Heartsnatcher

London: Rapp & Whiting. Near Fine in Near Fine dj. 1968. First British Edition. Hardcover. [book has a couple of very slightly scrunched lower page corners, no other significant wear; the jacket is very nice-looking, with just a touch of soiling to the rear panel]. The first publication in English of the controversial final novel by this French poet/jazz musician/novelist/critic/and more (1920-1959), a surrealistic tale about a psychiatrist who "takes what turns out to be a lifelong holiday on an isolated coast," where he "discovers a primitive village with, alongside traditional wonders and horrors, a Buckminster Fuller church. The animals (truncated) are almost human (a stallion is crucified) and the humans are almost -- if not completely -- animal." It gets weirder from there, with the psychatrist delivering a set of triplets to a woman living in a lonely house on a cliff, whose subsequent "curious upbringing" leads to them being locked in cages by their mother "to prevent them from flying away like birds." . (Inventory #: 27038)