SOURCE: Steele, Fernanda. “Breaking Down Barriers as Genesis of a New Beginning in Wilson Harris's Palace of the Peacock.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 17, no. 2 (summer 1997): 63–66.

In the following essay, Steele explores the formal aspects of narrative in Palace of the Peacock, highlighting a number of boundaries that the narrative breaks down.

Palace of the Peacock, Wilson Harris's first novel, tells us of a scientific expedition from the savannahs into the interior of the Guyana forest, which the head of the expedition, Donne, and his crew can reach only by river. I should like to point out some formal aspects of Palace of the Peacock that might puzzle the reader on a first reading because he is plunged immediately into a world where everything happens in a rapid flowing of images and sensations, where many of the usual “barriers” have been abolished: life and death; dream and nondream. Past...