What is a critical analysis of Palace of the Peacock?

Palace of the Peacock is a novel written by Wilson Harris from 1960. The book is written in a very metaphorical style and continuously follows the theme of the imagination's power to combine cultures and traditions that are seemingly very different on their face.
The story of Palace of the Peacock is told from the perspective of a vague and mysterious narrator named Dreamer. As the novel progresses, Dreamer's presence in the story itself becomes more and more obscure, a feature of Harris's unique style of prose. Dreamer's narration initially centers around Donne, his brother and a European colonialist skipper who leads a multiracial crew on a ship up a river through a rainforest. The reader does not know the exact time or location of the story, but one can surmise that it takes place in sixteenth-century Guyana. Donne and his crew are searching for the indigenous people who live in the rainforest, hoping to capture them and exploit them for labor on Donne's plantation. Their journey is not easy, however, and they consistently face various obstacles, especially as the crew's relationships with one another develop. As the story progresses, the reader learns that their expedition is just as much a search for the indigenous people as it is a search for themselves. The characters appear to hang in the balance of life and death, dreaming and awake, as they continue up the river. The story continually ebbs and flows between objective fact and subjective opinion, not just from the point of view of Dreamer, but from multiple members of the crew.
Symbolism and metaphor are key tools employed by Harris throughout the book. Donne himself represents all colonialists who viewed the indigenous people of any land they overtook as nothing more than labor. The relationships developed by the crew members, though of varying backgrounds and cultures, demonstrate the power of human fragility and fear.