Whisper
- Author:
Brian Barritt
and David Ball
Whisper Promotions, ?1.90 Notes, jottings and writings smuggled out of a British prison have been fused into this book, or as it is better described by Timothy Leary; this ‘whispered manuscript’. One of the authors, Brian Barritt, was sentenced to ‘four years’ meditation’ for attempting to bring four pounds of hashish through H.M. Customs in 1966, and on his release from prison, with the help of David Ball, he put the smuggled material together to form this personal journal.
It is difficult to attach a label to this work. It is probably closest to the writings of Jean Genet, William Burroughs or Allen Ginsberg but the similarity is in style not impact.
Events in the book are not limited to prison but flow backwards in time to the arrest and an earlier journey to the East. The time flow cuts across the past and present in a stream-of-consciousness manner. The journey appears to the author as a pilgrimage, it becomes all that is free and liberated-a religious experience of life aided by hashish, ‘the black stone of Mecca, enlightened chemical, purified earth’. To bring back hash is to spread the Gospel. By contrast, in prison the author is ‘interned in a steel and concrete womb waiting to be reborn’. Time there is filled with carrying aluminium trays up and down endless stairways. Freedom was ended by a judge reacting to his own images of hash -‘criminalinsanity-orgy-sex-vomit-doom’ - not the author’s reality of its potential for expanding the mind.
The book is hard driving, uncompromising - the world is seen completely in black and white. It is difficult reading, even in small doses, because it expresses a very personal reality. This reality will be incomprehensible to many; it certainly is not my world view. However, a few of the passages are moving and show great insight.
Timothy Leary’s postscript says this book is for fellow ‘Time Travellers’ those who explore inner space. It certainly is.
Jim Zacune Available from: Studio D, Floral Hall Yard, Covent Garden, London, W.C.2.
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