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A review by slichto3
Shardik by Richard Adams
2.0
Shardik tells an interesting story, but it is dragged down by some bloated writing. That made it… difficult for me to enjoy.
The story centers around a more or less honest and straightforward man named Kelderek. He's a hunter in a fictional land called Ortelga. One day while hunting he stumbles upon a gigantic bear. Apparently, in the religion of Ortelga, this bear is the embodiment of their god, Shardik, and Kelderek reports this to his fellows. What follows is the rise of Kelderek as an Ortelgan prophet, the rise of Ortelga, then the fall of both Kelderek and Ortelga. The story is mostly interesting and unconventional, and brought to light some intriguing ideas related to religion as an idea and religion as a practice among men. But the good aspects of this book are very much obscured by the writing, which really could have used some pruning. The author spends a lot of time expounding upon metaphors on situations occurring within the story, rather than just telling the story. It's really a pretty aggravating practice, and sapped a lot of my enjoyment. That, combined with some strange aspects of the story that didn't really make very much sense, makes me hesitant to recommend this book to others. Read Watership Down, another book by Richard Adams, but you should probably walk past Shardik.
The story centers around a more or less honest and straightforward man named Kelderek. He's a hunter in a fictional land called Ortelga. One day while hunting he stumbles upon a gigantic bear. Apparently, in the religion of Ortelga, this bear is the embodiment of their god, Shardik, and Kelderek reports this to his fellows. What follows is the rise of Kelderek as an Ortelgan prophet, the rise of Ortelga, then the fall of both Kelderek and Ortelga. The story is mostly interesting and unconventional, and brought to light some intriguing ideas related to religion as an idea and religion as a practice among men. But the good aspects of this book are very much obscured by the writing, which really could have used some pruning. The author spends a lot of time expounding upon metaphors on situations occurring within the story, rather than just telling the story. It's really a pretty aggravating practice, and sapped a lot of my enjoyment. That, combined with some strange aspects of the story that didn't really make very much sense, makes me hesitant to recommend this book to others. Read Watership Down, another book by Richard Adams, but you should probably walk past Shardik.