THE LAND BEYOND

Impressionistic, even more so than last year's The Gate of Eden, and composed of shuffled snatches: of the narrator's Greek vacation (undertaken to help him recover from the memory of a former girlfriend), of the TV play he is writing about their breakup, and of his fearful slide into the past, which begins when he sees the famous Charioteer of Delphi, no longer a statue, walking near the fountain. There are also bits from the experience of the charioteer who sees the narrator too and who, defying Apollo, turns to the older Earth Mother's magic to exorcise the vision. The two become one in a ritual burning; and there's a healing mystical climax (""I am one with all. . . with death and dying. . . I am Apollo, and I am the pebbles in the stream"") that enables the literally lovesick young man to pack up and go home. But are we one with him? This ends with a poem which, itself, ends, ""But I am a Cod when I think of you""--a fair summary of the emotional banality and cosmic intensity which Corlett tries impressively but too ambitiously, to make one.