Alcina and Other Stories

Most of the 12 simply styled stories in this collection are quaint slice-of-life tales drawn from the people and places of the author’s life in early-20th-century Italy. The best, however, are fantasies that depart from the ordinary. In the title story, a man and woman experience an out-of-body communion of the spirit in an antique temple in “a land where every stone had a magic power, a fabulous past.” “The Soul of the Instrument” is a fairy tale in which the devil fashions the family of a young woman into a magic musical instrument whose melodies seduce the object of her unrequited love. “La Bela Madamin” describes an antique clock that transports its owner spiritually back in time to the 18th century. In telling these tales, Gozzano (1883–1916) alternates effortlessly between everyday descriptions of local color and macabre depictions of familiar things “strangely deformed by nightmare.” This book is a fine introduction to Gozzano’s short fiction, which is largely unknown outside of its original Italian. (Apr.)