Notes on Young Kim's 'A Year on Earth With Mr. Hell' (Part 1)

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On the Question of Quality Versus Quantity

 

   

I. 

 

Good people always insist: It's quality rather than quantity that matters [1].

 

You'll be a much happier and more authentic human being, they say, if you forget about numbers, stop being acquisitive, and focus instead on things that have real value and substance, such as meaningful relationships.

 

It's a kind of moral minimalism in which the related mantra less is more is used to justify a small circle of friends, or the fact that one hasn't read many books. 

 

Surprisingly, even D. H. Lawrence, who is usually quick to attack the base-born stupidity of proverbial wisdom, buys into this idea. But whilst he may be right to argue that it is better to read one good book six times rather than six bad books once [2], we feel obliged to point out the possibility of reading six good books six times.

 

That's a greater quantity of books - and many more readings - but surely that's better than simply reading one text over and over and insisting with monomaniacal intensity on its value. For that's precisely the error religiously-minded people fall into when they mistakenly decide that all they ever need read is a single holy text. 

 

Ultimately, it's not a binary choice: you can have quality and quantity. In fact, as we'll explain below, you can't have the former without the latter ...

  

II. 

 

Speaking as an evolutionary biologist, I can say that nature massively favours quantity over quality, which is why it can be so outrageously profligate. It's not necessarily the fittest who survive in this life, it's those who have the numbers to stake a claim on the future. 

 

And by modelling populations over long timescales, a recent Oxford study showed that the most important determinant of evolutionary success was not good genes, but the widest number of genetically available mutations [3].   

 

Brilliant individuals come and go like flowers; they simply don't have time to fix in the population or determine the evolutionary outcome of a race.   

And speaking as an artist, I can also confirm the fact that the creation of great works rests upon a large body of work. That's why, for example, it was necessary for Picasso to paint some 60,000 pictures in order to produce a small number of works - probably fewer than a 100 - that are considered masterpieces. 

 

This doesn't mean the vast bulk of the work is worthless or a waste of time; on the contrary, it was vital. For it was by producing works in such quantity that Picasso was able to learn, experiment, and evolve as an artist. Most importantly, it allowed him to make mistakes; for just as quality rests upon quantity, success rests upon repeated failure.   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The saying is often attributed to the Roman philosopher (and proto-Christian) Seneca; see his Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XLV: 'On sophistical argumentation', line 1. Click here to read online.    

 

[2] See Lawrence's discussion of books and reading in relation to this question of quality (or real value) versus quantity in Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation, ed. Mara Kalnins, (Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 60.  

 

[3] The study is published in the journal PLOS ONE and was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. It's lead author is Dr Ard Louis, Reader in Theoretical Physics at Oxford University. For an interview with the latter discussing the key finding of the study - i.e., that  life's evolution is all about arrival of the frequent, rather than survival of the fittest - click here.

 

 

La beauté est une promesse de bonheur: On the Joy of Discovering Stendhal

Portrait rouge et noir de Stendhal by SA (2022)

based on the original work by Louis Ducis (1835) 

 

"Ne me demandez pas qui je suis et ne me dites pas de rester le même ..." [1]

 

 

I. 

 

Stendhal is one of those 19th-century French writers that I've never got around to reading. 

 

And that's despite the fact that Nietzsche thought highly of him, describing Stendhal in Beyond Good and Evil as the last great psychologist [2] and confessing in Ecce Homo that he envied Stendhal for providing the finest and funniest atheist joke: God's only excuse is that he does not exist [3].

And it's also despite the fact that, astrologically speaking, Stendhal belongs to the House that I privilege above all others (i.e., the 11th). Being an Aquarian doesn't necessarily make you an interesting writer, but it does mean that Stendhal can be placed alongside the likes of Byron, Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and William Burroughs, to name but a few.   

 

However, the fact remains I've never been tempted to read Stendhal - until now; and that's entirely thanks to a fascinating article written by Naveed Rehan, an independent scholar based in Lahore, Pakistan ... [4]

 

 

II. 

 

Rehan's description of Stendhal as a man full of contradictions who is believed to have used over a 100 different pseudonyms and worn many masks in his lifetime, could almost have been written with the aim of catching my attention and sending me to the Amazon website so as to immediately order a copy of Souvenirs d’Égotisme, a short unfinished text which, Rehan informs us, recounts his time in Paris between 1821 and 1830 and which was written in just thirteen days during the summer of 1832. 

 

According to Rehan, this memoir would now be classified as a work of creative nonfiction - "a relatively new name [...] for an old way of writing, often referred to as belles-lettres" [5]. The key to this style of writing - whatever we choose to call it - is artfulness. 

 

It's a clever, ironic, sophisticated genre produced by writers who aren't afraid to slant the truth and who understand the importance of shaping experience and giving natural feeling artificial form. As Rehan notes: "It is not enough just to be sincere in writing true life stories; one must also craft them so that they can have the desired effect upon the reader."  

 

Having said that, Stendhal declares his intention "to be absolutely truthful and sincere in his Memoirs", which is a concern and more than a little problematic. But then we remember D. H. Lawrence's injunction to trust the text, not the author and we discover that Stendhal's perfect sincerity is just another pose and that, as Rehan points out, Souvenirs d’Égotisme is as artful as even a Wildean reader would wish for.   

 

The fact is, we never discover the real writer behind the mask; although arguably his identity is not so much hidden as dispersed and multiplied, until we are no longer sure who he is. Attempts to piece together an authentic and unified self from his fragmentary writings - to discover Stendhal's true identity - are ultimately doomed to failure; this master of illusion and disguise will never be found out or pinned down.     

 

And that's a good thing. Why? Because, as Rehan suggests, it enables Stendhal to preserve freshness of heart, by which I think she refers to the innocence of becoming; which is always of course a becoming-other and by no means merely an imaginative exercise, even if it can often be something that takes place within great works of literature, as Deleuze and Guattari demonstrated. 

 

I'm grateful to Naveed for presenting Stendhal in such a charming light; one which counters the orthodox Lawrentian view that he was, as a matter of fact, a nasty piece of work [6].      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] This line from Michel Foucault could easily have been penned by Stendhal; both men wrote in order to have no face. The line can be found in L’archéologie du savoir (1969) and is usually translated into English as: 'Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same ...'

 

[2] Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, II. 39. 

 

[3] Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, 'Why I Am So Clever', §3.

 

[4] Naveed Rehan, '"I Am Large, I Contain Multitudes": Rereading Stendhal's Souvenirs d’Égotisme', The Friday Times, (12 December, 2022): click here. All quotes in the post above are from this piece by Rehan. 

 

[5] Rehan is not the first or only critic to suggest that creative nonfiction is just a rather more austere sounding term for belles-lettres. 

      In an article entitled 'Non-fiction is dead: Long Live Belles-lettres', Arpita Das, for example, argues that writing which although based on reportage of real events, people and places is nevertheless a skilful literary construction, is best described "by that charming phrase coined in the days of Voltaire, 'belles-lettres', meaning simply 'fine writing'". 

      The article can be found in Open magazine (2 Dec 2011), or read online by clicking here.  

 

[6] See Lawrence's letter to E. M. Forster (6 Nov 1916) in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. III, ed. James T. Boulton and Andrew Robertson, (Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 21. 

      For those readers who don't have this book to hand, Lawrence writes: 

 

"I believe in bonheur, when people feel bon. But to pretend bonheur when you only feel malice and spite [...] no thank you. [...] I feel a bit shy even of Stendhal's bonheur. I look for it in vain in Rouge et la Noir, and L'Amour, and Chartreuse. A man may believe in that which he in himself is not. But I don't give much for such a belief. [...] Let a man go to the bottom of what he is, and believe in that. And Stendhal was not bon: he was méchant to a high degree. So he should have believed in his own wickedness, not kept a ticket to heaven up his sleeve, called bonheur."  

      Lawrence's essentialism and sincerity - on full display here - would of course make it difficult for him to ever really like (or trust) Stendhal, or those who, like Stendhal, affirmed the truth of masks and stamped becoming with the character of being. 

Maiesiophilia

A pregnant Demi Moore photographed by 

Annie Liebovitz for Vanity Fair (1991) [1]

 

 

I. 

 

One of the most famous - and, at the time, most scandalous - scenes in D. H. Lawrence's 1915 novel The Rainbow, features newly wed Anna Brangwen dancing naked before the Unknown, whilst heavily pregnant:

 

"Big with child as she was, she danced there in the bedroom by herself, lifting her hands and her body to the Unseen Creator [...] to whom she belonged.

      She would not have had anyone know. She danced in secret, and her soul rose in bliss. She danced in secret before the Creator, she took off her clothes and danced in the pride of her bigness." [2]      

 

One Saturday afternoon, alone in her bedroom before the fire, she again "took off her things and danced, lifting her knees and her hands in a slow, rhythmic exulting" [3]. When her husband Will enters and finds her naked in the shadows, he is somewhat startled, and advises that, if she's not careful, she'll catch a cold. 

 

Irritated by this stupid, sexless remark, Anna lifted her hands and began to dance once more, the firelight illuminating her body:

 

"He stood away near the door in blackness of shadow, watching transfixed. And with slow, heavy movements, she swayed backwards and forwards [...] pale in the dusky afternoon [...]

      He watched, and his soul burned in him. He turned aside, he could not look [...] Her fine limbs lifted and lifted, her hair was sticking out all fierce, and her belly, big, strange, terrifying [...] Her face was rapt and beautiful [...] [4]    

 

Will is unable to ever forget this vision of his pregnant young wife; if it aroused him at all, so too did it terrify him; for at that moment she was, in all her femaleness, beyond him. 

 

This is certainly an interesting scene to do with womanhood, sex and pregnancy - albeit one that Lawrence cannot help dressing up in religious language (just as, on the other hand, this self-professed priest of love cannot help eroticising his own metaphysics). 

 

One assumes that Lawrence's publishers (Methuen & Co.) must have known that this scene - along with several others - would cause them problems with the censors ...? 

 

And, sure enough, The Rainbow was prosecuted for obscenity, as a result of which around a thousand copies of the novel were seized and burnt and the book remained unavailable in Britain for the next eleven years (although editions were published in the United States). 

 

As one critic wrote in high moral outrage, when art refuses to 'conform to the ordered laws that govern human society [...] it must pay the penalty' [5].

 

 

II.   

 

In a letter written to Martin Secker in 1920, Lawrence reflects on the fate of The Rainbow, suggesting that the magistrates had acted in response to the hostile reviews the book received. He also informs Secker: "The scene to which exception was particularly taken was the one where Anna dances naked, when she is with child." [6] 

 

Thus, Lawrence was certainly aware that this scene was probematic - and I'm sure he knew why. For whilst Christianity has never taught that coition during pregnancy is a sin, many Church Fathers - including St. Augustine and Clement of Alexandria - seem, like Anna's husband Will, to be freaked out by the erotic aspects of pregnancy and the idea of fucking an expectant mother. 

 

The former, for example, spoke harshly about those husbands who approach their wives for sexual intercourse whilst they are with child, seeing this as a shameful lack of self-control [7]. As for the latter, he was more concerned about potential harms that might result, believing that it was necessary to protect the uterus once it had received the semen it desires and began the process of child formation. 

 

According to Clement, the womb closes itself up during pregnancy and no longer craves semen. Thus, any further act of coition at the man's insistence - and any new delivery of semen - is an excessive act of violence [8]. 

 

Beliefs such as these have continued to shape the thinking of many people, even whilst modern medical professionals insist that sex during pregnancy is normal, healthy, and perfectly safe for all parties concerned; including the unborn child, which is protected by the amniotic fluid in the womb and by the cervical mucus plug that forms shortly after conception.         

 

 

III. 

 

In conclusion ...

 

Whilst some women may experience a decrease in their sex drive whilst pregnant, others - like Anna Brangwen - never feel more sexually attractive and empowered than when big with child. 

 

Similary, whilst some men - like Will Brangwen - have a tokophobic aversion to seeing their pregnant wives dance round naked and ecstatically delighting in their womanhood and fertility, others veer towards maiesiophilia and are turned on by lactating breasts and an enlarged abdomen [9].      

 

Personally, I'm with Will on this one. It's not that I feel humiliated or nullified in my maleness by the site of a pregnant nude woman. Rather, I just find it slightly irritating when women like Anna (or Demi) get too full of themseves and believe that pregnancy - a biological function shared with all other mammals - is a miraculous state that gives them meaning or brings them closer to God. 

I would remind such women of this crucial couple of lines from Lawrence:

 

"That she bear children is not a woman's significance. But that she bear herself, that is her supreme and risky fate: that she drive on to the edge of the unknown, and beyond." [10]

 

      

Notes

 

[1] This nude photograph by Annie Liebovitz of 28-year old actress Demi Moore, who was seven months pregnant at the time, certainly got people talking when it appeared on the cover of the August 1991 issue of Vanity Fair. 

      Many critics deemed it inappropriate; some even described it as indecent (despite the fact that Moore discreetly covers her breasts with her hand). Some retail outlets would only sell the issue once it was wrapped in plain paper, as if a pornographic magazine, much to Moore's bemusement. It has since been named as one of the most influential images of the 20th-century, although, interestingly, Liebovitz herself doesn't think it a particularly good picture.    

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow, ed. Mark Kinkead-Weekes, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 169-170. 

 

[3] Ibid., p. 170.    

[4] Ibid., pp. 170-171.

[5] James Douglas, writing in the Star (22 October, 1915), quoted by Mark Kinkead-Weekes in his Introduction to The Rainbow, p. xlvi.

[6] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Martin Secker (16 January 1920), in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. III, ed. James T. Boulton and Andrew Robertson, (Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 458-460. The line quoted is on p. 459.

 

[7] See Augustine, On the Good of Marriage, V.   

 

[8] See Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, II. X.

 

[9] Pregnancy porn may still be a rather niche interest, but internet searches for such have steadily increased during the last few years according to stats released by Pornhub, in 2017. Not all of this traffic comes from out-and-out pregnancy fetishisists, however; it also includes, for example, those men who simply like to fantasise about their own virility and gain arousal or gratification from the possibility (or risk) of impregnating a woman. 

      Somewhat surprisingly, Pornhub's data also reveals that women are significantly more interested in pregnancy-related porn than men; indeed, women in the 25-34 year old age group are the most likely to search online for such. See Lenyon Whitaker, 'Pornhub data reveals "pregnancy porn" searches are on the rise', Metro (15 May, 2017): click here.   

 

[10] D. H. Lawrence, 'Study of Thomas Hardy', in Study of Thomas Hardy and Other Essays, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 52. 

      In this same passage, Lawrence explicity denies that the purpose of sex is for the depositing of seed. Procreation, he says, is "merely a preservative measure" and the continuance of life in the flesh "only a minor function". 

 

 

Hyaena

A spotted hyaena (Crocuta crocuta)

aka the laughing hyaena

 

"I trot, I lope, I slaver, I am a ranger. 

I hunch my shoulders. I eat the dead." [1]

 

 

I. 

 

There are, as a matter of fact, four distinct species of hyaena. But I suspect that when most peope think of them - if and when they think of them at all - they think of the spotted laughing hyaena.

 

I also suspect that most people think of them with a shudder and a curl of the lip, finding them an uncanny mix of the creepy and contemptible; cowardly pack hunters that torment their prey, or scavengers skulking round graveyards and feasting on the bodies of the dead. 

 

 

II. 

 

D. H. Lawrence certainy wasn't a fan. He regarded the hyaena - like the vulture and baboon - as an example of arrested development; an evil creature that obscenely preserves a "fixed form about a voracious seethe of corruption" [2] and which knows no shame.   

 

The howl of the wolf may unsettle him, but it is the laugh of the hyaena that fills Lawrence with fear and horror - that and the "loathsome, cringing, imprisoned loins" [3] that are amost dragged along in the dust and dirt. 

 

The hyaena, says Lawrence, "can scarcely see and hear the living world; it draws back to the stony fixity of its own loins, draws back upon its own nullity, sightless save for carrion" [4].

 

It's surprising, when one considers his animosity against the poor hyaena, that Lawrence didn't refer back to that ancient belief they were hermaphrodites; i.e., intersexual creatures alternating with fluidity between male and female roles. [5].   

 

For as we know, Lawence was a passionate proponent not only of sexual difference, but sexual dualism: 

 

"Sex surely has a specific meaning. Sex means being divided into male and female. [...] Every single living cell is either male or female, and will remain either male or female as long as life lasts. [...] The talk about a third sex, or about the indeterminate sex, is just to pervert the issue." [6]

 

The truth of this is essential for Lawrence, as it is for early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria ...

 

 

III.

 

Despite being a Christian theologian and recognised as a Church Father, Clement of Alexandria was heavily infuenced by Greek philosophy and literature, particularly Plato and the Stoics. Fragments of his more obscure writings suggest he was also deeply familiar with Jewish esotericism.   

 

Although we don't know for certain when he was born or when he died, we do know that the moral lessons that Clement takes from the animal kingdom are invariaby negative; the hyaena, for example, teaches man what mustn't be done. 

 

Not that he takes seriously the legend concerning its hermaphroditism; rejecting it on the grounds that once the logic of nature - or, if you prefer, the stamp of creative reason - has determined what an animal is, it cannot be changed [7]. Thus, the hyaena, cannot switch sexes; nor does it possess two sexes, or a third intermediary sex between male and female.

 

However, Clement is obliged to address the fact that the genitalia of the female hyaena closely resembles that of the male; the enlarged clitoris is not only shaped and positioned like a penis, but is capable of erection. The female also possesses no external vaginal opening, as the labia are fused to form a pseudo-scrotum. Traversing the length of the pseudo-penis is a central canal, through which the female urinates, copulates, and gives birth. [8] 

Interestingly, although Clement describes the female hyaena's peculiar anatomy in exactly the same manner as Aristotle, he comes to his own conclusion: it must be due to the animal's moral shortcomings. In other words, hyaenas have a body that's arranged in such a queer fashion, because of a defective nature and the fact that, like men, they are prone to lasciviousness ... [9]

 

 

IV.

 

Despite the fact that, as a Lawrentian, I'm supposed to despise them, I'm starting to feel a certain admiration for the hyaena, which have limped on the face of the earth for millions of years. 

 

And this is not just because they challenge certain ideas about sexual dimorphism, but because they also curdle the line of distinction between cat and dog. For athough phylogenetically closer to felines, hyaenas are behaviourally and morphologically similar to canids; they hunt like dogs, for example, but they groom, scent mark, and defecate like cats ... 

 

Perhaps they only laugh because they don't know whether to bark or purr ...

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Edwin Morgan, 'Hyena', in Glasgow to Saturn, (Carcanet, 1973). The verse can also be found in Morgan's Collected Poems, (Carcanet Press, 1990). To read on the Scottish Poetry Library website, click here.

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, 'The Crown', Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert, (Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 295.  

[3] Ibid., p. 299.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ovid gives reference to this in Metamorphoses; see 15: 408. 

      Although Aristotle rejected this belief and few naturalists following him gave the idea any credence, still the queerness of the hyaena was taken as a given and its reputation amongst those who, like Lawrence, read everything (including animal behaviour and anatomy) in moral terms, was irretrievably damaged.      

[6] D. H. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 66 and 126. 

 

[7] Christian ontology - building on its Platonic origins - insists upon the fixed nature of being; there is no transformation of essential forms; one species cannot become another and nor can one sex transition into the other.    

 

[8] In fact, the hyaena is the only placental mammal where females lack an external vaginal opening and have a pseudo-penis instead. This isn't something that seems advantageous; not only does it make mating difficult, but giving birth isn't a barrel of laughs either, often proving fatal for mother and cub (approximately 15% of females die during their first time giving birth and over 60% of firstborn cubs are dead on arrival).

 

[9] See Michel Foucault, Confessions of the Flesh, trans. Robert Hurley, (Penguin Books, 2021), pp. 19-21. 

     

    

From Too Many Notes to Silence

Figure 1: Joseph II / Figure 2: Mozart / Figure 3: John Cage 

                           

 

I.

 

Following the premier of Entführung aus dem Serail [1] in the summer of 1782, at the Burgtheater (Vienna), Mozart famously had an exchange with the man who had commissioned the work, Emperor Joseph II. 

 

Whilst the latter lavishy praised the three-act comic opera, he suggested that there were times when the music became too convoluted and contained, as it were, too many notes ... [2]

To be fair to Joseph - who was by no means musically illiterate or some kind of Bildungsphilister - the complexity of Mozart's work had been noted by others - including Goethe - and what he actually said was: Zu schön für unsere Ohren, und gewaltig viel Noten, lieber Mozart!

This might more accurately be translated into English as: 'Too beautiful for our ears, and a great many notes, dear Mozart!' 

 

Such a translation doesn't unfairly portray the Emperor in a foolish light - although it does, of course, rob the story of its humorous aspect.     

II.

I thought of this the other day when trying to read what was, in my view, a long and overly wordy poem, written by someone (about a pet parrot of all things) who has argued in the past in favour of pleonasm (i.e., an excess of language). 

 

Rightly or wrongly, however, like the Holy Roman Emperor of anecdote and cinematic fiction, I do think that a poem can have too many words and that often it's what is not said that matters most; i.e., the space between words is the true space of poetry. 

 

Thus, for me, the task of the poet is not to assemble words, but to take language apart and show its limitations; to erase meaning and return us to lovely silence, the great bride of all creation [3]. 

 

Perhaps the perfect poem is ultimately the one that remains unspoken, unwritten; just as the perfect piece of music is the one with no notes, performed by no instruments, à la John Cage's 4'33" [4].      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Known in Engish as The Abduction from the Seraglio, the work is a German-language music drama, known as a Singspiel. 

 

[2] This exchange between composer and monarch was nicely dramatised in the 1984 film Amadeus (dir. Miloš Forman), with Tom Hulce as Mozart and Jeffrey Jones as Emperor Joseph II: click here.

 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, 'Silence', in The Poems, Vol. I, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 612.

 

[4] 4′33″ is a three-movement work by American experimental composer John Cage. It was written in 1952, for any instrument or combination of instruments, and the score instructs performers to remain silent during the entire duration of the piece. One wonders what Emperor Joseph II would make of this ...? (Not enough notes, Mr. Cage!) My concern is that the composition only gives us a negative representation of silence; silence as a lack or absence of sound.

      To watch the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Lawrence Foster, give their interpretation of the work at the Barbican, London, in 2013, click here.

Reflections on Alessandro Raho's New Portrait of Young Kim

Alessandro Raho: Young Kim (2022)

Oil on canavas (110 x 180 cm)

 alisonjacques.com

 

 

I.

 

Viewing Alessandro Raho's latest portrait of Young Kim at a recent event in London [1] and listening to what was said in a three-way conversation between the artist, the sitter, and the critic Michael Bracewell about the complex relationship between art, fashion, music and sex, one couldn't help but think of D. H. Lawrence's dismissive assessment of English painters; not so much devoid of genuine feeling for visual imagery, as full of fear of the body as a site of various forces, flows, and sicknesses. 

 

It is this fear, says Lawrence, which distorts their vision and suppresses their instinctive-intuitive consciousness.

 

Still, every cloud has a silver lining and this act of suppression did at least enable English artists of the 18th-century to become the best in the world at painting clothes. For painters such as Hogarth, Reynolds, and Gainsborough, it is clear that the coat matters more than the man. 

 

Lawrence writes:

"An old Reynolds colonel in a red uniform is much more a uniform than an individual, and as for Gainsborough, all one can say is: What a lovey dress and hat! What really expensive Italian silk! This painting of garments continued in vogue, till pictures like Sargent's seem to be nothing but yards and yards of satin from the most expensive shops, having some pretty head popped on at the top. The imagination is quite dead. The optical vision, a sort of flashy coloured photography of the eye, is rampant.

      In Titian, in Velasquez, in Rembrandt the people are there inside their clothes all right, and the clothes are imbued with the life of the individual, the gleam of the warm procreative body comes through all the time [...] But modern people are nothing inside their garments, and a head sticks out at the top and hands stick out of the sleeves, and it is a bore." [2]

 

 

II.

 

Alessandro Raho appears to follow in this tradition, as the above portrait of Young Kim illustrates. It is a beautiful rendition of a multicoloured mohair jumper by Kim Jones for the Louis Vuitton S/S 2017 menswear collection, but the woman inside the jumper seems to have simply faded away into the blank void of the background; just a head and neck sticking out of the top of the punk-style sweater and two tiny hands sticking out of the sleeves.     

 

But, having said that - and having seen the work up close and spoken with the artist - I can't help being impressed by it and by him. 

 

First of all, he didn't seem to me to be gripped with fear at all; nor simply following in the footsteps of those famous names who came before him and whom Lawrence dismissed. In fact, Raho seems to gently mock the laughably old-fashioned tradition of portraiture by refusing to dramatise or idealise the figures he paints [3] and by having them return our gaze with interest (so that we are objectified in the process of viewing). 

As for Lawrence's concerns about Kodak vision, well, it is true that Raho does work from photographs, but, interestingly, he employs his skill as a painter to somehow capture something that the camera lens cannot; something that might be termed (for want of another word) presence. 

 

Raho is not simply aiming for realism in his portraits, so much as longing nostalgically for the same thing Lawrence desired; i.e., to come into touch, even when he knows this is no longer an easy matter when we have all become digital images to one another within a virtual universe. 

 

Perhaps having intuitively reached a similar conclusion to Lawrence about portrait painting, Raho has decided to push the process that the latter describes to its limit. The picture of Young Kim is thus deceptively straightforward and innocuous; for it is, as Nietzsche would say, superficial out of profundity [4].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The event took place on Monday 28th November (7-11pm) at the bookstore-cum-library-cum arts venue Reference.Point (London, WC2). It was held to celebrate the launch of the trade edition of Young Kim's unique little red book A Year on Earth with Mr. Hell (2020). 

      A reading from the work was followed by a discussion with Michae Bracewell and Alessandro Raho in the presence of the latter's latest painting of Young Kim. There was also an informal screening of Malcolm McLaren's video project Shallow 1-21 (2009), although, sadly, no one seemed to pay much attention to this.   

[2] D. H. Lawrence, 'Introduction to These Paintings', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 193-94.

 

[3] This desire to make art which is both contemporary and commonplace is of course crucial to a realist aesthetic and, however else we might describe Raho's work, we can almost certainly say it's a form of realism - though what kind of realism is debatable.

 

[4] See section 4 of Nietzsche's 1886 Preface to The Gay Science, where he writes that in order to live in a Greek manner we must remain courageously at the surface of the skin, the fold of the dress; i.e., learn to adore appearance and trust in forms. 

      Cf. my interpretation of Raho's work with that of Michael Bracewell, who argues that the portraits are concerned with "emotional and psychological depth". See Bracewell's essay in The Art of Alessandro Raho (Lund Humphries, 2011). 

 

 

No Hugging, No Learning (Torpedo the Ark 10th Anniversary Post)

 

 

I. 

 

This post - post number 1977 - marks the 10th anniversary of Torpedo the Ark [1] and, fear not, there's no Elvis, Beatles or Rolling Stones putting in an appearance here [2]. Instead, I'd like to offer a few remarks on one of Larry David's guiding principles: No hugging, no learning ...

 

Over the past decade, this motto - pinned to the wall above my desk - is something I've always endeavoured to live up to whilst assembling posts for Torpedo the Ark: for if no hugging, no learning worked for Seinfeld during 180 episodes spread over nine seasons, why shouldn't it also help ensure that this blog maintains an edge ...?

 

 

II. 

 

To me, the first half of this phrase means avoiding the fall into lazy and cynical sentimentality in which one attempts to manipulate the stereotyped set of ideas and feelings which make us monstrous rather than human - or, rather, monstrously all too human [3].

 

Like D. H. Lawrence, I suspect that most expressions of emotion are counterfeit and more often than not betray our social conditioning and idealism, rather than arising spontaneously from the body:

 

"Today, many people live and die without having had any real feelings - though they have had a 'rich emotional life' apparently, having showed strong mental feeling. But it is all counterfeit." [4]

 

Today, when someone starts twittering on about their feelings or the importance of emotional growth, you should tell them to shut the fuck up. 

 

Likewise, when some idiot comes in for a hug - never a good idea, as this scene from Curb Your Enthusiasm makes clear [5] - best to push them away or, at the very least, step back and politely decline their embrace.     

 

 

III.

 

As for the second part of the Davidian phrase - no learning - I don't think this means stay stupid; rather, just as the first part of the phrase challenges the idea of emotional growth, this challenges the idea of moral progress; i.e., the belief that man is advancing as a species; becoming ever more enlightened and ever closer to reaching the Promised Land. 

 

At any rate, Torpedo the Ark has never attempted to give moral lessons, pass judgements, or improve its readership. There's plenty to think about and, hopefully, amuse on the blog - and lots of little images to look at - but, to paraphrase something Malcolm McLaren once told an infuriated tutor at art school: There's nothing to learn! [6]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Torpedo the Ark was set up by Maria Thanassa, who has continued to oversee the technical aspects and daily management of the blog. The first post - Reflections on the Loss of UR6 - was published on 24 November 2012. 

      I am sometimes accused of being an anti-dentite on the basis of this poem, but, actually, that couldn't be further from the truth. If anything, having an attractive young female dentist veers one in the direction of odontophilia (a fetish that includes a surprisingly wide-range of passions).

      And so, whilst my tastes are not as singular as those of Sadean libertine Boniface, I cannot deny a certain frisson of excitement everytime one is in the chair, mouth wide open, and submitting to an intimate oral examination or violent surgical procedure. Hopefully, I expressed an element of this perverse eroticism in this post, based on an actual incident, but inspired by a reading of Georges Bataille.       

[2] Punk rockers will know that I'm alluding to the track '1977' by the Clash, which featured as the B-side to their first single, 'White Riot', released on CBS Records in March 1977. Click here to play.  

 

[3] Punk rockers will also know I'm thinking here of the Dead Kennedys track 'Your Emotions', found on their debut studio album, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, (Cherry Red Records, 1980). Click here to play and listen out for the marvellous line: "Your scars only show when someone talks to you."

 

[4] See D. H. Lawrence's late essay, A Propos of "Lady Chatterley's Lover", which can be found in Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Propos of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 311.

 

[5] This is a scene from the second episode of season four of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Entitled 'Vehicular Fellatio', it first aired on HBO in September 2009 and was written by Larry David, dir. by Alec Berg. The irritating character of Dean Weinstock is played by Wayne Federman. There are, as one might imagine, several other scenes in Curb that concern the consequences of inappropriate hugging; see, for example, this scene in episode 8 of season 6 ('The N-Word') and this scene in episode 10 of season 11 ('The Mormon Advantage'). 

 

[6] According to fellow art student Fred Vermorel, when a tutor snapped at Malcolm: 'You think you know everything', he was left speechless when the latter replied: 'There's nothing to know!' Arguably, this is going further even than Socrates. See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), p. 53, where I read of this incident.  

      

In Memory of Imogen Hassall (the Countess of Cleavage)

Imogen Hassall (1942-1980) seen here as a sultry gypsy woman; 

a bikini-clad cave girl; and carrying on as Jenny Grubb   

 

I. 

 

Somewhat surprisingly for an actress who would become known in the 1960s and '70s for playing sexy, scantily clad characters in film and on TV - and who was referred to in the tabloid press as the Countess of Cleavage - the thing I admire most about Imogen Hassall is that although born in Woking, she had something a bit exotic about her - which probably explains why she was often cast as a foreign beauty in shows like The Saint and The Persuaders! [1].   

 

As much as her television work would make an interesting topic for discussion - as well as the above shows, she appeared also in episodes of The Avengers (1967), The Champions (1968), and Jason King (1972) [2] - it's three of her films, all released in 1970, that I wish to look at here ...

 

 

II. 

 

Let's start with an adaptation of a novella by D. H. Lawrence; The Virgin and the Gypsy (1970), dir. Christopher Miles and written by Alan Plater. 

Whilst Miss Hassall doesn't have a very large role in the film - and is credited simply as 'the Gypsy's Wife' - it's always nice to see her on screen, particularly when, as here, she's cheerfully perpetuating the racial and sexual stereotype of the dark-faced gipsy-woman, with a red shawl wrapped round her and swinging her flounced, voluminous skirt as she walks:

 

"She was handsome in a bold, dark, long-faced way, just a bit wolfish. She looked like one of the bold, loping Spanish gipsies" - and she spoke "with a certain foreign stiffness" [3].

The film remains fairly faithful to Lawrence's text; so much so, in fact, that Columbia Pictures, who were originally backing the movie, withdrew their support, leaving Miles and producer Kenneth Harper in something of a pickle (it took them two years to find alternative finance). 

 

It was well-received by film critics and cinema audience alike; indeed, it was even nominated for a Golden Globe and the stars of the film, Franco Nero (as the Gypsy) and Joanna Shimkus (as the Virgin) were praised for their performances. 

 

But when I watch it now, it's only to see Imogen reading palms with her cruel-seeming fingers; or nursing a baby with her lovely bare breast, its mole cinque-spotted; or telling Yvette to beware the voice of the water ... [4]

 

 

III.

I'd like next to offer a few brief remarks on the third in Hammer's prehistoric series - or cave girl flicks - When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970) [5] ...

 

Written and directed by Val Guest, and co-starring Miss Hassal, as Ayak, alongside the American model and actress Victoria Vetri, as Sanna; both women demonstrating that it wasn't only Raquel Welch who knew how to rock a stone age bikini one million years BC (i.e., an age of unknown terrors, pagan worship and virgin sacrifice).

 

For those who like this kind of thing - and I'm one of them - this is the kind of thing we like. 

 

It's not Shakespeare, but it is a lot of fun and, interestingly, Val Guest's screenplay was based on a treatment by J. G. Ballard, who, in his 2008 autobiography, revealed that he too was a fan of Hammer films, which, he said, had "tremendous panache and visual attack, without a single wasted frame" [6]. 

 

And so, when contacted by the producer Aida Young - who informed him she was a great admirer of his work, particulary The Drowned World (1962) - Ballard was happy to meet up and share a few ideas; whether he suggested that Imogen's character - the jealous and scheming Ayak - should meet a diabolical end in a pit of quicksand, I don't know (but I doubt it). 

 

 

IV.

 

Finally, we come to the third film in our discussion; Carry On Loving (dir. Gerald Thomas, 1970) ...

 

This is probably nobody's favourite Carry On, but, actually, it's by no means the weakest in the long-running film series and has most of the familiar faces, as this trailer indicates: click here. 

 

However, it also has a couple of newcomers, one of whom is Imogen Hassall as prim and proper Jenny Grubb who transforms into something of a bombshell (much to the delight of the middle-aged Romeo looking for love played by Terry Scott). 

 

If, in a sense, she is simply filling in for Valerie Leon, Miss Hassall nevertheless puts in an excellent performance, as does Jackie Piper as her flatmate, Sally Martin - unknown star of stage, screen and television - appearing here in her second Carry On. 

 

As, by all accounts, Imogen was popular with both members of the cast and fans of the series, it's a surprise she didn't return in a later film. But there you go. Perhaps she didn't want to be typecast and had grown tired of always being the buxom brunette (she was clearly talented enough to play the more serious roles she craved).

 

Unfortunately, as her star began to wane and her personal life was increasingly marked by tragedy - including the death of a baby daughter four days after she was born in 1972 - Imogen did incline to sadness and was found dead at her Wimbledon home on the morning of November 16th, 1980: suicide by overdose.

 

She was, to paraphrase William Hazlitt, perhaps the most tender and most artless of all those young women who lit up the screens in the 1960s and '70s.  

     

Notes

 

[1] She played the Greek beauty (Sophia) in a 1964 episode of The Saint (for full details on IMDb, click here); and the Italian beauty (Maria) in the first episode of The Persuaders! in 1971 (for full details on IMDb, click here).

[2] See: The Avengers, 'Escape in Time' (S5/E3), in which she plays an Indian character named Anjali; The Champions, 'Reply Box No. 666' (S1/E3), in which she plays a character called Cleo; Jason King, 'The Stones of Venice' (S1/E20), in which she plays a character called Gina.   

[3] D. H. Lawrence, The Virgin and the Gipsy, in The Virgin and the Gipsy and Other Stories, ed. Michael Herbert, Berhan Jones and Lindeth Vasey, (Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 21. 

      I have written about the racial and sexual stereotyping of Romani women - and the trope of the Hot Gypsy Girl - elsewhere on Torpedo the Ark: click here. 

 

[4] These scenes from Christopher Miles's movie can be viewed on the Facebook page 'In Loving Memory of Imogen Hassal': click here. 

[5] In the UK the film was released as When Dinosaurs Ruled the World, but seems now to be known by the US title, even on the BFI website. To watch the original trailer, click here. And to watch a rather charming short interview with Imogen Hassall discussing the film, click here.    

[6] See J. G. Ballard, Miracles of Life, (Fourth Estate, 2008). 

      Ballard was also impressed with the fact that directors of the Hammer movies were "surprisingly free to push their obsessions to the limit".