Le vase de Delft et autres nouvelles.

Kops, Henri

On the occasion of Paul Willems's eighty-third birthday, the newest collection of stories by the dean of Belgian letters was issued in April 1995. While he was composing some of these tales, Willems described them in one of his letters to me as "ces debris mysterieux de choses vues ou d'etre rencontres qui se deposent sur nos plages interieures comme des coquillages. Ce sont nos plus chers tresors."

The longest tale progresses along twenty-nine pages to recapture local reactions to the German invasion in August 1914, the first month of World War I. In the shortest piece Willems distills into two pages the salient memory of his train ride on the Red Arrow from Moscow to Leningrad. The stories range wide and deep, some truncated even as in life; most are concentrated like a slow-release tablet. Style shrinks to breathtaking sparseness, soars on an exquisite poetic image, and can vent a rare flash of brave humor. This writer never shied away from modifying the spelling of a word to match his exploding concept, or the way a foreigner massacres French, and he even generates a portmanteau word. His talent so develops the mirrorlike polish of the portal of an estate that it becomes a virtual personage of his scene.

Willems's extensive exploration of China and his enduring interest in Sinology moderate his very manly love of woman. They contribute to the engaging originality of his marine fairy tale, crossed romances, and cautionary stories.

Henri Kops Fort Bragg, Ca.