Last year, Nan of Letters From a Hill Farm reviewed The Basement Room by Graham Greene.  Her convinced me that I had to read it for myself.

Philip’s parents are leaving him for two weeks,  in the care of  Mr. and Mrs. Baines, the butler housekeeper.  His most recent nurse left and they haven’t had time to fill her place.  Philip is 7 years old and likes to go to the basement where the Baines live.  He considers Mr’ Baines a friend and likes to hanout with him down there.
Mrs. Baines is left upstairs to do all the housework while Mr. Baines relaxes.  He doesn’t lift a finger to help well the master is away.  Mr. Baines tells Philip all kinds of tales from his life, including the time he lived in Africa.
One day Mrs. Baines was gone for the day, so Mr Baines and his lover took Philip out for the day.  After a long day, Philip was escorted up to bed and tucked in by both Baines and his lover.  Mrs. Baines arrived home and went directly to Philips rooms.  She asked him where Baines and the woman were but Philip, gripped with fear couldn’t answer.
“The night light stood beside the mirror and Mrs. Baines could see there her own reflection, misery and cruelty wavering in the glass, age and dust and nothing to hope for.”
Mrs. Baines left Philip’s room and started down the stair to look for the two lovers.
“Philip could move, he raised his knees, he sat up in bed; he wanted to die.  It wasn’t fair; the walls were down again between his world and theirs, but this time it was something worse than merriment that the grown people made him share. A passion moved the house he recognized but could not understand.”
By the end or the story, poor Philip is affected by the events that happened for life.

This was a well written story with good character development.  I got sucked in right away and cared what happened to Philip.  Greene captures the heart, mind, fears, and emotions of a little boy with poetic prose.  I highly recommend this story and you can read it here.

Did you review this story?  Please leave the link in the comments and I will link it here. 

If you would like to participate in Short Story Mondays, go to John of The Book Mine Set. He has a short story review every Monday and a place for you to link your short story review. Come join in the fun!

Tweet

Copyright 2007-2010: All the posts within this blog were originally posted by Teddy Rose and should not be reproduced without express written permission.