The Fool and Other Moral Tales — Anne Serre

From the brilliant, sui generis Anne Serre -- author of the celebrated Governesses -- come three delicious, thoroughly out-of-the-way tales.

Fairy-tale atmospheres and complex narratives are a hallmark of the fiction of Anne Serre, represented here by three radically heterodox novellas.  The Fool “may have stepped out of a tarot pack: I came across this little figure rather late in life. Not being familiar with playing cards, still less with the tarot, I was a bit uncomfortable when I first set eyes on him. I believe in magic figures and distrust them…a figure observing you can turn the world upside down.”  The Narrator concerns a sort of writer-hero: “Outcasts who can't even tell a story are what you might call dropouts, lunatics, misfits. With them the narrator is in his element, but has one huge advantage: he can tell a story.” Little Table, Set Yourself! -- a moral tale concerning a family happily polyamorous -- is the most overtly a fable of these three works, and the briefest, but thin as a razor is thin.  A dream logic rules each of these wildly unpredictable, sensual and surreal novellas: these may be romps, but nevertheless deeply moral and entirely unforgettable ones.