William Kotzwinkle's creation of Horse Badorties will stand as one of the more significant achievements of twentieth-century American literature.

Drawing on the tradition of the genial eccentric of British country life, and combining this with the outlandish frontier/back-country humor of early, rural America, Kotzwinkle has developed a character who is a refreshingly original incarnation of the spirit of the hippie ethic of the late 1960s. He is a man about thirty, clearly well-educated at some time in the obscure past and essentially well-meaning, who has evolved a highly personal, antic approach to the world as a defense against assaults on his sensibility. Both numbed and energized by years of experimental activity, he is like other characters in American literature who would "prefer not to." His resistance to submission is quite determined, but never bitter or cynical. He maintains an openness to experience that recalls Whitman, and a...