THE ORGY

by Muriel Rukeyser ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 25, 1965

As Hemingway went to Pamplona, so Muriel Rukeyser goes to Kerry, where the goat is crowned king at Puck Fair in a three-day festival surviving from the Old Religion. Ostensibly pagan and orgiastic, the celebration nevertheless raises the deepest questions. As Miss Rukeyser's narrator, a woman writer, falls in with a group of people including Nicholas, an analyst, and his artist wife Liadian, the events whirling about them have their effect. Seen mostly drinking or in transit, they speak of philosophy, send out tentacles to one another as relationships waver and change in the seductive ambience. The narrator writes to her son of the festival: ""Mixed--in a tragic penetrating beauty, music and filth, cattle and drunkenness, the gypsies and the goat and the marvelous..."" An elusive, elevated entertainment.

Pub Date: Feb. 25, 1965

ISBN: 0963818325

Page Count: -

Publisher: Coward-McCann

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1965

Categories: FICTION