The Labyrinth of Universality: Wilson Harris’s Visionary Art of Fiction (Cross Cultures 86) (Cross Cultures Series)

Wilson Harris, many times nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, is a British writer of Guyanese origin, one of the most original novelists and critics of the twentieth century, and probably the first to use and interpret the aesthetically fruitful notion of cross-culturalism. Harris's insights into the profound symbiosis between history, culture and artistic expression were initially inspired by his encounters with Amerindians in the Guyanese rainforest interior, where he led many surveying expeditions. These encounters aroused his interest in pre-Columbian peoples, who figure prominently in many of his novels and stories. His perception of the Guyanese landscape is the source of his unique narrative rhetoric, richly metaphoric language, and philosophy of existence: i.e. the epistemological and phenomenological interrelatedness between man, animal life, and nature. The present study offers magisterial, in-depth interpretations of Harris's exhilaratingly complex and shape-shifting fictional worlds. Table of Contents......Page 6 Acknowledgements......Page 10 Introduction......Page 14 1. The Myth of El Dorado in the Caribbean Novel......Page 28 2. The Writer as Alchemist: The Unifying Role of the Imagination......Page 46 I. Voyage into Namelessness......Page 56 II. The Naked Design......Page 76 4. The Far Journey of Oudin: A Naked Particle of Freedom......Page 118 5. The Whole Armour: A Compassionate Alliance......Page 130 6. The Secret Ladder: The Immaterial Constitution......Page 142 7. Heartland: Between Two Worlds......Page 156 I. The Heart of Inarticulate Protest......Page 166 II. The "Unborn State of Exile"......Page 184 9. The Waiting Room: A Primordial Species of Fiction......Page 198 10. Tumatumari: An Epic of Ancestors......Page 214 I. A "Novel-Vision of History"......Page 232 II. Climbing Towards Consciousness......Page 249 12. From The Sleepers of Roraima to The Angel at the Gate: The Novel as Painting......Page 256 13. Da Silva da Silva's Cultivated Wilderness: "Inimitable Painting"......Page 296 14. The Tree of the Sun and Resurrection: Faces on the Canvas......Page 312 15. Carnival and Creativity......Page 322 16. Carnival and J.M. Coetzee's In the Heart of the Country: Ambivalent Clio......Page 340 I. "Immanent Substance": Reflections on the Creative Process......Page 352 II. "Re-Visionary Strategies": The Wisdom of Uncertainty......Page 370 18. The Four Banks of the River of Space: Unfinished Genesis......Page 384 19. Carnival, The Infinite Rehearsal, and The Four Banks of the River of Space: Ulyssean Carnival of Epic Metamorphoses......Page 404 20. Resurrection at Sorrow Hill: Charting the Uncapturable......Page 422 21. Obscure Sorrow Hill: Seminal Ground of Endless Creation......Page 432 22. "Tricksters of Heaven": Visions of Holocaust in Jonestown and Fred D'Aguiar's Bill of Rights......Page 446 23. The Dark Jester: "Unimaginable Imaginer"......Page 466 24. The Mask of the Beggar: Transfigurative Art......Page 478 25. The Ghost of Memory: A Meditation on the Nature of Art......Page 496 26. "Latent Cross-Culturalities" in Harris and Soyinka: Their Creative Alternative to Theory......Page 510 27. Ut Musica Poesis......Page 522 28. Writing and the Other Arts......Page 532 29. Wilson Harris's Multi-Faceted and Dynamic Perception of the Imaginary......Page 544 30. "Numinous Proportions": Wilson Harris's Alternative to All 'Posts'......Page 554 Conclusion: Straight Lines and Arabesques......Page 576 B......Page 580 D......Page 581 H......Page 582 L......Page 588 O......Page 589 S......Page 590 Z......Page 591 Hena Maes-jelinek. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [553]-564).