Nothing Short Of Brilliant -- Garcia Marquez's Remarkable Short Stories Long In Making

"Strange Pilgrims" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez translated by Edith Grossman Knopf, $21 -----------------------------

Many writers may have stashed away stories they've worked on intermittently since, say, 1977 and about which they have misgivings: Has it really taken me 16 years to finish a short story? Shouldn't I feel a little ashamed? Is it time to give up the word processor and join the post office or parks department?

Not to worry.

In his latest book, Gabriel Garcia Marquez ("One Hundred Years of Solitude") assembles a dozen stories that took him 18 years to whip into shape. And if a Nobel laureate needs that much time to get it right, maybe there's hope for lesser mortals.

In some cases, Garcia Marquez's earlier drafts took the form of screenplays, two of which became films seen in Seattle a few years ago. Another tale had an even more convoluted genesis, as the author explains in his entertaining preface: "Fifteen years ago I recounted (it) during a taped interview with a friend who transcribed and published the story, and now I've rewritten it on the basis of his version."

This may sound like a slap-happy way to write world-class fiction, but there isn't any arguing with the results. Each of these tales is a gem.

STORIES SET IN EUROPE

The settings may come as a surprise to Garcia Marquez fans, too. They're the product of his years in Europe, and take place in France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland rather than his native Colombia or adopted home, Mexico City.

There also is stronger emphasis on pure narrative than in past work. The founding father of magic realism has been borrowing tricks from Edgar Allan Poe lately, and a number of the tales are deliciously effective spine-tinglers. Others are poignant flights of fancy that call to mind his early short-story masterpiece, "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings."

Among the standouts: "I Only Came To Use the Phone," about a young woman whose checkered sexual past keeps her suspicious husband from rescuing her from the lunatic asylum where she goes for help after her car breaks down; "The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow," about an erotically frenzied honeymoon couple who fail to take the bride's rose-thorn scratch seriously, even though she can't stanch its bleeding; and "Bon Voyage, Mr. President," about an ailing Latin American leader in Swiss exile whose encounter with two conniving compatriots has unexpected results.

"Tramontana," a brief parable about the ill effects of a Santa Ana-like Spanish wind, draws on the banalities of Costa Brava tourism to serve up something far more menacing. In "Light Is Like Water," Garcia Marquez evokes "the poetry of household objects" with a tale of 39 schoolboys whose attempt to "navigate" electrical current turns a Madrid apartment into an eerily luminous graveyard.

CHANGING POINTS OF VIEW

Two of the filmscripts-made-into-stories offer intriguing instances of how a change in perspective can change the nature of a tale.

In "The Saint" (filmed as "Miracle in Rome"), a devoted father journeys to Rome to ask the pope to canonize his dead 7-year-old daughter whose body is free of decay 11 years after her death. While the film places the action right in front of the viewer's eyes, the story relies more on hearsay, giving its tale of obsession a legend-like quality.

"Miss Forbes's Summer of Happiness" (filmed as "The Summer of Miss Forbes") comically evokes two Caribbean boys' misery when their Italian vacation is ruined by the German governess hired to look after them while their parents enjoy themselves. On film, the magnificent Hanna Schygulla grabs the spotlight as the martinet with a secret nightlife; on the page, with one of the boys narrating, it becomes a study of inflamed imagination as much as a droll, gothic clash between Northern and Southern temperaments.

Scattered appearances by real-life characters - Pablo Neruda, Miguel Otero Silva - add the flavor of memoir to a couple of tales. Garcia Marquez's ability to bring characters to life with a phrase is best demonstrated in "Maria dos Prazeres," about a crusty old Barcelona prostitute with a "laugh sharp as hail" who takes pride in planning her funeral so thoroughly that she can die at any moment "without inconveniencing anyone."

SMOOTH TRANSLATION

Special praise should go to Edith Grossman, Garcia Marquez's translator since "Love in the Time of Cholera." She has her work cut out for her in equaling the skill of Gregory Rabassa, translator of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "The Autumn of the Patriarch." Her language is so musical and agile that one forgets the book is a translation.

Thanks to her, Garcia Marquez's comment in his introduction on the joys of storytelling - "the human condition that most resembles levitation" - rings triumphantly true.

Michael Upchurch is a Seattle novelist and critic.