Some of the stories [in Strange Things Happen Here] aren't half a page long; two pages is average. Mostly they're finished before we know what they're up to. There's one about a woman in a bus who picks the pocket of a man who feels her ass. It's well done, but it's over in a paragraph. What did we miss? The point, obviously. There's one about a pampas thistle that "thrives in a city that has eradicated green by decree," "a prickly, ugly little thistle, which even so looks radiantly beautiful to many." A dissident group, initially in pursuit of noble ends, turns it into a false idol and is co-opted by the tyrannical government. There is no hope in greenery or anything else. Maybe it's safer to stick to parable and mysterious vignette if you want to go on living and publishing in Argentina, where Valenzuela is...