THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS

Time was when this allegory of moral redemption tied the KING JAMES BIBLE as Most Read Book in the English language. Now Penguin enlists TV's Hercule Poirot to help lift it out of the obscurity to which today's secular world has consigned it. Suchet's musical, expressive voice clarifies and contemporizes the three-hundred-year-old vocabulary. His characterizations are vivid and cartoony. Indeed, Suchet plays this as a kid's book, which it can, but need not, be. The chief flaw in this approach is making the hero, Christian by name and archetype, sound like Simple Simon, losing the senses of danger and ultimate consequence that are intrinsic to the author's message. Still, a livelier, more engaging reading can hardly be imagined. Y.R. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT 97]