Memories of Manderley 1: On Natural Chaos and Maxim de Winter's Floraphilia

Top: Manderley in ruins (chaos reigns)

Bottom: Maxim de Winter (uxoricide and floraphile)

 

 

I. 

 

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley ... [a], whereas, as a matter of fact, I had simply rewatched Hitchcock's Academy Award winning adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca on TV [b].  

 

Anyway, it was enough to make me want to return to the original novel and offer not so much a commentary or critical review, but a series of reflections on those inhuman and sometimes monstrous aspects that particularly interest ...

 

 

II. 

 

"The pyramids will not last a moment, compared with the daisy", says D. H. Lawrence [c]. And neither will Manderley - despite the second Mrs de Winter's claim that time "could not wreck the perfect symmetry" [2] of its grey stone walls.

 

In chapter one of Rebecca, we are given a memorable description of the way that nature reaffirms itself and vegetation triumphs over the iron and concrete world of man when given the opportunity to do so. Trees, "along with monster shrubs and plants" [1], had "thrust themselves out of the quiet earth" [1].     

 

The well-ordered paths and drive way were now "choked with grass and moss" [2] and once highly cultivated plants prized for their floral splendour had, with no human hand to tend them or impede their growth, gone wild; "rearing to monster height without a bloom, black and ugly as the nameless parasites that grew beside them" [2].

 

The rhododendrons, for example, "stood fifty feet high, twisted and entwined with bracken, and they had entered into an alien marriage with a host of nameless shrubs, poor, bastard things that clung about their roots as though conscious of their spurious origin" [2-3] [d]. 

 

Nettles were everywhere: "They choked the terrace, they sprawled about the paths, they leant, vulgar and lanky, against the very windows of the house" [3]. 

 

Chaos reigns, as Von Trier's shamanic fox would say [e].   

 

 

III. 

 

There are, of course, worse things than chaotic nature; the fat-fingered vulgarity of Mrs Van Hopper, for example; the cold, superior smile of Mrs Danvers; and the "despondency and introspection" [26] that so bedevil poor Maxim de Winter following the death of his wife. 

 

Nobody likes a snob. Nobody likes a bitter and obsessive woman. And nobody likes a man "hemmed in by shadows" [26] and weighed down by guilt and fear.

 

Indeed, one almost wonders why the unnamed young heroine of Rebecca falls for de Winter, especially as she senses almost immediately that perhaps "he was not normal, not altogether sane" [31]; that he was one of those men who had trances and obeyed the strange laws and "tangled orders of their own subconscious minds" [31].

  

Still, at least de Winter is something of a floraphile. He may never have loved Rebecca, but he loves the spring flowers at Manderley; the daffodils "stirring in the evening breeze, golden heads upon lean stalks" [32] and the many-coloured crocuses - golden, pink, and mauve - that so quickly droop and fade. 

 

But most of all he loves the bluebells that "with their colour made a challenge to the sky" [33]. But these he would never have in the house:

 

"Thrust into vases they became dank and listless, and to see them at their best you must walk in the woods in the morning, about twelve o'clock, when the sun was overhead. They had a smoky, rather bitter smell, as though a wild sap ran in their stalks, pungent and juicy. People who plucked bluebells from the woods were vandals; he had forbidden it at Manderley." [33]

 

But if he hated to see wild flowers stuck in vases or stuffed into jam-jars on windowsills, he didn't mind having specially cultivated blooms for the house; roses, for example, which he said looked better picked than growing:

 

"A bowl of roses in a drawing-room had a depth of colour and scent they had not possessed in the open. There was something rather blowzy about roses in full bloom, something shallow and raucous, like a woman with untidy hair. In the house they became mysterious and subtle. He had roses in the house at Manderley for eight months in the year." [33]   

  

His sister, who, like mine, "was a hard, rather practical person" [33], used to complain about the smell of so many flowers. But Maxim didn't care: "It was the only form of intoxication that appealed to him." [33]  

 

One can forgive a man many crimes - maybe even murder - if he gives himself so completely to the heady world of flowers. 

 

 

Notes

 

[a] This is the famous opening line of Daphne du Maurier's, bestselling 1938 gothic novel Rebecca, which tells the story of an unnamed young woman who (somewhat impetuously) marries a wealthy widower (Maxim de Winter) whom she meets on a trip to Monte Carlo. 

      All seems to be going swimmingly until they return to his estate in Cornwall and she realises that both Maxim and his household at Manderley are haunted by the memory and ghostly presence of his late wife (Rebecca). It's a fantastic novel which has been adapted numerous times for stage and screen. 

      Here, I am reading the Virago Press edition of 2015 and all page numbers given in the text refer to this edition.   

 

[b] Rebecca (1940), directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starred Laurence Olivier as Maxim de Winter and Joan Fontaine as the anonymous young woman who becomes his second wife. 

      It was Hitchcock's first American project and was a critical and commercial success, nominated for eleven Oscars - more than any other film that year - it picked up two, including Best Picture. Despite certain changes made to keep the censors happy, it was a fairly faithful adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's novel and she was happy with the result. To watch a 1940 trailer for the movie on YouTube, click here.    

 

[c] D. H. Lawrence, Sketches of Etruscan Places, in Sketches of Etruscan Places and Other Italian Essays, ed. Simonetta de Filippis (Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 36.

[d] The narrator - i.e., the second Mrs de Winter, could of course be describing herself her.

 

[e] I'm referring here of course to the famous talking fox in Lars von Trier's 2009 film Antichrist - about which I have written here.  

 

 

Those interested in part two of this post on pyrexia and obsessive love disorder, should click here.  

Remembering Soho with Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin

Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin 

strolling round Soho in 1977

 

 

I. 

 

There are two main reasons why I love this photo. 

Firstly, it features two of my favourite people: Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg; the English rose and French homme de génie, in London for the UK opening of Je t'aime moi non plus (1976), a film written, directed, and scored by the latter and starring the former as a love-starved, rather vulnerable and androgynous-looking young woman called Johnny [1].

 

And secondly, it affords us a glimpse of a lost world: for not only are Birkin and Gainsbourg now no longer with us, but the Soho they stroll through has also disappeared (or been significantly transformed by gentrification). 

 

 

II. 

 

Taken on Broadwick Street in the spring of 1977, at the north end of Berwick Street Market, where Jane has been buying the apples she carries in her new straw basket, one can see the Blue Posts pub in the background, next to the ladies dress shop, Hilda.  

 

The former is still there, nearly fifty years later - just as it was there fifty years earlier - styling itself now as a proper London boozer, complete with a tiled exterior, carpeted floor, and banquette seats. Smokers are now legally required to stand outside, but dogs are more than welcome inside [2]. 

 

The latter, however, is sadly not still there - and I'm guessing the little Jewish woman who owned and gave her name to the shop is also dead and buried (though I'd be pleased to discover otherwise). 

 

Back in the day, Berwick Street was as much known for its dress makers, tailors and fabric shops as it was for its fresh fruit and veg market and I was once told that many of the local prostitutes would buy their undergarments from Hilda, or purchase items for clients who liked to experiment with transvestism (and as many of Hilda's pieces were one-offs they always looked special) [3].

 

 

III. 

 

I have a personal reason to remember Hilda, because, a decade or so after this photo was taken, I began working in the first floor rooms she rented out and which served as the office of Red Moon; a tiny business established by an old hippie called Bob Moon, selling all manner of rock and pop merchandising (from badges, patches, and belt buckles, to postcards, calendars, and T-shirts).

 

Readers might also be interested to know that on the second floor, worked an old Hungarian seamstress who used to make shirts for various stars of film and TV at that time, such as the Scottish actor Robbie Coltrane.       

 

And next door to Hilda's - although unfortunately not captured on the photo reproduced here - was a traditional fish 'n' chip shop above which was (an equally traditional) walk-up, where a young model called Monica would entertain gentlemen callers [3].

 

I'm not sure these days gone by can best be described as happy, but Gainsbourg was right, I think, to describe the London he knew and loved at this time as the most exotic city on earth.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The film is a sexually explicit story of a love triangle involving Birkin's character and two gay garbage truck drivers, Krassky and Padovan (played by Joe Dallesandro and Hugues Quester respectively). Released in France in March 1976, the film received poor reviews and was branded by some critics as immoral. Having said that, François Truffaut - one of the founders of the cinematic French New Wave - praised the movie.

      Readers who wish to know more might be interested in a text by Jack Sargeant, the British writer who specialises in cult, underground, and/or independent films, entitled 'Hot, Hard Cocks and Tight, Tight Unlubricated Assholes: Transgression, Sexual Ambiguity and "Perverse" Pleasures in Serge Gainsbourg's Je t’aime moi non plus', in Senses of Cinema, Issue 30 (February, 2004): click here.

 

[2]  The Blue Posts, 22, Berwick Street, Soho, London W1: visit their website by clicking here. 

 

[3] A Soho walk-up is a small studio flat used by a female sex worker for the purposes of prostitution. The flats, located on the upper floors of buildings above shops and other businesses, are accessed by a staircase from a door on the street. No appointment is necessary (i.e., they operate on a first served first come basis).

      Walk-ups, which were characteristic of the sex industry in Soho in the 1960s, '70s, and 80's, have since rapidly disappeared like so much else in the 21st-century.

 

 

Bonus: click here to watch the official trailer to a restored and re-released (2019) version of Gainsbourg's film Je t'aime moi non plus.  

 

 

Marlene Dumas: Mourning Marsyas (2024)

I. 

 

Regular readers will recall that back in April of this year, I went along to the Horse Hospital to view the overtly political artwork of Gee Vaucher and hear what she had to say about her time working with Crass (an anarcho-hippie collective based at Dial House in Essex and masquerading as punks during the period 1977-1984): click here.  

And they might also recall that in September of this year, I visited the Richard Saltoun Gallery, in Mayfair, to view a solo exhibition by Penny Slinger; another British-born artist who likes to combine elements of surrealism with (feminist-informed sexual) politics and another woman now aged in her seventies (at 77, she's just two years younger than Vaucher): click here. 

 

Anyway, completing this trio of septuagenarian female artists is Marlene Dumas (71), whose solo exhibition of sixteen new(ish) works at the Frith Street Gallery - including the large (100 x 30 cm) canvas pictured here entitled Mourning Marsyas - I went to see earlier this week ... [1] 

 

II.

 

For those, like me, whose knowledge of ancient mythology is patchy at best (but who aren't fortunate enough to have the Little Greek on hand to fill in the gaps), Marsyas was the satyr who - skilled as he was on the double pipe (αὐλός) - mistakenly challenged Apollo to a contest to determine who was the best musician. 

 

All-too-predictably, the Muses found in favour of the latter, and Apollo, proving that the only thing worse than a bad loser is a vindictive winner, punished Marsyas by skinning him alive [2].  

 

There are, I suppose, numerous ways we might interpret this story. But Dumas - who was born and grew up in South Africa during apartheid - always likes to side with the victim, be that Christ hanging on his Cross or a dead member of the Red Army Faction.

 

Thus, for Dumas, Apollo is the villain and Marsyas symbolises not hubris, but the right of the individual to freely express themselves artistically. And so she mourns Marsyas and all others who have died in their attempt to challenge those wielding power and authority. 

 

I've seen it suggested that there's a certain tenderness in Dumas's canvas which is missing from the savage beauty of Titian's Flaying Marsyas painted 470 years earlier. And that might be the case: or it might be pity which is on display here, which is an altogether different thing (often confused with compassion) [3]. 

 

It's a shame that Iris Murdoch isn't around to consult on this question [4]. 

 

 

III. 

 

All in all, I like Dumas's paintings; created, according to the gallery press release, 'through a mixture of chance and intention [...] combining very fast and focused actions with reflective pauses'. 

 

What that means is that Dumas often pours paint directly onto the canvas and then goes from there, teasing out a central figure or a face. Sometimes these figures and faces appear in an instant, whilst at other times they require careful consideration [5].

 

Strangely, despite Dumas openly confessing that her works are "'heavy with the weight of a bad conscience, deceased lovers, past failures and present atrocities'" [6], I found the exhibition quite refreshing; perhaps Nietzsche was right after all and cruelty is indeed one of the oldest festive joys of mankind [7].       

 

Apart from the central work after which the exhibition took its name, there were several other works that caught my eye, including a phallic picture consisting of a pair of big black cocks and a smaller canvas commemorating the 69 people killed at a summer camp on the island of Utøya in July 2011 by the Norwegian neo-Nazi Anders Breivik (what this tells us about her and/or me readers can decide).

 

 

Marlene Dumas: Two Gods (2021) Oil on canvas (150 x 140 cm) 

and Utøya (2018-2023) Oil on canvas (40 x 50 cm) 

Photos by Peter Cox courtesy the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London

   

 

Notes

 

[1] Marlene Dumas: Mourning Marsyas opened at the Frith Street Gallery (Golden Square) on 20 September and finishes on 16 November 2024. Full details can be found by clicking here. 

 

[2] For those readers keen to know further details, the story of Marsyas can be found in Book VI (lines 382-400) of Ovid's Metamorphoses: click here for a translation by A. S. Kline (2000) on poetryintranslation.com 

 

[3] Nietzsche famously viewed pity as a dangerous pathological condition that weakens the pitier and degrades the pitied. It is thus a form of practical nihilism disguised as a moral virtue. Compassion, on the other hand, is a feeling with the one who suffers; not a feeling for and is born of a true love for others as well as a love of fate. 

      Readers who wish to know more on this might like to see the essay by Suzanne Obdrzalek, 'On the Contrast between Pity and Compassion in Nietzsche', in Aporia, Vol. 7 ( BYU, 1997), pp. 59-72. It can be downloaded and read as a pdf by clicking here.

 

[4] The Irish-British novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch was a huge fan of Titian's late masterpiece (painted c. 1570-76), once describing it as the greatest of all works of art in the Western tradition in that it manages to touch on life in all its ambiguity, horror, and misery whilst, at the same time, being a beautiful work that invests the human story with something divine. 

 

[5] It's not surprising to discover that Dumas often refers to the concept of pareidolia when discussing her work; i.e., the psychological phenomenon by which the brain is given to perceive meaningful images (such as faces) in random visual stimuli. I have written on this phenomenon in a post dated 4 June 2015: click here. 

 

[6] Dumas writing in an introductory essay to the Mourning Marsyas exhibition and cited by Adrian Searle in his interview with her in The Guardian (23 September 2023): click here. 

 

[7] See Nietzsche, Morgenröthe (1881), I. 18. Translated into English by R. J. Hollingdale as Daybreak (Cambridge University Press, 1982).  

 

Marlene Dumas

marlenedumas.nl 

frithstreetgallery.com

Vive le flâneur - et la flâneuse!

 

Mariateresa Aiello: The Flâneur

(Ink on paper, 2011)

sketchbloom.com 

 

"Around 1840 it was briefly fashionable to take turtles for a walk in the arcades. 

The flâneurs liked to have the turtles set the pace for them." - Walter Benjamin

 

I. 

 

In comparison to the concept of dandyism, which has often been referred to on Torpedo the Ark [1],  the idea of  flânerie - as embodied by the figure of le flâneur - has, rather mysteriously been overlooked.

 

I don't know why that is, particularly as this blog is essentially a form of strolling amongst literary leftovers, philosophical fragments, and the ruins of contemporary culture; coolly observing what passes for (and remains of) the real world whilst collecting images and ideas as I go, thereby making me a kind of postmodern flâneur in all but name.

 

For although the term flâneur threatens to transport us back to the arcades of 19th-century Paris and the musings of Baudelaire and Benjamin [2], that needn't be the case. For the concept of the flâneur - and flânerie as a practice - has been brought into the 21st-century by those who are more interested in moving through virtual spaces and exploiting the opportunities afforded by mobile technologies than actually standing on street corners. 

 

 

II. 

 

Having said that, as someone who has concerns with the question of technology, I'm not averse to physically still drifting through Soho; gazing in the windows of shops and restaurants; observing the street life whilst sipping coffee on Old Compton Street; jotting down notes for future blog posts; vaguely hoping someone I know will pass by, or that I might encounter the ghost of Sebastian Horsely; essentially just idling time away (much as I have the last forty years) [3].

 

Paradoxically, as a flâneur one is both an essential part of urban life and yet detached or set apart from it - which kind of suits me as I want to belong, but only on the margins or fringes of society; Johnny Rotten may want to destroy the passer-by, but I'm happy to be a non-participant who is not caught up in events or overcome with enthusiasm (for one thing, this provides a certain degree of immunity from infection by political or religious fanaticism).

 

 

III. 

 

Of course, it isn't easy to be a flâneur in the poetic-philosophical sense today.

 

Some (perhaps overly pessimistic) commentators suggest that the flâneur has been supplanted by the badaud - an open-mouthed bystander who simply gawks without intelligence or aesthetically attuned appreciation for what he sees; one who is enchanted by the Spectacle and is a representative of das Man [4].

 

Way back in 1867, before Debord and Heidegger were even born, the French journalist and author Victor Fournel wrote this:

 

"The flâneur must not be confused with the badaud; a nuance should be observed here. […] The simple flâneur […] is always in full possession of his individuality. By contrast, the individuality of the badaud disappears, absorbed by the outside world, which ravishes him, which moves him to drunkenness and ecstasy. Under the influence of the spectacle that presents itself to him, the badaud becomes an impersonal creature; he is no longer a man, he is the public, he is the crowd." [5]

 

However, just as I believe in fairies, so too do I believe there are flâneurs still amongst us today; just much rarer in number and harder to spot. And I was reinforced in this by a chance meeting a couple of weeks ago at the National Poetry Library with an astonishing young woman called Tamara who gaily confessed herself to be a flâneuse ... [6]

Notes

 

[1] Click here for several posts on TTA which have mentioned dandyism over the years.  

[2] Developing the work of Charles Baudelaire, who described the flâneur both in his poetry and the seminal essay Le Peintre de la vie moderne (1863), Walter Benjamin spurred artistic and theoretical interest in the flâneur as a key figure of the modern world; see The Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Harvard University Press, 1999). And for a short discussion of this work by Benjamin - and my convoluted relationship with him - see the post dated 21 October 2024: click here. 

 

[3] Readers will doubtless understand that this is a form of active idleness; as one French literary critic noted, flâneurie is tout le contraire de ne rien faire. 

     

[4] The badaud is essentially the anti-flâneur; more bystander than passer-by; the sort of person who today films events on their mobile phone, bartering away the sheer intensity and joy of experience for mere representation. This includes filming those terrible sights from which any decent person would look away; the mangled remains of some poor devil who jumps from the platform in front of a train, for example. 

      In contrast, the flâneur takes single snaps that are technically imperfect and full of flaws, but never obscene or sensational; images that give a fleeting glimpse without exposing objects or making them strike a pose (thereby allowing objects to retain their allure). 

 

[5] Victor Fournel, Ce qu'on voit dans les rues de Paris [What One Sees in the Streets of Paris] (1867), p. 263. The (uncredited) English translation is cited on the Wikipedia entry for the subject of badaud: click here.  

      Walter Benjamin essentially adopts this distinction between the two figures of flâneur contra badaud in his work. 

 

[6] The feminine term flâneuse was born of recent feminist lit-crit and gender studies scholarship; previously, the term passante was used to describe the somewhat elusive modern woman who liked to wander round the city, experiencing public spaces in her own manner. Proust famously favoured this term.  

      Readers who are interested, might like to see Lauren Elkin's book: Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London (Chatto & Windus, 2016), in which she discusses a number of flâneuses, including George Sand, Virginia Woolf, Agnès Varda, Sophie Calle, and Martha Gellhorn.    

 

Booking In at the Clinic Exclusive (In Memory of Georgina Ward)

Georgina Ward as Julie Mason in 

Clinic Exclusive (dir. Don Chaffey, 1971)

 

Temptress with a velvet touch! 

Passionate ... Sensual and ... Dangerous!!

 

 

I. 

 

The British actress turned screenwriter Hazel Adair is probably best remembered as the co-creator of my sister's favourite soap Crossroads, which ran on UK TV from 1964 until 1988, attracting a large and loyal audience (despite critics and comics alike ridiculing the scripts, the sets, the performances, and the generally low production values). 

 

However, we're not here to discuss the merits or otherwise of Crossroads, but, rather, to shine a light on a rarely shown erotic melodrama written and produced by Adair in collaboration with her business partner Kent Walton - a sports commentator much loved as the voice of televised professional wrestling from 1955 to 1988 [1].

 

 

II. 

 

Directed by Don Chaffey and starring (the mysteriously beautiful) Georgina Ward as Julie Mason and Alex Davion as Lee Maitland - Clinic Exclusive (1971) [2] has to be one of the queerest films I've seen in a long time [3]. And although it might seem far removed from everybody's favourite King's Oak motel, as a matter of fact several of the cast had appeared in Crossroads. 

The plot, in a nutshell, involves a scheming young woman - Julie - exploiting her position as the owner of a rather dodgy private health clinic by selling sexual favours to her clients, male and female, whom she then blackmails for large amounts of money. This includes a lonely, older woman - Elsa Farson (played by Carmen Silvera) - who, spurned by Julie (with whom she's in love), decides to top herself.

 

When a local businessman, Lee Maitland, engages her services as a masseuse, Julie mistakenly falls for him, unaware that he is Elsa's son and intends to avenge his mother. 

 

And so, after Maitland fakes his death in a road accident that Julie helped to stage, he disappears with the tens of thousands of pounds that she had extracted from her clients. Julie is thus left to choose between admitting blackmail or remaining silent when charged with being complicit in Maitland's death.

 

 

III.

 

It might be pushing it a bit to describe Clinic Exclusive as a good film. But it's not a bad film, even if a bit depressing at times. And the outrageously posh actress Georgina Ward - daughter of the British Cabinet Minister George Ward and Anne Capel, whose father, Boy Capel, was a lover and muse of fashion designer Coco Chanel - is always a delight to watch on screen (with or without her clothes) [4]. 

As one respected film critic wrote at the time: 

"After the customary quota of coyly directed nude scenes in sauna bath and shower room – even less titillating than usual, since the clinic's clientele is predominantly middle-aged – Clinic Xclusive takes a turn for the better by developing into quite a neat, unpredictable revenge thriller. Script and direction are glossily efficient throughout, and Georgina Ward plays the ruthless go-getting heroine with some style. Altogether a surprisingly competent production, if only within the limits of its strictly catchpenny genre." [5]

 

Unfortunately, we have to note in closing how publication in the (hypocritical) press of rather racy stills from the film led to Georgina Ward having to withdraw an application to be a UK parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party in the early 1970s [6]. 

 

Even more sadly, Ward’s acting career also stalled around this time. 

 

She died, in Mexico, aged 69, in June 2010. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Walton made his television wrestling commentary debut on the ITV network in November 1955 and remained in the role for 33 years. 

       At its peak in the 1970s, ITV's wrestling coverage, on World of Sport, could command up to 12 million viewers every Saturday afternoon, including my parents and, so it is often claimed, the Queen and Prince Philip. 

 

[2] The film's title was originally styled as Clinic Xclusive and was changed to Sex Clinic when the film was re-released in 1975. It is alternatively known as With These Hands. Unfortunately, no trailer for the film seems to be available online (if such still exists).  

 

[3] Thanks to Together TV, a UK-based channel that broadcasts on Freeview 83 (and which is also available on Sky 170, Virgin Media 269, and Freesat 164). 

      Rather amusingly, Together TV prides itself as being a channel that aims to inspire people to improve their lives and communities; I'm not entirely sure, therefore, how Clinic Exclusive has found its way on to the late night schedule (along with other '70s sexploitation movies, including Come Play with Me (dir. George Harrison Marks and starring Mary Millington, 1977)).   

 

[4] In 1958, Ward was one the last debutantes to be presented at Court to Queen Elizabeth II before the practice was discontinued. She was distantly related to, among others, Freda Dudley Ward, mistress of the future King Edward VIII and Camilla Parker Bowles, now Queen Camilla, consort of Charles III. 

      Fans of British TV from the '60s might recall seeing her in a series four episode of The Avengers - 'The Master Minds' (1965) - or in a couple of episodes of Danger Man. 

 

[5] Nigel Andrews, writing in The Monthly Film Bulletin, Vol. 39, No. 456, p. 157 (January 1972). 

[6] Ward was a potential Labour candidate for the parliamentary constituency of Worcester, then held by Conservative Cabinet minister, Peter Walker and, until 1960, by her father, also a true blue Tory, so her standing down may have been something of a relief to him. 

 

 

A Brief Astrophilosophical Reflection

Zodiac Man (Homo Signorum) [1]

 

 

I can't quite recall where, but I'm sure Baudrillard once mused on the idea of changing one's fate by the simple measure of adopting a new star sign. For if a man can identify as a woman (and vice versa), then surely someone unhappy with being tied down by an earth sign could, for example, identify as a free-floating air sign.

 

Having said that, I have no desire to transition from one sign to another. I'm perfectly content having been born on February 13th to be an Aquarian [2] and my sense of self closely and comfortably corresponds to the sign I was given at birth, which I suppose makes me ciszodiac.

 

I hope, however, that this doesn't make me dismissive of those queer individuals who, for example, no longer wish to identify exclusively with one star sign; or those who feel uncomfortable within the confines of the traditional zodiac divided into twelve houses across three modalities (cardinal, fixed, and mutable) [3].

 

For as Baudrillard also said (I think): We ought to be as cruelly indifferent to star signs as they are to us as individuals ... [4]

 

Notes

 

[1] Frequently encountered in astrological (and medical) works from classical, medieval, and early-modern times, the Man of Signs illustrates the (imagined) correlation between the cosmos and human physiology; as above, so below and all that (occult) jazz. 

 

[2] The philosopher Sam Harris argues that one of the things that might be said in favour of astrology is that it's profoundly egalitarian; that there are no inferior zodiac signs. However, I'm not sure that's quite true. For it does seem to me that Aquarius has a rather special status; not only is it the rarest of the twelve signs, but stands above all others due to the enigmatic and multifaceted nature of those who are governed by it (this might have something to do with the fact that Aquarius is a sign ruled by not one, but two celestial bodies: the revolutionary Uranus and the disciplined Saturn).

 

[3] The German philosopher Thorsten Botz-Bornstein, who specialises in thinking about aesthetics, politics, and culture in a playful, stylish, and slightly dreamy (neo-organic) manner, has written a short satirical skit developing this idea; see 'Genders and Zodiacs' on the Medium website (20 July 2023): click here.     

 

[4] Unfortunately, I don't have access to my books at the moment and it might be the case that I'm misremembering what Baudrillard wrote. However, I can say with confidence that he definitely suggested in one of the volumes of Cool Memories (1980-2004) that we should accord equal importance to the star sign we die under as to the one we are born under. 

 

  

Fear of a Deaf Planet: Or Why I Don't Like Alexander Graham Bell

David Call: George and the Dragon

University of Oregon Libraries

 

"As long as we have deaf people on earth, we will have signs."

 

 

I. 

 

Putting aside the fact that I have a strong aversion to making or receiving telephone calls - due more to philosophical reasons tied to the question concerning technology, rather than to social anxiety - I still have good reason to despise the man credited with patenting the first such device in 1876; namely, Alexander Graham Bell.

 

For whilst this Scottish-born inventor was undoubtedly a man of considerable talent - responsible for groundbreaking work in many fields - he was also a fanatic advocate of oralism; i.e., the phonocentric insistence that deaf people abandon the use of sign language (or manualism as it was known amongst reformers in the 19th-century) and communicate primarily (if not exclusively) by mimicking the mouth shapes and breathing patterns of speech and learning to lipread.    

 

Advocates of oralism, such as Bell, whose mother and wife were both deaf - and whose father, grandfather, and brother were all associated with work on speech and elocution - believed that even those who were born without the ability to hear could - and should - learn to speak; that it was just a question of training (in much the same way as he had once trained the family dog to say How are you, grandmama?) [1].   

 

II. 

 

Now, as someone who has previously attempted to see the world through deaf eyes and opposed audism on several occasions - click here, for example - I obviously find Bell's work as a self-professed teacher of the deaf problematic. 

 

Particularly as he was closely associated with the eugenics movement, which feared the development of a deaf race which, it was believed, threatened the phonocentric basis of society with their sinister use of sign language. In order to prevent this, it was necessary to reduce the deaf race by preventing them from marrying and having children. 

 

To be fair, Bell didn't support the more extreme measures advocated by some. But, in lengthy essays such as Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race (1884) [2], he did openly advocate for oralism and the banning of sign language within schools and wider society. He also wrote lines such as this: 

 

"Those who believe as I do, that the production of a defective race of human beings would be a great calamity to the world, will examine carefully the causes that lead to the intermarriage of the deaf with the object of applying a remedy." [3]

 

Utimately, Bell wanted the integration not the elimination of deaf people. Nevertheless, the image of an insular, inbred, and proliferating deaf race was a pernicious fantasy that was repeated for many years and such surdophobia [4] was carefully exploited by those promoting the ideology of oralism. 

 

Thus, Bell is not regarded positively by those within the deaf community today and I understand why deaf artists and activists, such as David Call, have depicted him in a less than flattering light, as the image above illustrates [5].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Actually, it was a trick: having taught the poor dog to growl continuously, Bell would reach into its mouth and manipulate the animal's lips and vocal cords to produce a crude series of sounds. Listeners were then persuaded to believe that the dog was talking. 

 

[2] In this work, Bell issued a warning that deaf people were effectively forming an alternative society, by intermarrying and socialising with one another. Like others, he was even led to the conclusion that a deaf race was in the process of evolving - despite evidence to the contrary put forward by those who, for example, pointed out that although deafness can be an inherited condition, only a small percentage of deaf couples have deaf children.  

[3] The irony was that Bell was himself able to use sign language; even though, he strongly opposed it. In fact, his last word was signed to his deaf wife Mabel on his deathbed.

 

[4] Surdophobia is a term recently coined by Gardy van Gils, a deaf researcher at Utrecht University. She defines it as a form of hostile intolerance for deaf individuals, or an irrational fear of the deaf community resulting in opposition to the use of sign language. 

 

[5] This image by David Call - linocut on paper - was purchased by the University of Oregon in 2019 from the Eye Hand Studio. It shows the American educator, filmmaker, and activist George Veditz slaying A. G. Bell depicted as a dragon. 

      Veditz, the son of German immigrants, lost his hearing aged eight due to scarlet fever. He served as the seventh President of the National Association of the Deaf from 1904 to 1910 and is celebrated within the deaf community today as one of the most passionate and visible advocates of American Sign Language. His film "Preservation of the Sign Language" (1913) was added to the US National Film Registry in 2010. In it, Veditz not only makes a strong defense of the right of the deaf people to use sign language, but also talks of its beauty and complexity as a valid form of human communication. 

 

 

Herbstlaubtrittvergnügen

Autumn-Foliage-Strike-Fun

 

 

It's often said that the Greeks have a word for everything, but, as a matter of fact, that's not true [1].

 

Fortunately, however, when the Greeks fail us, the Germans are usually ready and willing to step up to the mark with a compound noun ... [2]

 

Thus, when Maria was unable to supply a term for the pleasure of kicking through autumn leaves - something that I enjoy as much now at sixty as I did at six years of age - I immediately consulted with my friend in Berlin and she was happy to text the following: Herbstlaubtrittvergnügen ... [3]

 

There's something profoundly impressive about the German ability to capture in a single word a relatively complex idea or emotion that would take an English speaker a whole sentence to explain; no wonder Heidegger insisted that German is uniquely qualified for the task of thinking [4] (he wasn't simply trying to piss off certain French intellectuals).    

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I have even used this idiomatic expression myself on Torpedo the Ark; see the post of 27 September 2020, for example, in which I briefly discuss the 1930 stage play by Zoe Akins from which the phrase derives: click here.

[2] See Ben Schott, Schottenfreude: German Words for the Human Condition (Blue Rider Press, 2013); an amusing dictionary of neologisms that capture the idiosyncrasies of life as only the German language can.  

 

[3] It's pronounced: hairbst-laowb-tritt-fair-gnuu-ghen.   

 

[4] Whilst Heidegger never actually said that if you want to think you have to do so exclusively in German, he did argue that German, like ancient Greek, but unlike Latin - the language of metaphysical philosophy - is particularly suited to thinking because it's phenomenologically well grounded. 

      See Heidegger's famous interview with Rudolf Augstein and Georg Wollf from Der Spiegel (conducted on 23 September, 1966; published posthumously on 31 May, 1976): click here to read the English translation by William J. Richardson under the title 'Only a God Can Save Us'. 

 

 

Feisty One I'm Not!

 

The other day, at an event held at the National Poetry Library [1], I asked a perfectly reasonable question of the speakers (at their invitation). 

 

The question was pretty much brushed aside, but I was thanked for providing a feisty contribution to the evening. 

That word - feisty - irritated me at the time and has been troubling me ever since: for I am not a small farting dog looking to cause a stink and don't wish to be patronised as such [2].

 

I'm assured it was meant lightheartedly and in the modern sense. 

 

However, when middle-class people label working-class people feisty, then - even if unaware of the carminative origins of the word - it's insulting in much the same way as the word uppity is a highly offensive way of describing black people [3].

 

For the implication is given that those who dare to challenge the prevailing narrative are behaving in a manner that is just a little too rude and aggressive for polite society and next time might think twice before speaking (or even remain silent altogether in the presence of those who are clearly their superiors) [4].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] For details, click here.  

[2] Etymologically, feisty means something quite different from its modern sense; relating as it does to the breaking of wind and to canine flatulence in particular. See the entry on the term in the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary: click here.  

 

[3] See the article by Elspeth Reeve, 'Yep, "Uppity" Is Racist', in The Atlantic (22 November 2011): click here.

 

[4] There's arguably also a subtle sexism operating behind this word feisty when used by a man to describe a woman. See Melissa Mohr's article of 10 September 2020, on the Christian Science Monitor website: click here. 

A Feisty Evening with Isobel Dixon, Douglas Robertson and D. H. Lawrence

Isobel Dixon, Douglas Robertson & D. H. Lawrence

 

 

I. 

 

A couple of nights ago, I went to the National Poetry Library - which, for those who don't know, is housed on the fifth floor of the Royal Festival Hall in London's Southbank Centre - for what was billed as a D. H. Lawrence celebration, with particular focus being given to the collection of poems entitled Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923).

 

The event also called attention to a recent book by the South African poet Isobel Dixon, produced in collaboration with the highly acclaimed Scottish artist Douglas Robertson who provided a dozen finely detailed illustrations: A Whistling of Birds (Nine Arches Press, 2023).

 

II. 

 

Whilst this work is essentially a response to Lawrence's text - and his short essay 'Whistling of Birds' (1919) lends the book its name - Dixon also invites others, including William Blake, Emily Dickinson and Ted Hughes into the conversation, whilst still finding time to make her own distinctive voice heard. 

 

It's a work that will leave the majority of members of the D. H. Lawrence Society very happy, as it uncritically reinforces the idea of Lawrence as a nature lover in the English Romantic tradition and a poet with an almost uncanny ontological insight into the essence of birds, beasts, and flowers. 

And in their hour long presentation at the NPL, this idea of Lawrence was further reinforced; it was almost as if the important challenge thrown down by the Indian author Amit Chaudhuri twenty-odd years ago to read Lawrence's poetry in light of poststructuralist theory has been completely forgotten [1].

 

Which is profoundly unfortunate in my view. For it results in an interpretation of Lawrence that not only fails to understand the radical nature of his aesthetic, but means he is sold short as a thinker-poet whose primary object is language. 

 

It's because Lawrence writes so well, that we believe he has captured the true nature or being of a snake, for example, when, actually, he dissolves such essentialism based on the idea of a fixed identity into a game of difference and becoming - which is why philosophers including Derrida and Deleuze are such admirers of Lawrence's poetry [2].     

 

 

III. 

 

Just to be clear: I enjoyed the event and wish Dixon and Robertson every success with their book (which has already garnered considerable praise).

 

However, they disappointed by refusing to take Lawrence seriously as a writer; preferring instead to think of him in all too human terms (thus the frequent references to biographical details, as if these somehow might illuminate the text or explain away its complex and often troubling character). 

They also disappointed by dismissing Lawrence's work as a painter in a lighthearted manner, saying it simply wasn't very good. Again, without wanting to go into too much detail here - as I've written at length on this subject elsewhere - this simply betrays an ignorance of what it is Lawrence is attempting to do on canvas; namely, produce an art of sensation that is concerned with the invisible forces and flows that shape the flesh via what Deleuze terms a very special violence. 

 

His is a non-representational depiction of the body without organs and therefore Lawrence is not overly concerned with anatomical fidelity, or reducing figures to the level of optical cliché. In other words, he is not trying capture a likeness and, by his own admission, his pictures are rolling in faults of technique - but that doesn't matter; Lawrence is not so much interested in that which is merely true-to-life, but that which is more true-to-life (we might call this phallic realism).   

 

In sum: just as Lawrence's poetry is primarily involved with language and the assembling of textual abstractions, his painting is involved with colour, line, and the forces of chaos; a violence that works upon the flesh and upon the canvas, distorting and deforming bodies and liberating pictures from the tyranny of the stereotype; a violence that knows nothing of symbolism or signification and cares nothing for narrative or illustration (for if painting has no model to depict, neither has it a story to tell).

 

Lawrence may not be a great painter, or even a very good one. But he's a better one than his critics realise - and a far more intelligent and sophisticated writer than they think him too.   

  

One of Robertson's illustrations for A Whistling of Birds (2023) feat. a squirrel 

next to Lawrence's astonishing Ink Sketch (1929) feat. a nude man and woman 

within a field of rhythm and desire demonstrating how waves 

of inorganic life exceed the bounds of organic activity.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Amit Chaudhuri, D. H. Lawrence and 'Difference': Postcoloniality and the Poetry of the Present, (Oxford University Press, 2003). 

      I have discussed this book and made reference to it elsewhere on this blog: click here. I might not agree with everything Chaudhuri says, but this is an important text whose challenge to the (almost wilfully naive) manner in which Lawrence is usually portrayed and his writing interpreted has still not been met by many within the Lawrence world.

 

[2] See for example Derrida's discussion of Lawrence's poem 'Snake' in volume one of The Beast and the Sovereign, trans. Geoffrey Bennington, edited by Michel Lisse, Marie-Louise Mallet, and Ginette Michaud (Chicago University Press, 2009).

      Readers might also be interested in a post dated 17 July 2015 on Lawrence, Derrida, and the snake: click here.

 

 

Re the use of the word feisty in the title of this post: click here. 

 

This post is for Chloe Rose Campbell and Tamara Ber.