Francis Davey: the Vicar of Altarnun

James Duke as Francis Davey 

(Salisbury Playhouse 2004)

I.

Albinism or, as it is sometimes known, achromia, is a rare congenital disorder characterised by the complete or partial absence of melanin in the skin, hair, and eyes. It is believed to affect approximately 1-in-20,000 people, mostly in Africa where it is often still regarded with superstitious fear resulting in persecution and acts of atrocity.

Having said that, the portrayal of people with albinism in Western culture is also largely negative and there are legitimate concerns that this engenders or, at the very least, reinforces, prejudice and discrimination.

It was, therefore, a little dispapointing to discover Daphne du Maurier exploiting the evil albino plot device in her celebrated novel Jamaica Inn (1936), although it would be unfair to expect a woman born in 1907 to share 21st-century concerns surrounding this issue.

And besides, even if Francis Davey, vicar of Altarnun and criminal mastermind, is something of a fictional stereotype, he remains a truly fascinating figure ...


II.

I think the first thing to note is the manner in which Davey's albinism is used to distinguish him not from the heroes of the book - for in truth, there are none - but from the darkness of his cohorts in evil and, indeed, the elemental darkness of the Cornish landscape itself. The whiteness of his skin and hair makes him stand out, but is not, of course, a sign of innocence; it is, rather, a sign of his unnaturalness.

Thus, while Joss Merlyn may be a monster, he remains all too human. Davey, on the other hand, is a freak who has something inhuman about him. Du Maurier, a mistress of the uncanny, is always good at blurring the line between brutal realism and queer gothic fantasy and with Davey she gives us a character about whom nothing is certain: he might be just a man after all; or he might be a fallen angel or demon. He certainly presents himself as both outcast and anti-Christ and it's his dark paganism rather than white hair and skin, that ultimately capture our interest.       


III.

Although his concealed presence has previously been sensed in an empty guest room at Jamaica Inn, it's not until she is lost on the moors that Mary Yellan finally encounters Davey in the flesh - and even then he is a ghostly figure "lacking reality in the dim light" [94]. Softly-spoken, his voice nevertheless contained a calm, persuasive authority and Mary can tell he is a man of good breeding. But then she notices his blind-looking hypnotic eyes for the first time:

"They were strange eyes, transparent like glass, and so pale in colour that they seemed near to white [...] They fastened upon her, and searched her, as though her very thoughts could not be hidden, and Mary felt herself relax before him, and give way; and she did not mind." [95]   

His house - to which he escorts her - is strangely peaceful and enchanting, but at the same time it is also unreal: 

"This was a different world from Jamaica Inn. There the silence was oppressive and heavy with malice; the disused rooms stank of neglect. Here it was different. The room in which she was sitting had the quiet impersonality of a drawing-room visited by night. The furniture, the table in the centre, the pictures on the walls, were without that look of solid familiarity belonging to the day." [97]

After speaking of her life at Jamaica Inn, Mary is driven home by Davey and she is shocked to discover a reckless quality to his character:

"He made no effort to rein in his horse, and, glancing up at him, Mary saw that he was smiling. 'Go on,' he said, 'go on; you can go faster than this'; and his voice was low and excited, as though he were talking to himself. The effect was unnatural, a little startling, and Mary was aware of a feeling of discomfiture, as though he had betaken himself to another world and had forgotten her existence." [104-05]

He was certainly not like any parson she had met before and she "wondered why he had not used the conventional phrases of comfort, said something about the blessing of prayer, the peace of God, and life everlasting" [166]. The answer, as we discover, is because Francis Davey is a devil in disguise; his face itself is nothing but an expressionless white mask that doesn't even betray his age.   

Until the very end, however, Mary continues to trust him - even after looking at his uncanny paintings with their alien atmosphere and discovering a sketch in his desk that depicted his congregation assembled in the pews and himself in the pulpit:

"At first Mary saw nothing unusual in the sketch; it was a subject natural enough for a vicar to choose who had skill with his pen; but when she looked closer she realised what he had done.
      This was not a drawing at all, but a caricature, grotesque as it was horrible. The people of the congregation were bonneted and shawled, and in their best clothes as for Sunday, but he had drawn sheep's heads upon their shoulders instead of human faces. The animal jaws gaped foolishly at the preacher, with silly vacant solemnity, and their hoofs were folded in prayer. [...] The preacher, with his black gown and halo of hair, was Francis Davey; but he had given himself a wolf's face, and the wolf was laughing at the flock beneath him." [261-62]

This picture - regarded by Mary Yellan as blasphemous and terrible - provides good reason to rather admire Davey; he may be a murderer, but at least he has a sense of humour and artistic talent and these things compensate for a good deal. In fact, push comes to shove, I might prefer the company of Davey to that of Jem Merlyn. The latter may have a certain rogueish charm and knicker-invading smile, but he has many depressing limitations.

In other words, if I'd been Mary Yellan, I just might have taken my chances with the vicar rather than thrown in my lot with a horse thief who promises only hard times and homelessness; "'with the sky for a roof and the earth for a bed'" [299].

For Davey not only offers an experience of the wider world - "'You shall see Spain, Mary, and Africa, and learn something of the sun; you shall feel desert sand under your feet ...'" [282] - but access to another world altogether; a primeval world of pagan splendour, when men were not so humble "and the old gods walked the hills" [274].     

Both men, by their own admission, spoke a strangely different language to poor Mary Yellan; the latter's romantic nomadism in contrast also to the former's pagan esotericism. I have, in my time, been a sucker for both, so I understand the appeal of each; the open road versus the road to hell paved with purple flowers.

It's not an easy choice, but, in this instance, Davey's offer of a queer alliance is arguably the more interesting. Jem offers Mary the chance to live like a gypsy; Davey promises that he'll teach her how to live "as men and women have not lived for four thousand years or more" [278]. Mad neo-pagan fantasy ...? Perhaps. But still his words "found echo in her mind" [280].   

Ultimately, however, Mary doesn't have have to make the choice: Davey, who has abducted her and taken her onto the moors, is shot and killed by Jem Merlyn and it's his wagon she hops on board in the end (whilst recently buried Aunt Patience turns in her freshly dug grave) ...

See: Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn, (Virago Press, 2003). All page numbers given in the above text refer to this edition of the novel.

Gordon Ramsay and D. H. Lawrence Versus the Cornish

I.

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has apparently received a warning from the Cornish Coastguard for repeated violations of the government's insane lockdown measures put in place primarily to protect the NHS even at the cost of wrecking the British economy and suspending the socio-cultural interactions of everyday life (like Peter Hitchens and other voices of dissent, I'm not convinced that these measures do anything to save lives or stem the spread of Covid-19).     

A Coastguard official told a reporter that Ramsay had been spotted 'multiple times in several places' and had even dared to seem happy and relaxed whilst out strolling on the beach with his wife, cycling on his bike around country lanes, and shopping at the local fishmongers.

Neighbours have also complained to the police of loud noise coming from the £4 million Ramsay home in Trebetherick: 'Why can't he just keep his head down, stay indoors, and be quiet like everyone else?'

Sadly, this sorry tale reveals much about the absurd yet profoundly sinister state of affairs in the UK today; overly zealous officials and fearful, resentment-ridden citizens happy to act as police informants. I'm sure the good people of Cornwall are not the only ones gripped by this viral hysteria (spread by the media), but it does remind me of another incident, in Zennor, that happened a century earlier ...


II.

The novelist and poet D. H. Lawrence lived in Cornwall for almost two years during the First World War and had high hopes of building a new life in the bare, primeval land with his wife Frieda: "When we came over the shoulder of the wild hill, above the sea, to Zennor, I felt we were coming into the Promised Land." [1]

Unfortunately, the neighbours were suspicious and eventually hostile towards this stranger who wrote controversial books and was married to a German woman. The vicar of Zennor, in particular, hated the Lawrences and was largely responsible for them being investigated by the authorities. 

They were suspected of espionage and possibly signalling to U-boats off the coast. Despite pleading their innocence, their cottage was searched (not once, but twice) and some personal papers were removed. The Lawrences were also served with a military exclusion order under the Defence of the Realm Act, forbidden them to reside in Cornwall (or any other coastal region). They were given just 72 hours to leave the county.

Naturally enough, Lawrence found all this hateful and humiliating - just as I'm sure Gordon Ramsay must find the press intrusion, public gossiping, and police snooping in the name of health and safety intolerable - and doubtless Lawrence was reinforced in his initial impression of the Cornish people, which violently veered from love to hate and back again:  

"The Cornish people still attract me. They have become detestable, I think, and yet they aren't detestable. They are, of course, strictly anti-social and unchristian. But then, the aristocratic principle and the principle of magic, to which they belonged, these two have collapsed, and left only the most ugly, scaly, insect-like, unclean selfishness, so that each one of them is like an insect isolated within its own scaly, glassy envelope, and running seeking its own small end. And how foul that is! How they stink in their repulsiveness, in that way.

      Nevertheless, the old race is still revealed, a race which believed in the darkness, in magic, and in the magic transcendency of one man over another, which is fascinating. Also there is left some of the old sensuousness of the darkness, a sort of softness, a sort of flowing together in physical intimacy, something almost negroid, which is fascinating. 

      But curse them, they are entirely mindless, and yet they are living for purely social advancement. They ought to be living in the darkness and warmth and passionateness of the blood, sudden, incalculable. Whereas they are like insects gone cold, living only for money, for dirt. They are foul in this. They ought all to die." [2]       

Kernow a'gas Dynnergh

Notes

[1] D. H. Lawrence, The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. II (1913-16), ed. George J. Zytaruk and James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 1981), letter number 1187, to Lady Ottoline Morrell (25 Feb 1916), p. 556.

[2] Ibid., letter number 1155, to J. D. Beresford (1 Feb 1916), p. 520. Amusingly, Lawrence confesses at the end of this astonishing description of the Cornish: "Not that I've seen very much of them - I've been laid up in bed."

Make Way For Pengallan!

What are you all waiting for? A spectacle? You shall have it! 

And tell your children how the great age ended. Make way for Pengallan!

I.

It can never be stressed enough: a novel is one thing and a film is something else; even the most faithful of screen adaptations is a radically different work of art and can only be analysed in and on its own terms. Thus, whilst it can be amusing to compare and contrast the book with the movie - or the movie with the book - it's a largely pointless exercise.

I was reminded of this whilst recently watching Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn (1939), his version of Daphne du Maurier's novel published three years earlier, based on a screen play by Sidney Gilliat and Joan Harrison.    

Many critics dislike this film; Michael Medved lists it in his fifty worse movies of all time, which, I think, is ridiculous. Having said that, Hitchcock himself was far from happy with the work and du Maurier was also less than pleased with the adaptation. [1]

Personally, however, I think Jamaica Inn has much to recommend it and contains some memorable scenes, all of which involve Charles Laughton as the astonishing figure of Sir Humphrey Pengallan, the amoral (and possibly insane) mastermind behind a gang of murderous shipwreckers working the Cornish coast who uses the proceeds from the sale of the stolen goods to fund his lavish and decadent lifestyle.


II.

When asked to make a toast to the ideal of Beauty by a guest at his dinner table, Pengallan instructs his butler, Chadwick, to bring him his favourite porcelaine figurine, so that he may be inspired. When challenged by the same guest  - "But Sir Humphrey, it is not alive" - he replies that it's more alive than half the people round his table and fondles it with fetishistic fascination, like a genuine agalmatophile. 

Pushed to provide an example of living beauty, Pengallan decides to introduce his beloved Nancy: "The most beautiful creature west of Exeter." This turns out to be a fine-looking horse, rather than the young woman anticipated, much to the bemused astonishment of his guests. One thinks of Caligula and his horse Incitatus ...  

Pengallan, is, however, also partial to young women. No surprise then when he takes an immediate shine to Mary Yellan, played by the lovely nineteen-year-old Irish actress Maureen O'Hara. When Mary arrives unexpected and uninvited at his house, he half removes her coat in order to admire her exquisite shape, as if she too were a prized object or animal. Keen to display his literary leanings, Pengallan then quotes to her from Byron:

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes [2]

Unimpressed, Mary amusingly responds: "Thank you, sir, but I didn't come for poetry, but for a horse."

My favourite scene between Mary and Penhallan happens towards the end of the film, however, when the latter kidnaps the former, ties and gags her, and tells her that he plans to make her his own now that she has no one else in the world. He drives her, still tied up and covered by a heavy cloak, to the harbour, where they board a ship bound for France. It's what's known in BDSM circles as a Sweet Gwendoline scene. [3]  

But my favourite scene of all comes at the climax of the movie and involves Pengallan jumping to his death from atop a ship's mast rather than surrender to the authorities. Addressing the crowd below, he says: "What are you all waiting for? A Spectacle? You shall have it! And tell your children how the great age ended. Make way for Pengallan!"

If and when I jump to my own death - which, as a philosopher, would be my preferred method of suicide (thereby continuing a noble tradition which can be traced from Empodocoles to Gilles Deleuze) - these are the lines I shall recite.   

Notes

[1] Although when interviewed Hitchcock referred to Charles Laughton as a charming man, one doubts he was happy with the latter's meddling with the film's script, casting, and direction, which, as a co-producer as well as the lead actor, Laughton doubtless felt he had every right to do, insisting, for example, that his own character be accorded greater screen time and that O'Hara be given the role of Mary. Laughton's method of acting - described in some quarters as ham and in others as camp - was also a problem for Hitchcock, though, again, I love his portrayal of Pengallan as a dandy libertine mincing around to the beat of a German waltz. 

As for du Maurier, she was so disappointed by the adaptation that she briefly considered withholding the film rights to Rebecca which, as film fans will know, Hitchcock directed the following year, 1940, to great critical acclaim (and du Maurier's complete satisfaction).  

[2] Byron, 'She Walks in Beauty' (1814). Readers who wish to read this short lyrical verse in full can click here to access it on the Poetry Foundation website.

[3] Sweet Gwendoline is the chief damsel in distress in the works of bondage artist John Willie, who first appeared in Robert Harrison's girlie magazine Wink from June 1947 to February 1950, and who invariably finds herself tied up and in need of rescue. I am aware, of course, that in this era of #MeToo such scenes of sexual sadism involving violence against women are no longer viewed in the same way. 

Readers who are interested in watching Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn can do so on YouTube by clicking here. The scenes I mention above are are at 9.30-14.50, 1:26-1:28, and 1:37-1:38.  

Simon's Dream Home: the Winchester Mystery House

The House at 525, South Winchester Blvd.

I.

If I were a rich man ... I'd build a big tall house with rooms by the dozen, right in the middle of the town. There would be one long staircase just going up and one even longer coming down, and one more leading nowhere, just for show. [1]

Alternatively, I would attempt to purchase the Queen Anne style Victorian mansion in San Jose, California, known as the Winchester Mystery House ...

II.

Originally the residence of Sarah Winchester - widow of the famous firearms magnate - the Mystery House is a chaotic wonder full of many curious and amusing features; a designated historical landmark as well as a popular tourist attraction.

Construction began on the House under Mme. Winchester's personal supervision in 1884 and continued, ceaselessly, until her death in 1922, at which time work immediately came to a halt. The fact that the House remained unfinished was not something that would have troubled Sarah. Indeed, she desired an ever-changing, ever-expanding, building that would make a suitably spooky home for the ghosts of those who had had the misfortune to be killed by the deadly repeating rifles manufactured by her husband's family.  

As one might imagine, building such a house wasn't cheap. But Sarah had inherited more than $20 million dollars following the death of William Winchester in 1881, and also received nearly 50% ownership of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, giving her an income of a $1000 a day (equivalent to c. $26,000 a day now), so she could well afford to indulge her whims, fantasies, and strange obsessions. 

The idea for the House came from a Boston-based medium, supposedly channeling Sarah's late husband. Not wanting to further anger the spirits of the dead, Sarah immediately headed out West and began building her redwood seven-story mansion. No architects were consulted and the house was constructed in a haphazard manner with many queer features, including doors that don't open and stairs that lead nowhere. Whether these and other features were intended to confuse the ghosts isn't clear, but they certainly add to the feeling of unease experienced by visitors. 

Although there are now only four stories and the grounds of the estate are much reduced in size, the Mystery House still has over 150 rooms, including 40 bedrooms and two ballrooms. Originally, however, there was only one working toilet and shower; other washrooms were merely decorative and non-functioning. No expense was spared on the numerous adornments, including a unique stained glass window that featured her favourite spider's web design and the number 13. This window, which was never installed, exists in a storage room along with other priceless treasures. 

One of the windows that was installed was designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany, using prismatic crystals which, when struck by sunlight, would cast a fabulous rainbow across the room. Unfortunately, Mme. Winchester decided to place it in a room that recived no natural light, preventing the effect from ever being enjoyed.

After her death, the Mystery House was sold at auction to a local investor and then leased to John and Mayme Brown, who opened it to the public in February 1923. Today, the House is owned by a private company representing the descendants of John and Mayme Brown. It is still open to the public and it still retains the many bizarre elements that reflect Mme. Winchester's unusual beliefs and occult preoccupations.

III.

Whilst a house full of spooks is interesting in itself, what fascinates me philosophically about the above is similar to what fascinated Roland Barthes about the ship on which Jason and his crew sailed, the Argo; a vessel which the Argonauts continually rebuilt and added to, so that they effectively ended up with an ever-new (ever-different) ship, without having to alter either its name or form.

Similarly, the Winchester Mystery House "affords the allegory of an eminently structural object, created not by genius, inspiration, determination, evolution, but by two modest actions (which cannot be caught up in any mystique of creation): substitution (one part replaces another, as in a paradigm) and nomination (the name is in no way linked to the stability of the parts)". [2]

In other words, the Mystery House is an uncanny object of unsteady foundation and no identity other than its form. 

Notes

[1] 'If I Were a Rich Man' is a song from the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof, written by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick. Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc. / Concord Music Publishing.

[2] Roland Barthes, Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, trans. Richard Howard, (University of California Press, 1994), p. 46. 

On Phlegm, Philosophy, and Apathy

Franz Gareis: portrait of Novalis (1799)

The 18th-century German poet and mystic known as Novalis was fond of the phrase: Philosophiren ist dephlegmatisiren - Vivificiren! This has since become a familiar slogan in the work of post-Romantic writers, often translated along the lines of: 'To philosophise is to cast off apathy and to live!' 

To be honest, however, I'm not entirely convinced by this call to philosophical vitalism, either in the original German or English translation (though would have happily painted it on T-shirt when I was nineteen and regarded myself as a punk revolutionary). 

For one thing, I'm not convinced that phlegmatic is synonymous with apathetic; to be cool, calm, and self-possessed isn't quite the same as being without passion - nor, come to that, does it mean one is deadened in some manner, like an unleavened lump of inert matter.

Ulimately, it's just prejudice to ideally equate the love of wisdom with life and the overwrought, overheated world of feeling. For philosophy can, actually, be something entirely other; something alien, something perverse, something inhuman; something as abstract and as beautiful as a solitary snowflake.  

The fact is - contrary to what Walter Pater might say - we don't all wish to burn like a flame or to think always on the edge of ecstasy (though, etymologically - and ironically - phlegmatic means inflammation); some of us want to put ideas on ice for the same reason we like to add ice to our drinks; some of us, indeed, aspire, like Sade, to a condition of apathy that is pleasurable (in a denaturalised and non-Stoic manner) not only beyond good and evil, but beyond hot and cold.

Thanks to Simon Solomon for suggesting this post.

City of the Dead

When did fashion stop being dangerous and youth culture cease being sexy, stylish and subversive? That is to say, when was the last time kids wore clothes that would (literally) stop the traffic and get them beaten up or arrested, like Alan Jones in his Cowboys T-shirt? [1]

I've been asking myself these questions during the Great Confinement: a time when our streets are filled with dread and everyone hides at home, all courage gone and paralyzed.

A time when those who do dare to venture out, do so wearing safety gear rather than safety pins - i.e., disposable masks and gloves, or what we've now learned to refer to as PPE ...

Talk about living in a City of the Dead ... [2]

Notes

[1] See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable 2020). Gorman provides full details of how Jones was taken into custody on 28 July 1975 and charged with 'showing an obscene print in a public space' (as well as of the subsequent raid on McLaren and Westwood's store at 430 King's Road), pp. 267-71.

[2] This Clash track, written by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, was the B-side to Complete Control (CBS, Sept. 1977). It is particularly memorable for the verse: "What we wear is dangerous gear / It'll get you picked on anywhere / Though we get beat up we don't care / At least it livens up the air." Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group.

Last Rat Standing (Darwin and Bond in the Age of Coronavirus)

New York City rat (photo by Christopher Sadowski) 
and Javier Badem as Raoul Silva in Skyfall (2012)

There's a lovely scene in the Bond film Skyfall in which the villain, Raoul Silva, played by brilliant Spanish actor Javier Badem, tells the story of his grandmother's solution to the problem of rats when they infest the tiny island on which she lives:

"They'd come on a fishing boat and gorged themselves on coconut. So how do you get rats off an island, hmm? My grandmother showed me. We buried an oil drum and hinged the lid. Then we wired coconut to the lid as bait. The rats would come for the coconut and they would fall into the drum. And after a month, you've trapped all the rats. But what did you do then? Throw the drum into the ocean? Burn it? No. You just leave it. And they begin to get hungry. Then one by one, they start eating each other, until there are only two left. The two survivors. And then what - do you kill them? No. You take them and release them into the trees. Only now, they don't eat coconut anymore. Now they only eat rat. You have changed their nature."

I thought of this when I read about the plight of rats in NYC (and elsewhere) during the coronavirus pandemic. Thanks to the so-called lockdown, many of their favourite feeding places - such as the bins at the back of restaurants - are no longer viable options, forcing these resilient rodents to resort to desperate measures. Not only are they fighting one another for food, but some have turned cannibalistic and are devouring their own kind.

The fact is, the threat of starvation makes rats - like people - behave in extremely different ways; they effectively change their nature, as Sr. Silva would say.

I suppose, in the end, this will give them an evolutionary kick up the arse and result in a future breed of stronger, more aggressive, more resourceful rats (survival of the fittest being the popular name for the mechanism of natural selection we can witness at work here).    

Notes

Skyfall (2012), dir. Sam Mendes, starring Daniel Craig (as James Bond) and Javier Bardem (as Raoul Silva): click here to watch the scene I mention above.

Don't You Know Jesus Christ is a Sausage?

incipit parodia: je m’ens fous

I.

Flicking through the pages of Paul Gorman's magnificent new biography of Malcolm McLaren, I was pleased to be reminded of an amusing incident that occurred during the filming of a little watched reality TV series called The Baron in May 2007, which culminated with the Sex Pistol being threatened by a mob of angry villagers after he insulted them, their community, and their Saviour.  

The show was set in the small fishing village of Gardenstown, Aberdeenshire, and co-starred the actor/comedian Mike Reid and former Hear'Say singer Suzanne Shaw. Each contestant was competing for the courtesy title of 13th Baron of Troup, as chosen by the locals via a public vote.    

Gorman writes:

"Within a few days, McLaren had alienated villagers [...] and annoyed one fisherman in particular by painting the encircled anarchist 'A' on the side of his boat.
      This was small beer, but the election address enabled McLaren to provoke the jeering villagers en masse. He opened his speech by describing their home as 'absolutely boring, the worst place I've ever been to in my entire life ...' 
      To growing catcalls and boos, McLaren played up the pantomime aspects of his character by announcing his aim to become 'the wickedest, baddest, most hooligan-ish and sexiest Baron ever ...'
      McLaren also proposed the annual construction of a folkloric wickerman on the beach. He suggested the villagers should sit around this at night and 'take lots of drugs and drink yourselves stupid'. At this point Gardenstown harbourmaster Michael Watt leapt to the stage and attempted to manhandle the candidate away from the microphone. Eventually he succeeded, but not before McLaren shouted, 'I'd like to transform Gardenstown into a heathen's paradise,' and finished with the exclamation, 'Don't you know Jesus Christ is a sausage?'"

It was this final statement that tipped things over the edge and prompted the production company's security team to intervene and escort Malcolm out of town for his own safety:

"Not that the harbourmaster, the townsfolk, the TV crew or the viewers were to know, but in uttering the blasphemy McLaren was, in fact, quoting from a stunt by the early twentieth-century German Dadaist prankster Johannes Baader." [1]


II.

Johannes Baader, was, actually, not merely a merry prankster, but a certified madman, having been declared legally insane in 1917 after suffering with manic depression. So his outrageous public performances and statements - in which he often assumed mythic identities à la Nietzsche in his post-breakdown letters - were not merely stunts. 

In the same year as he was certified insane, Baader was appointed head of a society founded by fellow Dadaist Raoul Hausmann called Christus GmbH (or, in English, Christ Ltd.). The idea was to recruit members who, for a 50 mark fee, would be accorded Christ-like status rendering them free from all earthly authority and unfit for military service.  

The scandal for which Baader is best remembered, however - and which McLaren was re-enacting - happened on 17 November, 1918. Baader entered Berlin Cathedral and disrupted the sermon by shouting out (amongst other things): Christus ist euch Wurst! He was briefly arrested, though this didn't deter him from declaring himself the President of the Universe shortly afterwards.
   

What, readers might ask, did he mean by this - on the face of it - ludicrous statement?

In order to make sense of it, one must know something about the German tradition of buffoonery known as Hanswurst and also be familiar with Nietzsche's philosophy ...


III.

In one sense, Baader was simply re-announcing the Death of God; basically saying that Christ had become turned into a cheap commodity and something to be easily consumed; no longer a figure to be taken seriously, Jesus was just another clown in the religious circus known as the Church. 

But he was perhaps also alluding to the fact that, in Ecce Homo, Nietzsche says it's preferable to be thought of as Hans Wurst - or a silly sausage, as we might say in English - than as any kind of guru or holy man. Christine Battersby notes:

"In his so-called 'late' period, Nietzsche denies that there is any underlying or sublime 'truth' that is covered over - and healed - by art. Instead, we are left with a play of surfaces, and with the affirmation of life as the new ideal. Indeed, in Ecce Homo Nietzsche takes an additional step as he aligns himself with the Hanswurst: with a mode of the ridiculous, the crude and the all-too-human - with that which is, above all, not elevated, self-denying or sublime in the Schopenhauerian sense." [2]
 
So, it's arguable that calling Jesus a sausage isn't intended as an insult, but as a compliment; it's conceiving of Jesus as trickster and as a comedian of the ascetic ideal, rather than as the martyred figure on the Cross (all tears, and nails, and thorns); a punk Jesus that even McLaren might have found attractive, disguised in a pointed green hat, causing chaos and committing monstrous action and crime.    

Notes

[1] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), pp. 756-57.

[2] Christine Battersby, 'Behold the Buffoon: Dada, Nietzsche's Ecce Homo and the Sublime', in The Art of the Sublime, ed. Nigel Llewellyn and Christine Riding, (Tate Research Publication, January 2013): click here.

It's interesting to recall that Greggs the bakers had to apologise in 2017 for swapping Jesus for a sausage roll in a promotional image of the nativity scene; it's an idea, it seems, that just keeps giving!  

To watch a clip from the final episode of The Baron, uploaded to YouTube, in which Malcolm delivers his sausage remark, click here.  

D. H. Lawrence: In Sickness and in Health

D. H. Lawrence: self-portrait (June 1929) 

It was Nietzsche, of course, who first put forward the idea that artists and philosophers are physicians of culture for whom phenomena are symptoms that reveal a certain state of forces. Without explicitly saying so, I think that D. H. Lawrence also recognised that the critical (in the literary sense) and the clinical (in the medical sense) are destined to enter into what Deleuze describes as a new relationship of mutual learning.

In other words, as a writer, Lawrence is essentially interested in the relation literature has to life, with the latter conceived as an ethical principle that is both impersonal and singular.

Arguably, because he had such a frail physical constitution and was so often ill, Lawrence was always vitally concerned with the possibility of a greater health; something over and above the bourgeois model of wellbeing tied to keeping fit and staying safe; something which must be attained or activated within the self via a struggle with sickness. And perhaps because - like Gethin Day or the man who died - he so often came close to death, he was always fascinated by life as a phenomenon of pure immanence that is lived beyond good and evil and which has had done with judgement.

Like Nietzsche, Lawrence is of the belief that there are some ideas one cannot possibly think except on the condition of being a decadent and harbouring deep resentment against life (even whilst concealing oneself behind the highest idealism). On the other hand, there are also feelings one cannot possibly experience or express unless one is a strong and healthy individual who affirms life (even if committing deeds that the herd regard as immoral).  

In sum:

(i) Bad life, as Lawrence understands it, is an exhausted and degenerating mode of existence that judges life from the perspective of its own sickness; the good life, by contrast, is a rich and ascending form of existence that is able to transform itself and open up strange new possibilities or becomings.

(ii) In so far as every great work of literature provides a model of living, then they must be evaluated not only critically, but clinically. Thus it is that the question that links literature and life (in both its ontological and ethical aspects) is the question of health.

Vampiric Lesbianism 2: Dracula's Cinematic Daughters

Gloria Holden as as Countess Marya Zaleska in Dracula's Daughter (1936)

Ingrid Pitt as Mircalla Karnstein (aka Carmilla) in The Vampire Lovers (1970)

Catherine Deneuve as Miriam Blaylock in The Hunger (1983)

Although the pale-skinned, (usually) dark-haired figure of the sapphic vampire - or, if you prefer, vampiric lesbian - first emerged in its modern form in a short novel written by an Irishman in 1872, it established itself as a popular and pervy cinematic trope in the twentieth-century ...

Vampyr (dir. Carl Theodore Dreyer, 1932)

Danish director Carl Theodore Dreyer was the first to (loosely) adapt Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla for the big screen in his 1932 film Vampyr. Regrettably, however, he chose to ignore the lesbian aspects of the work, although he did succeed in making a controversial film full of disorienting visual effects (one that was hated by most critics and audiences at the time, but which is now considered far more positively).


Dracula's Daughter (dir. Lambert Hillyer, 1936)

It was Dracula's Daughter that gave moviegoers the first hints of lesbianism in a vampire film - despite the Hays Code! In one particularly memorable scene, the title character, played by the English-born actress Gloria Holden, preys upon an attractive innocent she has invited to her home under the pretence of wanting to use her as a model for a painting. As the young girl starts to strip, the Countess moves in for the kill. Universal even played up this aspect of the film in some of their original advertising, using the tag line: Save the women of London from Dracula's Daughter!


Blood and Roses (dir. Roger Vadim, 1960)

Roger Vadim's take on the story of Carmilla, entitled Et mourir de plaisir (1960) - released in the English-speaking world as Blood and Roses - shifts the action to modern Italy and plunges us into the midnight zone beyond the grasp of reason. Starring the lovely Danish actress Annette Strøyberg, the film cheerfully explores (and exploits) the erotic aspects of Le Fanu's novella (although most of the queer sexual content was cut for its US release). It perhaps should've been subtitled Et Dieu… créa la lesbienne.


The Vampire Lovers (dir. Roy Ward Baker, 1970)

Perhaps my favourite film of this genre is The Vampire Lovers (1970), a typically camp and raunchy Hammer Films production, starring Ingrid Pitt in the lead role (an actress whose very name evokes pleasurable memories amongst those of a certain generation) and Madeline Smith as her nubile lover-cum-victim (the fact that Peter Cushing and George Cole are also in the cast is hardly here-or-there). It was the first (and arguably best) in a series of lesbian vampire flicks from the Hammer studios known as the Karnstein Trilogy.      


The Hunger (dir. Tony Scott, 1983)

A cult favourite amongst goths as well as lesbians, The Hunger is an erotic horror starring Catherine Deneuve as the incredibly ancient (but still sexy, stylish and sophisticated) vampire, Miriam Blaylock, and Susan Sarandon as Dr. Sarah Roberts, a gerontologist who falls under her spell, even though she's slightly repulsed at the thought of drinking blood in order to gain immortality. Obviously wanting to love the film, but not quite able to do so, Camille Paglia regards The Hunger as a failed masterpiece that mistakenly focuses on violence rather than sex, thus making it a little crude and pedestrian in places.*     


Whether these films help or hinder the rights of non-fictional (and non-vampiric) women - particularly those outside of the heterosexual mainstream - is debatable; they tend to suggest, for example, that lesbianism is the result of a corruptive and malign influence and it's pretty clear that they were not made primarily for the enjoyment of gay women, but, rather, for a straight male audience excited by the thought of girl-on-girl action and a bit of bloodshed.

However, it's also clear that there are many women - gay, straight, queer and trans - who identify with mysterious and powerful undead figures such as Dracula's daughter and find something strangely liberating in the aesthetics of evil.           

* See: Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae, (Yale University Press, 1990), p. 268.

For a trailer to Dracula's Daughter (1936), click here.

For a trailer to Blood and Roses (1960), click here.

For a trailer to The Vampire Lovers (1970), click here.

For a trailer to The Hunger (1983), click here.

For part one of this post on vampiric lesbianism, with reference to Sheridan Le Fanu's novella Carmilla (1872), click here.