cover image The Silken Thread: Stories and Sketches

The Silken Thread: Stories and Sketches

Cora Sandel. Ohio University Press, $0 (175pp) ISBN 978-0-8214-0864-3

Norwegian born Sandel (pseudonym of Sara Fabricuis) is best known for the semi-autobiographical The Alberta Trilogy, published at the beginning of this century. In this current collection of shorter works written between the 1920s and 1972, the stories are intimate, economical recordings and observations of 20th century women, and Sandel's feminist orientation and eye for painterly detail, which invite comparison with Colette (whose books she translated into Norwegian), are evident. The theme of woman's imprisonment in the male-female relationship is explored with irony in ""The Women in the Bath House,'' a picture of pathetic, pampered concubines; in ``The Bracelet,'' where a ``woman without a man'' is humiliated; in ``Avalanche,'' where silence between a husband and wife is fatally eloquent. Sandel's sketches of animals, particularly cats (``Puttycass''), exude a Colette-like sensuousness. Less successful, perhaps because of translation obstacles, is the poem ``Today the Rose.'' (July 15)