him up and takes him home thawing him. And so it went on, he barely surving the winters and longing to be with other birds including the ducks.

It would be very sad, were I to relate all the misery and privations which the poor little duckling endured during the hard winter; but when it had passed, he found himself lying one morning in a moor, amongst the rushes. He felt the warm sun shining, and heard the lark singing, and saw that all around was beautiful spring. Then the young bird felt that his wings were strong, as he flapped them against his sides, and rose high into the air. They bore him onwards, until he found himself in a large garden, before he well knew how it had happened. The apple-trees were in full blossom, and the fragrant elders bent their long green branches down to the stream which wound round a smooth lawn. Everything looked beautiful, in the freshness of early spring. From a thicket close by came three beautiful white swans, rustling their feathers, and swimming lightly over the smooth water. The duckling remembered the lovely birds, and felt more strangely unhappy than ever.

He flew out into the sky and found swans coming towards him. He bent his head asking them to kill him. But what did he see in the water below, a bird so beautiful.

But what did he see in the clear stream below? His own image; no longer a dark, gray bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan. To be born in a duck’s nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan’s egg. He now felt glad at having suffered sorrow and trouble, because it enabled him to enjoy so much better all the pleasure and happiness around him; for the great swans swam round the new-comer, and stroked his neck with their beaks, as a welcome.

The Ugly Duckling had become a beautiful swan, so graceful and so elegant. But pride did not touch him. He was filled with happiness and wonder.

In a world where beauty is given so much importance, ugly has no place. It does not matter that the ugly creature might have a heart of gold. Everyone turns against them and survival becomes a struggle. The Ugly Duckling tells us that it need not be so. One can become a swan, if not in appearance then in deed. And humility still counts.