Heartland by WIlson Harris
Guyanese fiction
Source – personal copy
I have been listening to the 99 novels section of the Anthony Burgess podcast which covers the 99 books that Burgess had chosen as his favourite post world war 2 novels, and this is one of the books he had picked for that list from the Guyanese writer Sir Wilson Harris a writer that really should be better known as he is one of the most modern and experimental writers to have come out of the Caribbean 9 I do question is it Caribbean or actually a Latin American country maybe as it is the only English speaking country in Latin America. Anyway, Wilson Haris trained as a surveyed and had spent much time in the Heartland of Guyana, which comprises dense jungles and massive wide rivers. This scenery is at the heart of this book. Harris wrote many books about his homeland, and some of the characters in this book appeared in his other books.
Stevenson’s speculative frontiers collapsed with a rude shout from Kaiser and he turned abruptly. The man was here at last. Stevenson could never stop being curious every time he saw Kaiser, as if he wanted to confirm that this must be the strangest, most haunting or haunted creation of all things and beings he visualized. It was not merely the blackness of Kaiser’s skin, within whose flesh appeared incandescent eyes lit as from the density of coal.
It was the ghostly ash of the garments he wore; a breath of wind would surely have dispersed them, the most attenuated vest and shorts Stevenson had ever seen, pluckedin the nick of time, he was inclineds to swear, from some ancient fire.One of the characters that seem ghost leike at times
We meet a prominent figure from Guyana’s life Zechariah Stevenson who is in disgrace as he is accused of defrauding people. But this son of a wealthy family as ever with people of money has been sent here into the Heartland of Guyana where the vast jungle and to watch over there, his family gets the money from the timber the forest in the jungle. The people he meets in the dense jungle just appear. Like Kasier, a shopkeeper and then Da Silva, he is a pork knocker, as they call gold prospectors here. We often wonder if are they real, especially when he comes across the dead Da Silva, a long-dead body. This is a place where the present, future and past all seem to drift, and a man is thrown into this untamed world as his grip on the world around him starts to slip as he is caught in the fever dreams of the jungle and the vast rivers of Guyana as they drift through time.
Stevenson scrambled out of the river and grabbed his towel, holding it against his body as if he felt alien eyes upon his nakedness. The head of the morning sun had risen above a fist of trees across the river. And the events of yesterday seemed almost indistinguishable from a watchful dream in the past night. Nevertheless, they possessed enduring substance for him since on his return to the clearing on the river bank at Upper Kamaria – after recovering Kaiser’s line – he had opened the depot and counted three or four boxes labelled DaSilva. Kaiser had not been indulging in an idle trick or fanciful token after all.
Later on as he drifts between the resal and unreal at times
This is a hard book to describe plot-wise as it is more about place and atmosphere, that feeling of being caught in the dense unrelenting jungle and how it can affect from Heart of Darkness onwards we have seen the madness of being alone in the jungle can bring on someone. Even Stevenson’s name is a nod towards the great Robert Louis Stephenson, another man tainted and, in the end, died in a jungle environment. This is a land Harris knew well. He had worked in the Heartlands to look at the viability of taming the rivers to make Hydroelectricity of them `(my Dad has worked at these hydro plants from around Niagara, where the US side uses some machines still from the 50s ). For me, this book has more connections to the Latin American cannon with its use of magical realism (well, MAGIC HORROR REALISM ) , fever dreams, ghosts and also the use of the jungle as almost another character to the book reminds me of the great number of books I have read in recent years from Latin American writers like Samanta Schweblin or Mariana Enriquez. I wonder what Harris’s standing is like in Latin America ? is it just the influence of place, or is he well-known there? Have you Read Harris?
Winston’s score – A – one of the greatest writers can’t believe I’ve just discovered him will be reading him again !
