Word: shardik
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...SHARDIK by RICHARD ADAMS 604 pages. Simon & Schuster...
Enflamed by the presence of Shardik, the Ortelgans reconquer their old capital city. There they rule, under the guidance of Kelderek, who has become the bear's priest and interpreter (he is a simple, open-hearted man, who plays with children, shuns grown women -with an aversion that seems less priestly chastity than schoolboy prudery). To keep Bekla's economy prosperous, the Ortelgans revive a particularly obnoxious slave trade dealing in children. Kelderek, his mind on the possibilities of sainthood, thoughtlessly gives his approval of this abomination. Thus morally undermined, the bear cult deteriorates until enemies threaten Bekla...
Seen without regard to its predecessor, Shardik resembles good science fiction, unsatisfactorily diluted with Victorian romanticism. The author postulates a tribe of Iron Age men called Ortelgans, in ancient times the builders and rulers of a splendid city called Bekla, but now, because of military and moral decline, a ragtag band of hunters huddling fearfully on a river island at the edge of the Beklan empire. The planet is earth, but the local geography is all of the author's making, and he has great fun with maps, invented place names and at least four different languages...
Adolescent Bluff. The central figure of the Ortelgan religion is Shardik, a giant bear god. Though only a caste of virgin priestesses preserves this memory, Shardik actually lived as a real bear during the time of Ortelga's supremacy. When Adams' story begins, a great bear appears, driven to the edge of the River Telthearna by a forest fire. Confused and maddened, he stops, rises awesomely on his hind legs, standing more than twice as tall as a man, and beats at the flames. Burned and half-conscious, he is driven into the river, across which he drifts...
There is no iron to this Iron Age fable. The grimness is fake, the fascination with virginity is a naughty bore, and the monstrous figure of Shardik is cheapened by watery supernaturalism. It is one thing for Kelderek and his primitive fellow tribesmen-a few skeptics to the contrary -to believe the bear is a god, quite another for author and reader to pretend to believe it. This pretense is what Adams insists on, and it smacks of Pan worship, that Victorian silliness in which refined city dwellers pretended that they glimpsed the wicked, goat-footed god as they strolled...