These stories span Abe's earlier years and represent the only English-translated short stories I know of, possibly even his only short stories in any language, though it is hard to find information on his shorts and plays. Some of the stories included here later were used as source for plays or novels that readers may be more familiar with. I read this collection over a long span of time, not all in one go, so I apologize if some of the details (especially in the first four stories) are a bit off due to a foggy memory.

Irrelevant Death (1961)
This is quite a way to kick off the collection. A man finds a dead body in his apartment randomly one day. Most of the story follows his paranoid speculations about what might happen if he reported it since he assumes he is being framed. For whatever reason, I love stories like this, and this is one of my favorites.

The Crime of S. Karma (1951)
This is an excerpt from a novel or novella never fully published in English in which a man finds his business card has taken human form and attempted to replace him at work. Without this business card, the man cannot confirm his identity and is forced to follow this impostor, violently trying to reassert himself.

Dendrocacalia (1949)
A man finds himself inexplicably turning into a plant. Not much else I can remember without ruining it, but I do recall it, at least in the ending, being amusing.

The Life of a Poet (1951)
Easily my least favorite in the collection and all his work in English. It reads like a children's fable except about how the poor are mistreated, and there is this story about how the poet's mother gets turned into a sweater, which you get the feeling is the central story at first, but then somehow isn't... The stories ideas don't seem to mesh, and the social criticism comes across too strongly, which seems inappropriate to the type of story it is.

Record of a Transformation (1954)
Somewhat a precursor to his screenplay for Pitfall, Transformation is about the souls of soldiers who follow as ghosts unseen by the living. It's an enjoyable story, but if you have the chance, see Pitfall as a much better example of a similar idea.

Intruders (1951)
While this story is clearly the source for Abe's play Friends, there are enough little details to separate the two. In both stories, a large family intrudes on a single man's apartment one night and lays claim to it. Whenever he objects to anything they do (eating his food, stealing his money, sleeping in his bed, etc.), they vote on what to do and of course they have the majority! The police refuse to help because they don't interfere with "domestic troubles" and can't prove the family aren't his friends. This is both funny and horrifying at times. Unlike Friends, which readers are more likely to be familiar with as it is his most popular play internationally (and for good reason), Intruders is not too ambiguous. It seems to be a criticism and parody of US occupation of Japan and the replacement of their government and values, while Friends leaves you wondering who is right if anyone. I'll certainly say I enjoyed Friends more, but not by much since they are so similar. This is another of my favorites in the collection.

Noah's Ark (1952)
A short, funny parody of several stories from Genesis and perhaps Christianity in general.

The Special Envoy (1958)
A lot of the stories here are about the inability to prove oneself innocent, but this story turns the formula around with the main character being the doubting one. A science professor encounters a man claiming to be a Martian, but as he questions the stranger, he can make no headway because he has an answer for everything on why he can't prove that he is a Martian. Not quite up to par with similar stories here, but it's short and a slight change of pace, so I enjoyed it.

Beguiled (1957)
This story reads like a Monty Python sketch despite predating Flying Circus by over a decade. One man walks into a waiting area for a train and sits by two women. Then, another man walks in and is surprised to see the first man. He looks around paranoid and claims to be caught at last by the other man, who hardly acknowledges him. He goes on and on about some life-or-death game played between the two and repeatedly uses the two women as examples, saying how easy it would be to best them and kill them, as they stare in fright and confusion wondering what's going on. This is one of the better ones.

The Bet (1960)
This reminds me just a bit of Secret Rendezvous in that it involves a labyrinthine building full of absurdities. An architect keeps getting stranger and stranger demands for his project, such as to have more hallways than there are people in the building, or to connect two rooms that have an entire floor between them. To better explain their demands, the company invites him to their office where he finds secret passage ways, odd sounds and signs, and of course people behaving strangely.

The Dream Soldier (1957)
This one was rather tame, though I think I may have missed something. It's about an officer in a remote village who is alerted to a deserting soldier who is likely heading to the village and should be considered dangerous. The townspeople are perhaps overly zealous in their reactions, calling the deserter a traitor amongst other epithets, but the officer has mixed feelings. Hard to say much without ruining it. Not a bad story, though.

Beyond the Curve (1966)
Readers of The Ruined Map will immediately recognize this. Written a year before the novel, this story is about a man who is going up the same hill described in the opening novel of the chapter when he suddenly cannot remember what is "beyond the curve." The more he tries to remember, the more he realizes he has forgotten, and fearful of what may lie ahead of him, he turns back and goes to the coffee house described in the novel. It's been a long time since I read the novel, so I find it hard to compare the two, but I enjoyed this story perhaps the most out of the collection. Like Irrelevant Death, what makes this story so enjoyable is the way we are put into the narrator's head as we follow his every little thought, as his narrators often follow a unique logic.

+++++++++++

Overall, a nice collection, but easily eclipsed by his other work. The better stories in here mostly found their way into his novels, plays, and screenplays anyway, so unfortunately there isn't much to recommend the collection except to those simply looking for more Abe. If this were all he ever wrote, I'd be more impressed, but it's hard to keep from comparing it to his later work which just got better and better. I doubt anyone finds this book but those who've already read his other works though, so this should not be a problem. If you liked what you read in his other works, you will at least find something to like here, if not all of it. ( )