Fran Lock: In Praise of the Exclamation Mark!

 

I have to admit, I've never been a big fan of the exclamation point ... 

 

It may have a perfectly respectable Latin origin and have been used since the 14th-century, but it is today the punctuation mark favoured by the kind of people who don't know how to curb their enthusiasm; the kind of people who always telegraph how they are feeling; the kind of people who also employ emojis and resort to uppercase letters for emphasis; the kind of people who laugh at their own jokes.  

 

There are times, perhaps, when it's use is necessary and unavoidable. 

 

But it should always be used sparingly - even if you happen to be female and thus have a gendered predisposition for its usage, like Elaine Benes [1]. Or even if, like the poet Fran Lock, you view it as a species of typographical hyena and mount a stirring defence of its use on class (and queer theoretical) grounds:

 

"I love the exclamation mark with all its thrillingly ambiguous expressive effects. I like its over-the-topness, how it conveys both volume and intensity. I'm not supposed to. I spent nearly four years in academia having the principles of good middle-class prose ironed into me. Snobbery about the exclamation mark is one of those principles: it's tabloidy, a kind of gutter punctuation; it belongs to popular culture, has a rich, kitsch tackiness to it, a tacky kitschiness. It's working-class. It comes from poverty, like me. Proletarian and camp in equal measure. I see the exclamation mark as a species of typographical hyena: no one knows how to read it. Is it a threat? A warning? A joyous whoop? [...] I think of it as queer." [2] 

 

Notes

 

[1] One recalls how upset Elaine got with her writer boyfriend, Jake Jarmel, for his unwillingness to use exclamation marks in the series 5 episode of Seinfeld entitled 'The Sniffing Accountant' (dir. Tom Cherones, 1993): click here to watch the relevant scenes on Youtube. 

 

[2] Fran Lock, speaking in an interview with Karolina Ros Olafsdottir in Issue 100 of Poetry London (Autumn 2021). To read online click here. I have to confess, Lock has almost made me reconsider the question of the exclamation mark. 

Three French Suicides: In Memory of Olga Georges-Picot, Christine Pascal, and Gilles Deleuze

Christine Pascal, Gilles Deleuze & Olga Georges-Picot

 

 

I.

 

Last night, on TV, they were showing one of my favourite films: the British psychological thriller written and directed by Basil Dearden and starring Roger Moore; The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970) [1]. 

 

There are many reasons to love this film, not least of all because it allows one to get a glimpse of the French actress Olga-Georges Picot in a very fetching black bra. She's luscious. She's ravishing. And there are some men who would happily give up red meat to be afforded an opportunity to perv [2] on this Franco-Russian beauty [3] - including Woody Allen, who cast her as Countess Alexandrovna in his 1975 film Love and Death.  

   

Whilst biographical information on her life and career seems to be limited and incomplete, we do know that she commited suicide in June 1997 by jumping from her 5th floor apartment overlooking the river Seine.

 

 

II. 

 

Olga Georges-Picot's death came less than a year after the death - also by suicide and also by jumping out of a window - of the brilliant French actress, writer and director Christine Pascal ... 

 

Interestingly, this multi-talented woman had often reflected philosophically on the question of suicide, and the first film she directed - Félicité (1979) [4] - opens with a suicide scene. Several years later, when asked by an interviewer how she would like to die, she replied: En me suicidant, le moment venu.

 

Well, that time came in August 1996, whilst receiving treatment at a psychiatric hospital in the Paris suburb of Garches [5]. Whether her suicide is best interpreted as a mad act by a mentally ill woman or a voluntary death by an unconventional woman with a penchant for transgressive behaviour is something I'll allow readers to decide [6].    

 

III.

Finally, let us remember Gilles Deleuze ... 

 

Deleuze was a philosopher very much admired by Pascal and one who, like her - and like Georges-Picot - also topped himself by jumping out of a window, when the respiratory conditions that he had long suffered from became increasingly severe [7].     

I remember the excitement news of this event generated in the Philosophy Dept. at Warwick, where I was doing my Ph.D at the time and had just started to read Deleuze's work seriously. Everyone wanted to know if his death came from within or without and pondered the question of whether it marked a loss of desire on his part, or whether the decision to terminate one's own individual existence as a way of affirming life indicates a final resurgence of vitality.  

 

In other words, was his suicide a logical way for Deleuze to show fidelity to his own philosophy, rather than merely a wish to end his suffering?

 

It remains an interesting question, I think ...       

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I have written about this in relation to Daphne du Maurier's 1957 novel The Scapegoat in a post entitled 'Never Give a Doppelgänger the Keys to Your Car ...' (17 June 2020): click here. 

[2] I'm paraphrasing George Costanza interviewing for a secretary in the season six episode of Seinfeld entitled 'The Secretary', (dir. D. Owen Trainor, 1998): click here.  

[3] Olga was was the daughter of Guillaume Georges-Picot, the French Ambassador to China, and a Russian mother, Anastasia Mironovich. She was born in Shanghai, in Japanese-occupied China, in January 1940. 

 

[4] Christine Pascal was born in Lyon in November 1953. She was given a starring role, aged twenty-one, in Michel Mitrani's Les Guichets du Louvre (1974). 

      The film portrays the infamous Vel' d'Hiv' Roundup in 1942, when French police assisted Nazi soldiers in the arrest of over 13,000 Jewish inhabitants of Paris and held them under inhumane conditions prior to their deportation to Auschwitz, where virtually all were murdered. Pascal played a young Jewish woman named Jeanne.

 

[5] Félicité was not only written and directed by Pascal, but she played the lead role too. It was a film that shocked many (even in France) with its explicit sexual content and provocative indecency and cemented her reputation as the mauvaise fille of French cinema.   

 

[6] Somewhat unfairly, I think, the psychiatrist who was caring for Pascal was sentenced in 2003 to twelve months in prison for failing to take appropriate action to prevent her suicide. 

 

[7] Deleuze, who had problems with his breathing even as a youngster, developed tuberculosis in 1968 and underwent surgery to remove a lung. In the final years of his life even writing became increasingly difficult and so, on 4 November 1995, aged seventy, he jumped to his death from the window of his Paris apartment.

 

I Have Nothing To Say

Jiggs the Chimp as Ollie's evolutionary predecessor in  

the Laurel and Hardy film Dirty Work, (dir. Lloyd French 1933) 

 

 

Sometimes, people tell me they would like to begin writing a blog. But when I ask what's stopping them from doing so, they reply:  I have nothing to say.

 

Having nothing to say, however, didn't prevent some truly great artists from producing some very interesting work; one thinks, for example, of Cage and Beckett, both of whom illustrate the crucial function of silence and how you can build upon or radically foreground nothingness: click here. 

 

One thinks also of Seinfeld - a show famous for being about nothing: click here.   

 

And one remembers also Oliver Hardy's refusal to be fazed by or comment upon events in the classic short film Dirty Work (1933). Even when he is devolved into a chimpanzee after falling into a vat containing Prof. Noodle's rejuvination solution, Ollie still has nothing to say: click here. 

 

If, after explaining all this, any would-be blogger still feels at a loss for words, then I advise them to stick with posting pictures of their cat on Instagram. 

 

 

I Love You in Velvet (and Silk Underwear): Notes on the Wagner Case

Richard Wagner in a velvet jacket and hat (1871)

 

There's a man I simply dote on / unlike others of his ilk 

A velvet cloak and hat on / And underwear of silk

 

I.

 

Velvet is a type of woven tufted fabric in which the cut threads are evenly distributed, its short dense pile giving it a distinctive softness. 

 

Whilst today velvet can be made from all kinds of materials - including synthetic fibres - in the past it was typically made from the finest silk, meaning it was expensive and, before the invention of industrial power looms, difficult to produce. 

 

This fact - added to its lush appearance and feel - meant that velvet was often associated with the nobility and high offices of Church and State. King Richard II of England, for example, decreed in his will that his body should be clothed in velvet.

 

During the medieval period, velvet produced in the great Italian cities was thought to be the most magnificent in terms of texture and depth of colour. However, by the 16th-century Flemish weavers had a reputation for making velvets that rivalled those of Venice, Florence, or Genoa.  

 

 

II.

 

Other than Richard II - and George Costanza [1] - the figure who most springs to mind when thinking of those with a penchant for velvet is 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner ...

 

For Wagner, besides being perhaps the greatest genius that ever lived - and a notorious antisemite - was also a bit of a dandy, with an almost fetishistic love for the feel of velvet and silk against his skin. 

 

Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that his love of finery and frilly silk underwear eventually pushed him in the direction of cross-dressing (not that there's anything wrong with that) [2].

 

Wagner certainly had an eye for fashion and not only paid close attention to his own wardrobe, but that of his wife, Cosima, for whom he would order dresses from Milanese couturiers, providing precise instructions down to the smallest detail concerning the cut, the fabric, the trimmings, etc. 

 

Wagner also loved his velvet curtains and other home furnishings, including rose-scented cushions. 

 

Amusingly, it seems that when his number 1 fan, the young philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, came to stay with him and Cosima at their house in Tribschen, on the shores of Lake Lucerne, Wagner would send him on errands, including picking up his tailor-made silk underwear and velvet outfits - much to Nietzsche's embarrassment.  

 

Fortunately, Nietzsche was able to persuade himself that his actions were justified on the ground that a god need not only be adored, but adorned [3].

Notes

 

[1] In an episode of Seinfeld entitled 'The Doodle [S6/E20], George finally gets to realise his dream - socially acceptable or not - of being able to dress from head-to-toe in velvet. The episode, dir. Andy Ackerman and written by Alec Berg and Jeff Schaffer, originally aired on 6 April 1995. Click here to watch a clip on YouTube.

[2] See Charlotte Higgins; 'Wagner - public genius with a private passion for bustles, bows and bodices', The Guardian (1 March 2007): click here.  

      It should be pointed out that Wagner informed those who were interested in the matter that he had to wear silk next to his skin, because he suffered from erypsipelas (an infection whose symptoms include painful skin-rashes).

 

[3] Nietzsche eventually wised-up and came to perceive Wagner as a decadent sorcerer, who, like some dreadful disease, contaminates culture and makes music sick. See Nietzsche contra Wagner (1899), in which he expresses his disappointment and frustration with his former idol (whilst still praising him on several occasions).

 

 

Musical bonus: Malcolm McLaren, 'I Like You in Velvet', from the album Waltz Darling (Epic, 1989): click here. The little verse at the top of this post is a paraphrase of the opening verse to this track.  

It's Creepy and It's Kooky, Mysterious and Spooky: Mark Fisher's The Weird and the Eerie (Part 1)

Front cover image from Mark Fisher's 

The Weird and the Eerie (Repeater Books, 2016)

 

 

I. 

 

Let me confess from the outset that one of the main problems I have with Mark Fisher's work is that I'm unfamiliar with many of the books, films, and records that he chooses as points of reference, so often feel unable to comment. Thus, I intend sticking here to his more general remarks on the weird and the eerie, about which I feel better able to discuss.

 

According to Mark Fisher, the weird and the eerie are closely related (but distinct) modes of strangeness, each with their own properties. The former draws our attention to that which does not belong and instills a sense of wrongness; the latter troubles the notion of agency (human and non-human) and makes us question existence and non-existence. 

 

Neither terrifies or deeply distresses, so much as make us feel vaguely apprehensive or uneasy.    

 

And neither has much to do with with Freud's concept of the unheimlich and should not be equated to the latter. The attempt to do so, says Fisher, is "symptomatic of a secular retreat from the outside" [a]; i.e., returning to the safety of a long familiar (if hugely influential) idea that ultimately serves to domesticate and contain the outside "in terms of a modernist family drama" [10]. 

 

 

II.

 

Perhaps not surprisingly, Fisher begins his study of the weird by turning to H. P. Lovecraft - a writer whom Graham Harman predicts will one day displace Hölderlin as the philosopher's favourite [b] and someone who intuitively grasped that nothing is weirder than reality (i.e., the natural-material cosmos).

 

As Fisher rightly says, when you really stop to think about it, a black hole is weirder than a vampire or werewolf. 

 

Lovecraft is the daddy of weird fiction; the man who long before George Michael encouraged characters and readers alike to venture outside - even if doing so "often ends in breakdown and psychosis" [16] for the former and fascination "mixed with a certain trepidation" [17] for the latter.

 

There is nothing surprising or suspensful or even truly terrible in Lovecraft's weird tales. And yet they compel our attention, even as they repel us at the same time with their inhuman quality; i.e., their insistence that "human concerns, perspectives and concepts have only a local reference" [18].    

Fisher is spot-on to insist that Lovecraft is neither a horror writer nor a fantasy author; that his weird realism is something very different from either of these genres and that his tales "depend for their power on the difference between the terrestrial-empirical and the outside" [20][c] and on their sheer originality.

 

 

III.

 

Like Lovecraft, H. G. Wells also understood something of the weird, even if his work is, in many respects, very different from the former's. 

 

One thing both writers shared is a concern with thresholds and the fatal possibility of "contact between incommensurable worlds" [28], an idea best illustrated in an episode of Seinfeld when George's independence (and sanity) are threatened by the transcendental shock of worlds colliding [d].   

 

It's probably always best (if not always possible) to keep worlds apart, although the weird, as a phenomenon, is that which unfolds in the space between them. 

 

 

IV.  

 

Moving on, Fisher introduces a notion of the grotesque, which, like the weird, "evokes something which is out of place" [32] - although unlike the latter it often evokes laughter (the only humour in Lovecraft, says Fisher, is accidental).

 

And the "confluence of the weird and the grotesque is no better exemplified than in the work of the post-punk group The Fall" [33], particularly in the period 1980-82. 

Unfortunately, my knowledge of Mark E. Smith's combo is limited. In fact, I can only name one of their songs; the 1980 single 'How I Wrote Elastic Man' (and that's only because I often heard it on John Peel, not because I went out and bought it). 

 

So I'll just have to take Fisher's word for it when he insists The Fall "are remarkabe for the way in which they draw out a cultural politics of the weird and the grotesque" [33] and produced "what could be called a popular modernist weird [...] with all the difficulties and compulsions of post-punk sound" [33] [e].

 

In the same period Fisher was getting worked up over The Fall, I was listening to Adam and the Ants and Bow Wow Wow and had more interest in post-punk piracy than the weird and grotesque; indeed, I seem to remember finding groups like The Fall too depressing (perhaps even too Northern) for my tastes; even their laughter issues "from a psychotic outside" [35] and that didn't sound very funny to me at the time.           

 

However, if what Fisher says is true, I would probably find The Fall more amusing now (although I suspect I would still find them a band more interesting to read about, than fun to listen to).   

 

 

V.

 

Is there not an intrinsically weird dimension to the time travel story? 

Mark Fisher thinks so:

 

"By its very nature, the time travel story [...] combines entities and objects that do not belong together. Here the threshold between worlds is the apparatus that allows travel between different time periods [...] and the weird effect typically manifests as a sense of achronism." [40]

 

Again, that's one of those true-but-kind-of-obvious statements that Fisher seems to specialise in. Here's another: time-paradoxes also trigger a feeling weirdness. Indeed - who would argue with that?  

 

 

VI.

 

"There is another type of weird effect that is generated by strange loops [...] not just tangles in cause and effect [...] but confusions of ontological level." [45]

 

These confusions particularly play out at the level of simulacra and simulation, putting the nature of being and reality into question - just ask Thomas (Neo) Anderson. Or Baudrillard. Is there anything weirder than living in a world one knows to be a cleverly constructed simulation but which still feels real?      

 

 

VII.

 

If it wasn't in the least surprising that Fisher should open his study of the weird with Lovecraft, it's equally unsurprising that he should close it with the director of Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, David Lynch.

 

For in many ways Fisher seems weirdly trapped in the 1980s and '90s; a man still gripped by the same philosophical ideas (and postmodern obsessions) that shaped his thinking when writing his Ph.D. on cybernetic fiction-theory [f]. Indeed, Fisher readily admits that his fascination with the weird and eerie goes back as far as he can remember. 

     

Now, whilst some might suggest he move on and find new interests, I rather admire the manner in which he has stayed true to the authors, singers, and filmmakers, he loves best. But David Lynch isn't a particular favourite of mine, I'm afraid; there are certainly films by the other two Davids - Fisher and Cronenberg - I like more than Mulholland Drive (2001), though they're perhaps not as weird in the sense that Fisher uses the term.   

 

As for Inland Empire (2006), not only have I not seen it, I've not even heard of it - how weird is that?

 

 

Notes

 

[a] Mark Fisher, The Weird and the Eerie, (Repeater Books, 2016), p. 10. Future page references to this work will be given directly in the main text. 

 

[b] See Graham Harman, Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy (Zero Books, 2012).

 

[c] Just to be clear: "The outside is not 'empirically' exterior; it is transcendentally exterior; i.e. it is not just a matter of something being distant in space and time, but of something which is beyond our ordinary experience and conception of space and time itself." - Mark Fisher, The Weird and the Eerie, p. 22. 

 

[d] Seinfeld, 'The Pool Guy' [S7/E8], dir. Andy Ackerman, written by David Mandel (1995). Click here to observe the devastating effect it has upon George's mental health when he experiences the colliding of worlds: George is getting upset! Nevertheless, it's interesting to note that this tale unfolds within a weirdly comic universe, rather than a weirdly tragic or melancholic one.

 

[e] Perhaps the only author who writes with such intense conviction about the pop music they love is poet and playwright Síomón Solomon; see his 2020 text Hölderlin's Poltergeists in which he celebrates that other critically-acclaimed post-punk band from Manchester, Joy Division.     

 

[f] Fisher's Ph.D. thesis was entitled: Flatline constructs: Gothic materialism and cybernetic theory-fiction. It was completed in the Philosophy Dept. at the University of Warwick and submitted in July 1999. A PDF of this work is available via the University of Warwick publications service website: click here. The first line opens with the words "Isn't it strange [...]". 

      Fisher was a founding member of the interdisciplinary collective inspired by the work of Nick Land and Sadie Plant known as the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit. Although I was also in the Philosophy Dept. at Warwick at this time and initially had Land as my Graduate Progress Committee member overseeing my own doctoral research project, I never crossed paths with Fisher, which, looking back, I now rather regret.  

 

 

Part two of this post - on the eerie - can be read by clicking here. 

 

 

When Jerry Seinfeld and Quentin Tarantino Met Lawrence Tierney ...

Lawrence Tierney as Elaine's father Alton Benes 

Seinfeld (S2/E3, 1991)

 

 

I. 

 

Twice recently, I have encountered a Lawrence Tierney look-alike on the 174 bus to Romford and have been tempted to start humming 'Master of the House' [1].

Of course, that would be silly, as he isn't the real Lawrence Tierney - i.e., the American actor best known for his portrayal of mobsters and tough guys in a career that spanned over fifty years and who died in 2002.

 

And even if it were the real Lawrence Tierney, miraculously resurrected and living in Essex, I doubt he'd appreciate me reminding him of his one-off appearance on Seinfeld which didn't end well ...

 

 

II. 

 

'The Jacket' is a very early episode of Seinfeld [2], but contains one of my favourite scenes, in which Jerry and George meet Elaine's father, played by Lawrence Tierney, in the lobby of his hotel and are made to squirm by the latter's gruff, no-nonsense manner while waiting for Elaine - who's late - to arrive.   

 

Tierney's magnificent performance as Alton Benes was praised by cast and crew alike. However, they were ill-prepared for his rather eccentric and intimidating on-set behavior, particularly when, during filming, it was discovered that Tierney had attempted to steal a butcher knife from the knife block in Jerry's apartment set.

 

Seinfeld decided to confront Tierney and, in a lighthearted manner, asked him what he had in his jacket pocket. Rather than try to lie or bluff his way out of the situation, Tierney pulled out the knife and jokingly re-enacted a scene from Psycho, holding the knife above his head and advancing towards Seinfeld with mock murderous intent.

 

Understandably, everyone was a little freaked out by this and so there were no further appearances on the show for Tierney, even though Alton Benes was intended to be a recurring character. Later, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Elaine) would express her regret about this, but conceded that whilst Tierney was a wonderful actor, he was also a total nutjob [3].   

 

I don't know if the latter description was fair, but it's certainly true that Tierney had a long history of violent and often drunken behaviour [4] and even managed to get himself fired from the set of Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992) the following year, after he and the director came to blows [5].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] My reason for this is not because Tierney appeared in the musical Les Misérables, but because he appeared in an episode of Seinfeld in which George (Jason Alexander) repeatedly sings this song. It certainly is catchy: click here. 

 

[2] 'The Jacket' is the third episode of the second season and only the show's eighth episode overall. Directed by Tom Cherones, written by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, it aired on 6 Feb 1991. To watch a clip from the episode featuring the meeting between Jerry, George, and Lawrence Tierney as Alton Benes, click here. 

 

[3] See Inside Look: 'The Jacket' (Seinfeld season two DVD extra): click here.

 

[4] Tierney's numerous arrests for being drunk and disorderly and jail terms for assaults on civilians and police officers cast a dark shadow over his career as an actor. Between 1944 and 1951, for example, he was arrested over twelve times in Los Angeles and served several months behind bars.

 

[5] Tierney played crime boss Joe Cabbot in Tarantino's debut movie. During filming of Reservoir Dogs in July 1991, Tierney was arrested and jailed for firing a gun at his nephew in a drunken rage and had to be given special day release so that he could complete his scene. 

      After firing him, Tarantino described Tierney as a complete lunatic, thereby lending support to Julia Louis-Dreyfus's character assessment. Click here for a clip from the movie featuring Tierney in his role as Joe Cabbot assigning aliases to the members of his gang. Click here for a short video in which Tarantino reminisces about his experience of working with Tierney. Thanks to Thomas Bonneville for sending me the latter link.   

 

Well There's Nothing More Revolutionary Than Calling for Communism Then Diddling the Maid

Helene Demuth (1820-1890)

 

 

This morning, whilst reading on the subject of famous last words, I discovered that Karl Marx had little time for such death bed theatrics.

 

'Go on, get out!' he apparently barked to his housekeeper, who was pottering about his room in the hope of recording some memorable final statement: 'Last words are for fools trying to compensate for having said nothing of any significance in life!'

 

I have to say, I was shocked - not by Marx's attitude, but by the fact that he - a revolutionary socialist and author of a work calling for the establishment of a classless society - should employ a domestic servant.

 

Worse: it's alleged that his German housekeeper, Helene, [1] was impregnated by Marx and gave birth to an illegitimate son, in 1851, who was discreetly placed with a working-class foster family in London shortly afterwards [2]. 

 

If anything exposes the bourgeois hypocrisy (and the sexism) implicit within Marxism, it's this. As Elaine Benes might sarcastically note: There's nothing more revolutionary than calling for communism, then diddling the maid. [3]   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The daughter of parents belonging to the peasant class, Helene Demuth began her life as a maid in 1840, aged 20, entering into the Marx household five years later, where she stayed until Karl's death in 1883. Helene died in London in 1890, and was buried in the Marx family grave (and later re-interred in the tomb of Karl Marx at Highgate Cemetery).

 

[2] Some scholars accept that Marx was the father of the child; a view based upon surviving correspondence from the Marx family and their wider circle, as well as the fact that Marx's wife had been on a trip abroad nine months prior to the birth. The child's paternity, however, remains a subject of controversy, and there is no conclusive documentary evidence as such to prove that Marx had been diddling the maid. 

 

[3] In the season 9 episode of Seinfeld entitled 'The Maid' - dir. Andy Ackerman (1998) - Jerry forms a sexual relationship with his maid, Cindy (played by Angela Featherstone). Although he tries to convince Elaine that the arrangement is somewhat sophisticated, the latter is not convinced. Click here to watch the scene on YouTube.  

    

To read an earlier post on the erotic fascination with maids in the pornographic imagination, click here. 

 

 

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.  

      

The Three Ruperts: Bear, Rigsby & Pupkin

 

 

I. 

 

The modern English name Rupert is a truncation of the Latin Rupertus, which derives from Old High German Hruodoperht (or Hruodoberht), which also happens to be the origin of the name Robert. 

 

Meaning bright with glory, it is a name to be proud of, even if it has today taken on somewhat comical connotations, which is why - as we shall see - it was so suited to Leonard Rossiter's character, Rupert Rigsby, in the seventies TV sit-com Rising Damp; and Robert De Niro's character, Rupert Pupkin, in Scorsese's 1982 film The King of Comedy.    

 

Before discussing the above, however, I want to say a few words about the most famous Rupert of all - no, not Rupert Birkin [1] - but Rupert Bear ...

 

 

II. 

 

As a child, I never much cared for Rupert Bear ...

 

Even if I quite admired his colourful fashion sense - red jumper, bright yellow checked trousers, with a matching yellow scarf - he and his chums were just a bit too boring [2], living at home with their parents in an idyllic English village. No matter how exotic or magical their adventures, the fact was they always began and ended in Nutwood.    

 

However, it was the irritating theme song which opened the 1970s TV series The Adventures of Rupert Bear [3], that really turned me against him: I fucking hated that song - which added an erroneous definite article to the characters name - although the record-buying public obviously didn't share my feelings, as it reached number 14 in the UK charts in 1971 [4].  

Rupert, of course, started life as a comic strip character created by Mary Tourtel, who made his first appearance in the Daily Express in 1920. He soon became very popular and his since gone on to sell millions of books worldwide; the Rupert annual has been published every year since 1936. 

 

And so, like his rival, Paddington Bear - who first appeared on the scene in 1958 (and who I'm not keen on either) - Rupert is firmly entrenched in British popular culture; in September 2020, Royal Mail even issued a set of eight stamps to commemorate his centenary.   

 

Unfortunately, the stamps didn't make reference to the one great scandal that Rupert was involved in; the infamous Oz magazine case which resulted in the editors and publishers being prosecuted for obscenity and put on trial at the Old Bailey in June 1971 [5]. 

 

 

III.

 

Played (brilliantly) by Leonard Rossiter in Rising Damp - a British sit-com, written by Eric Chappell, which was originally broadcast on ITV from September 1974 until May 1978 - Rigsby's first name was only revealed in one of the final episodes. 

 

In 'Great Expectations' (S4/E3), having agreed to pose as his estranged wife, Miss Jones and Rigsby dress up so as to look the part of a married couple:

Rigsby: "How d'you think I look?"

 

Miss Jones: "Very nice Mr Rigsby - though I can't call you that, what's your first name?"

Rigsby: "Err, we needn't go to those lengths Miss Jones."

Miss Jones: "Mr Rigsby we're supposed to be married, what did she call you?"

Rigsby: "Everything really."

Miss Jones: "No, I mean at the beginning, when she was being affectionate."

Rigsby: "Well, we never went in for endearments very much, not even at the beginning. No, she used to smile quietly at me, put her hand on mine and say: 'Now then ratbag.'"

Miss Jones: "Well I can't call you that. Now what's your name?"

 

Rigsby (embarrassed): "Well, it's a rather silly sort of name".

 

Miss Jones: "What is it?" 

Rigsby (mumbling): "Rupert."

Miss Jones: "Robert?"

 

Rigsby: "Rupert."

 

Miss Jones: "Rupert!"

 

Rigsby: "Yes, Rupert Rigsby."

 

Miss Jones (hiding her face and laughing): "I'm sorry Mr Rigsby, you don't look like a Rupert."

 

Rigsby: "Well of course I don't look like - he's a little wooly bear with trousers and a check scarf, isn't he? That's why I stopped using it."

 

Miss Jones (kindly): "Well I shan't, I think it's a very nice name." [6]

 

As well as being a very funny (and rather touching) scene, it also reminds me of the sixth season episode of Seinfeld in which Kramer's first name - Cosmo - is finaly revealed, much to the amusement of George, Jerry and Elaine [7].

The irony, of course, is that Rigsby isn't bright with glory - as the name Rupert suggests - but seedy with failure. Nevertheless, he's a strangely likeable character; far more so than Basil Fawlty, to whom he is sometimes compared.

IV.

 

Rupert Pupkin, on the other hand, is a far more disturbing character; a struggling stand-up comedian with mental health issues, desperate to get his big break. 

 

Long story short, in The King of Comedy (1982) he kidnaps a famous late-night talk show host, Jerry Langford (played by Jerry Lewis), in an attempt to achieve the notoriety he confuses with stardom. As he tells the FBI agents who arrest him: Better to be a king for a night, than a schmuck for a lifetime. 

 

The film was admired by critics, but poorly received by the public who - at this date - preferred to see De Niro in what they understood to be more serious roles, little appreciating the amount of work he invested in the character of Rupert Pupkin. 

 

The fact that, by the end of the film, it's impossible to tell what was real and what was fantasy, also didn't go down well with moviegoers who, as a rule, like to know what's happening and not have to figure things out for themselves.

 

Further, Rupert Pupkin is a troubling figure because he obliges us as film fans to examine our own behaviour and complicity with celebrity culture. Travis Bickle might shock us - and Max Cady [8] might terrify us - but Rupert Pupkin is the one who unsettles us most.    

Perhaps that's why Scorsese has called De Niro's role as Rupert Pupkin his favourite of all their collaborations ... [9]

  

Notes

 

[1] I have referred to and discussed Rupert Birkin - one of the four central characters of D. H. Lawrence's greatest novel Women in Love (1920) - many times in posts on Torpedo the Ark: click here. 

 

[2] I make an exception for his peculiar pal Raggety, a woodland troll-like creature made from twigs, who is goes out of his way to be annoying. Sadly, in the 2006 TV revival Raggety was transformed into a friendly tree elf so as not to frighten the children of Gen Z (aka Generation Snowflake). Worse: Rupert is obliged to wear trainers! 

 

[3] The Adventures of Rupert Bear (known as My Little Rupert in the US) was a live-action puppet series, based on the Mary Tourtel character Rupert Bear, produced by ATV. It aired from 28 October 1970 to 24 August 1977 on the ITV network, with 156 11-minute episodes produced over four series, narrated by Judy Bennett. 

[4] Rupert, written by Len Beadle and Ron Roker, was sung by the Irish singer Jackie Lee and released as a single in 1971: click here. 

      Funny enough, although not a fan of Rupert, I did like the theme song written by Michael Carr and Ben Nisbet for the English language version of the children's TV series White Horses (1968), which was also sung by Jackie Lee (and released as a single in 1968 - reaching number 10 in the UK charts): click here.   

[5] Oz was an underground magazine that flew the flag for the sixties counterculture. The UK version was published from 1967 until 1973, ed. by Richard Neville, a young Australian writer and hippie radical. Issue 28 (May 1970) of Oz was the notorious Schoolkids issue and featured a Rupert cartoon in which he is shown with a large erection and engaging in illicit sexual activity. After initially being found guilty of obscenity and sentenced to harsh jail terms, the magazine's editors were acquitted on appeal. 

      For an interesting recent article by Walker Mimms in The Guardian (4 Aug 2021), discussing how the Oz trial inspired a generation of protest artists, click here. 

 

[6] This lovely one minute exchange begins at 12:20 in the second episode of series four of Rising Damp. Entitled 'Great Expectations', it aired on 18 April 1978 and was written by Eric Chappell, directed by Joseph McGrath, and starred Leonard Rossiter as Rigsby and Francis de la Tour as Miss Jones. The episode can be found on YouTube, or viewed on Dailymotion by clicking here. 

[7] See Seinfeld, 'The Switch' [S6/E11], dir. Andy Ackerman, written by Bruce Kirschbaum and Sam Kass. The episode originally aired on 5 Jan 1995. The relevant scenes concerning Kramer's first name can be viewed here. 

 

[8] Max Cady was the psychopath played by De Niro in the 1991 remake of Cape Fear, also directed by Scorsese. 

 

[9] To watch the original trailer for The King of Comedy (1982), click here. 

You Know We're Living in a Society

George Costanza: defender of society and civilisation -

'The Chinese Restaurant', Seinfeld, S02/E11, (1991): click here.

 

 

In this era of identity politics, nobody wants to talk positively about society and its benefits. 

 

Instead, people prefer to speak of whatever community they imagine themselves belonging to on the basis of gender, race, religion, or a host of other identifying factors that they determine as crucial to who they are [1]. 

 

Often this sense of self is rooted in an experience of injustice or feelings of social exclusion and oppression. Communities thus often spend a good deal of time asserting their rights and (somewhat ironically) demanding recognition by the wider (mainstream) society that they either reject or wish to radically reform. 

 

People coming together on the basis of shared experiences and values sounds reasonable and can be empowering. But when communities become self-enclosed groups with special interests and are suspicious or resentful - even hostile - to those on the outside, then things can quickly develop in way that is problematic.           

 

Even Heidegger - whom one might have supposed to be very much for traditional (quasi-mythical) forms of Gemeinschaft and against modern, inauthentic forms of Gesellschaft - warned:

 

"The much-invoked 'community' still does not guarantee 'truth'; the 'community' can very well go astray and abide in errancy even more and even more obstinately than the individual." [2] 

 

Notes

 

[1] In a very amusing scene from one of my favourite episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm - 'Trick or Treat' (S02/E03) - Larry David identifies himself as a member of the bald community: click here.   

 

[2] Martin Heidegger, 'Ponderings and Intimations III', 153, in Ponderings II-VI: Black Notebooks 1931-1938, trans. Richard Rojcewicz, (Indiana University Press, 2016), p. 127. 

Ghost Variations: Notes on the Madness of Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann (1810-1856) 

German Romantic composer, critic, and madman

In the season two episode of Seinfeld entitled 'The Jacket' [1], George has a catchy tune from Les Misérables stuck in his head which he can't stop singing: Master of the house, doling out the charm / Ready with a handshake and an open palm ...

Jerry warns him that the ninteenth century composer Robert Schumann went mad after just a single note earwormed its way into his mind and he involuntarily heard it playing over and over again. Obviously, George doesn't find this story very reassuring - Oh that I really needed to hear! - but is it true?

The short answer is yes: Schumann did go insane and have to be institutionalised; and he did hear a persistent A-note at the end of his life as well as other increasingly disturbing auditory hallucinations.

Thus it was, for example, that on one cold winter's night in February 1854, the composer leapt from his bed and began feverishly attempting to set down a melody that he believed at first was being dictated by the very angels of heaven. By morning, however, he was convinced that what he actually heard were the hideous cries of demonic beasts.

Whatever the true source of his inspiration [2], the melody became the basis of the six piano variations - known today as the Geistervariationen - that were the last thing he wrote before his final crack-up. They thus occupy a unique (and somewhat disturbing) place in his body of work - as, indeed, in the history of classical music. 

On 27 February, Schumann attempted suicide by throwing himself from a bridge into the Rhine. Rescued by a passing boat and taken home, he requested that he be admitted to an asylum for the insane. Here he remained until his death, aged 46, in the summer of 1856. During his confinement, although his friend Brahms had permission to visit, Schumann wasn't allowed to see his wife, Clara, until two days before his death.

The cause of his death - just like the cause of his madness [3] - is something that has been endlessly discussed ever since; was he schizophrenic or syphilitic? Did he have a bipolar disorder or were his neurological problems the result of a brain tumour of some kind? Was it pneumonia or mercury poisoning - mercury being a common treatment for syphilis at the time - which finally did him in?   

I suppose we'll never really know. But what we might do - and should do - is resist the urge of some commentators to regurgitate the romantic vomit and tired narratives regarding the genius and madness of artists ...

The view that creativity is rooted in or fatefully tied to madness is such bullshit. Artists may well think differently from most other people - that is to say, they may be neurologically divergent and able to experience the world from a wide array of queer perspectives (to delight in paradox, inconsistency, and even chaos), - but it's banal (and mistaken) to reduce this (or their heightened sensitivity) to mental illness.       

Ultimately, I return to Michel Foucault's conclusion in Madness and Civilization: the onset of madness marks the point at which creative work ends; a moment of abolition that dissolves the truth of the work of art [4].  

Notes

[1] Seinfeld, 'The Jacket' [S2/E3], dir. Tom Cherones, written by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, (first broadcast 6 February 1991). Click here to watch a clip from the episode on YouTube.

[2] Sadly, Schumann's mind had deteriorated to such a degree by this point, that he was unable to recognise that - far from being the work of angels, ghosts, or demons - the melody was in fact one of his own, written several months earlier.

[3] I'm taking Schumann's mental health issues - evident from a young age - as a given here, but, interestingly, there are critics such as John Worthen who vigorously challenge this idea. For Worthen the composer's tragic deterioration was rooted in a physical condition (syphilis) and was not a form of madness per se. See: Schumann: Life and Death of a Musician (Yale University Press, 2007).

[4] Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization trans. Richard Howard, (Vintage Books, 1988), p. 287.

A Touch of Evil à la D. H. Lawrence

Detail from the poster for Touch of Evil (Universal Pictures, 1958),
starring Charlton Heston as Hadrian, Janet Leigh as Matilda,
and Orson Welles as Ted Rockley

I.

Almost forty years before the classic American film noir written and directed by Orson Welles, D. H. Lawrence gave us his own touch of evil in a Fox-like short story that the editor of the Cambridge text insists on calling 'Hadrian', even though everyone knows it as 'You Touched Me'. 

Whether the tale has the same cultural and aesthetic value as the movie, is debatable. But it certainly warrants its inclusion in England, My England (1922) as representative of Lawrence's fiction during the period 1913-21 and it even has something of the same schlock quality about it as a Hollywood thriller ...

II.

'You Touched Me' is the story of a young boy, Hadrian, who is adopted by Ted Rockley, the father of four daughters concerned by the fact that he has no male heir. Unfortunately, the boy never quite fits in to the household and rejects the education and lifestyle on offer, eventually heading off to Canada to make his own way.

When the War breaks out, however, he signs up to fight and returns to Europe. Then, after the armistice was signed, Hadrian uses a prolonged period of leave to return to England, now a young man in his own right and no longer just the poor little boy from the orphanage.

The two unmarried daughters, Matilda and Emmie, who have remained at the house to care for their gravely ill father, are suspicious of him and believe he has only returned in order to seek out an inheritance. But, as we shall see, money isn't the only thing that excites Hadrian's interest and, ultimately, he wants far more than that ... 

III.

Having given a brief summary of the plot, let us now look a bit more closely at this rather disturbing tale of a spiteful old man, two rather snobbish old maids, and a young, carefree psychopath ...

"Matilda was a tall, thin, graceful fair girl, with a rather large nose," [93] writes Lawrence with the same lack of tact as displayed by Kramer when introduced to George's new girlfriend Audrey [i]. She - Matilda - "loved painting and music, and read a good many novels", whilst her sister Emmie, who was shorter, fatter, and less accomplished, took care of the house.

Both had hoped to marry bank clerks, or nonconformist clergymen - even teachers - but none had presented themselves; it isn't easy for girls who have higher expectations living in an ugly industrial town full of miners and mere workmen. Still, in their "quiet, melancholy way, the two girls were happy" [93], living at the Pottery House looking after their widowed (alcoholic) father.

Matilda had been sixteen and Emmie two years younger, when their father returned home one day with a six-year-old boy adopted from an institution, called Hadrian:

"Hadrian was  just an ordinary boy [...] with ordinary brownish hair and ordinary bluish eyes and of ordinary rather cockney speech. The Rockley girls  [...] had resented his being sprung on them. He, with his watchful, charity-insitution instinct, knew this at once." [93]

It is perhaps from his first encounter with his new sisters (or cousins, as they insist he call them) that Hadrian determines to one day have his revenge; he looked at them with a "subtle, jeering look on his face" and when he addressed them "there seemed a mockery in his tone" [93].

He's not quite Damien, but it's fairly clear that boy ain't right and the character of Hadrian reinforces the prejudice concerning orphans (that they are, for example, more likely to have criminal tendencies and be more prone to mental health issues) [ii]. Even Cousin Matilda and Cousin Emmie - both basically kind-hearted - mistake his quiet nature and emotional reticence for slyness.        

Hadrian hates the school he is sent to at thirteen: not only does he often bunk off, but he sells his books and uniform to his fellow pupils and went "raking off heaven knows where with the money" [94]. At fifteen, he announces that he intends to leave England and move to Canada:

"He said good-bye to the Rockleys without a word of thanks, and parted, it seemed without a pang. Matilda and Emmie wept often to think of how he left them: even on their father's face a queer look came." [94]

Of course, truancy and ingratitude do not a psychopath make, but they're not great signs either. Let's just say he is on the spectrum for antisocial personality disorder. And it's telling that when he writes after the War informing of them of his plan to visit, Matilda and Emmie are both terribly fluttered: "To tell the truth, they were a little afraid of Hadrian." [94]
 
When he arrives, he does so a day earlier than expected, in order to catch them off guard. He is now a self-possessed young man of twenty-one; small in stature, but "vigorous enough in his smallness" [95]. Matilda blushes deep with mortification when he finds her doing the washing-up, with her sleeves rolled back and her hair tied up (oddly and coquettishly) in an old pink-and-white checked duster.

Cousin Emmie is far more resentful of the fact that he has arrived prematurely and caught them at a disadvantage. Both girls are convinced he's come to get what he can out of their father - hoping for a legacy of some sort: "And they were not at all sure he would not get it" [96]; either because they know how clever and manipulative Hadrian can be, or because they realise what a misogynistic shit their father really is.    

Hadrian makes himself at home. Matilda, unconsciously, begins to find herself attracted to him: her dark-blue eyes take on a strange, full look (pupil dilation being a classic sign of sexual arousal or desire) and she starts to pay careful attention to her appearance: "Now she looked elegant, like a heroine in a magazine illustration, and almost as unreal." [97]

She also begins to sit up in her room late at night: "Her heart was anxious and breaking, her mind seemed entranced" [99] and, although she convinces herself this is due to filial concern for her dying father, readers of Lawrence - and Freud - are expected to know better and to know also all about symptomatic actions and misperformances [Fehlleistungen]; i.e., those things we say or do accidently, but at the same time driven by unconscious desires.   

Thus, for example, we might mistakenly stray into the wrong bedroom and begin caressing the face of the person sleeping there in the belief they are someone else: at any rate, that's what happens to Matilda. As, clearly, this is the crucial scene upon which the story turns, I shall reproduce it at some length:

"She thought of her father, only her father. At last she felt she must go to him.
      It was near midnight. She went along the passage and to his room. There was a faint light from the moon outside. She listened at his door. Then she softly opened and entered. The room was faintly dark. She heard a movement on the bed.
      'Are you asleep?' she said softly, advancing to the side of the bed.
      'Are you asleep?' she repeated gently, as she stood at the side of the bed. And she reached her hand in the darkness to touch his forehead. Delicately, her fingers met the nose and the eyebrows, she laid her fine, delicate hand on his brow. It seemed fresh and smooth - very fresh and smooth. A sort of surprise stirred her, in her entranced state. But it could not waken her. Gently, she leaned over the bed and stirred her fingers over the low-growing hair on his brow.
      'Can’t you sleep tonight?' she said.
      There was a quick stirring in the bed. 'Yes, I can,' a voice answered. It was Hadrian's voice. She started away. Instantly, she was wakened from her late-at-night trance. She remembered that her father was downstairs, that Hadrian had his room. She stood in the darkness as if stung.
      'It is you, Hadrian?' she said. 'I thought it was my father.' She was so startled, so shocked, that she could not move. The young man gave an uncomfortable laugh, and turned in his bed.
      At last she got out of the room. When she was back in her own room, in the light, and her door was closed, she stood holding up her hand that had touched him, as if it were hurt. She was almost too shocked, she could not endure.
      'Well,' said her calm and weary mind, 'it was only a mistake, why take any notice of it.'
      But she could not reason her feelings so easily. She suffered, feeling herself in a false position. Her right hand, which she had laid so gently on his face, on his fresh skin, ached now, as if it were really injured. She could not forgive Hadrian for the mistake: it made her dislike him deeply.
      Hadrian too slept badly. He had been awakened by the opening of the door, and had not realised what the question meant. But the soft, straying tenderness of her hand on his face startled something out of his soul. He was a charity boy, aloof and more or less at bay. The fragile exquisiteness of her caress startled him most, revealed unknown things to him.
      In the morning she could feel the consciousness in his eyes, when she came downstairs. She tried to bear herself as if nothing at all had happened, and she succeeded. She had the calm self-control, self-indifference, of one who has suffered and borne her suffering. She looked at him from her darkish, almost drugged blue eyes, she met the spark of consciousness in his eyes, and quenched it. And with her long, fine hand she put the sugar in his coffee.
      But she could not control him as she thought she could. He had a keen memory stinging his mind, a new set of sensations working in his consciousness. Something new was alert in him. At the back of his reticent, guarded mind he kept his secret alive and vivid. She was at his mercy, for he was unscrupulous, his standard was not her standard.
      He looked at her curiously. She was not beautiful, her nose was too large, her chin was too small, her neck was too thin. But her skin was clear and fine, she had a high-bred sensitiveness. This queer, brave, high-bred quality she shared with her father. The charity boy could see it in her tapering fingers, which were white and ringed. The same glamour that he knew in the elderly man he now saw in the woman. And he wanted to possess himself of it, he wanted to make himself master of it. As he went about through the old pottery-yard, his secretive mind schemed and worked. To be master of that strange soft delicacy such as he had felt in her hand upon his face - this was what he set himself towards. He was secretly plotting." [99-100]

Basically, they have both been awoken by and to the mystery of desire via an act of tenderness; they are now doomed to wed. It's not so surprising then when Hadrian tells the old man he calls Uncle that he'd like to marry Matilda; despite the age difference, despite her large hooter, and despite the quasi-incestuous aspect of a sexual relationship between them.   

And so Rockley, who secretly loves the boy very much, orders his daughter to marry Hadrian. And, if she refuses, he threatens to disinherit her and her sister Emmie, leaving everything to the sly young man with the underground quality of a rat. It is, of course, a monstrous situation Matilda has been placed in. She hadn't much cared for Hadrian before this, but neither had she thought of him as a thing of evil: "He now became hideous to her mind" [103] - like a strange little monster.   

To be fair, Hadrian isn't simply after the money:

"He did want the money - badly. [...] But he knew, in his subtle, calculating way, that it was not for money he wanted Matilda. He wanted both the money and Matilda. But he told himself the two desires were separate, not one. He could not do with Matilda, without the money. But he did not want her for the money." [104]

More shocking is the attitude and role of Ted Rockley in this affair, which borders on malevolent: "He seemed to have a strange desire, quite unreasonable, for revenge upon the women who had surrounded him for so long, and served him so carefully." [104]

He also appears to draw perverse - almost pornographic - pleasure from the thought of Hadrian, his adopted son and proxy, fucking his daughter: at the very end of the tale, after Matilda has reluctantly married Hadrian at the local registry office, they return to see him on his death-bed and he commands her to first kiss him - something she has not done since childhood - and then kiss her new husband in front of him: "'That's right! That's right!' murmured the dying man." [107]

This has to be one of the most indecent endings to any of Lawrence's short stories; though perfect for the cinema of his time which specialised in close-up kisses and in making the audience moan with voyeuristic pleasure like Ted Rockley ...

Notes

D. H. Lawrence, 'Hadrian' ['You Touched Me'], England, My England and Other Stories, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 92-107. All page references in the post are to this edition. To read the story online (courtesy of Project Gutenberg), click here.

[i] Seinfeld, 'The Nose Job', [S3/E9], with Susan Diol as Audrey: click here to view clip on YouTube.

[ii] Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with the research in this area, but imagine it to be extensive. I do know, however, that the evil orphan trope is fairly common within literature (Heathcliffe being an obvious example) and that it's often viewed as a development of a theme popular within folk and fairy tales, namely, that of the changeling child.