“A Wrinkle in the Realm” by Ben Okri

This is an intriguing though somewhat opaque story written in third-person omniscient. The omniscient part is a bit selective because we don’t know what some key anonymous people in the story think, but are told what general groups of people think. The story is heavily focused on the main character and written so deftly that, though written in third-person, much of it has the intimacy of first-person. This story, while certainly literary, I think also fits into the category of magical realism.

The main character becomes fixated on his appearance after noticing women cross the street to avoid him or move their handbags farther from him. He’s not sure why women have this reaction to him. The unnamed main character is never described, though his appearance is key to the story. Or, maybe better, the main character’s self-perception and fixation with his appearance is key to the story.

In reading Ben Okri’s conversation with Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at The New Yorker, where the story was published, it focuses on the main character being black, though his physical appearance was never described. Ben Okri is black, and he basically said it was the story involving a black man’s experience. But, I dunno. It seems to me that this story is much more universal. I’ve noticed women cross the street to get away from me, and I’m not black. Also, the idea of changing who you are by wearing a mask is universal. I would say many of us try on, metaphorically, many different masks in our lives in an effort to fit in or find what feels…