Sailors, structures and serenity

V S Pritchett: great insights on maturing men

V S Pritchett is one of the great underrated English story tellers: he is brilliant at evoking characters, drawing out the emotions woven through everyday life. His short stories are especially good, and I was impressed by one I read recently, simply called The Sailor.

In this story, the narrator describes how he meets and befriends a shabby middle-aged man who is lost in London. He turns out to be Albert Thompson, a ship’s cook, invalided out of the service two years before.

“Off a ship?” I said.
He looked at me as if I were a magician who could read his soul. “Thank Gawd I stopped you,” he said. “I kep’ stopping people all day and they messed me up, but you been straight”.

The writer, who lives alone in the country, gives Thompson a job as his cook, and things change from day one.
 

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