Book Review: Irreal Fiction Focuses on Dreams

The Irreal Reader: Fiction & Essays from The Cafe Irreal by G.S. Evans
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An anthology of short stories most strange, but that's the nature of irreal. Irreal is defined as "works of fiction in which physical reality reflects psychological reality in a manner that imitates the reality of a dream." Hence, the reader samples fragments both deeply personal and very international in their use of generally recognized symbols.

In these pages you'll encounter a doctor skilled at diagnosing love, the happenings in a town that caught a Minotaur, and a young man who receives a new father courtesy of the CIA.

I missed a great deal of the symbolism. But taken for what they are, the tales are overall intriguing. My main critque was the large number of essays in the back defining irreal, separating it from surreal, allegory or magical realism. While well-written and concise, the essays occupied around a third of the book. Like the literary style they explain, less is definitely more.

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Short Story Du Jour #3

Screw Amazon. Try Raw Dog.

Café Irreal, “Manuscript Found by a Stoplight After a Grave Accident” by Osvaldo Gonzalez Real 1,035 words 

 Here’s a droll little tail from a quarterly webzine seeking “fantastic fiction infrequently published in English . . . described[ed] as irreal . . . resembl[ing] the work of writers such as Franz Kafka, Kobo Abe, Clarice Lispector and Jorge Luis Borges."  A dead man looks back on his last day and realizes he’s not as unique as he thinks. 

Funny, fast, with a nice twist at the end. And it certainly lived up to “irreal.” Here’s a sample of the writing: 

 “Patiently, I gathered all the possible data regarding fatal traffic accidents of the past five years. I investigated—with the help of an astronomer—the periodical variations of solar flares, eclipses, and the strontium levels found in fluvial precipitations. I consulted experts on ecology and numismatics. Finally, using a bell-curve graph—the result of my erudite and tedious investigations—I honed in on the N260 and N300 bus lines. From that moment onwards I felt more assured of accomplishing my goal: math was on my side.” 

 On Monday, I’ll be exploring Beneath Ceaseless Skies.