Читать книгу I Saw Water - Ithell Colquhoun - Страница 14

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

I Saw Water explores in imagination the after death state of earth bound spirits. The characters continue, as in material existence, to be activated by fantasy and desire—whether mania or phobia—and to build round themselves the illusion of time and space. Most of them see themselves as still participating in physical life, so near is their consciousness to that of this planet; but the narrator becomes progressively more distant as the story unfolds.

Ménec is that Island of the Dead which is to be found in the mythologies under various names; it has many geographical locations. The characters who appear there are all discarnate, though a few of them may be so only temporarily, projected there in states of profound unconsciousness, however caused. As they arrive, they are received at the Ianua Vitae Convent where they remain until thirst for experience draws them away.

Only in the penultimate chapter, which explains the forgoing narrative, do living characters appear in an earth-life setting: while in the final chapter the narrator, having undergone the “second-death”* approaches impersonality and so achieves a measure of calm.

Ithell Colquhoun