Over the last few years, I've read a number of books that were suggested to me by Steven King, by reference to them in various of his books. The most memorable of these were "Bartleby the Scrivener" and "Rebecca", which were both mentioned in "Bag of Bones".
I just finished reading "Shardik", which is mentioned in one of the volumes "The Dark Tower" series.
It was a work of will to finish it. It was plodding and heavy reading, with a very good story, but told slowly and with many lengthy pauses between anything of consequence happening. It's the story of a religion, centering around an enormous bear, and much of it is told in artificially archaic scripture-like language.
This was something of a surprise, coming from Richard Adams, who also wrote "Watership Down", which I greatly enjoyed both times I've read it.
So, on the whole, I don't much recommend it.
I never have been able to finish that one. I liked The Plague Dogs, though, and of course I LOVED Watership Down.
It is funny how different people like different kinds of reading. The kind you describe here as "plodding and heavy reading, with a very good story" is for me the best. I enjoy the mental energy that it takes to maintain it all in my head.
The scene by the riverside where Shardik's massive corpse looms over as if to protect the dead girl is one of the most powerful I have ever read anywhere, all the more powerful for being presented naturalistically.
Shardik is a dark, brooding Old Testament counterpoint to Lewis's Aslan--the power of God in mortal form, just like Jesus was in the form of a man, the Lion of Judah as opposed to the Lamb of God, a dealer of righteous justice to the evildoer.
Yes, this book was a hard read, and sometimes tedious. But interspersed with the long stretches that drag a bit, there are scenes of enormous iconic power, like lightning flashes in the dark of night, illuminating and reinforcing the the whole. I have never been as chilled and horrified as when I read the scene where Genshed matter-of-factly drowns the little girl. He ranks with real-life monsters like Ed Gein in the depths of his unselfconscious evil.
I can only compare Adams in this work to Melville or Hawtrhorne in terms of its stark vision and revelations about the human soul and the nature of good and evil.
Like many really good works of literature, it takes a commitment and real effort to absorb SHARDIK--but it was well worth it in my opinion.