SOME SHORT STORIES

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31724, 6 July 1968, Page 4

SOME SHORT STORIES

End Of The Game. By Julio Cortazar. Collins and Harvill, 277 pp.

The short stories In this collection by the novelist Julio Cortazar, an Argentinian living in Paris, all contain an element of the bizarre and unusual. They were originally published in Spanish and have been translated by Paul Blackburn. In this sensitive translation Cortazar’s skill with words is evident, as is his ability to create vivid and eerie atmosphere. The feeling in most of these stories is one of barely-controlled fear of the unknown. Such stories as "The Might Face Up” and “Blow Up” as well as others in the book begin easily enough in an ordinary situation then suddenly and inexplicably slide into mystery and terror. In a very brief story, “Continuity of Parks,” the reader of a murder mystery discovers he is the victim, in another a man seeing his double becomes obsessed with the idea of his life being repeated infinitely. Yet the stories do not all follow the same pattern and there is no stale repetition. Some, such as “House Taken Over,” begin immediately in the strange world of mystery. Brief characterisation, occasional wry humour, careful control of words all combine to create atmosphere which most unforgetably puts across Cortazar’s point that it is impossible to know what is real and what unreal.

The Ice-Cream Headache and other stories. By James Jones. Collin*. 250 PPThe author of "Fiurn Here to Eternity” here presents a

selection of his short stories, two of which have never previously been published. They each have a strong plot and are written in his typically competent style. Because of the variety of backgrounds and subject matter, several points about his writing emerge more definitely in these stories than they could in any one novel. Some deal with lovers, others with war, some with the secrets of a small boy’s world—but in almost every story the women characters, be they mother or mistress or wife, shackle the men, subject them to emotional blackmail, corrupt them and bind them with sordid practical preoccupations. Even the most superficially attractive female character, Mona in “Secondhand Man,” is described with a barely veiled antipathy. The men, whether they be drunkards or sluggards or worthy young men, are fired with idealism and high principles, and their best friends, sympathetic and generous, are all men. The only variation from this theme occurs in “Sunday Allergy,” where two New York girls face the tragedy of spinsterhood. James Jones writes of these two girls with affection and sensitivity—maybe because of the very fact that they have little or no chance of finding a bachelor for themselves. The tone, of this story does little to dilute the strong, sour taste of misogyny.

The Sin Eater. By Elizabeth Walter. Harvill. 192 pp.

These short stories, which, wth the exception of one, have supernatural overtones, could, in the late lan Hay’s

phrase, be classed as either “funny peculiar" or “funny ha-ha.” Even those with a macabre flavour are relieved by the author’s irrepressible wit The most Implausible of the collection is that of the title “The Sin Eater" In which a casual visitor to a remote country village becomes enmeshed in circumstances involving an ancient superstition. More bizarre, but less improbable, is the subject of “A Scientific Impossibility,” in which a man whose death has just been announced in the “Times” arrives to preside at an important meeting of a committee dealing with a scientific work which he emphatically pronounces to be bogus. During the proceedings he disappears—slowly and in instalment* like the Cheshire Cat “The Spider” and “Exorcism” are both light hearted, the first revealing the triumph of a discarded mistress over her bachelor lover who has a terror of spiders, the second, the haunting of a murderer by his victim with triumphant results—for the exorcising talents of the Church. The best of the collection, “Dearest Clarissa,” has no supernatural connotations, but deftly exposes, through the artless letters of a young woman incarcerated in a mental home, the machinations

against her of the sister to whom she is devoted and who has always dominated her. This indirect method Of delineating cold-hearted villainy gives the story an unusual twist which makes it a toupdeforce. This is a first-clasg book for the bedside table and one which, despite its subject, is devoid of nnpleaaant chill*