THE BARON IN THE TREES

A marvelous, bizarre, witty, and free-swinging fantasy concerning Cosimo, the eldest son of a noble family, who, in a moment of rebellion, vows to live out his life up in the trees-and does so. This habitat is by no means so limiting as it might seem. Branchy freeways connect him with orchards, villa gardens, and dense forests; and if height gives him a different viewpoint it is only the better to expound it. A will freed, except for the self-imposed rule that he is never to touch the ground, his domestic arrangements rival those of the Swiss Family Robinson, Tarzan and Mowgli; but his meanings and style are closer to those of Cervantes and Voltaire. Cosimo is not concerned with making bargains with nature or intellect, but in becoming both, which he does through a series of picaresque, Dali-esque adventures, fighting wolves, seducing women into the treetops, and lecturing the villagers. Eventually he becomes a kind of antique god or hero and achieves an appropriate apotheosis- for Cosimo is life, expanded to its limits. A book for very special tastes.