A Book of Dreams

Product Information

I think I could've just continued to enjoy the magic of the baroque-pop Kate Bush song it inspired without having read the book itself. I agree with what I originally said in that Peter struggled to process his unconventional childhood.

This famous book, the inspiration behind Kate Bush's 1985 hit song 'Cloudbusting', is the extraordinary account of life as friend, confidant and child of the brilliant but persecuted Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. The short memoir is a series of memories from Peter’s secluded childhood at Orgonon, a sprawling property in the New England where Peter spent his days roaming the countryside and serving as a soldier in his father’s war against the aliens. Wilhelm Reich can divide opinions, and Peter moves away from the controversy with this honest telling of his family, whereby we meet Wilhelm as a father, rather than a scientist/doctor/con man etc.The first third of the book has some very interesting bits in it aside from the previously mentioned.

While my childhood was vastly different from Peter’s, reading this book reminded me of a lot of the experiences that I probably took for granted as a kid. Written more like a stream of consciousness than a play-by-play retelling, it weaves a beautiful but tragic story of a man trying to make sense of his childhood trauma. The writing was at times really amazing, I would give this book a rating of five, except that the part where he becomes an aimless hip twenty something in the 60s kind of detracts. Remembering who you are and where you came from is crucial, especially during that transition to adulthood.He is well-known for his theories regarding the Orgone Energy and for starting the health fad surrounding accumulators. He was given responsibility in this cosmic war by operating the cloudbuster, a machine that could control the weather.