Good play on classics

Sue Orr had a bright, if challenging, idea for a book of short stories: why not use them to echo short-story masterpieces of the past, while dressing them in contemporary New Zealand clothing? The result is substantially good.

 


FROM UNDER THE OVERCOAT
Sue Orr
Vintage, $29.99, pbk

While each of her 10 stories is original, each also finds a match in literature's past. Thus, Gogol's The Overcoat is linked with Orr's Spectacles, a brilliant effort involving the lifting of the fog of myopia when a waitress acquires her first set of glasses.

In similar vein, Mansfield's The Dolls House is the inspiration for a wry twist on the phenomenon we know as the open home.

Fortunately, Orr does not attempt to match the style of her precedents, but does try to simulate their tone and, mostly, succeeds.

One or two, though, simply do not work, particularly Recreation, which is matched with Maori creation legend, and her Worms 87 comes nowhere near the tension and underlying menace of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw.

But, to be fair, such comparisons are hardly needed. Orr's stories stand on their own merits.

I should describe the whole as a courageous effort, conceptually intriguing and intellectually stimulating.

While Orr's stories are all designed to be read on their own qualities, the book does include brief notes on the classic originals - and a full version of Gogol's masterpiece.

 - Bryan James is the Books Editor.

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