Uncle Oswald
“The Visitor” introduces the reader to the character of Uncle Oswald, who appears in the last story here as well as in the novel My Uncle Oswald. He is a legendary lovemaker who has kept detailed records of his conquests. The arrival of these journals into the hands of his nephew is the first example of imagery in the collection and, indeed, commences the opening story and the luxurious quality of the description gives an indication of the significance of sexual conquests to one Oswald Hendryks Cornelius:
“Not long ago, a large wooden case was deposited at the door of my house by the railway delivery service. It was an unusually strong and well-constructed object, and made of some kind of dark-red hardwood, not unlike mahogany. I lifted it with great difficulty onto a table in the garden, and examined it carefully…Behold, it was filled with books!...Each of them was identically and superbly bound in rich green morocco, with the initials O.H.C. and a Roman numeral (I to XXVIII) tooled in gold upon the spine.”
Mary and Samantha
Mary is the narrator’s wife in the story "The Great Switcheroo." Samantha is his friend’s wife. The two of them concoct a plan to swap spouses one night without either wife being the wiser. The narrator is overconfident and perhaps less insightful than he thinks. Nevertheless, he confidently uses imagery to create a sense of tension and expectation:
“Mary, full of dark looks, was waiting for me in the hall. Samantha was there, too, saying goodbye to the last guests—Samantha with her dexterous fingers and her smooth skin and her smooth, dangerous thighs. `Cheer up, Vic,’ she said to me, her white teeth showing. She looked like the creation, the beginning of the world, the first morning.”
Texans
In “The Last Act,” a widow is making her very first trip to Texas alone as a result of being recently widowed. Up until then, her husband had always accompanied her. This change in circumstances brings upon her an intensifying new awareness of the natives expressed through the use of imagery:
“One could ignore their coarseness and their vulgarity. It wasn’t that. But there was, it seemed, a quality of ruthlessness still surviving among these people, something quite brutal, harsh, inexorable, that it was impossible to forgive. They had no bowels of compassion, no pity, no tenderness. The only so-called virtue they possessed…was a kind of professional benevolence. It was plastered all over them. Their voices, their smiles, were rich and syrupy with it.”
“Bitch”
The final story is all about the sense of smell and olfactory imagery permeates. Then again, so do physical descriptions of larger than life physical features. Like the other three stories, it is a tale obsessed with sexuality. After all, it is one of Uncle Oswald’s accounts contained within his glorious volumes. It is the imagery which brings to life the sense of smell, however, that is most expressive, as he describes a drug-like perfume sharing the name of the story's title:
“You cannot feel a smell. But this stuff was palpable. It was solid. It felt as though some kind of fiery liquid were being squirted up my nostrils under high pressure…I could feel it pushing higher and higher, penetrating far beyond the nasal passages, forcing its way up behind the forehand reaching for the brain.”
