A review by kdawn999
The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz

3.0

This collection was weird—in both good and unfulfilling ways. The stories are linked (having the same core family characters) but they don’t progress any particular plot. Rather, the draw here is to the fantastically surreal language. The stories are full of rich and strange descriptions, but these characterizations don’t lead to much happening. In fact, multiple stories seem to be telling the same story in passing—the diminishment and depression of the narrator’s father, who seems to morph, Kafka-like, into a dead bird or a cockroach. The title story isn’t as evocative as its title suggests, but I can see why the original English edition went with the title “Cinnamon Shops” since that story is heftier thematically and more interesting as we follow our narrator through the odd labyrinth of his town at night. Sadly, these stories didn’t seem to have anywhere to go as stories, but the mind at work is quite poetically creative. It’s an unforgivable tragedy that the author was killed so horribly and so early in his career.