Volume 27, Number 9 · May 29, 1980
Stranger than Nonfiction
By Roger Sale
Freddy's Book
by John Gardner
Knopf, 246 pp., $10.00
The Girl in a Swing
by Richard Adams
Knopf, 339 pp., $11.95
Fantasy, children's literature, and science fiction—alternatives to the realistic novel—are becoming more common, not just as popular literature but as subjects for academics to teach. The fictional techniques of Malory, Dumas, Conan Doyle, of tale tellers sitting around the fire, all are much discussed and adapted. Leslie Fiedler, in his essay 'Cross the Border—Close the Gap,' wants to know if it isn't Robert Louis Stevenson rather than his contemporary Henry James who lies closer to the heart of modern literature. After Tolkien, it would seem, the deluge.
Review, 2016 words
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