THE REIVERS (305 pp.}William FaulknerRandom House ($4.95).
On the mythical island of Shakespeare's Tempest, the forces of human bestiality, which raged so freely in his earlier tragedies, are held peacefully in check by the benign white magic of Prospero. Now, in Yoknapatawpha County, an equally mythical but heretofore relentlessly dark and bloody portion of Mississippi, a similarly pacific sea change has taken place. Evil still exists there, but it makes no serious headway. No one is raped. No one is lynched. No one is murdered.
In The Reivers* William Faulkner plays a mellowed Prospero and proves an engaging fellow. Like an old man...