THIS ANIMAL IS MISCHIEVOUS

by David Benedictus ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 17, 1966

Mr. Benedictus is mischievous -- and it was first established in The Fourth of June that he's a bright young Englishman with an obstreperous comic gift. But he's also very serious, at any rate here, and this black black and white lampoon while directed primarily against racial intolerance, also deals with other manifestations of extremism. Political-- and religious. The trouble is, and it's quite genuine, that he has used such exaggerated effects to pull it off. In other words, the means and the end are almost the same and they seem to invalidate each other. The story here, which bounces all over, is told by one Timothy, still ""sticky from the shell,"" twenty two and overly attached to his twin sister, Georgie. She's a fetching thing, with not much on her mind except popular music until she becomes attracted to the Cause through Tiger, a black bloke who becomes her lover. Well, from an incendiary incident in Charing Cross, to the blow-up of a Fascist organization meeting on Mt. Parnassus where Georgie is killed, this entails some rather physically preposterous happenings to get the message across--namely a faith in man and his individual freedom. If it fails, well, Mr. Benedictus will tell you truth is ""an unwieldy word""; but he has not chosen the best way of dealing with a tetchy issue.

Pub Date: Feb. 17, 1966

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: New American Library

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1966

Categories: FICTION