Mangled facts
From Mr John Crooks Sir: If Beryl Bainbridge is going to produce The Monkey's Paw (Diary, 24 November), she should get the story and its meaning right. The moral is not that 'money is filthy lucre', but that one should be careful about what one wishes for, because one might just get it.
For their first wish, the father of the family jokingly asks for .E200. The next morning the son's boss arrives to tell the parents that their son has been killed and horribly mangled in the machinery at work, and offers £200 as compensation. The evening after the funeral the mother uses the second wish to ask for her son back. After an hour or so there is a tremendous knocking at the door. Before the mother can open it to reveal their mangled son, the father uses the third wish to send him back to the grave.
John Crooks
London SW15
Previous page
