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Anecdotes of Destiny & Ehrengard by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen). Background: Sinamay fabric woven in Iloilo.

The stories in Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard read like fairy tales told by a very elegant realist. That sensible fabulist is Isak Dinesen, the writer we want to be when we grow up. (Good thing we are unlikely to grow up, because disappointment is inevitable.) This collection contains Babette’s Feast, adapted into one of the greatest food movies ever made. (If you have not seen it, get a sandwich and watch it during your lunch hour. Here it is.)

We recall the movie as a procession of fabulous dishes arriving at the table (or are we confusing it with The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover). Isak Dinesen’s story barely mentions the dishes, just turtle soup and some fine wine. It is a sublime tale of art and how the true artist has an obligation to create art whatever the circumstances.

Anecdotes of Destiny also includes The Immortal Story, about a wealthy, dried-up tea merchant in Canton who decides to turn an old sailor’s tale into reality. And then there is Ehrengard, a romance involving a crown, a dynasty, an heir arriving two months earlier than decency dictates, and the courtiers and subjects who must conceal this ignominy.

If you want a glimpse into your favorite authors’ thought processes, you could try copying their sentences in your own hand. We admire Dinesen so much we’d like to know her stories forward and backward. So we wrote parts of them backward. (We taught ourselves mirror-writing in order to stay awake during boring classes.)

What the page looks like, flipped.