Corpus in the Library

In this collection of two novellas and seven short stories, Alf MacLochlainn comically reduces life’s problems to the minute details of everyday existence. Socks, shoes, and trousers suggest perplexing difficulties: how best to put them on, the intricacies involved in keeping them on, the physical (as well as psychological) laws related to the interaction of body and clothing. All such speculations come to an absurd, crashing halt as the contemporary mind, filled with an overload of information, attempts but fails to make sense of some of the simplest, though of course complex, mundane facts of daily life. From Dublin to Central Illinois to Outer Space, MacLochlainn’s stories embody the imaginative spirit of Samuel Beckett and Flann O’Brien.

Irish author Mac Lochlainn, best known for his surrealist novella Out of Focus, has just published his first collection of fictional works in 19 years, under the title of The Corpus in the Library. Essentially a collection of several stories and two novellas, the work is rather bland in its forced sophistication and much too aware of what constitutes "literature" to make it truly enjoyable. For example, the novella A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Bounty of Nature Enterprise retells the tale of Mutiny on the Bounty in a futuristic, space-age setting, but for all the potential in appropriating a popular text, Mac Lochlainn's story simply tosses together allusions to Captain Cook, Genesis and the like in an attempt at originality. As with most of the tales here, the result is high-quality, writerly work, but of a dry and academic sort. There is one exception: in "Space Invaders," the author examines the notion of personal space. Through sharp characterizations and personal insights, rather than literary allusions, Mac Lochlainn creates a story that is both moving and meditative. In short, The Corpus in the Library is an apt title, not just because Mac Lochlainn was for a long time director of the National Library of Ireland, but because this body of tales is in danger of being asphyxiated by the weight of texts.
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