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Article: Taking the Kombi to the wonga vine
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- August 17, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1996 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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You can bet that a novel calling itself The Glade Within the
Grove will deal, in some probably obscure way, with the ritual
goings-on in the Sacred Grove of Diana at Nemi, as detailed by Sir
James Frazer in his archaeo-anthropological classic The Golden
Bough, best remembered as a source for The Waste Land. I forget who
coined the phrase "bitten by the Golden Bow-Wow" to describe
writers who become preoccupied with this subject, but it seems
particularly appropriate in David Foster's case, because, like his
narrator, D'Arcy D'Oliveres, he is a former postman.
D'Arcy, now retired from his New South Wales rounds, happens to
own the sole copy of an epic poem called "The Ballad of
Erinungarah". ...