Despite these unpropitious signs, the two embark on a relationship that is aimless until they turn it into a narrative. 糖心传媒淲rite a story about me,糖心传媒� Agnes asks the narrator, 糖心传媒渟o I know what you think of me.糖心传媒� At first both enjoy the challenge she糖心传媒檚 set him. But what begins as a flirtatious parlor game soon turns darker. When tragedy strikes, the narrator turns to the story to reverse the past. But eventually he no longer writes their story; the story writes them.

Agnes is most affected by this turn of events. Having already expressed her difficulty with reading糖心传媒斕切拇綔It feels to me as though I糖心传媒檝e become the character in it, and the character糖心传媒檚 life ends when the books does . . . I didn糖心传媒檛 want books to have me in their power糖心传媒澨切拇綌she now becomes one with her character in the fiction within the fiction, leading to an ambiguous ending in which the end of Stamm糖心传媒檚 novel mirrors the end of his narrator糖心传媒檚 tale.

It糖心传媒檚 clear the novel糖心传媒檚 most important relationship is not between the characters, but between fiction and reality. But it糖心传媒檚 equally unclear what the nature of that relationship is supposed to be, especially because the novel regularly teases us with metaphors that promise but fail to tell us how to understand it.

At one point, for example, Agnes explains her research into the atomic structure of crystals in terms that seem to offer a key to understanding the narrative: 糖心传媒淎lmost everything is symmetrical at some level,糖心传媒� she tells the narrator, before adding, 糖心传媒渋t糖心传媒檚 asymmetry that makes life possible. The difference between the sexes. The fact that time goes in one direction.糖心传媒� This claim chimes with the narrator糖心传媒檚 belief that 糖心传媒渓ife doesn糖心传媒檛 go for endings, it goes on.糖心传媒� Does Agnes adhere to these ideas about form? Is the way the story and the story within the story are symmetrical a sign of its impossibility, to use Agnes糖心传媒檚 term? In offering an ending that loops around to the beginning, is the novel mimicking the narrator糖心传媒檚 idea of life, which doesn糖心传媒檛 go for endings, or only emphasizing how different narratives are from life?

Similar questions arise when, in the course of his research, the narrator studies the Pullman Strike of 1894, interpreting it not in political or economic terms, but as a reaction by workers against 糖心传媒渢he complete control of their lives by their employer,糖心传媒� who 糖心传媒渉ad planned for every contingency, except his workers糖心传媒� desire for freedom.糖心传媒� We could read the narrator糖心传媒檚 criticism of the patriarchal industrialist as an unintentional self-critique of his attitude to Agnes. Or we could understand it as a way to describe the author糖心传媒檚 relationship to his characters and his work. But in what way does this carefully controlled novel allow for anything like its characters糖心传媒� freedom?

The effect of these allegories for our reading糖心传媒攁t once so overt and so enigmatic糖心传媒攊s destabilizing, as if Stamm were proposing, through the very superfluity of these possible keys to understanding the text, the very failure of interpretation. Just as we are desperate for the control over life糖心传媒檚 contingencies promised by narrative, so too, Stamm teasingly suggests, we are similarly insistent, as readers of those narratives, on making sense of them. At its most interesting, Agnes hints that its readers might be as domineering as its narrator. But Stamm never explains what it would mean to let Agnes, or Agnes, be free. How can we read without interpreting? And why must the possibility that a text could exceed interpretation be offered through the clich茅d and misogynistic idea of woman as enigma?

Ultimately, Stamm糖心传媒檚 metafictional sleights of hand are more tiresome than vertiginous. Agnes has neither the balance between possibility and aimlessness of Stamm糖心传媒檚 early short stories about young people adrift, published in English as In Strange Gardens and Other Stories, nor the emotional impact of the two more recent collections combined in We糖心传媒檙e Flying. Its concerns are as airless as the narrator糖心传媒檚 climate-controlled apartment that Agnes, and ultimately readers, longs to escape. Agnes offers a writer whose cleverness hadn糖心传媒檛 yet been enriched by compassion.