Word: shikastan
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Dates: during 1979-1979
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...endured in the knowledge that enchantment is on the way. The book's allegory points insistently to earth, and the history of Shikasta as seen from Canopus is often, by earthly standards, particularly hamhanded: "For a couple of centuries at least, then, a dominant feature of the Shikastan scene was that a particularly arrogant and self-satisfied breed, a minority of the minority white race, dominated most of Shikasta, a multitude of different races, cultures, and religions which, on the whole, were superior to that of the oppressors." Such polemics alternate with passages of aching poignancy: "The lowest...
...creative energy expended in this novel has not, apparently, exhausted Lessing's supply. She has announced a companion volume, to be published next year, in what may become an even longer series. That is good news, but the Shikastan habit of ignoring present pleasures in favor of a chimerical future should be avoided. For the moment, it is enough to welcome an audacious and disturbing work from one of the world's great living writers. -Paul Gray...
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