Uniquely strange, haunting, dizzying, funny and moving piece of uncanny fiction. I remember finishing Walter de la Mare's The Return and feeling that, while quietly devastating and profoundly moving, the form of the thing lacked polish. No such qualms here.

As usual Walter de la Mare's writing is among the closest you'll find to a waking, shifting dream, but here, despite the often quiet restraint of the narrative, the prose was so subtly coruscating in its suggestion that I had to reread some paragraphs over and over to soak in the beauty and strangeness of it all. This novel and the finest twenty or so of his short stories showed that de la Mare was not only a great poet, but also a titan of prose fiction worthy of the utmost respect.

Not what I anticipated when I picked it up, but very good nonetheless. I had expected it to be much more based on the physical circumstances of being of very small stature in Victorian times - and to some degree it was - but the focus was really more psychological/social, exploring the inward struggles of an individual who is cut off from nearly all of humanity because of its perception of her as somehow less, and therefore not to be taken seriously. de la Mare creates a beautifully complex character in Miss M, sometimes lovable, sometimes ugly with jealousy and the desire for revenge. She is really just a young girl who has been isolated because her physical proportions excite alarm and sensation whenever she goes out, and who is emotionally hungry for friendship or kinship of any kind. Strangely, I thought there was a lot about growing up that I could personally relate to - I have to give de la Mare credit for making the theme universal in that respect. I didn't particularly enjoy his almost Henry James-ish style of saying everything but what is really going on - but I do see the purpose in it, as that is what life is really like, and it's only later, if at all, that we figure out what happened to us as we were growing up. Anyway, loved Miss M's struggle out of being forced to be a pet, a curiosity, and somehow not fully human, to taking action for herself and taking control of her own identity regardless of outside perceptions.

The 4 star title lured me in, but the story disappointed. And the writing style is often confusing...or maybe I just didn't care enough to give it my full attention.

an eighteenth century midget in LONDON no less. yeah, probably won't get around to this anytime soon.

I have to say I didn't *get* this book. From all the positive reviews, I was expecting to be lured into an existence not quite real and regaled with visions of a slightly altered world. I suppose I thought it would be like watching Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge, but for me, this book was so vague I had a hard time following exactly what was happening. It didn't help that the most crucial exchanges all seemed to be written in French, a language of which I am completely ignorant. I felt this novel to be lacking in plot as well; I couldn't see a true resolution at the end. The book just sort of... stopped. I have to admit I am really very disappointed.

(Note: I read a rather early version of this book, dating to probably the late 1930s.)

phenomenally well written. an instant favorite. more to come...

I couldn't review this quickly, I'll have to think about it. I look forward to re-reading this book and also looking at White's Natural History of Selborne.

Now I will read Best stories of Walter De La Mare.

What a terribly sad book this is. It's very modern somehow in its theme of exclusion. It's far too long, and ends with a lot of unanswered questions, but it's the sort of book that stays with you.

A miniature maiden of Memoirs of a Midget isn’t a dwarf… She is more similar to Thumbelina… She is an elflike being…

But every family, I suppose, has its little pet traditions; and one of ours, relating to those early years, is connected with our kitchen cat, Miaou. She had come by a family of kittens, and I had crept, so it was said, into her shallow basket with them. Having, I suppose, been too frequently meddled with, this old mother cat lugged off her kittens one by one to a dark cupboard. The last one thus secured, she was discovered in rapt contemplation of myself, as if in debate whether or not it was her maternal duty to carry me off too.

The story is a delicious blend of Victorian novel and surrealism… The book is full of Dickensian intrigues and fine surreal imagery…

What may wholly have been another childish fancy was that apart from the silvery darting flies and the rainbow-coloured motes in the sunbeams, fine and airy invisible shapes seemed to haunt and hover around me when all was still. Most of my fellow creatures to my young nose had an odour a good deal denser than the fainter scented flowers, and I can fancy such a fog, if intensified, would be distressing to beings so bodiless and rare. Whereas the air I disturbed and infected with my presence can have been of but shallow volume.

Memoirs of a Midget is a tale of solitude and isolation, of envy and malice, of compassion and kindness… Taken to London by the rich whimsical woman Miss M. was considered by gentry just a curious doll serving to entertain high society and aristocracy… No better than an animated gewgaw…

Life became a continuous game of chess, the moves of which at times kept me awake and brooding in a far from wholesome fashion in my bed. Pawn of pawns, and one at the point of being sacrificed, I could only squint at the board. Indeed, I deliberately shut my eyes to my own insignificance, strutted about, sulked, sharpened my tongue like a serpent, and became a perfect pest to myself when alone. Yet I knew in my heart that those whom I hoped to wound merely laughed at me behind my back, that I was once more proving to the world that the smaller one is, the greater is one’s vanity.

Life of a loner is like a jewel box inside which one’s inner world is locked.

What a painful read. I'm not certain whether the disconnect with this story is due to the author's writing style or my lack of understanding of the social and cultural norms/etiquette of the time period in which it takes place. Being that I have read other English authors from this time period and earlier with no issue, I will say it is the former rather than the later. Either way, this piece does not stand the test of time.