Dino Buzzati's The Tartar Steppe is one of a handful of novels whose impact on me will never fade, so I was eager to read this collection of short stories. What comes through, in addition to the supernatural and bizarre effects, is Buzzati's keen and penetrating understanding of the mass mind, especially in "The Scala Scare." Herd mentality, willful disbelief of obvious facts, pursuits of chimeras -- these are the ways humans engineer their own downfalls, and Buzzati is there to point a finger, with just the merest trace of a smirk on his lips.
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