The Heliotrope Wall and Other Stories

Elements of myth, fantasy, fairy tale and the supernatural intrude in a majority of these seven extraordinary short stories of childhood and adolescence by Spanish writer Matute. In ``News of Young K.,'' a parable on brotherhood, a schoolyard bully pulverizes a cretin who wants to befriend him, but we later learn they share a dark secret. ``The King of the Zennos,'' which miraculously compresses a cycle of murder and rebirth into a few pages, is about the rejection of the mythic dimension by the over-rational mind. The fable ``Do Not Touch,'' whose teenaged heroine, Claudia, seemingly possesses psychic powers to destroy objects, deals with the stifling of the feminine principle. A National Book Award winner, Matute, in the title story, imposes an overwrought lyrical style on the thoughts and emotions of a 12-year-old boy whose parents are separated. Her straightforward, offhand approach works better, as in ``A Star on the Skin,'' which perfectly captures the anxieties of a young girl on whom the finality of death is suddenly thrust. Matute transforms the typical tale of the sensitive, precocious child into something magical and uniquely her own. (Mar.)