The Devil's Mode, Stories

Stories imagine a meeting between Shakespeare and Cervantes, Attila the Hun's thoughts on civilization, Claude Debussy's musical discovery, and a man who becomes a permament traveler

YA-- Characters from history such as Attila the Hun, Shakespeare, Debussy, and Browning are among those who people these richly allusive short stories. Of varied lengths from 10 to 120 pages, the 9 offerings are in an ornate traditional style and will appeal most to period specialists and/or students challenged by creative and intellectual play. Discourse about music, the mind, power, as well as art, religion, and class are among themes examined; foreign settings abound (Spain, Austria, France, Malaya, Egypt). As a contrast to minimalism in the contemporary short story, and individually as concomitants to historical studies, these highly textured pieces reflect creative scholarshipfor sophisticated readers. --Carolyn Trachta, formerly at Clear Creek High School, League City, TX
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The prolific author's first collection of short stories is a bonbon assortment, a mix of imaginary historical tales and fictional travel pieces. In the most daring story, William Shakespeare, visiting Spain with his troupe, meets an aged, raging Cervantes. In another, French poet Stephane Mallarme, bumming around Dublin with his pal, young Claude Debussy, trades views on art with 77-year-old Robert Browning. "Hun," a long, bloody romp through the crumbling Roman Empire, involves betrayal, murder and intrigue as Roman general Aetius attempts to use fearsome prince Attila as a "great whip" against Goths and Visigoths. Two stories deal with Englishmen's fascination with dark female flesh in the tropics. In "Murder to Music," a detective story a la Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes solves a case using a clue the reader may spot early on without being able to decode it. Laced with wit and irony, these sometimes convoluted tales are, at their frequent best, marvels of experiment and imagination.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Three of the nine tales in Burgess's first collection of short stories are set in our time, each a sourly comic vignette of love and loneliness. The past is hardly more cheerful about humankind but proves more entertaining. In the tradition of Walter Savage Landor's Imaginary Conversations , hypothetical encounters are projected: Shakespeare and Cervantes in Spain (during a "friendship" tour Will and company make after the Armada has been defeated); Debussy, Mallarme, and Robert Browning in Dublin (where the Frenchmen delight in poetic and musical experimentation the aging Browning deplores); and Sherlock Holmes and Pablo Sarasate in London (where Holmes discovers that the violinist is a political assassin). Two novellas retell, respectively, the story of Der Rosenkavalier and Attila the Hun. Burgess is too dexterous ever to be dull, but in this moderately diverting collection, mild irony and witty erudition fail to disguise a want of feeling.
- Arthur Waldhorn, City Coll.,
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.