In the Country of the Skin

3.5/5 ( ratings)

This novel is a true story. There are two men in one man, held together by their mutual skin. Their embattled state is healed by the one energy called magick, love, sex, perversion, justice, cruelty, god, poetry, atomic hydrogen, celestial holography, and by the lady who leaves him with a picture of herself that the author must keep in good repair. His orders are that, apart from herself, the only thing constant is change, and he testifies that 'my pen, albeit it stinks of ignorance, faithfully speaks of deeds, some of which I have heard of, but most of which I have seen with my own eyes, and felt with my own skin.' 'In the Country of the Skin' is full of Godstuff. The language both initiates and communicates. Communicating what initiations? What is in front of your nose. And what was there from before birth, sweating with fear and joy-singing like monkeys and archbishops. Doors opening. Walls uncoupling. A long drink of acorn-juice for the know-all, to cure him of his malady. You with the apparitions, meet Dovetail Crime Robert, along with Silas, Teresa, Jonas, Sarah, the Apple-Colonel and Whanging Jill. 'In the Country of the Skin' offers participation in a vision that sees beyond the opposites of life and death. To read it is to participate, to participate in it is to be renewed. It is a book that not only says things, but brings them about as well. The book comes with a new introduction by Pascale Petit. 'What it is, essentially, is a long contemplative interior monologue, flushed and vitalised by the full force of Redgrove's astonishingly unique and inventive imagination - his feel for the oozing, rippling, rustling plasticity of natural forces, his celebratory, quasi-mystical inwardness with the stuff and process of sensual life' 'His imagery is often surprising and beautiful - it has a brilliance and intensity one cannot but recommend.' TLS Peter Redgrove worked in several interlinked fields: as a poet, novelist, playwright, and in psychological practice. He believed creative, psychological and scientific work are aspects of the same common study, and his insights are profound, illuminating and constantly exciting. He received many awards during his life and was especially honoured by receiving the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1996.