The Enigmatic Eye     by Moacyr Scliar, Translated by Eloah F. Giacomelli Original title: O Olho enigmatico Original language: Portuguese Country: Brazil   Published by Ballantine Books, Inc. Pub. Date: 1990 Format: Paperback, 100 pages ISBN: 0345359690 Edition: 1st USA Edition List Price: $5.95, £3.78 Buy online from Amazon.co.uk for £3.78 Published by Ballantine Pub. Date: 1989 Pub. Place: USA Format: Paperback, 100 pages Not available for ordering Published by Available P: NY Pub. Date: 1989 Pub. Place: USA Format: 100 pages Not available for ordering

Enigmatic Eye is a short story collection, in fact a collection of very short stories. The best pieces here, the title story for example, are startling and suggestive; time-delayed depth charges to go off in a readers consciousness years later.... ‘Inside my dirty head — the Holocaust’ is a story on five or six things we know about the Holocaust and some that even now we’d rather not know... On the other hand you could read ‘Among the Wise Men’ and discover the meaning of fish, read ‘The Conspiracy’ and discover the inner formula of all political systems. ‘The Prodigal Uncle’ tests the saying ‘blood is thicker than water’ while ‘Root Canal Treatment’ explores existential anxiety rather than dentistry.

‘A Brief History of Capitalism’ involves a Communist car mechanic, he’s no good at his job but does it to because he wants to get his hands dirty and be a proletarian. It’s a wonderfully unpredictable piece with an ending that flies like an arrow for the mind to follow. ‘A Public Act’ is a succinct comment on war and violence while ‘Burning Angels’ is a little sick-tinted spin on religion and morality. ‘Free Topics’ is an acid fragment of ‘reality programming’ while ‘The Candidate’ is a knowing little satire on the cynicism of political life in Brazil (and elsewhere). ‘General Delivery’ is a beautiful story about ugliness while ‘In the Submarine Restaurant’ is all ‘noises off’ an ‘exercice de style’ à la Raymond Queneau. ‘Peace and War’ is an ironic ambush of our sense of everyday reality as is, in a more sinister way ‘The Blank’ about a murderer who excises the uncomfortable memory of his murdering; does that make him typically human? The auto-censure of memory must be a one of our survival mechanisms. ‘Many Many Meters above good and evil’ defies our expectations at every turn. Excellent. A fascinating series of flashes from an inquiring, agile mind.

My father was a Communist and a car mechanic. A good Communist, according to his comrades, but a lousy mechanic according to consensus. As a matter of fact, so great was his inability to handle cars that people wondered why he had chosen such an occupation. He used to say it had been a conscious choice on his part; he believed in manual work as a form of personal development, and he had confidence in machines and in their capability to liberate man and launch him into the future, in the direction of a freer, more desirable life. Roughly, that’s what he meant. 45