Collection of stories shares an extravagant 'View'

Kevin Brockmeier writes eccentrically about conventional themes. (Benjamin krain/pantheon books via ap)

The View From the Seventh Layer
By Kevin Brockmeier
Pantheon, 288 pp., $21.95

In Kevin Brockmeier's stories, a city chooses silence over clamor and regrets it, a priest spurns a ghost seeking his love, a man buys God's overcoat and fulfills the prayers he finds on notes in its pockets, and parakeets sing for a mute, among other tales.

If you enjoy peculiarity for peculiarity's sake, such as a story in which Captain Kirk of "Star Trek" finally does the right thing and returns to a woman he romanced on yet another intergalactic fling, read on. If not, no worries.

Brockmeier's "The View From the Seventh Layer" is an exercise in extravagance. His themes are conventional, like the virtue of love. But his writing is so eccentric that what resonates most in this tedious collection is the self-indulgence of the author, who seems intent on showing how wacky he can be.

Most of the stories are fables, a revered literary form used by writers from Aesop to Orwell. But because this once-upon-a-time form unveils its themes so discursively and has been around for millennia, it requires especially fresh, incisive themes. Otherwise, it comes off as presumptuous and patronizing, asserting thematic depth where there is none.

Brockmeier's fables are as such. In "A Fable Ending in the Sound of a Thousand Parakeets," about the mute living in a city where everyone else sings, the birds sing for him. The fable thematically suggests everyone is gifted. In "The Year of Silence," the newly quiet city decides to be loud again, suggesting we should appreciate what we have.

In "The View From the Seventh Layer," a woman lives simultaneously in the past and present, as does "the Entity" from the seventh layer of space, where "nothing was ever truly lost, and nothing was ever truly irreparable," suggesting good changes in life are possible. In "Andrea Is Changing Her Name," a man tells of his unrequited love for a woman he grew up with, suggesting we often seek what we cannot have.

Brockmeier's elaborate vacuity is most on display in "The Human Soul as a Rube Goldberg Device: A Choose-Your-Own Adventure Story." In 15 of its 33 chapters, readers have a choice at the end - if they want the story to go in one direction, they must turn to a certain chapter; if they want another direction, they must turn to a different chapter. In 17 chapters, they are told at the end to turn to the final chapter. There are thus many stories within the story, depending on the choices. Yet no story is strong.

Rube Goldberg, the 20th-century American cartoonist, would like this book, as it mirrors his devices, which are ornate machines that do simple tasks in circuitous ways; the board game Mouse Trap is an example. Reading this book is like watching its metal ball roll down the stairs and into the pipe, hitting the rod that tips the bowling ball, and so on until the cage falls on the mouse.

While funny, you soon wonder: Why so much, for so little?

Robert Braile reviews regularly for the Globe.