Review: Magical & Mysterious
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 22, 2012
10 magical modern short stories from a master of language, stories full of humanity, imagination and animals: dogs, frogs - lots of frogs, insects, a bear, an elephant, lions, tigers, horses, squirrels, a stag, several wolves, and pigs.Someone - was it Sol Stein? - said that fiction should be interesting and clear. These stories are high on the interesting scale but, for me, they fell short on the 'clear' scale. The Orange Pig, for example, read like an allegory, but I never found the key.The jewel in this collection is Airman, a haunting ghost story about two men who bailed out of a WWII bomber over the burning city of Dresden. Several of the stories are fables, narrated from on omniscient viewpoint, and you have to applaud a writer who can pull off this difficult task.I happily recommend this book and give it 4 stars.JJ Toner, from The Kindle Book Review