A Year on Earth With Mr. Hell (Fashion Beast Editions, 2022)
ft. Miss Young Kim and Mr. Richard Hell
To read part one of this post, which offers a series of opening remarks and notes on subjects including amorous gifts, dirty handkerchiefs, cunnilingus, and the politics of fashion, please click
here.
May I also remind readers that page numbers given below refer to the Fashionbeast edition of A Year on Earth With Mr Hell (2022).
Random Notes on Young Kim's A Year on Earth With Mr. Hell (cont.)
On (In)Fidelity
Miss Kim is irritated by Mr. Hell's feeling guilty about the fact that he is cheating on his girlfriend: "I think the truth is, as unconventional and wild as Richard is [...] he is hampered with a puritanical streak." [153]
He is, she says, an absurd and puerile coward, ashamed of his own polyamorous nature.
But is this the truth? Or could it not be that "the profound instinct of fidelity in a man" is "just a little deeper and more powerful than his instinct of faithless sexual promiscuity"? [j]
After all, even Lady Chatterley's lover ultimately desires the peace that comes of fucking [k] and recognises that his underlying passion is for constancy, not to endlessly chase skirt - particularly as, like Mr. Hell, he is no longer a young man [l].
"'What a misery to be [...] impotent ever to fuck oneself into peace'", writes Oliver Mellors [m]. And what a misery also to remain, in Kim's own words, a "hapless adolescent in trouble with too many women" [160].
No wonder that by the end of the book Mr. Hell is looking "sad and torn and guilty and weary" [223] and eventually tells Miss Kim that he can't continue the affair: "'I have to go. I feel terrible doing this to my girlfriend. Being two-faced. My head hurts.'" [223]
On Lurking
Like Mr. Hell, I too prefer to wait outside a bar or restaurant when meeting someone, rather than sit passively (and anxiously) inside; a practice that Miss Kim finds curious and bizarre, though explains it to herself by deciding that he must like to anticipate and observe the arrival of his date - "like a predator waiting for its prey" [44].
That's possible: but I think there's another reason why Mr. Hell likes to stay lurking in the shadows for as long as possible.
For is there anything worse than to be seen looking lonely at a bar or table, waiting for someone who may or may not arrive; one feels not only exposed, but emasculated.
Only a masochist would find pleasure in this; in their subordination and being kept in a state of suspense by another.
On Name Dropping
Whilst at the Knickerbocker Bar and Grill, Miss Kim and Mr. Hell both name drop like crazy in order to assert their own status and, presumably, find common cultural territory with one another by identifying shared acquaintances and inspirations: Picasso, Agnes Martin, Francis Picabia, René Clair, Ian Fleming, Ian McEwan, Allen Ginsberg, Karen Blixen, Carole Bouquet, Peter Beard, Russ Meyer, are all casually alluded to over oysters.
I know this will infuriate some people, but I found it kind of funny, rather than a sign of snobbery or narcissism. And besides, isn't name dropping a function of basic human interaction; don't we all do it, to some extent - even those whose only connection to famous names is via a box of chocolate liqueurs.
On Punk Anthems
According to Miss Kim, Richard Hell's 'Blank Generation' is "the ultimate nihilistic punk anthem"
[9] [n]. But that's debatable. And, in fact, I have already discussed this song (and found it wanting) in contrast to the far more provocative (if less poetic) 'Pretty Vacant', by the Sex Pistols: click
here.
On Sex
Ultimately, Miss Kim comes to the conclusion that sex is sex [169] - i.e., a fixed and never-changing reality which in some way provides the great clue to being. But we can't let this metaphysical notion pass without comment ...
Like Foucault, I tend to see sex as a complex type of agency formed by regimes of power unfolding within time and place, or history and culture, rather than as an ideal anchorage point supporting various manifestations of what we term sexuality.
The belief that it somehow eludes and resists power and resides deep within us over and above the material reality of bodies and possessing its own intrinsic properties and laws, is simply a piece of modern romance.
Of course, this isn't to deny that the convenient fiction of sex hasn't proved to be extremely useful; or that it will cease to function in the immediate future. It seems certain that sex will continue to be thought of as a great causal principle long after novelists and lovers have abandoned older ideas of the soul as mere superstition.
For the fact is, a very great number of men and women - including Miss Kim and Mr. Hell - have made their very intelligibility dependent upon their sex and it provides them with their most precious forms of identity. Which is why they talk about and think about sex endlessly and desire to "have access to it, to discover it, to liberate it, to articulate it, to formulate it in truth" [o].
Despite the popular belief that there have been centuries of repressive silence and shame surrounding the subject, sex has in fact been the most obsessively talked about thing of all. What is peculiar about modern societies, suggests Foucault, is not that they kept sex locked away in darkness, "but that they dedicated themselves to speaking of it ad infinitum, while exploiting it as the secret" [p].
In other words, what really distinguishes the world we live in is a polymorphous and increasingly pornographic incitement to discourse about sex. Those who are genuinely interested in libidinal pleasures might do best not to vainly attempt to extract further confessions from a shadow, but show how sex is - and has always been - a purely speculative element within the historical process of human subjectification.
In a postmodern future - that is to say, in a time after the orgy - people will be unable to fathom our sex mania. And they will smile, says Foucault, when they recall that there were once people such as Miss Kim and Mr. Hell who believed that in sex resided a truth "every bit as precious as the one they had already demanded from the earth, the stars, and the pure forms of their thought" [q].
On Sexism and Gender Difference
Miss Kim is annoyed when her steak arrives well done, having "clearly specified rare" [44]. Surprisingly, she interprets this as an act of overt sexism rather than incompetance or poor service: "Do they think only men like bloody steaks?" [44]
However, she still expects and considers it normal that Mr. Hell pay for the meal. Why? Because Miss Kim believes in male gallantry and thinks it "only fair that the man
pay for the experience [of dinner] when a woman spends a fortune maintaining her
appearance" [89].
Woe betide any man who dares to go Dutch:
"When the bill came, I put down my credit card before I went to the bathroom. I was curious to see what he'd do. It was a test. It wasn't a big tab, but I'd saw he split the check in two. That was the last nail in the coffin." [68]
In fact, Miss Kim - who openly declares herself a non-feminist (even whilst complaining that, as a single woman, she is often shown
little respect by men) - subscribes to many traditional ideas and stereotypes concerning gender and sexual difference:
"A man thinks so differently from a woman" [79] ...
"Men are wonderfully bestial" [106] ...
"Men never grow up" [177] ...
And - my personal favourite -
"Men are strange" [181].
Amusingly, however, by the end of the book Kim realises that she's not merely like a man in many respects, but, thanks to all the hardship she's lived through, has in fact "become a man" [230].
By which she means that at times of crisis or emotional stress she enjoys watching a lot of TV.
On Smell
"Smell is a surprisingly powerful sense - far more powerful than sight and touch" [110], says Miss Kim. And whilst unable to remember it, there is, she insists, a "scientific reason for this" [110].
That's probably true. But there's also an interesting pollyanalytic reason which D. H. Lawrence outlines in Fantasia:
"The nostrils are the great gate from the wide atmosphere of heaven to the lungs. [...] But the nostrils have their other function of smell [...] delicate nerve-ends run direct from the lower centres, from the solar plexus and the lumbar ganglion [...] There is the refined sensual intake when a scent is sweet. There is the sensual repudiation when a scent is unsavoury." [r]
One recalls also something said by the narrator of Patrick Süskind's fabulous novel Perfume (1985):
"Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally." [s]
I smiled to see Young Kim not only informing her readers that she always wears the same perfume - "pomegranate, from Santa Maria Novella" [111] - but that her vaginal fluid has a "distinctively sweet smell" [211] - although I accept that some might find that a little too much information.
On Spanking
Miss Kim writes:
"I stretched myself out over his lap, he slapped my ass hard, but not hard enough to truly hurt, several times, maybe four. The slaps were surprisingly loud, crackling through the air, which made me uncomfortable, in case anyone heard. Then, his fingers explored my pussy and my asshole for a bit before his hand came down harder several times more [...] What fun." [122]
The English vice, as it is known - and which includes all varieties of corporal punishment (caning, flogging, spanking, etc.) - remains ever-popular within the world of lovers.
As a form of sensual discipline it is an ascetic practice which has a restorative effect on the soul.
That is to say, if carried out with genuine passion, then chastisement establishes a circuit of polarized communication and produces as powerful a flash of interchange between parties as an act of sexual intercourse.
It should, therefore, be regarded as a natural form of coition which makes a violent readjustment in the flow between lovers, allowing, like a thunderstorm, for a fresh start and a new feeling.
Ultimately, corporal punishment is a vital necessity because man does not live by love and kindness alone and human culture is inscribed and cut into the flesh. To paraphrase Lawrence: As long as men and women have bottoms, they must surely be spanked ...
Notes
[j] D. H. Lawrence, A Propos of Lady Chatterley's Lover, in Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Propos of Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 318.
[k] I have written on this key idea in Lawrence's late work in a post entitled 'Chastity' (19 Dec 2021): click here.
[l] Age is always a significant issue - certainly for 67-year-old Mr. Hell, concerned he'll not be able to sexually satisfy a much younger woman. But when Richard tells Young that it would best if she forgot him, as he was too old, she dismisses the idea. Later, however, she wonders why it is she doesn't meet younger people, closer to her own age, with whom to form romantic relations, concluding she belongs to the wrong generation (see p. 141).
Finally, note how when Mr. Hell breaks up with Miss Kim and expresses guilt over his infidelity, he again reminds her of his age: "'Next month I'll be sixty-eight! And I'm doing all this?!'" [229]
[m] D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, op. cit., p. 301.
[n] Later, Kim describes 'Blank Generation' as a "powerful piece of poetry, art, and emotion packed like dynamite into a catchy paean" [215]. Which is fair enough, but I still prefer 'Pretty Vacant'.
[o] Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality 1: The Will to Knowledge, trans. Robert Hurley (Penguin Books, 1998), p. 156.
[p] Ibid., p. 35.
[q] Ibid., p. 159.
[r] D. H. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 100.
[s] Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, trans. John E. Woods, (Hamish Hamilton, 1986), p. 82.
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