Description: Mr. Golding who has been called an "anthropologist of the imagination" exemplifies this role in three allegories, distancing back in time, in one case early Egypt ritualized and emblazoned with mysteries, in another to a still more unspecified past reminiscent of The Inheritors with furred and feathered reminders of our earliest beginnings. Golding is always didactic in his intent and in "The Scorpion God" with its incestuous ruling class a Liar defies God and denies the afterlife and perhaps he speaks truest; while "Clonk Clonk" features a sexist struggle in a somewhat inconclusive fashion. The last of the three, "Envoy Extraordinary," takes place in ancient Rome and by comparison we seem to be billeted in modern times. Here the lighter satirical tone (this was at one point a play) is directed at still pertinent aspects of our civilization (the thunder-machine) and the commentary is far more direct. All three stories work better as purposeful apologues than as entertainment.

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