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Magical powers
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He Used To Do Dangerous Things
Gaia Holmes, Comma Press, £10.99
ARGENTINIAN author Jorge Luis Borges once claimed that artistic creation was, for him, like surrendering to a “voluntary dream.” Though he was speaking of art in general, his words seem particularly applicable to his chosen form: the short story.
Of all literary forms, the short story seems closest to a voluntary dream, in terms of its narrative length, its disorientating propensity to start and end in the middle of things, and its frequent recourse to non-rationalist elements. The magical, the ghostly, the surreal often irrupt into short stories, even those which, at first glance, seem straightforwardly realist in tone and subject matter.
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