Like Huckleberry Finn (1884) or Don Quixote (1605-1615), Ogre, Ogre is a picaresque novel, although the fantasy in it may obscure the book's essential form. Such books usually give a cumulative picture of a culture, as the author builds his society or world from the details of episodes stitched together by a journey. While Mark Twain gives a picture of the antebellum South in Huckleberry Finn, Anthony creates a portrait of an imaginary Xanth in Ogre, Ogre. The development of the hero Huck in Huckleberry Finn or Smash and Tandy in Ogre, Ogre helps to unify the action of such narratives.

The fantasy in Ogre, Ogre is developed through imagery and feeds off of traditional tales and myths. The carnivorous tangle trees in the novel, for example, are created by a combination of images. Most likely Anthony had in mind the peculiar look of Spanish moss growing...