Sinister Writings 4: Purity is the Malign Inversion of Innocence

From the film poster for The Ogre, (1996) 

dir. Volker Schlöndorff and starring John Malkovich

 

 

Michel Tournier's enthralling novel The Erl-King (1970) contains many philosophically important ideas; none more so than the following apology for perversion, which is expressed so powerfully that it requires no commentary [1]:

 

"Purity is the malign inversion of innocence. Innocence is love of being, smiling acceptance of both celestial and earthly sustenance, ignorance of the infernal antithesis between purity and impurity. Satan has turned this spontaneous and as it were native saintliness into a caricature which resembles him and is the converse of its original. Purity is horror of life, hatred of man, morbid passion for the void. A chemically pure body has undergone barbaric treatment in order to arrive at that state, which is absolutey against nature. A man hag-ridden by the demon of purity sows ruin and death around him. Religious purification, political purges, preservation of racial purity - there are numerous variations on this atrocious theme, but all issue with monotonous regularity in countless crimes whose favourite instrument is fire, symbol of purity and symbol of hell." [2]    

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Having said that, there will doubtless be those who would like a commentary on the above; such persons may care to read Ursula Fabijancic's, 'Purity/Innocence: A Defense of Perversion in Michel Tournier's Le Roi Des Aulnes', in Dalhousie French Studies, vol. 72, (2005), pp. 71-86. It can be accessed via JSTOR: click here.

 

As Fabijancic rightly notes, the key notions of purity and innocence should not be taken as binary opposites; their inherent instability (and reversability) precludes attaching absolute fixed moral values to them. Also, there exists an ambiguous zone in Tournier's fictional universe where all apparent opposites meet and converge with one another. Ultimately, as readers of the novel will know, Tournier uses the term innocence in a similar manner to Nietzsche and the book's ogre-like protagonist is innocent in a way that many non-Nietzscheans will find problematic; particularly given the nature of his perverse tendencies. For Abel Tiffauges, only true outsiders - social misfits, sexual deviants, immature philosophers et al - share that same quality of innocence and forgetfulness that we find in young children. Finally, we might note in closing that Fabijancic finds Tournier's inventive defence of perversion unpersuasive from an ethical standpoint; mainly because it rests upon a highly idiosyncratic definition of the term innocence and lacks intellectual rigour and consistency. These things don't overly bother me, however. 

 

[2] Michel Tournier, The Erl-King, trans. Barbara Bray, (Atlantic Books, 2014), p. 66.      

 

 

Sinister Writings 3: I Never Knew a Man Falling Was Such a Wonderful Thing

Richard Drew/AP (2001)

 

 

I. 

 

Richard Drew's photograph of a man falling from the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, is an image that retains a deep fascination. But the nature of that fascination, however, is ambiguous ...

 

For if most people view it empathetically, with hands pressed over their mouth and nose in a gesture combining shock, horror and shame, there are undoubtedly others who take a macabre and even perverse pleasure in it. Ultimately, we are all ethically obliged to examine our own reasons for finding it almost impossible to look away from the image ...*

 

 

II.

 

Hands up if you know of the baron des Adrets ... It's okay if you don't; I didn't either until I read an account of his life given in the sinister writings of Abel Tiffauges ...**

"'His name was François de Beaumont, and he had a château at La Frette in the Dauphiné. He lived in the sixteenth century, when the wars of religion bespattered the country with blood and strong men could work their will with impunity.

      One day, out hunting, Adrets and his officers brought a bear to bay, and its retreat was cut off by a precipice. The bear charged one of the men, who fired, hit it, and was soon rolling with it in the snow. The baron, who had seen what had happened, sprang forward to help the man but suddenly stopped, transfixed by an unutterable pleasure. He had noticed that the man and the bear, intertwined as they were, were gradually slipping towards the abyss, and the baron stood frozen and hypnotized by this fall in slow motion. Then the black bulk toppled over into the void, the only stain left on the whiteness was a grey streak, and Adrets groaned with joy.

      A few hours later the officer reappeared, wounded and bleeding, but safe - the bear had broken his fall. He expressed respectful astonishment at the baron's slowness in coming to his assistance. The baron, smiling dreamily as at some delightful recollection, replied in a mysterious sentence heavy with threat: "I never knew a man falling was such a wonderful thing."

      After that, he gave free reign to his new passion. Taking advantage of the religious wars, he imprisoned Catholics in Protestant regions and Protestants in Catholic ones, and arranged for them all to 'fall'. He worked out a subtle ritual. His prisoners were blindfolded and forced to dance to the music of a viol on top of a tower without a parapet. And the baron, breathless with pleasure, would watch them draw near, move away from, and draw near again to the void, until suddenly one of them lost his footing and fell shrieking through the air, to be impaled on a bank of lances stuck in the ground at the foot of the tower.'" [41-2] 

 

I don't know how historically accurate this account is, but François de Beaumont was certainly a genuine figure who switched sides during the religious wars of the French Reformation and became known not only for his military genius and bravery, but also for his appalling cruelty. And he is recorded as having forced eighteen prisoners to throw themselves from the top of a castle keep - so the account is probably pretty accurate. 

 

Anyway, what does it matter? There are truths which infinitely supass the truth of that which is factually correct. The crucial thing is that Adrets had chanced upon a form of cadent euphoria and that there's "probably nothing more moving in a man's life than the accidental discovery of his own perversion" [42]. 

 

Thus, the question that one hardly dares to ask is this: How many people watching the terrible events of 9/11 unfold before their eyes, also made a similar discovery to Adrets: that there is nothing more wonderful than to watch a man falling to his death ...           

 

 

Notes  

 

* The photo used here is one of a series of twelve taken by Drew. It appeared in papers around the world, often arousing angry criticism over its use. The unidentified subject of the picture was trapped on the upper floors of the North Tower and either fell whilst searching for safety or jumped to escape the fire and smoke. Of the 2,606 people who died in the attack on the WTC, it is estimated that as many as 200 fell or jumped to their deaths. For an excellent meditation on the photo, see Tom Junod's 'The Falling Man: An unforgettable story', Esquire (Sep 9, 2016): click here to read online.    

 

** Michel Tournier, The Erl-King, trans. Barbara Bray, (Atlantic Books, 2014), page references given in the text refer to this edition.  

 

For sinister writings on angelic oppression, click here. 

 

For sinister writings on the sexual politics of Adam and Eve, click here. 

Sinister Writings 1: Angelic Oppression

Cameron: Holy Guardian Angel 

According to Aleister Crowley (1966)

 

 

I. 

 

In the winter of 2017 - and as if anticipating the coronavirus - I developed a continuous dry ticklish cough, which stayed for several weeks and left me with respiratory problems. My GP sent me for a chest X-ray, but this didn't reveal anything. So he decided I had developed an asthmatic reaction and issued me with an inhaler. He also prescribed Montelukast, a medication deisigned to make breathing easier by helping to prevent airways from constricting. 

 

Two-and-a-half years later and still often breathless, I was finally given an asthma test, but this also came back negative. Having long since abandoned the steroid inhaler, I was advised to also stop taking the Montelukast tablets; in fact, the nurse who administered the test said I should never have been put on them - and then left on them for 30 months - in the first place.

 

And whilst my breathing has, thankfully, been better of late, I sense there's still an underlying issue and that, sooner or later, some sort of allergen will trigger things again. My doctor doesn't think I should be overly concerned, but I would like to know what caused the problem, will it return, and is it likely to get worse. 

 

I'm also tempted to no longer conceive of the problem in strictly medical or scientific terms, but to understand it symbolically as one best explained within angelology ...

 

 

II.

 

As far as I'm aware, unlike Abel Tiffauges, I've never done anything to antagonise my Holy Guardian Angel. But, just like demons, angels are hypersensitive and easily offended, so perhaps back in the winter of 2017 I did do or say something which called forth punishment from my HGA and that my subsequent respiratory distress wasn't merely the result of having picked up a virus, but, rather, from having been given an angel's punch ...

 

For although such is dealt with a fist that is "harder and heavier than marble" [60] and can leave one gasping for breath for a longtime afterwards, it isn't, of course, a purely material blow and so is often unfelt at first. The fist of bronze, we might say, is "enveloped in the white feathers of the spirit" and this magically softens and disguises the blow. 

 

Now, being neither a Catholic nor a Thelemite, it's difficult for me to think seriously in terms of spiritual entities existing independently of man. But still the fact remains that "sometimes I have difficulty in breathing, and then it is as if the brazen fist is [...] bearing down still with all its weight upon my chest" [60].

 

My GP, of course, whilst unable to find anything physically wrong and thus at a loss to explain my condition, had little time for such ideas; even though he identifies as a Muslim and thus presumably accepts the existence of malaikah ...   

 

Still, regardless of what he or anyone else might believe, I like to think that the angelic has charged my respiratory life with supernatural significance:

 

"Thanks to it, my lungs have made the transition from glandular darkness to visceral dawn  - even in extreme instances, to the broad daylight of consciousness. These extreme cases include the great dyspnoeic distress that makes me lie on the ground and struggle against a muderous though invisible grip; but also the profound and happy inspiration in which the whole sky, full of the flight of swallows and the sound of harps, plunges its forked root directly into my lungs." [61] 

 

 

See: Michel Tournier, The Erl-King, trans. Barbara Bray, (Atlantic Books, 2014). All page references given in the text refer to this edition. 

 

For sinister writings on the sexual politics of Adam and Eve, click here. 

 

For sinister writings on cadent euphoria, click here.