“The Interview”
This story relates the first contact between alien life from another planet with human beings on earth. The irony lies in the mundane information that is exchanged during this epochal event. The alien learns—something—about human digestion, why people clean things so often, and sexual reproduction—but not much else and not all that much about those aspects of existence.
Post-War Anti-Semitism
In “The Tommy-Gun Under the Bed” a sly ironic reference to the recent history of overzealous anti-Semitism in Europe is made. The allusion has to do with the author’s actual name as this is a story that is situated in the authenticity of possibly being based on a true story. The “they” here are the post-war Soviet Russians:
“Perhaps slightly allergic to our surname Levi, they received her with distrust and incredulity.”
The Myth of Borders
Nationalism is explored through irony in “The Two Flags” which centers upon two bordering countries called Lantania and Gunduwia. Naturally, the populations of these countries have developed an intense antipathy toward the other based entirely upon the solid belief in the inherent superiority of the one over the other. Everything begins to fall apart for the main character from Lantania with news that a professor claims he can prove both languages descended from a common ancestor. It is furthermore discovered that the navies of the two countries had once joined together to fight off a common enemy. The irony that borders are entirely artificial and bear no impact upon character or genetics comes to destroy the protagonist’s satisfied view of a simplistic world.
The Metamir
The titular maker of mirrors in the story which gives the collection its name has defied the laws of optics and all expectations to invent an unbelievably revolutionary addition to the rather stalled evolution of his craft. The Metamair can be adhered to the forehead of a person allowing anyone who looks into it to see a reflection of themselves as that person sees them. It is potentially earth-shaking invention with the capacity to change the nature of human relationships and so therefore, ironically yet almost inevitably, it fails to sell.
“Force Majeure”
This Kafkaesque story is about a man known only as M. who finds himself in a bad part of town with which he is unfamiliar. For absolutely no reason at all, he is accosted by a young sailor as he simply tries to make his way past him on his way. The sailor fights dirty as well, adding to the strangeness and alienating effect of the odd encounter. Also: a girl who may be a prostitute passes them both by with no problem. At one point, M. recalls a number of books and movies that feature showdowns between incarnations of the forces of good against the forces of evil. The lesson he learns, ironically, is that stories rarely tell the truth about what really happens in such encounters.
