ASPUTIN

by Colin Wilson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 22, 1964

What's really engaging about Colin Wilson is his eagerness for Everything Strange-- an archaeologist of the psyche deciphering the underground life of some Great Misunderstood- thus Rasputin. And thus, with the usual sausage-grinding prose, crosspatch readings, references, random contradictions (all the more contradictory since the work attacks most of the 100 odd other dossiers), the legendary staretz, the black eminence of pre-Revolutionary Russian court life parades forth. Accordingly though Rasputin was a holy debauche, sex was merely ""another healthy and vital expression, like dancing."" His wife agreed: ""He has enough for all"". Though power-crazy, Rharbored a wanderer's ""mystical impulse,"" was thaumaturgic, hypnotic, and divinatory in politco-military matters. ""If I die,"" he thundered at the Czar, ""you will lose your throne and your life."" R's flaw: an ""aggressive class consciousness"" (he was a peasant); also a self-sacrifical taint (allegiance to the nomesis-haunted Romanoffs). He represented ""the class of history with subjectivity,"" was a much-maligned man whose True Value only the future advances of ESP and phenomenology may reveal. These fancies are linked with, among others, Lawrence of Arabia, Whitman, Nietzsche, Mary Baker Eddy, Husserl, Hitler, Gurdjieff and Beethoven; only Lionel Barrymore (of the MGM melodrama) is missing. The Czarina thought Rasputin Christ Reincarnate; Wilson doesn't.

Pub Date: Oct. 22, 1964

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: arrar, Straus & Co.

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1964

Categories: NONFICTION