The Jade Cabinet
Rikki Ducornet. Dalkey Archive Press, $9.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-1-56478-031-7
Air is the subject of this last volume of Ducornet's Tetralogy of the Elements, set in Victorian England. (Apr.)
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Reviewed on: 01/31/1994
Genre: Fiction
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- GAZELLERikki DucornetSepia-toned like the tea-steeped ivory chess pieces commissioned at its start, this evocative if overripe brief novel by Ducornet (The Fan-Maker's Continue reading »
- The One Marvelous ThingRikki DucornetIllustrated with Motley's inky, scruffy black-and-white sketches, many of these 29 shorts from poet and novelist Ducornet aim to push readers' buttons, such as the exclamatory narrative Continue reading »
- Phosphor in DreamlandRikki DucornetAlthough Ducornet's Tetralogy of Elements ended in 1993 with the NBCC nominee The Jade Cabinet, her wondrous new novel might represent the most unpredictable property of all: light. In letters to a Continue reading »
- The Fountains of NeptuneRikki DucornetIn this allegorical novel--part absurdist fairy tale, part Mad Hatter's tea party--poet and novelist ( Entering Fire ) Ducornet renders a vexatiously baffling account of a mentally troubled Continue reading »
- The Complete Butcher's TalesRikki Ducornet, Ducomet RikkiLewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark provides the epigraph; his Jabberwocky donates the title of one story, ``Brillig''; and something of his creepy whimsy--mixed with a pinch of Chekhov and a Continue reading »
- The Word DesireRikki DucornetIn a few pages, each of Ducornet's dozen stories creates a universe. Readers familiar with her work (NBCC finalist for The Jade Cabinet, etc.) will recognize the theme--desire, its frustration, its Continue reading »
- Fan Makers InquisitionRikki Ducornet, DucornetThe Marquis de Sade, notorious Frenchman and sexual libertine, makes for a sensual, irreverent and politically illuminating subject in Ducornet's (Phosphor in Dreamland) lushly imagined seventh Continue reading »
- Entering FireRikki DucornetIn this parody of French fascism, Lamprias de Bergerac, a hedonistic Frenchman who becomes rich and famous for creating popular orchids, marries a cool, aristocratic woman who, as he puts it, has Continue reading »
- The Jade CabinetRikki DucornetThis novel, representing Air, is a numinous finale to Ducornet's Tetralogy of Elements, which also includes The Stain (Earth), Entering Fire (Fire) and The Fountains of Neptune (Water). Born into an Continue reading »
- NetsukeRikki DucornetSex and psychosis are indistinguishable in this killer new novel from Ducornet (The Fan-Maker's Inquisition). An unnamed psychoanalyst narrator has a habit of having sex with his patients. At the Continue reading »
- BrightfellowRikki DucornetDucornet has made an estimable career mining often bizarre, horrifying, or otherwise unpredictable territory. This novel is perhaps her most accessible book, which she achieves without sacrificing Continue reading »
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Let’s get this out of the way: Rikki Ducornet is the subject of Steely Dan’s 1974 hit “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” which, regardless of your appreciation of smooth jazz rock, Continue reading »
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