cover image Whilom

Whilom

Robert Watson. Grove/Atlantic, $18.95 (216pp) ISBN 978-0-87113-386-1

``Fairies she'd seen with her own wondering eyes, but a discoursing donkey demanded another order of credulity,'' states a character in this modern fairy tale. Such credulity will come easily to readers caught up in this seriocomic view of law-and-order society. Set in the Athens of legendary Theseus and his captive woman, Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, this fanciful romp features hapless weaver Nick Bottom and his donkey Dewdrop. Watson, commissioned by Oberon, king of the fairies, to retell his story with embellishments unthought of by Shakespeare, tells the often ludicrous farrago of lovers' escapades within an enchanted forest, while, outside, bloody Athenian justice goes on apace. The reader who follows the comedy of errors will have as much arcane fun as the author, a professor in England, evidently did. (Sept.)