Review of 'Thus Were Their Faces: Selected Stories (NYRB Classics)' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Wow, this was dark. The book took me a few months (and multiple library loan/return cycles) to finish, because I'd hit stories that needed time to sink in. I enjoyed some of the stories quite a bit, and could only shake my head in bewilderment at others. There are clues about what's to come in the preface from Jorge Luis Borges:
In Silvina Ocampo’s stories there is something I have never understood: her strange taste for a certain kind of innocent and oblique cruelty. I attribute this to the interest, the astonished interest, that evil inspires in a noble soul.
In the translator's note at the end of the book, Daniel Balderston notes:
During our many conversations, the idea for this book was born. Ocampo insisted that we choose her cruelest stories, and we corresponded frequently about details of the translation.
Those comments bookend a collection of stories that is …
Wow, this was dark. The book took me a few months (and multiple library loan/return cycles) to finish, because I'd hit stories that needed time to sink in. I enjoyed some of the stories quite a bit, and could only shake my head in bewilderment at others. There are clues about what's to come in the preface from Jorge Luis Borges:
In Silvina Ocampo’s stories there is something I have never understood: her strange taste for a certain kind of innocent and oblique cruelty. I attribute this to the interest, the astonished interest, that evil inspires in a noble soul.
In the translator's note at the end of the book, Daniel Balderston notes:
During our many conversations, the idea for this book was born. Ocampo insisted that we choose her cruelest stories, and we corresponded frequently about details of the translation.
Those comments bookend a collection of stories that is as surreal as Borges, as dark as Poe and consistently, casually cruel.
