The Risen: a Holographic Novel

by Peter Whitehead

Whitehead's 3-D 'Holographic Novel', a vivid quest into the mysteries of ancient mythology, occultism and female sexuality. A similar menage-a-trois to Nora And..., except this time the uptight doctor (a crystallographer), the troubled sculptress, and the incandescently beautiful actress are haunted by a vanished character, the psychic and hallucinatory pilgrim John (a spectralized version of Syd Barrett, to whom the book is dedicated). In an old country house in Cornwall, the two women seduce the doctor physically (with a series of pornographic dance-rituals), while John's computer hypertexts of shamanic knowledge initiate him psychically. As his scepticism peels away he realises way too late that to find John, he has to go all the way.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Underground filmmaker, novelist, falconer and music video pioneer Peter Whitehead is no longer in this world, a stunning, overwhelming fact to anyone who knew him or formed a fragment in his fragmented life. He was captivated by myths and in many ways sought to turn his own life into one. Films such as The Fall (1969) appeared to provide keys to the secrets of the media age and were undeniably potent, locking libidinal energy into swinging camera movements and tight 16mm edits. It was a hybrid piece about violence and revolution in the USA: part-essay film, part-avant-garde formalist work, part-personal film, part-psychedelia, part-reportage documentary.

In his guise as a counter-cultural documentarian, the strikingly handsome Whitehead, who has died aged 82, travelled the world, changed his identity, moved between classes and had relationships with numerous glamorous, often famous women – almost like a 60s spy. He was partially emblematic of the age by the way he went from a working-class background, the son of a Liverpudlian plumber, to Cambridge University, there making numerous connections that bubbled up later in his life.

Reviews

[James Stewart]

I read this on a flight from Vancouver to London, and found it both laborious and challenging. Whitehead could be forgiven for overreaching himself, as he possesses an authoritative knowledge on subjects diverse as painting, falconry, Egyptology, and science. Naturally as the author is associated with the "counter-culture" era, there has to be a modicum of sex and drugs thrown in for good measure. I'm reminded of Alan Moore's "Jerusalem" and Julian Cope's "One Three One", whose imaginative scope refuse to be reined in by any concept of editing.