["The Elephant and the Kangaroo"] is a satirical fantasy set in Ireland.

The apparatus required for this latest demonstration of White magic includes one "practical" Englishman, who looks like the author and bears his name, thinks like an encyclopedia, does oil paintings adorned with glass eyes stuck to the canvas with putty, and lives on an Irish farm; his landlord, Mikey O'Callaghan, an Irish Jeeter Lester; his landlord's wife, whose resistance to reason is a shield on which whole legions of logic are daily shattered; his dog Brownie, who feeds on glue and enjoys a game in which his master plays the role of flea. Then there are neighborhood associates, made up of a varied assortment of leftover Neanderthals -- plus the Archangel Michael, who drops in one day via the chimney to advise the building of an ark against the coming of a second flood; a Dutch barn which can be converted into said ark. Finally there is a flood.

[It] is not entirely clear what "The Elephant and the Kangaroo" is all about. If the story is simply whimsey, it is a failure. If it is more, what is it? A satire on the "practical" Englishman, a savage assault on the Irish or on the human race in general, a kind of dully droll poem on "the cruelty of Time and Life," a comment of some sort or another on religion and reason?

Whatever it is, it does not come off.