The Darts of Cupid: Stories (Paperback)

by Edith Templeton (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
As a girl in 1920s Prague, Edith Templeton caused a scandal by writing a school essay about how well-heated her private academy was--during a coal strike. This turned out to be a predictive event: Templeton's fiction illuminates the political by way of the intensely personal. In the title story of the exquisite collection The Darts of Cupid, a young woman's love affair is shaped by the tragedies of World War II. (This particular piece is so personal that upon its 1968 publication in The New Yorker, it made history as the most explicit story ever published by that magazine.) Templeton's stories are filled with acid-tongued girls, cynical older men, and frighteningly acute observations, such as "malice is the luxury of underlings." Bitterly funny and steeped in modern history, The Darts of Cupid places Templeton squarely in the company of Maeve Brennan and Sybille Bedford. These recently rediscovered midcentury women writers made unflinching fiction. --Claire Dederer --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
Rain dripping on cobblestones, the strains of violins in cafes, sexual games concealed beneath sophisticated conversation this is the European atmosphere of these seven exquisite stories by Prague-born Templeton, still active at 85. Though her characterizations are as sharp as her vision, she is a tantalizingly enigmatic storyteller, and the delicate tales on display in this first collection of her work gracefully evade categorization. In "Equality Cake," a woman revisits the Prague castle where she had grown up, and the effect is appropriately Kafkaesque: the Communist government has reversed the shabby gentility she recalled and restored it to a beauty she has never seen. The long title story was published in 1968 in the New Yorker, where her work had been appearing since the '50s, and achieved notoriety for its frank sexuality, although it is tame by current standards. The heroine is employed in a medical office of the U.S. Army in London and has a one-night sexual encounter with a married major, without further consequence. Though the story's gossiping women respond with giggles to teasing at the hands of male superior officers, they slyly "reveled in the knowledge that it is embarrassing for a man to be the head of a female staff." In other stories, sex, however brutal, is only implied, as when a mentally disturbed in-law attempts to rape the heroine, but clumsily breaks one of her ribs ("The Blue Hour"). And in "Nymph & Faun," an older widow disposes of unwanted possessions long stored, at one point observing, "Marriage is the tomb of love." These are elegantly written stories, small gems each.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (March 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400032369
• ISBN-13: 978-1400032365
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,244,169 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling stories, September 8, 2005

By	Melissa Niksic (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The title story of this collection, "The Darts of Cupid," shocked readers of "The New Yorker" upon its publication in the magazine back in 1968. In the story, a young woman who is employed in a U.S. medical office during World War II has a one-night stand with a married major which forever changes her life. Each of the ten stories in this collection by Edith Templeton features strong female characters, mysterious older men, and unflinching observations about the world. I think everyone will enjoy this elegant collection of prose.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Normally I'd rather read a novel but . . ., November 13, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Darts of Cupid: And Other Stories (Hardcover)

Normally I'd rather read a novel than a short story collection, but in the case of "Darts of Cupid and Other Stories", Ms. Templeton writes enough detail into each of her stories that I was left with the feeling that I had read a novel. The stories are absolutely amazing.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unique voice in literature, July 20, 2008

By	Reader "cvrcak1" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

I picked up this book without knowing that the story from which this book is titled "The Darts of Cupid" caused a scandal after being published in the New Yorker Magazine in 1968. After reading it, I could understand why. It must have been intolerable for the general public to read, even in fiction, that women could behave a certain way and not have any regrets about it. But my favorite stories from this book's collection are "The Equality Cake" and "Nymph and Faun". What is true for all stories is that the main characted is always a complicated and intriguing woman, usually of foreign origin, who for reasons only known to her, puts herself in somewhat compromising situations. She is not easy to figure out and it seems that although married, or widowed she is still looking for love, only to find it elusive. Love seems ot be a mistery to her becuase men are not what they seem to be and in spite of everything, she is insecure and lets them convince her that she is inferior, does not understand anything, can be isolated from the rest of the world and kept in house as some sort of ornament that is never dull and never fully understood - even to her own self sometimes. Te author of this work, Ms. Templeton belongs to a group of women writers who have their unique voice and are mystical at the same time. She belongs with Wharton, Dinesen and Godden - women who have lived in many countries but never truly belonged to one, women who were never truly in love and happy, and when they were in love have sufferred on the personal level in order to create a great art. If you love literature, beautiful in its storytelling and language, you must read this book.