THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA

The first-ever English translation of an ambitious, polyglot work by Potocki (1761-1815)Polish nobleman, scholar, historian, and ethnographerthat was written in French and published at odd times and in various stages of completion between 1797 and 1815. Elements of the Arabian Nights, Canterbury Tales, and especially Boccaccio's Decameron blend entertainingly in this story that recounts, among many other matters, the experiences of a young Walloon soldier traveling through Spain in the early 18th century. When Alphonse van Worden finds lodgings at a remote inn, he falls under the spell of two beautiful sisters (who may possibly be succubi) and meets a motley group of other travelers who share 66 days' worth of stories. The tales are begun, broken off, and taken up again as the listeners interrupt, question, and embroider on their companions' effusionsas one of them puts it, ``The first story engenders the second, from which a third is born, and so on, like periodic fractions resulting from certain divisions which can be indefinitely prolonged.'' Prominent among the several narrators are Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew, whose lengthy tale ranges over the entire world of classical history and legend, and the saturnine gypsy chief Avadoro. But the standout stories are ``Zoto's Tale,'' the endearingly picaresque biography of a resourceful brigand, and the tale told by ``Blas Hervas, the Reprobate Pilgrim''an account of a life transformed by the love of learning that Borges might have dreamed up. Though certain narrative elements are numbingly repeated, and a tendency toward discursiveness all but overpowers the book's last third or so, this remains a vivid and fascinating work, effectively translated by Maclean (French/Oxford Univ.) into a charmingly archaic idiom that strikes just the right note of decadent formality. A seductively lurid Gothic-Romantic near-masterpiece, packed with overheated and often attenuated tales of extravagant adventure, philosophical speculation, unrequited love, and supernatural visitation.