Book 181: Guyana (English) – Palace of the Peacock (Wilson HARRIS)

The solid wall of trees was filled with ancient blocks of shadow and with gleaming hinges of light. Wind rustled the leafy curtains through which masks of living beard dangled as low as the water and the sun. My living eye was stunned by inversions of the brilliancy and the gloom of the forest in a deception and hollow and socket. We had armed ourselves with prospecting knives and were clearing a line as near to the river as we could.

I’m afraid that this novel left me fairly mystified as to what it was actually about, so I’m afraid this review won’t be much use. There doesn’t seem to be much plot and it was difficult to understand what was happening. But the overgrown prose, like the Amazon jungle, is often exquisite, so perhaps the best way to tackle it, if you feel so inclined, is to simply enjoy the words and sentences for their own sake without worrying about plot. The characterisation also seemed nebulous.

It reminded me a little of Heart of Darkness. Donne, a childhood friend of the narrator, has ‘devastated’ the savannas where he governed, exploiting the indigenous people, and had abused his mistress Mariella until she finally killed him. We are on a haunted voyage (of seven days, like the Creation) as the doomed crew beat their way upriver through the jungle. Are the expeditioners in fact ghosts? How many times can you die, and yet still ‘live’ alongside the living? Like the bird and animal noises you hear in the jungle but can’t see, or even recognise, the book is apparently replete with symbolism which sadly passed me by. Does Mariella, also the name of the mission to which they are heading, represent the land Donne had raped? Does the multiracial crew represent the whole population of Guyana?

Harris revisited the locations and themes of Palace of the Peacock in his later novels, and perhaps it is necessary to read all of them to properly understand his outlook. And maybe you need to read this one several times (I read it twice – it is quite short). In the end, I was happy to enjoy the beautiful writing for its own sake.

Harris, Wilson (1921 – ), Palace of the Peacock, London, Faber and Faber, 2010 (first published 1960), ISBN 978-0-571-26051-5