Detail from Oops, Kornelios Grammenos
My review, in Necessary Fiction, for the book The Otherwise Fables by Oscar Mandel
The Otherwise Fables by Oscar Mandel is a complete collection of the writer’s fiction, divided into three parts: “The Gobble Up stories,” “Chi Po and the Sorcerer,” and “The History of Sigismund, Prince of Poland.” Although the reader can recognize Mandel’s writing style throughout the collection, his style is subtly different in each part. There are doses of James Thurber’s wit, a little of Marcel Ayme’s paradoxical thought, some of Aesop’s powerful simplicity, and even....(continues)
The Otherwise Fables by Oscar Mandel is a complete collection of the writer’s fiction, divided into three parts: “The Gobble Up stories,” “Chi Po and the Sorcerer,” and “The History of Sigismund, Prince of Poland.” Although the reader can recognize Mandel’s writing style throughout the collection, his style is subtly different in each part. There are doses of James Thurber’s wit, a little of Marcel Ayme’s paradoxical thought, some of Aesop’s powerful simplicity, and even....(continues)
Excerpt from the short story Autumnale Aequinoctium
Now Alsinoi was really losing patience with this fellow. And she suspected that he was not, after all, even going to help with the handcuffs. She looked around her. Policemen were coming and going in a big brightly lit room with walls dirtied by footprints. She decided to call one of them over but suddenly nobody was paying any attention to her. It was as if she had become invisible to everyone. Was the process advancing so fast? If this Prooks had not been sitting opposite her and saying what he was saying, she would at this time in fact be relishing the confirmation of her sudden total invisibility. But this was not possible now. She had been overcome by an irritability resembling nothing more than the slow whistling of a kettle. She rose to her feet again and gave Prooks a forceful kick in the shin. He jumped up, grimacing with pain.
‘Are you off your rocker?’ he bellowed.
‘You feel pain. An interesting kind of death.’ Alsinoi was laughing her head off.
‘No more interesting than a dead person who laughs like a hyena.’
‘If I deserve a death as disgusting as you then you deserve me for your death. Isn’t that fair?’
Their voices were so loud that they attracted the attention of a young policeman who hurried towards them with an officious expression on his face and his hat under his arm. He delivered a resounding slap first to Prooks and then to Alsinoi.
‘Both of you just shut up now!’ he shouted in the same officious tone, with his body arched back. ‘This is a police station, not a children’s playground or your house!’
‘What?’ said Prooks in feigned amazement. ‘A police station? Isn’t it the threshold to eternal life?’
In response he received another slap in the face , much harder than the first one.
‘This is the answer to sarcasm against authority. On your feet!’
Now Alsinoi was really losing patience with this fellow. And she suspected that he was not, after all, even going to help with the handcuffs. She looked around her. Policemen were coming and going in a big brightly lit room with walls dirtied by footprints. She decided to call one of them over but suddenly nobody was paying any attention to her. It was as if she had become invisible to everyone. Was the process advancing so fast? If this Prooks had not been sitting opposite her and saying what he was saying, she would at this time in fact be relishing the confirmation of her sudden total invisibility. But this was not possible now. She had been overcome by an irritability resembling nothing more than the slow whistling of a kettle. She rose to her feet again and gave Prooks a forceful kick in the shin. He jumped up, grimacing with pain.
‘Are you off your rocker?’ he bellowed.
‘You feel pain. An interesting kind of death.’ Alsinoi was laughing her head off.
‘No more interesting than a dead person who laughs like a hyena.’
‘If I deserve a death as disgusting as you then you deserve me for your death. Isn’t that fair?’
Their voices were so loud that they attracted the attention of a young policeman who hurried towards them with an officious expression on his face and his hat under his arm. He delivered a resounding slap first to Prooks and then to Alsinoi.
‘Both of you just shut up now!’ he shouted in the same officious tone, with his body arched back. ‘This is a police station, not a children’s playground or your house!’
‘What?’ said Prooks in feigned amazement. ‘A police station? Isn’t it the threshold to eternal life?’
In response he received another slap in the face , much harder than the first one.
‘This is the answer to sarcasm against authority. On your feet!’
excerpts from the novel Lydius:
His good looks reached their apogee when he won his first fencing matches. He was about nineteen years old, and when the match was over, not a single face in the crowd dared draw a breath. Most of the spectators, enchanted, were attempting to bring back to their mind’s eye the figure of the young fencer with the harmonious body, leaping as a feline on the air and, simultaneously, executing with unique synchronicity the motions of a dancer, as he attempted to find a way to bring his opponent to disadvantage. All of his body parts pulsed with the same internal agitation that makes warm light pulse, in its first attempt to become unleashed, brilliantly, within a room.[........]
* * * * * *
I pushed with all my strength the toy car’s little wheels. From the top of the stairs I had a panoramic view of the great hall. From up there, Lefkia’s fiery head truly seemed to have caught fire. I thought of warm yellow flames alighting from behind her ears and felt contentment, without knowing why. Later in life, similar, short-lived daydreaming would save me, unpacking all that unexplainable anger I hid inside me, or pushing it even further...[....]
His good looks reached their apogee when he won his first fencing matches. He was about nineteen years old, and when the match was over, not a single face in the crowd dared draw a breath. Most of the spectators, enchanted, were attempting to bring back to their mind’s eye the figure of the young fencer with the harmonious body, leaping as a feline on the air and, simultaneously, executing with unique synchronicity the motions of a dancer, as he attempted to find a way to bring his opponent to disadvantage. All of his body parts pulsed with the same internal agitation that makes warm light pulse, in its first attempt to become unleashed, brilliantly, within a room.[........]
* * * * * *
I pushed with all my strength the toy car’s little wheels. From the top of the stairs I had a panoramic view of the great hall. From up there, Lefkia’s fiery head truly seemed to have caught fire. I thought of warm yellow flames alighting from behind her ears and felt contentment, without knowing why. Later in life, similar, short-lived daydreaming would save me, unpacking all that unexplainable anger I hid inside me, or pushing it even further...[....]