Bad Man Ballad (Library of Indiana Classics) - Softcover

Grade 6 Up The story told here is a fairly simplealthough decidedly oddone: during the French and Indian War a mysterious giant murders a dwarf with whom he has been travelling. Two residents of the frontier Ohio community where this happens volunteer to pursue the giant (who has fled) and return him for trial. The giant is duly tried and executed, although not as the court had intended. End of story. But there's more to this ballad than meets the eyeor ear, as the case may be. So much more, in fact, that alert readers will soon realize that this is not a ballad at all, but an allegory which, of course, is a symbolic narrative. Thus, the giant isn't simply a giant but the personification of the American Indian; the dwarf isn't just a curiosity of nature but the epitome of the mind and character of those who exploited, used, and abused the Indian. The pursuersOwen Lightfoot and Elyare not just lawyer and young frontiersman, respectively, but civilization and priest/judge. For Sanders, the American frontier is obviously not a brave new world, but rather a descent into barbarianism. This is symbolically expressed, too: lawyer Lightfoot reads The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire while plying his legal trade in the town of Roma (!), the book's setting. Yes, Sanders' book is a powerful, somber, even magisterial evocation of an occasion for collective American shame. And yes, his characters are fully realized and sympathetic, although Lightfoot is too obviously a symbol, and the giant, Bear Walks, might better be named Symbol Lumbers. Yet. . .yet. . .there is not an uncalculated breath of life in the book, no hint of relieving humor, not one spontaneous, accidental, or unplanned moment. If the book were a train, it would be unable to pull out of Roma's station because of the crushing weight of its symbolic freight. Buy a ticket, because it is a magnificent engine, but, oh, friend emptor, caveat! Michael Cart, Beverly Hills Public Library, Calif.
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