The Polymorphnby Gregory McNarneenMore Shapes Than Onenby Fred ChappellnNew York: St. Martin’s Press;n179 pp., $17.95nOver the last three decades FrednChappell has been steadily accumulatingnboth an enviable publishingnrecord — he has some twenty novelsnand collections of poems and stories tonhis credit—and a well-deserved reputationnas one of the South’s foremostnmen of letters. His latest book of shortnfictions, the aptly tided More ShapesnThan One, may make the second designationnless important; for Chappell,nit is increasingly apparent, is anuniversalist whose imagination rangesnover the globe. His native North Carolinaninforms his work and often providesnits settings, but he is not to benautomatically enlisted on any regionalnroll call.nChappell’s work is characterized bynan exquisite attention to language andnmood; his fiction is less concerned withnaction than with ideas, the more elevatednthe better. (In this Chappell resemblesnBorges and especially Poe, both ofnwhom he obviously admires.) Thenstories in More Shapes Than One donnot break any new ground — they arenunmistakably Chappell’s, told in voicesnwe have come to recognize—but neitherndo they give up any.nThe book does contain a few surprises.nOne is Chappell’s turn to Europenfor several of his tales, involvingnhistorical figures like French composernJacques Offenbach, German philosophernLudwig Feuerbach, and Swedishn40/CHRONICLESnLIBERAL ARTSnGROWING UPntaxonomist Karl von Linne, whonChappell, in a neat dissection of thenEuropean passion for order, depicts asnpuzzling over a mysterious tropicalnplant that escapes all his attempts atnclassification. Another is his growingnidentification with the all but forgottennschool of paranoiac fabulists publishednby Arkham House in the middle yearsnof this century, notably the ghoulishnH.P. Lovecraft, though Chappell is anbetter writer than any of them.nThree stories in particular illustratenChappell’s newfound fondness for thenmacabre: “The Somewhere Doors,”n”Mankind Journeys Through the Forestnof Symbols,” and “The Adder.”nThe first involves a writer of WeirdnTales persuasion who is co-opted bynextraterrestrials; in another time andnplace it might have made a fine episodenof The Twilight Zone. Chappell takesnrisks in treating such material, whichncould readily fall into pitfalls of formula.nThe second proceeds from one ofnthe most irresistible openings imaginable—n”There was a dream, and angaudy big thing it was, too, and for sixnhours it had been blocking Highway 51nbetween Turkey Knob and EmbernForks” — to a story line that turnsnFaulknerian romanticism on its ear,nand then some; Chappell is cleariynhaving a joke on his own Southernnessnin detailing the effects of this “thicknand goofy” renegade dream on thenunsuspecting hill folk of North Carolina.nThe last, however, is a true tour denforce, a Borgesian nightmare in whichna copy of the devilish Necromicon —nan alchemical treatise of the early MiddlenAges, also called “The Adder” fornits imputed poisonous qualities — findsnits way into the stock of a small-townnA team of UCLA researchers has studied the effectsnuntraditional lifestyles have had on the children of hippies.nPreliminary findings reported by the Chicago Tribune lastnDecember determined most children to be normal “basednon IQ and standardized tests,” despite the fact that “17npercent of the children have emotional or social problems,nor drug or alcohol addictions.” Of the 200 “hippie parents”nstudied, “most have gravitated toward the mainstream,”nbecoming “more settled” as they approach middle age. Asnone parent commented, “It was one thing to be a kid but it’snanother thing to have a kid.”nnnantiquarian bookseller. There it beginsnto devour other books, vampirishlyndraining the force from their wordsnwhile amassing ever more sinister powers.nIt is to Chappell’s credit that thisnunlikely turn of events seems, bynstory’s end, to be entirely plausible, andnthat a meek bookman should be thenone to save the world from the forces ofndarkness. “The Adder” approachesnperfection as a spooky tale, and is ansure bet to turn up henceforth in everynhorror anthology worth its sticker price.nUnderiying Chappell’s work, macabrenor not, is a celebration of the act ofncreation. That Chappell loves to write,nthat, like Flaubert, he loves turningnphrases until the mot juste sparkles onnthe page, is clear enough; his bookishncharacters, to the lowliest shotgunshacknpulp writer, vindicate the necessitynand usefulness of the writer’s craft,nand attest to its mysteries:nHe could write only thesenmelancholy twilight visions ofnthings distant in time and space,nstories that seem not entirelynhis, but gifts or visitations from ansource at which he could notnguess. His most difficult tasknwas to find words for them; henwas a shy man, naturallyntaciturn, and he considerednhimself unhandy with language.nBut when the stories came tonhim, the impulse to write themndown was too strong to resist.nThe stories compelled him tonwrite, to struggle with phrases inna way that felt incongruous tonhis personality. And so henwrote, stealing the hoiirs fromnhis bed, the strength from hisnbody. Each stroke of the pen,nevery noun and comma andnperiod, brought him closer tonthe beautiful release that henalways felt, as he did now, uponncompletion of a tale.nMore Shapes Than One, protean booknthat it is, abounds in such moments ofn”beautiful release.” However improbablenthe directions some of his weirdernfictions take, they add up to a thoroughlyndelightful collection that confirms,nonce again, Fred Chappell’s importancento contemporary letters.nGregory McNamee is a freelancenwriter living in Tucson, Arizona.n