September 7, 1986

SAINTS AND STRANGERS By Angela Carter. 126 pp. New York: Viking. $13.95. ANGELA CARTER might easily be marketed as an eccentric English author, a fabulist and a feminist. But her writing transcends nationality and critical labels, genre and gender. ''Saints and Strangers'' is not only immensely readable in itself but should send readers to her other work - two collections of stories; a translation of the fairy tales of Charles Perrault; two works of nonfiction, ''The Sadeian Woman'' and ''Nothing Sacred: Selected Writings''; and eight novels, among them ''Nights at the Circus,'' published last year, and ''The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffman,'' just reissued by Penguin. Ms. Carter's is an absolutely unique voice, intensely literary without being precious, deep without being difficult, indifferent to formulas without being ''experimental,'' and funny without being superficial or cruel. The sense of humor in this volume is a distinctive and healthy blend of English distance and American wackiness.

Boris Becker was wary of Miloslav Mecir, a reluctant visitor from Czechoslovakia who said he would rather be home fishing instead of playing tennis in the United States Open. Mecir expressed his feelings to Becker two weeks ago when the tournament began, and Becker believed him - until he noticed that Mecir had reached the Open semifinals. It suddenly sounded like a setup. Becker's fears were realized, because when the men's singles final is played on the Stadium Court today, Mecir, seeded No. 16, will be across the net from Ivan Lendl, the top seeded player who had been expecting another confrontation with Boris Becker. A renewal of that budding rivalry will have to come on another day.

AUTO ECONOMICS Detroit's latest round of car-buying incentives -car loans that range from no interest charge at all to 2.9 percent - should give the economy a nudge in the third quarter of this year, says Alan Greenspan, chairman of Townsend & Greenspan. ''But the boost will be small,'' he said. Consumer spending figures will reflect the brief car-buying boom, says Mr. Greenspan. Since the incentives have ''effectively cut the price of cars by 7 percent to 10 percent,'' he said, consumers are already buying more new cars than they ordinarily would have purchased. Domestic auto sales have suddenly risen to an annual level of 11 million units from about 8.5 million. But, he says, the sales are drawing from excess dealer inventories. They will not spur long-term new-car production, so the impact on overall economic growth will be minimal.

ARABIC-SPEAKING gunmen took control of a Pan American jumbo jet in Karachi, Pakistan, Friday, and after holding it on the ground for 16 hours, shot scores of passengers and set off grenades in the cabin. Of the 384 people aboard, at least 15, including three Americans, were killed and 127 were wounded, at least 50 of these seriously. The gunmen became panicky, according to passengers and officials, when the the cabin went dark because a generator had run out of fuel. They started to shoot as passengers and crew members began to escape through emergency exits.

''THOUSANDS of Women Get Back Girlish Figures on Incredible Super Diet.'' . . . ''New Medical Breakthrough! Lose Up to 50 Pounds Without Dieting.'' . . . ''All the Figure Toning of 3,000 Sit-Ups Without Moving an Inch.'' On and on go the advertising siren calls, sounding the wonders of a mammoth and bewildering industry that thrives on the American obsession with trim waistlines. The chance to make dollars off diets has attracted a remarkable assortment of businesses, from solid corporations such as Ciba-Geigy and Carnation to fly-by-night enterprises with box-number addresses. Some of the products are preposterous, like the pajamas that purportedly melt off pounds as you sleep. Some are dangerous, like the notorious tapeworm pills of years ago. But neither scandals nor deaths nor fears of being duped seem to dampen the consumer mania for thinness without pain. And, ironically, the very fact that so many weight-control products ultimately leave people as tubby as ever guarantees the vitality of the diet industry.