Short stories

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33065, 4 November 1972, Page 10

Short stories

Aspects of the Dying Process. By Michael Wilding. University of Queensland Press. 116 pp. Most of the short stories in this collection keep one aware that Michael Wilding is a senior lecturer in English at Sydney University; almost without exception they involve a very articulate, literary young man leading an adventurous sex life in metropolitan Australia. In one of them, the protagonist is actually a lecturer who in his spare time writes stories for a magazine called “Sire.” Most of them are based on the rationale of the "sexual chessboard,” and the central character tends either to be trying to join in the game, or trying to take first place; whichever way it works, one is often conscious that Mr Wilding is simply drawing sympathy for the under-dog, and that sometimes his' method is just one of lightly sketching in an “over-dog.” Wilding is good at finding titles, and the triple pun in the book’s title reappears in the novella with which the volume ends. It is not hard to guess the contents of "And Did Henry Miller Walk in our Tropical Garden,’ and a title like "The Watertight VW” symbolises the frustration that generally results. All of Wilding’s stories make enjoyable casual reading, though they assume a reasonably broad-minded reader; from a literary point of view, “As Boys to Wanton Flies” is a skilful study of a boy’s paranoia.