'I was obsessed - let me confess - by cities and settlements in the Central and South Americas that are an enigma to many scholars. I dreamt of their abandonment, their bird-masks, their animal-masks ... Did their inhabitants rebel against the priests, did obscure holocausts occur, civil strife, famine, plague? Was Jonestown the latest manifestation of the breakdown of populations within the hidden flexibilities and inflexibilities of pre-Columbian civilizations? The Maya were certainly one of the great civilizations of ancient America and the fate of their cities - such as Palenque, Chichen Itza, Tikal, Bonampak - has left unanswered questions.'. Bone is narrator and fictional survivor of the mass-suicide at Jonestown in the remote Guyana forest in 1978. In a Dream-book he tries to heal the trauma he suffered and, interweaving past and future, journeys into his childhood and education and explores his association with the charismatic leader, Jonah Jones, in Guyana and America. In setting out his account he is drawn into the Mayan concept of time which twins past and future, giving his narrative the compulsive eloquence of dream. The result is a striking demonstration, after more than thirty years, of the continuing power of Wilson Harris's imagination.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A timeless link to lost civilizations,
By A Customer
This review is from: Jonestown (Paperback)
From the heart of the Guyanese jungle comes an eerie fictional
reconstruction of the 1978 Jonestown mass suicide from one
of the forerunners of magical realism: Wilson Harris.
The story begins on a "dateless date" when Francisco Bone, the sole
surivor of the mass suicide led by Jim Jones, writes a
letter to the Longman Chronicle of America relating his
observations of that bizarre day.
Like all good magical realism, time becomes a blur when
Bone, the skeleton of time, travels to the distant past and future to sort out the
present. The past becomes a prediction for the future
and although it's difficult to visualise, the future becomes
a prediction of the past. As usual, Harris's writing is a
challenge to decipher. Throughout this bizarre web of time,
Harris connects lost civilizations of the past to Jonestown.
"Was Jonestown the latest manifestation of the breakdown of
populations within the hidden...pre-Columbian civilizations?"
Bone asks as he becomes obsessed with this and other philosophical
questions. Wilson traces Jones's connection to other charismatic
religious spirits in history.Marie Antoinette, Mr. Mageye
the magus-Jester of History and the Carnival Lord Death help
Bone to put Jonestown into proper historical perspective.
Harris also examines the place of the spirit
and soul in the cosmic concept of endless time which binds
us all together. If you enjoy Latin American writers and
you want to discover the magical side of Caribbean writing,
I recommend this book. You will never think about time in the
same way again. Debbie Jacob (calypsodebbie@opus.co.tt)
4.0 out of 5 stars
An interesting attempt to understand Jonestown!,
This review is from: Jonestown (Paperback)
I won't knock Wilson Harris' book, Jonestown, but I did find it too complicated and intertwined with other religious thoughts and theories which were out of my element. The book is a fictional account of a Jonestown survivor. Harris was wise to change some of the names from Jim Jones to Jonah Jones and the events surrounding their demise. I just found it confusing at times and frustrated at other times because I felt that the author went all over the place. I would still keep this book and added it to my Jonestown collection as a valuable piece of literature and history even a fictional account.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Incomprehensible,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Jonestown (Paperback)
Maybe it's just me, but I think "the compulsive eloquence of dreams" is far too kind a description. Too chaotic and too hard to follow, this is not narrative fiction IMO. There are too many accounts by actual Jonestown survivors that I have yet to read for me to spend time trying to decipher any more of this.
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