The links between the art-work and the biblical themes it seeks to explore, illustrate, and interpret, are often highly allusive.
His reputation was made by his early novel, The Shadows, an allusive and highly literary evocation of the Holocaust.
It begins by celebrating the ancient glories of the Danes, tells in allusive style the story of Scyld, the founder of the " Scylding " dynasty of Denmark, and praises the virtues of his son Beowulf.
The old sacred name Yahweh is never pronounced; even "God" is avoided for allusive titles like "heaven" or "place."
Now, with one brilliant exception - the story of the swimming-match, which is felicitously introduced and finely told - these retrospective passages are brought in more or less awkwardly, interrupt inconveniently the course of the narrative, and are too condensed and allusive in style to make any strong poetic impression.
