NUNI

by John Howard Griffin ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1956

John Howard Griffin had an impressive press with The Devil Rides Outside and this book is a Houghton, Mifflin Fellowship winner. His new book pursues a rather arresting offbeat- particularly singularized by a prose which is a heavy effluvium of words and images, which is a challenge to the flexibility of the English languages- and to the more conventional reader (i.e. ""curdled muscles""). Professor John W. Harper, on a plane back to his wife and children and his course in English literature, finds himself washed ashore on a seemingly deserted island. ""A fleck of unknown livingness"", a native finally brings him coconuts- a child is friendly but he faces the mistrust of the abusive patriarch- Tombani. Gradually communications are established; he learns the language- and is introduced to the many taboos, particularly sexual, of a primitive world chilling in its cruelty. Love and affection are forbidden, so is his paternal, protective interest in the girl child Ririkinger to be the victim of tribal mutilation and the sorceress Rauka until- earning prestige through the cures he can work- more effective than those of Rauka- he saven Ririkinger.... The theme here, of man's rise from a purely primal society through love and perception, gives this experience in spiritual evolution a certain mystique.... Likely to be very limited in its appeal.

Pub Date: May 15, 1956

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton, Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1956

Categories: FICTION