The Green Isle of the Great Deep

Limned in a gnarly, homespun Scots dialect, Gunn's earnest parable again features the two eponymous characters of Young Art and Old Hector, whose companionship illustrates the best aspects of youth and age. During WWII, eight-year-old Art and his octogenarian friend Hector have an adventure that allows Gunn to ponder the question of how God could allow the Nazis to inflict the horrible atrocity of mind control. Embarked on a slightly illegal fishing excursion, the poachers fall into the depth of the Hazel Pool and regain consciousness in a wonderfully fertile land called The Green Isle. Though the trees in the orchards are laden with apples, grapes and oranges, the subdued and obedient inhabitants are forbidden to eat the fruit because it is poison. This distorted version of Paradise is controlled by a hierarchy ensconced at The Seat on the Rock. Refusing to be enslaved by the system, Art defiantly takes some fruit, a metaphor for the truth, but he is subject to instant retribution. His name a clear portent, Art thus becomes a symbol of artistic freedom, ``the living poem and the eternal legend.'' The late Gunn (1891-1973) doggedly presses home his warning message about the abuses of knowledge and power, but, despite its passages of lyrical description, the narrative lacks the subtlety and grace characteristic of his earlier work.