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Christopher Middleton. Crypto-Topographia: Stories of Secret Places. London. Enitharmon Press (Dufour, distr.). 2003 (© 2002). 94 pages. $19.95. ISBN 1-900564-97-1
THE SUBTITLE of Christopher Middleton's Crypto-Topographia would suggest that the thirty pieces assembled in this collection are stories, a word that connotes certain elements of plot and narrative. It also suggests that these "stories" share a special kind of setting: secret places. The reality is rather more complicated, as Middleton himself acknowledges. He calls the subtitle "a willing concession to readers unfamiliar with the domain of short prose." Some of the texts are indeed stories, he says, but the majority come in a range of genres, or in hybrid forms. Short prose, Middleton reminds us, has a rich and ancient history: "Readers will be familiar with some narrative modes of short prose: parable, legend, fable, anecdote, and probably the Japanese Ko'an." He mentions other forms as well, some of them associated with a particular author, such as the exemplary tale,...