Tigrela and Other Stories

Certain of this Brazilian author's 14 stories gathered here are chilling and subtle. Told with a sensitivity to detail and character development, they portray universal fears and desires. For example, in ""The Ants,'' two terrified students watch as a dwarf's skeleton is reconstructed. In ``The Consultation,'' a servile psychiatric patient assumes his doctor's identity and determines another patient's fate. However, Telles has executed other stories less skillfully. ``Yellow Nocturne,'' in which a woman conjures up events from her youth, suffers from an inadequately explained plot that gets lost in a surfeit of imagery. Telles also tends to overdramatize scenes that are incidental to the story. This is an uneven collection; the better passages effectively illustrate our terror of impending death and our yearning for love and immortality, but overall Telles disappoints. (May)