BOO KS
307
both for labor and for mass entertainment, has given
him
almost
unlimited power in the state. After his interview with Zapparoni,
a charming old man who quickly sorts out Richard's Liberal weak–
nesses, the captain is sent to wait in a garden, and there observes
in the operation of a hive of mechanical bees, the success with
which Zapparoni and his technicians have surpassed nature. Both
fascinated and appalled by the bees and their mechanical super–
visors, which begin to present themselves to his mind as prototypes
of military gadgets to be employed in a global war, Richard also
spots a collection of severed human ears floating on a pond in the
garden. He soon overcomes this shock and reasons that the ears
too are artificial, a trap set by his employer to test his nerves and
his respect for artifice, and belonging to the world of Zapparoni's
perfect life-size marionettes whose performances in movies had
already extended the possibilities of art. Possessed of a vision of
entering and living in a world where "marionettes became human
and stepped into life," where his defeatism would be cured and a
career of superhuman mastery would open to
him,
Richard fishes
B
E .R K L
E
THE GINGER MAN
by
J.
P. Donleavy
BACK
by Henry Gree·n
ARRIVAL AND ·
DEPARTURE
by Arthur Koestler
BILLY .
LIAR..
by Keith Waterhouse
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