The Marvelous Palace And Other Stories (French: 'Histoires Perfides') is a collection of short stories by French author Pierre Boulle, published in French in 1976 and in English in 1977. The English language edition is translated by Margaret Giovanelli. The collection contains six stories, all thematically related, and presented in the voice of a centenarian story-teller from the Orient.
The collection includes an introduction, in which the narrator introduces the storyteller, who is generally referred to as "Old Man." After the introduction, each of the six short stories is narrated by the Old Man:
- The Royal Pardon
- The Marvelous Palace
- The Laws
- The Limits of Endurance
- Compassion Service
- The Angelic Monsieur Edyh
The stories are all recountings of tales from the Old Man's distant past as a minister of "the Religion of Doubt" in the far off Kingdom of Shandong. Each story presents a brief moral dilemma, usually with a surprise ending.
Famous quotes containing the words marvelous, palace and/or stories:
“Teenage girls are extremists who see the world in black-and- white terms, missing shades of gray. Life is either marvelous or not worth living. School is either pure torment or is going fantastically. Other people are either great or horrible, and they themselves are wonderful or pathetic failures. One day a girl will refer to herself as “the goddess of social life” and the next day she’ll regret that she’s the “ultimate in nerdosity.””
—Mary Pipher (20th century)
“It ain’t home t’ ye, though it be the palace of a king,
Until somehow yer soul is sort o’ wrapped round everything.”
—Edgar Albert Guest (1881–1959)
“There have been many stories told about the bottom, or rather no bottom, of this pond, which certainly had no foundation for themselves. It is remarkable how long men will believe in the bottomlessness of a pond without taking the trouble to sound it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)