Again there is a problem with human speech which gravitates from suitable neutral intonations to YMCA modern. There are journeys of triumph and hardship, spiritual awakening and aridity, prophetic myths from the past shadowing present and future and all the trappings of Messianic religion. Throughout, the human closest to the bear is Keldrek, an ignorant, humble hunter, who becomes, in his dedication to God-in-Shardik, a part of the Shardik priestess cult, a corrupt king, a shriven penitent, and finally the genius of a utopian colony. He is not anthropomorphized but becomes in turn a totemic manifestation, a living instrument of the ""power of God,"" a vehicle of ethnic destiny, a tortured prisoner of man's ignorance and cruelty, and at last the Redeemer, whose sacrificial death brings about a community of love and peace. This time, the animal is the huge bear Shardik, thudding through the forests of a nowhere land named Ortelga. Lewis Nardian/Wagnerian brush with religious evolutions. As one who, with the Elysian benefits of a classical education, takes to epic simile in the full knowledge that a plunge down the rabbit hole of myth-locked fantasy can be a hop-away best seller - one that so handsomely indicates that the public can ingest mope - so Richard Adams, author of Watership Down, spreads his scope, not only from rabbit to the magnitude of giant bear, but also from a Tolkien/Grahame adventure to a C.S.
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