\s mYevtew KALEIDOSCOPE - University of British Columbia

BOOKS IN REVIEW168stories. It is a pity that there will neverbe any more of them.Since Robin Skelton has been writingfor nearly forty years, it sounds impertinentto welcome him as a new writer.But The Man Who Sang in His Sleepcontains his first short stories, and theyshow traits of a writer who is tacklingthe form for the first time. This is a collectionof comic ghost stories. They areall extended jokes, really, each one followingthe same anecdotal patter fromdeadpan opening, through elaborate,shaggy-dog details, to final punchline.Some of these jokes are verbal ("TheBride") ; most are practical, and like allpractical jokes their subject is embarrassmentand revenge. All are narrated inthe first person, ostensibly by differentcharacters, but the voice is always thesame — a storyteller's voice.This should be enough to indicate thatreaders who approach these stories fromtheir knowledge of Robin Skelton'spoetry will find themselves disoriented.Skelton's poems are confessional, verballydense, technically various, intensely serious.The Man Who Sang in His Sleep issimply a different kind of work: betterto look for another approach.Perhaps the stories in this book havemore in common with the collages inSkelton's House of Dreams and the occultinterests of Spellcraft than they dowith the author's poems. (The coverphotograph of the author as magus is acompanion to the one in House ofDreams.) Indeed, in "Sarah," the finalstory, the storyteller's house is transformedinto a three-dimensional collageas a whimsical ghost compels him toamass an endless collection of Victorianbric-a-brac. The sense of acting undercompulsion, very strong in Skelton's commentaryto House of Dreams, is an essentialfeature of these stories, but it alwaysresults in a comic release. Even the haplessnarrator in "Householder," ambushedby ghosts and imprisoned in acrystal ball, can end his story by saying,"It's a lot easier now that I'm more relaxed."These are clever, playful tales,but some readers may find that tenshaggy-dog stories need to be taken insmall doses.PETER HINCHGLIFFEARMAGEDDONw. p. KIN SELLA, The Thrill of the Grass.Penguin, $5.95.IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA at the time.I had been asked to review a collection ofshort stories about baseball or, more accurately,as the back cover blurb announced,about how the game of baseballcan be seen as a microcosm of the humancondition. So... what better time towrite such a review than during theplayoffs, listening daily to Dons and Alsand Howards — especially Howards —hyperbolizing on the mystical perfectionof the split-fingered curve and equatingReggie's October miracles with some ofNapoleon's and Alexander the Great'sbetter days.But then an unusual thing happened :the Chicago Cubs made the playoffs,defying all odds and, by doing so, joiningtogether legions of other perpetual losers.But was their success truly that surprising?W. P. Kinsella explains all. In thefirst story in his collection, "The LastPennant before Armageddon," an extremelyloyal fan strikes a bargain withGod: if the Cubs win the pennant, theworld will come to an end. And now, asthe story predicts, the Cubs had won thefirst two games, and there were disturbingrumblings in El Salvador and Nicaragua.Kinsella's The Thrill of the Grass includestwo types of baseball stories. Thefirst chronicles the tedious, dismal life ofthe eternal minor-leaguer, trapped in