Song of a Reformed Headhunter

 Read three novels during our one-week vacation in Maine. A very believable romance lies at the heart of Martha Cooley's new novel Buy Me Love , but in the depths lurks the tangled bond between brothers and sisters, and into the air rises an aria of love to Brooklyn. As for Alan Lightman's Reunion , the minor style cannot save a slight plot and slighter characters. Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita is a literary masterpiece. The floating point of view is a tremendously flexible and exciting device. The imagination at full stretch, whether revising the crucifixion narrative, inventing the Devil's ball, or describing the feeling of flying just above Moscow. Simultaneously profound philosophical and ethical questions are posed, such as cowardice and compromise while living under a totalitarian regime.

I am grateful to translators Martha Cooley and Antonio Romani for introducing me to the short fiction of Antonio Tabucchi. Time Ages in a Hurry collects nine stories: "The Circle," "Drip, Drop, Drippity-Drop," "Clouds," "The Dead at the Table," "Between Generals," "Yo me enamore del aire," "Festival," "Bucharest Hasn't Changed a Bit" and "Against Time." The stories are closely observed, often revolving around two people in conversation. The late Italian writer is profoundly concerned with the passing of time and its effects on memory, desire and fantasy. In the very poignant "Drip, Drop," a man waits beside his dying aunt, who has taken custody of not only him as a young boy, but also the childhood memories that he was too young to remember. The stories do not stay in Italy but range across Europe and beyond. "The Circle" is narrated from the perspective of a woman from t...