THE WORD 'DESIRE'

The Word ``Desire'' ($19.00; Oct.; 208 pp.; 0-8050-5173-2): Twelve calculatedly bizarre philosophical contes by the learned author of The Jade Cabinet (1993), and Phosphor in Dreamland (1995), among other varyingly successful exotica. The stories, which feel like separate parts of an episodic novel that never came together, explore varieties of sexual longing taken to extremities of sadism (``Roseveine''), scholarship (``Das Wunderbuch''), self-knowledge (``The Foxed Mirror''), and—in the wonderful ``Vertige DorÇ''—a transfiguring and gratifying madness. At her best, Ducornet blends surrealist wit with a rich bardic voice; at her weakest, as in the unfortunate majority of these ostentatious tales, she's one of the most mannered and cluttered of contemporary writers.