Travels in Hyperculture With Byung-Chul Han 2: Is There an Alternative to Tourism?

(Polity Press, 2022)

 

 

I. 

I closed part one of this post with a question that Byung-Chul Han puts to his readers: "When the 'here and now' becomes a repeatable there and later, will we have gained something or lost something?" [a] 

 

To put this slightly differently: should we celebrate becoming hypercultural tourists, or should we discard our Hawaiian shirts and seek out an alternative way of being in the world? Might we, for example, endeavour to become pilgrims - walking the earth and giving form to the formless, making the fragmentary whole, as Zygmunt Bauman [b] would have it? 

Well we might: but probably this would be futile. For hyperculturality is an evironment that produces (and allows for) a particular type of tourist - not pilgrims. Bauman, says Han, remains a romantic thinker who fails to recognise what is so unique about the hypercultural tourist; one who "knows neither longing nor fear" [41]. 

 

Unlike pilgrims, for example, hypercultural tourists always remains in the here and now; they are not "on their way to a counter-world, to a There" [40]. 

 

Having said that, I still wonder if there is an alternative to tourism ... Or must we all learn to laugh like Odradek [c] and accept ourselves as patchwork individuals with multicoloured natures? 

 

 

II.

 

It's obviously important to get terms straight: to understand that hyperculturality is a contemporary phenomenon that is uniquely different to interculturality, multiculturality, and transculturality ...

 

According to Byung-Chul Han, the first two of these things are historically "connected  with nationalism and colonialism" [53] and, philosophically, they "presuppose the introduction of an essentialist notion of culture" [53]. 

 

As for transculturality, which is all about transgression and the crossing of borders, that also has nothing to do with hyperculturality, wherein different cultural forms are simply placed side by side in a "borderless hyperspace" [56] and one is afforded the opportunity (as a tourist) to browse. 

 

Hyperculture also differs from multiculture "insofar as it involves little remembrance of origin, descent, ethnicity or site" [56-7].    

In sum: 

 

"Contemporary culture is marked not by the trans, the multi or the inter but by the hyper. The cultures between which an inter or a trans would take place are un-bounded, de-sited, and de-distanced: they have been turned into hyper-culture." [56]

 

Hyperculturality also "presupposes certain historical, sociocultural, technical and media processes" [57] and is linked to "a novel experience of space and time, a type of identity formation and a form of perception" [57]. 

 

 

III.

 

One of the things I like about hyperculture is that it doesn't regard appropriation as something sinful. 

 

Indeed, hyperculture desires and requires an intense level of appropriation in order to effect a dynamic process of transformation and engineer difference. Nothing is seen as alien and off-limits or has protected status; nothing belongs to anyone. Everything exists for consumption ...

 

One might ask at this point how hyperculture differs then from late capitalism; is it not just the cultural logic of the latter in much the same way as postmodernity was formerly described by its critics [d]? 

 

I'm not sure Han addresses this question. Though he does say that supermodernity - unlike postmodernity - is not ironic; it contains "an affirmation that the ironic mode cannot grasp" [68]. It's also friendlier, says Han. Which is nice, I suppose, as friendliness promises "maximum cohesion with minimum connectedness" [69].   

 

 

IV.

 

Perhaps, in the end, the tourist is simply another kind of wanderer; a figure that Nietzsche praised in Human, All Too Human (1878-80) [e]. Both wanderer and tourist move in a de-sited world and lack any final destination. However, whilst acknowledging the similarities, Han ultimately rejects this comparison:

 

"The wanderer's form of existence [...] does not resemble that of the hypercultural tourist. His way of walking still lacks the leisureliness that characterizes the tourist. And the world of the 'wanderer' is still peppered with deserts and abysses." [75]

 

Despite everything, says Han, Nietzsche "remained a pilgrim" [76] at heart and his wanderer remained on the path of struggle and suffering (a via dolorosa). 

 

And despite Nietzsche's remarkable far-sightedness, "he could not yet have suspected what kind of culture would emerge [...] He did not develop the idea of a hyperculture." [65]

V.

 

Han closes his study with a section entitled 'Threshold'. In it, he makes yet another return to Heidegger; if Nietzsche didn't quite see what was coming, Heidegger saw it emerging and rejected it outright:

 

"For him, hyperculture would be the end of culture as such. He repeatedly laments the loss of the homeland [Heimat]. The media, too, are blamed for the disappearance of the homeland, and ultimately also for the disappearance of the world." [77]

 

It's mass media - and now social media - which has carried people away into illusionary worlds that are not worlds, turning them into tourists. There's nothing primordial (from the perspective of Being) about surfing the internet. 

 

For Heidegger, the world has material reality - its a place of rocks and trees and meadows in bloom, as well as jugs and bridges and things made by hand - it's not a simulation made up from signs and images which we stare at on a screen, rather than dwell within. 

 

As a Lawrentian, of course, I'm naturally sympathetic to Heidegger's construction of a simplistic and romantic counter-world, as Han calls it; it might lack plurality and diversity, but at least it includes books, animals, and silence. 

 

Ultimately, one has to choose: to be a pilgrim-wanderer who crosses thresholds in silence but with a face "contorted in pain" [83]; or a hypercultural tourist "smiling serenely" [83] and chatting endlessly. Homo dolores, or Homo liber - I'll let you decide ... 

 

 

Notes

 

[a] Byung-Chul Han, Hyperculture, trans. Daniel Steuer, (Polity Press, 2022), p. 37. All future page references to this work will be given directly in the post. 

 

[b] Byung-Chul Han refers us to Bauman's text Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality, (Blackwell, 1995). As we will see, Han doesn't seem convinced by Bauman's attempt to resurrect the pre-modern figure of the pilgrim; one that re-theologizing thinkers and those looking for a fixed abode or home in the traditional sense often fall back on  

[c] Odradek is the strange creature in Kafka's short story 'The Cares of a Family Man' (see Collected Stories, trans. Willa and Edwin Muir, (Everyman's Library, 1993), pp. 183-85. 

      Like many other critics and thinkers, Han is fascinated by Odradek's hybrid identity and the fact he has no attachment to any site, or home. He writes: "Odradek's identity is not controlled by any teleology [...] he is not part of any purposive horizon [...] it is an identity that is cobbled together from various parts" and his laugh "has something ironic, mocking or uncanny about it" [48]. 

      However, although Odradek's nature "does somewhat resemble the patchwork structure of hypercultural identity" [49], he is not, concludes Han, a hypercultural tourist in the full sense.   

[d] I'm thinking here of the Marxist critic Frederic Jameson and his 1991 study Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Duke University Press). For Jameson, postmodernism is a form of mass-popular culture driven by capitalism that also obliges us to consume.

 

[e] See aphorism 638, in Section 9 of Nietzsche's Human, All Too Human. 

Travels in Hyperculture With Byung-Chul-Han 1: We Are All Tourists Now

 

In nil sapiendo vita iucundissima est

 

 

I.

 

As Jarvis Cocker correctly observed back in 1995: Everybody hates a tourist [a]. 

 

However, according to German philosopher Byung Chul-Han, writing ten years later in his 2005 study Hyperkulturalität [b] - and in agreement with the British ethnologist Nigel Barley - we are all more or less tourists dressed in Hawaiian shirts today; not because of a universal desire to explore faraway lands and experience foreign cultures, but because there are now no faraway lands or foreign cultures in a globalised world [c].

All that remains post-globalisation is hyperculture, or what some refer to as supermodernity; an era of accelerated technological change that results in a transformation of time and space - and, indeed, our very humanity. 

 

Hyperculture goes way beyond anything foreseen by Zarathustra, though perhaps he glimpsed something of it when he flew into the future [d]. To understand it a little better, let's take a closer look at Byung Chul-Han's study ...  

 

 

II.

  

The Greeks, of course, had a profound understanding of culture in terms of harmonious manifoldness; that is to say, unity in diversity cultivated on the very soil of discord and difference. Culture, for the Greeks, is what Nietzsche regards as the giving of style to various forms of life (whereas barbarism - the very opposite of culture - is precisely a "lack of style or a chaotic jumble of all styles" [e]).  

 

Byung Chul-Han also returns to the ancient Greeks on the question of culture. His reading, however, is informed by Hegel rather than Nietzsche, although in his Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1837), the former also speaks of the genesis of Greek culture in terms of heterogeneity and otherness in need of being overcome. 

 

In other words, whilst Greece was born of an original chaos of peoples, it was only via a long process of discipline and breeding that the true spirit of Greece could unfold. 

 

But whilst Hegel "tries to do justice to the fact" [3] that heterogeneity is an elementary aspect of the Greek character, once they have forged a European identity he stresses the importance of belonging to a happy home in which there is no longer any desire for that which is outside or alien; the foreign is now dismissed and it's all about family and fatherland.

 

This might have some negative consequences - such as being unable to see beyond one's own position or hear strange sounds - but, as Herder argues, it is precisely this myopia and deafness that allows for a state of cheerful self-contentment: "'National happiness' emerges because the 'soul' forgets the 'manifold dispositions' that dwell within it and elevates a part of itself to the status of the whole" [5].   

 

This type of happiness is unknown or of little interest to tourists in Hawaiian shirts. For they lack style, that is to say, lack the self-discipline needed for culture in the old sense characterised by closing one's eyes and one's ears to certain sights and sounds in order to see what is near to hand and hear the song of one's own soul. 

 

Han writes:

 

"Their happiness is of an altogether different kind; it is a happiness that emerges from an abolition of facticity, a removal of the attachment to the 'here', the site. In their case, the foreign is not 'sickness'. It is something new to be appropriated. The tourists in Hawaiian shirts inhabit a world that unbounds itself, a hypermarket of culture, a hyperspace of possibilities." [5-6]

 

Thus, these tourists in a hypercultural reality - which some, like Ted Nelson, term Xanadu - are just as content as natives living in a spiritual homeland bound by borders and rooted in bio-terrestrial reality (blood and soil), and they are certainly freer in many regards.  

 

 

III. 

 

The irony, of course, is that we were promised by the globalists that new modes of transport and new communications technology would open up the world and expand our horizons. But globalisation has shrunk cultural space and condensed everything:

 

"Heterogeneous cultural contents are pushed together side by side. Cultural spaces overlap and penetrate each other. This unbounding also applies to time. Not only different sites but also different time frames are de-distanced [...] Cultures implode; that is, they are de-distanced into a hyperculture." [9]

 

Again, some seem perfectly okay with this (although their happiness is reminiscent of that experienced by Nietzsche's letzter Mensch, which he describes as the happiness of a flea). Others, however, are not so pleased and feel obliged to offer resistance:

"There are many for whom [hyperculture] means the trauma of loss. Re-theologization, re-mythologization and re-nationalization are common reactions to the hyperculturalization of the world. Thus, hypercultural de-siting will have to confront a fundamentalism of sites." [10]

That doesn't sound great. Deleuze and Guattari, who famously discuss all this in terms of de- and reterritorialization, warn of the dangers of attempting to recodify the world and form neo-territorialities based upon past ideals and the invention of new falsehoods. Ultimately, such neo-territorialities are, at best, "artificial, residual, archaic" [f] and, at worst, prone to quickly becoming fascistic.   

But I'm not sure how much we need to worry: mythical time (in which everything and everyone has a fixed place) is surely over. And so too is (linear) historical time. We are left, then, like it or not, living in this time; the time characterised by Vilém Flusser as that of the bit (rather than the image or the book):

 

"It lacks any comprehensive horizon of meaning. It is de-theologized, or de-teleologicized, into an 'atom-like' 'universe of bits', a 'mosaic universe' in which possibilities 'buzz' like points, or 'sprinkle' like 'grains', as 'discrete sensations' [...] 

      In this 'universe of points' [...] Dasein is surrounded by freely hovering possibilities. In this way, the 'universe of points' promises greater freedom. After all, the future is 'everywhere' that I 'turn to'." [12]

 

Heidegger might not like it - may think it compromises authenticity, dis-inherits Dasein, and produces a dictatorship of the They - but  I have to admit, I rather like the sound of this space-time that is more vortex than void, particularly as it allows also for increasing interconnectedness (with others and with things), expanding the future by creating an abundance of relations and possibilities. 

 

Whether this is driven by Eros, or a more perverse inclination, is debatable. But it's certain that even though hyperculture may help to bring about new forms and possibilities of being, Heidegger would not be persuaded to consider the upside of life today: "Faced with a colourful patchwork society, he would invoke the 'we' of a community of fate." [14]       

 

Ultimately, Heidegger is interested in dwelling, not travel and tourism. And he would fail to see that hyperculture is not merely universal monoculture. Sure, you can buy a Big Mac anywhere in the world - but it's fusion food that really defines what's going on today: 

 

"This hypercuisine does not level the diversity of eating cultures. It does not just blindly throw everything into one pot. Rather, it thrives on the differences. This allows it to create a diversity that would not be possible on the basis of preserving the purity of local food cultures. Globalization and diversity are not mutually exclusive." [16] [g]

 

 

IV.

 

As might be clear, devising a (non-essentialist) model of contemporary culture that is able to capture the dynamism of what's unfolding today isn't easy. And to be fair, Byung-Chul Han does a pretty good job. 

 

One understands from reading his essay how hyperculture is detached from any origin and brings heterogeneous elements together in such a manner that ideas of near and far, indigenous and foreign, become untenable; how culture is now boundless and unrestricted and we are all tourists within it. Not so much nowhere, as prepared to bid farewell to a here "that used to give Being its auratic depth, or rather the semblance of an aura" [34].           

 

We might also describe this culture as rhizomatic in nature - and Han credits Deleuze and Guattari for developing a concept in their work which "proves suitable for the description of certain aspects of hyperculture" [27]. He also summarises it for readers unfamiliar with the idea:

 

"The 'rhizome' denotes a non-centred plurality that cannot be subjected to any comprehensive order [...] Thus, a rhizome is an open structure whose heterogeneous elements constantly play into each other, shift across each other and are in a process of constant 'becoming'. The rhizomatic space is a space not of 'negotiation' but of transformation [...] Rhizomatic distribution, even dispersal, de-substantializes and de-internalizes culture and thereby turns it into hyperculture." [27-28]    

 

We can contrast this with an arboreal model of culture with its deep roots and branches. Further - and finally - rhizomatic hyperculture is not one of inwardness or remembrance. It has, if you like, no soul; or, to use Benjamin's favoured term, no aura - "the resplendence and radiance of a specific 'here and now' that cannot be repeated there [34]. 

           

Still, as Han notes, there's no need to lament de-auratization in terms exclusively of loss (such as loss of origin, loss of essence, loss of authenticity, or even loss of Being as Heidegger would have it). Maybe - just maybe - something good will come of all this; "another reality, which shines in the absence of the auratic" [36].

 

The question is: "When the 'here and now' becomes a repeatable there and later" [37], will we have gained more than we lose? 

 

To find out how Byung-Chul Han answers, readers are invited to click here for part two of this post.

 

 

Notes

 

[a] Pulp, 'Common People', single release from the album Different Class (Island, 1995). 

[b] Byung-Chul Han, Hyperkulturalität: Kultur und Globalisierung, (Merve Verlag, 2005) This text has now been pulished in an English translation by Daniel Steuer, (Polity Press, 2022) and page references given above refer to this edition of the work, rather than the German original. 

[c] Just to clarify at the outset: when Byung-Chul Han speaks of a hypercultural tourist, he does not necessarily mean someone who is always jet-setting or globetrotting: such a person is already a tourist when at home; there is no here or there or any final destination to arrive at. 

[d] See Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 'Of the Land of Culture'. 

      Han credits Nietzsche with being "one of the few thinkers capable of looking far ahead, of resonating with vibrations that came from the future" [31]. Indeed, I might be being unfair to Zarathustra in suggesting that the idea of hyperculture was beyond his ability to conceive. Perhaps the thing that ultimately lets Nietzsche down is his insistent aestheticism, which "tends towards a re-teleologization, a re-theologization, of culture" [33].  

[e] Nietzsche, 'David Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer', in Untimely Meditations, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, (Cambridge University Press, 1992). p. 6. 

[f] Gilles Deleuze and Félix, Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane, (The Athlone Press, 1994), p. 257. 

[g] Interestingly, it's not just Heidegger who has an issue here. As Han reminds us: "Out of a fear of diversity, Plato already condemned the use of spices and the manifold dishes of Sicilian cuisine." [17] Amusingly, the attempt to maintain cultural purity and defend national cuisine always leaves one with egg on face. 

The First Rule of Chinese Fight Club: the Authorities Always Win!

Trust me. Everything's gonna be fine.

Fight Club (dir. David Fincher, 1999) 

 

 

I. 

 

One has many good reasons to despise the Chinese Communist Party: for what they did to sparrows, for example, during the Four Pests campaign; for the mindless destruction of the four olds during the Cultural Revolution; and for the misery they have inflicted on the entire world thanks to the Wuhan coronavirus.

 

But now there's a new reason to hate the CCP: for what they have done to the ending of David Fincher's Fight Club (1999), one of my favourite films ...

 

 

II. 

 

Although recently authorising the movie's availability on the streaming platform Tencent Video, the censor-morons of the CCP just couldn't allow it to pass without imposing their own brutal edit.

 

Thus, whilst the original film closes with a strangely touching scene in which the unnamed narrator-protagonist (played by Edward Norton) holds hands with Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) and watches as the world of financial services comes tumbling down in an explosive finale courtesy of Project Mayhem, the new Chinese version cuts this scene entirely and replaces it with a black screen upon which a caption reads:

 

The police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding. 

 

It is also revealed that Norton's schizophrenic character was sent to a lunatic asylum for psychological treatment. 

 

This is so ridiculous: we are now living in a world in which the defenders of the banks and credit card companies are the Chinese Communist Party ...! One is tempted to remind them of Chairman Mao's famous line oft-repeated by members of the revolutionary Red Guard:

 

Marxism comprises many principles, but in the final analysis they can all be brought back to a single sentence: It is right to rebel.

Anyway, for those who would like to be reminded of - or perhaps watch for the first time - the original ending of Fight Club in all its terrible beauty and dark humour, click here.  

This post is in memory of Robert Paulson. 

 

 

Update: 07-02-22: It seems that the original ending to Fight Club has been restored in China. I doubt this was due to the above post, but as a friend of mine joked: TTA 1 CCP 0.

The Best Things in Life Are Dirty: Reflections on Malcolm McLaren's Nostalgie de la boue

Malcolm McLaren and friends in a photo taken outside 

Nostalgia of Mud by Neil MacKenzie Matthews (1982)

 

 

 

I. 

 

The phrase nostalgie de la boue was coined in 1855 by the French playwright Émile Augier [1]. 

 

It refers to a decadent attraction to primitive culture or a yearning for some form of debased experience outside of what is regarded as socially and morally acceptable according to the bourgeois norms and conventions of European civilisation [2].     

 

One might even think of it in terms of Freud's death drive; i.e., as a desire on the part of complex life to revert to an earlier stage of evolution that allows one to contentedly wallow in a primordial mud pool (though when Augier used the phase he was thinking of the desire to return to humble social origins, rather than the origins of life [3]). 

 

For me, the phrase nostalgie de la boue has a further resonance, however; one that is rooted in the music and fashion of the early-mid 1980s - a time of buffalo gals, b-boys, hobo-punks, and Zulus on a time bomb ...

 

 

II.

 

Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood opened their new (short-lived) West End shop in March 1982. Located at 5, St. Christopher's Place, it was spitting distance from Selfridges (but a long way from King's Road). 

 

Ben Westwood recalls:

 

"The shop front was covered by a 3-D relief of the map of the world made out of plaster and coloured mud brown. The interior featured the cave-like look of an archaeological dig. Scaffolding surrounded the walls, brown tarpaulin was stretched across the ceiling and a central pillar (or stalagmite) rose out of a bubbling pool of oily liquid." [4]

 

What Ben doesn't offer is an explanation for the name of the shop - Nostalgia of Mud - except to say that this was also the name of Vivienne and Malcolm's inspired Worlds End collection for A/W 1983 [5]. 

 

Keen-eyed readers will immediately notice the unusual translation of the original French phrase discussed above; nostalgia of mud, rather than the more standard nostalgia for mud. 

 

I don't know why this was so: I doubt that Malcolm wished to assign agency to the mud, as if it were the earth itself yearning for something. Probably he just mistranslated or misremembered the phrase. It doesn't really matter, I suppose - and, to be honest, I rather like the idiosyncratic reworking of nostalgie de la boue. 

 

As to when McLaren first heard the phrase, or from where he took it, again, I don't know ... 

 

Paul Gorman reminds us in his biography of McLaren, that it can be found in Tom Wolfe's famous essay 'Radical Chic' (1970), where it is used to mock those rich white liberals who host fundraising parties for revolutionary groups like the Black Panthers and thus seemingly endorse a brand of militant radicalism that would violently drag them from their own elevated social position [6].  

 

But I'm not convinced that McLaren took the phrase from Wolfe. And even if he did, he means something very different from what the American author means by it, giving the term mud a wholly positive new interpretation [7]. 

 

Anyway, let's close by giving the last word to Malcolm himself: 

 

"I wanted the shop to look permanently closed down, making it appear as if we were digging up the place to find the London that lay under the pavements and eventually I found that all that lay under there was mud." [8]

 

        

viviennewestwood.com

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See Émile Augier, Le Mariage d'Olympe (1855), Act I, Scene I. 

      Interestingly, however, as Rosalind Krauss points out, the expression nostalgie de la boue "is not in fact idiomatic French; indeed, it is not part of spoken French usage at all, being instead a purely Anglophonic invocation of the English notion of slumming transposed into the magically resonant frame of a supposedly French turn of phrase". See her essay 'Nostalgie de la Boue', in October, Vol. 56, (The MIT Press, Spring, 1991), pp. 111-120. The line quoted is on p. 112.

 

[2] Sir Clifford Chatterley famously accuses his wife of being "'one of those half-insane, perverted women who must run after depravity, the nostalgie de la boue'" after she confesses her affair with the gamekeeper. Suddenly seeing himself as the embodiment of moral goodness, Clifford regards Connie and Mellors as "the incarnation of mud, of evil". 

      See Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 296.

 

[3] In Act I, Scene I of Le Mariage d'Olympe, Augier wrote: "Mettez un canard sur un lac au milieu des cygnes, vous verrez qu’il regrettera sa mare et finira par y retourner." We might trans-paraphrase this as: Put a duck rocker amongst clean-cut new romantics, and you'll see that he soon longs for a muddy hole that he can retreat to. 

 

[4] Ben Westwood writing in a post entitled 'Nostalgia of Mud' on the World's End blog (20 Feb 2014): click here. Note I have very slightly modified the text. 

      

[5] Rather than try to describe this collection, I encourage readers to watch a ten minute video posted by Ben Westwood on YouTube, which affords a glimpse of the magical scenes that unfolded on the catwalk in the Pillar Hall (Olympia), on 24 March, 1982: click here. 

 

[6] Tom Wolfe's essay, 'Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's', originally appeared in New York magazine (June 8, 1970): click here to read online. Paul Gorman mentions it in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), p. 496. 

      For my take on the question of radical chic - with reference to the case of AOC - click here.  

 

[7] As I wrote in an earlier post, for McLaren, the term mud implied more than merely low-life experience or primitive culture. It was a glorious synonym for authenticity, something that he has always striven for in his work; the true look of music and the real sound of fashion (even though he surely knew, as a reader of Wilde, that realism is just a pose and authenticity merely another form of fabricated reality or myth).  

      Critics of McLaren will doubtless argue at this point that he is another prime example of the sort of person Wolfe is satirising; someone who exploits the experiences and appropriates the cultural cachet of those he liked to call the dispossessed; someone claiming to be nostalgic for mud, whilst rarely getting their own hands dirty in the process of making cash from chaos. For me, however, there's a big difference between Malcolm and someone like Leonard Bernstein.     

 

[8] Malcolm McLaren, quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, p. 497.

 

        

I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know About Her: She Sherriff (the First Buffalo Gal)

Pip Gillard - aka She Sherriff (1981)

Photo by Janette Beckman / Getty Images

 

 

I. 

 

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Malcolm McLaren's Buffalo Gals - a track which was as seminal for a generation of duck rockers and hip hoppers as Anarchy in the UK had been for the generation of punk rockers who preceded them.  

 

However, I'd like to speak here of someone who anticipates the era of scratchin' and square dancing and can justifiably lay claim to being the first buffalo gal: Pip Gillard, who some readers may vaguely (perhaps fondly) remember as She Sherriff ...

 

 

II. 

 

By the beginning of 1982, Malcolm was bored to death managing Bow Wow Wow: we might say that he didn't want Candy, but was, rather, nostalgic for mud; i.e. interested in down and dirty characters, rather than those who are so fine they can't be beat; hobos and hillbillies, rather than heroes and hearthrobs ...  

 

For McLaren, the term mud implied more than merely low-life experience or primitive culture. It was a glorious synonym for authenticity, something that he has always striven for in his work; the true look of music and the real sound of fashion. 

 

McLaren now located this authenticity in the folk music and folk dance of peoples around the word - particularly the sounds and rhythms that came out of Africa, a continent which he romanticised like many European artists before him, as a place of magical paganism and noble savagery. 

 

He identified something of the same jungle spirit in rock 'n' roll; at least in the very early days, before Elvis joined the US Army. And, more surprisingly perhaps, he was excited by what he discovered in them thar hills of the Appalachian Mountains, where people still danced barefoot to the sound of a fiddle and swigged moonshine straight from the jug.

 

If only, mused McLaren, he could find a new Skeeter Davis capable of singing country style with a pop sensibility ... And so, step forward Pip Gillard, who would be signed to Charisma Records [1] under the name of She Sherriff and release her first (and last) single on the label in 1982: a cover version of the country classic I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know (About Him).           

 

Unfortunately, McLaren's first attempt to produce a more authentic sound by reinventing "the big-selling but middle-aged country-and-western genre for a young audience" [2], was not a huge success. For despite "a great deal of media interest, promo photos by The Face photographer Janette Beckman and a Charisma-funded video, She Sherriff failed to deliver on the promise" [3].

 

The single didn't chart and She Sherriff was swiftly dropped by Charisma. If not exactly run out of town, then she was also relegated to that dark corner of popular music history reserved for those who don't even become one hit wonders [4].    

 

 

III. 

 

I suppose, looking back, the problem was not only a poor choice of song, but the fact that for all the stylishness of her proto-buffalo gal image and the mud applied to her limbs, Pip Gillard just didn't convince or really look the part; she was just too fresh-faced - or too pale-faced, if you like. 

 

And posing her with a rocking horse on the record sleeve - was that your idea Nick? - served only to reinforce the idea that this pretty young thing with a red ribbon in her hair would never be able to wrestle a steer, or ride a bucking bronco.     

 

 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Tony Stratton-Smith's small independent record label, Charisma, was founded in 1969 and became home to Genesis and other prog-rock favourites. In 1981, the managing director, Steve Weltman, newly arrived from RCA, was keen to shake things up and so signed McLaren to make his own album (for which he was given an initial advance of £45,000) and advise on new acts and musical trends in an unofficial capacity.

  

[2] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), p. 503. 

 

[3] Ibid.

 

[4] Note that Pip Gillard did release another single - 'Why Can't You Love Me?' - under her own name, in 1984 on +1 Records. She has also released a track in Japan, as Pippa Gee, called 'Every Time You Touch Me' (Sony, 1983): click here. The Japanese version of this song - 'Suteki My Boy' - was used in a drink commercial.  

 

Play: She Sherriff, 'I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know About Him', (Charisma Records, 1982): click here. 

Play: Skeeter Davis, performing 'I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know' on the Pet Milk Grand Ole Opry Show in 1961: click here. This song, written by Cecil Null, had been a number 1 country hit for Skeeter and Betty Jack Davis (known as the Davis Sisters) in 1953.

For a related post to this one on Buffalo Gals, click here. 

 

And, finally, for a post in which I discuss another track from McLaren's Duck Rock album - 'Double Dutch' - from the inside perspective of someone who worked in the press office at Charisma Records at the time, click here. 

 

Chase Me - Catch Me - Kill Me - Eat Me!

 

The leopard will never lie down with the antelope. 

Whilst the leopard is leopard, he must fall on the antelope, to devour her. 

This is his being and his peace, in so far as he has any peace. 

And the peace of the antelope is to be devourable.

 

 

I. 

 

Those readers familiar with Luc Besson's sci-fi thriller Lucy (2014), starring Scarlett Johansson as a woman who gains superhuman powers - including massively enhanced cognitive abilities - thanks to a (fictional) nootropic (CPH4), will doubtless recall the terrifying opening scene at the hotel when she delivers a metal briefcase to Mr. Jang (a South Korean crime boss played by Choi Min-sik) containing bags of the designer drug in blue-powdered form.

 

As she waits nervously in the lobby, scenes of a cheetah stalking an antelope flash on the screen, indicating the mortal danger she is in. When she is brought before Jang by his henchmen, she desperately pleads for her life as images of the cheetah having caught its tender young prey, carries it away to be eaten [1]. 

As a visual metaphor, it's hardly subtle and is perhaps something of a cliché, combining elements of the lurid and the banal that remind one of the kind of pornography that appeals to those men who enjoy the thought of commiting acts of savage sexual violence against vulnerable-looking doe-eyed girls, or to those who desire to swallow others, or fantasise about being devoured by a large predator, red in tooth and claw. 

 

 

II. 

 

The scene also reminds me, however, of a memorable passage in D. H. Lawrence's essay 'The Reality of Peace', that I'd like to share with readers:

 

"Look at the doe of the fallow deer as she turns back her eyes in apprehension. What does she ask for, what is her helpless passion? Some unutterable thrill in her waits with unbearable acuteness for the leap of the mottled leopard. Not of the conjunction with the hart is she consummated, but of the exquisite laceration of fear, as the leopard springs upon her loins, and his claws strike in, and he dips his mouth in her. This is the white-hot pitch of her helpless desire. She cannot save herself. Her moment of frenzied fulfilment is the moment when she is torn and scattered beneath the paws of the leopard, like a quenched fire scattered into the darkness. Nothing can alter it. This is the extremity of her desire, this desire for the fearful fury of the brand upon her. She is balanced over at the extreme edge of submission, balanced against the bright beam of the leopard like a shadow against him." [2]  

 

For Lawrence, these two types of animal - predator and prey - exist by virtue of juxtaposition; to negate the being of one would be to negate the being of the other. Similarly, any ideal attempt to reconcile the cat and the rat, the wolf and the lamb, or the leopard and the antelope, "is only to bring about their nullification" [3].

 

That's arguably true, but what's interesting is how Lawrence eroticises his philosophy - and does so in a manner that many commentators also find porno-lurid and clichéd. 

 

Michael Black, for example, notes how, in the above passage, the deer is female and the leopard male and he wonders what this tells us about Lawrence's sexual politics. It is one thing, writes Black, "to contemplate predation as a fact of nature; it is another to elevate it to a mystic principle" [4] which eroticises violent death and being devoured. 

 

He has a point, but I suspect Black fails to appreciate just how perverse Lawrence's writing is. 

 

For despite Lawrence's sexual politics mostly oscillating between the romantic and the reactionary, his work also provides us with an explicit A-Z of paraphilias and fetishistic behaviours, obliging readers to think about subjects including: adultery, anal sex, autogynephilia, cross-dressing, dendrophilia, female orgasm, floraphilia, gang rape, garment fetishism, homosexuality, lesbianism, masturbation, naked wrestling, objectum-sexuality, podophilia, pornography, psychosexual infantalism, sadomasochism, and zoophilia. [5] 

 

It's neither shocking nor suprising, therefore, that Lawrence should also allow an element of vorarephilia to enter his text ...    

   

 

Notes

 

[1] This scene can be watched on YouTube thanks to Universal Pictures All-Access: click here. 

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, 'The Reality of Peace', in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert, (Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 50. 

 

[3] Ibid. 

      I discussed Lawrence's philosophy of anatgonistic opposition - or what he likes to call polarity - at greater length with reference to 'The Reality of Peace' in an earlier (related) post: click here.

 

[4] Michael Black, D. H. Lawrence: The Early Philosophical Works, (Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 440. 

      

[5] I'm quoting from my post on Torpedo the Ark entitled 'D. H. Lawrence: Priest of Kink' (19 July 2018): click here. 

When the Cat Lies Down With the Rat

And they shall make a covenant of peace ...

 

I. 

 

Last night, I had a horrible dream: my cat was lying in the garden on a bright frosty morning, much like this morning, and from under her body I could see a long, hairless tail poking out. Upon investigation, I discovered that a large rat had snuggled beneath her in order to keep warm. 

 

Although aware of the rodent's presence, my cat - normally a serial rat-killer - remained unconcerned. Indeed, she seemed content to rest in harmony with her fellow creature and fulfil Isiah's messianic prophecy [11:6] of a time to come, when there will be universal peace and love and the wolf shall dwell with the lamb; the leopard lie down with the kid, etc. 

 

 

II. 

 

Now, whilst there are many who share this vision, I remain with D. H. Lawrence on this and regard it as an expression of moral nihilism, in as much as it involves the negation not merely of otherness and opposition, but of existence as founded upon these principles of antagonism and one form of life eternally devouring another (for it's death that makes the world go round).  

 

In 'The Reality of Peace', Lawrence writes: 

 

"Shall I expect the lion to lie down with the lamb? Shall I expect such a thing? I might as well hope for the earth to cast no shadow, or for burning fire to give no heat. [...] When the lion lies down with the lamb he is no lion, and the lamb, lying down with him, is no lamb. They are merely a neutralisation, a nothingness. If I mix fire and water, I get quenched ash. And so if I mix the lion and the lamb. They are both quenched into nothingness." [1]   

 

He continues:

 

"The lion will never lie down with the lamb; in all reverence let it be spoken. Whilst the lion is lion, he must fall on the lamb, to devour her. This is his lionhood and his peace, in so far as he has any peace. And the peace of the lamb is to be devourable. 

      Where, then, is there peace? There is no peace of reconciliation. Let that be accepted for ever." [2]   

 

Concluding on a thanatological note: 

 

"It is peace for the lion when when he carries the crushed lamb in his jaws. It is peace for the lamb when she quivers light and irresponsible within the strong, supporting apprehension of the lion. Where is the skipping joyfulness of the lamb when the magnificent, strong responsibility of the lion is removed? The lamb need take no thought; the lion is responsible for death in her world." [3]

 

Of course, some critics have sneeringly suggested that this is not how an articulate lamb might put it [4]. 

 

But then, as Nietzsche points out in the Genealogy [1:13], whilst there is nothing strange about lambs harbouring resentment towards those beasts and large birds of prey that carry them off, that's no reason for us to come over all sheepish and blame the predators for being true to their nature, or to describe that nature in moral terms as evil [5].

  

 

Notes

 

[1] D. H. Lawrence, 'The Reality of Peace', in Refections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert, (Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 49.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., p. 50. 

[4] See, for example, Michael Black who discusses these passages from 'The Reality of Peace' in D. H. Lawrence: The Early Philosophical Works, (Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 439-441.         

      Black argues that whilst it is "one thing to contemplate predation as a fact of nature; it is another to elevate it to a mystic principle which turns immolation into a vocation." [440] It is precisely such mystification - which Lawrence often eroticises in a manner that reinforces gender stereotypes - that introduces deeply troubling elements in Lawrence's later work to do with sexual politics and human sacrifice.   

[5] Nietzsche goes on to point out that it is as absurd to expect the powerful not to delight in their strength, as it is for the weak to construe their impotence as a form of freedom and their self-restraint as a moral accomplishment, when they simply lack claws. See On the Genealogy of Morality, first essay, §13. 

 

 

For a related post to this one, click here.

      

Byromania: The Malcolm McLaren Birthday Post (2022)

Neon Lord Byron (2020)

sophiespostcard.com

 

"I am such a strange mélange of good and evil 

that it would be difficult to describe me."

 

 

Despite the fact they shared a birthday [1], had several mad, bad, and dangerous character traits in common, and that punk was, in many respects, a continuation of the English Romantic tradition, there's only a single reference to Lord Byron in Paul Gorman's monumental biography of Malcolm McLaren [2].

 

But whilst it's true that Malcolm spoke more often - and more affectionately - about Oscar Wilde than he did Byron, I'm sure the latter as a sexy, stylish rebel against conventional morality who is often described as the first rock star poet, also figured strongly in McLaren's imagination. 

 

Indeed, thinking of those character traits that they had in common, one might even describe McLaren as a Byronic hero: i.e., a flawed genius whose attributes include great talent and passion; a distaste for society and social institutions; a lack of respect for those in authority; a reckless disregard for consequences; and, ultimately, a self-destructive streak founded upon the Romantic belief that it is better to be a flamboyant failure than any kind of benign success.               

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Byron was born on 22 January, 1788. Malcolm McLaren was born on 22 January, 1946. Other famous Aquarians who share this birthdate include Sir Walter Raleigh (1552), Francis Bacon (1561), and John Donne (1573).   

[2] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), p. 50. 

This post is written in memory of Malcolm, but is dedicated to all those who knew and loved him.  

The Covid Nightmare (After D. H. Lawrence)

The Scream of Covid-19 

by Dee Tyndall (after Edvard Munch)

redbubble.com

 

  

I. 

 

He had never known fear. But in England, during the coronavirus pandemic, he experienced an increasing sense of terror; not of catching the disease, but of being bullied by the malevolent spirit which arose amongst the mask-wearing, socially-distanced, lockdown-loving vaccine fanatics. 

 

From 2020 onwards, a form of criminal insanity seemed to possess authorities around the world, including the UK government led by a pathological liar and other bottom-dog members of a Cabinet prepared to terrorise and coerce the general public in the name of health and safety. 

 

The psychological pressure and daily propaganda - spread by a compliant media - was steadily applied in order to break the independent spirit of anyone who wouldn't toe the line and identify with the will of the majority; surrendering their reason and their rights as an individual. 

 

Clap for the NHS and get triple jabbed: this he steadfastly refused to do. His love of freedom (and an essentially contrarian nature) made him abide by his own feelings, come what may. It was not selfishness. Or libertarian sentimentality. It was a question of integrity: would he give in to mass hysteria or not?                

 

To be clear: he belonged to no group or cause and was not an anti-vaxxer. That is to say, he had no moral, political, or medical objection to vaccination. It was the bullying of those who exercised their right to withhold consent and defend bodily autonomy in the face of biopolitical pressure that he disliked and would never acquiesce in. But his feeling was something private and he didn't want to force his views on any other person.  

 

A potentially lethal respiratory virus rapidly spreading around the world is horrible enough. But what made the pandemic so intolerable was that in every country almost everyone lost their heads and any sense of perspective. 

 

The English usually pride themselves on the fact that during a crisis they keep calm and carry on with life as usual: but not this time. This time practically everyone was caught up in the hysteria and swept along, disinclined to think or feel for themselves, frightened to speak up or speak out, and - it has to be admitted - perversely enjoying the experience. 

 

Some people fell ill. Some fell very ill. And some died. But the vast majority, their inner pride gone, just virtue signalled their way through the pandemic by demanding ever tighter restrictions on freedom, boasting of their vaccine status, and finger-wagging at those who showed the least trace of scepticism in the face of what we were being told about the virus. 

 

And now, as we begin to face up to a post-pandemic world and learn to live with Covid, there is a tremendous price to pay because we collectively lost our heads and, worse, lost too our inward, individual integrity. We should not have lost our heads: in a time of crisis, we need to act with greater care and greater courage, but also with a greater sense of calm. And perhaps too, greater kindness.      

 

Of course, superficially, people were kind: not least the nurses and voluntary staff at the vaccination centre where he had queued up in a mask and felt dejected and humiliated when told to stand here, go there, keep his distance, follow the markings on the floor, etc. Why was it nobody else seemed to mind?

 

Having had the jab, he went back home. When the time came for his second shot he would go again, but he would not allow himself to be made a fool of or infantalised; he would not, for example, wear the little badge that they gave him as if he were a six-year-old child which read: I'm a vaccine hero. 'Once,' he said to the Little Greek, 'I'm fully vaccinated, I will never obey another mandate.'

 

 

II.

 

Three weeks later, and he sat in A&E with a blood clot in his lower-right leg; no one wanted to say it was a side-effect of the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine - correlation is not causation - but everyone suspected as much. This led to a six-week period in which he had to inject an anticoagulant into his stomach on a daily basis. The clot eventually dissolved and the bruising faded, but the phlebitis in his leg has flared up several times since. 

 

But inflammed veins don't hurt as much as the pain caused by the unspeakable baseness of the press and public calling for mandatory vaccination and the social exclusion of those who refuse to be jabbed or fail to provide proof of such. No one who has seen what is happening in Europe, or Australia, or been threatened with arrest by the police for sitting on a park bench or refusing to reveal the contents of their shopping trolley, can ever believe again in the benevolence of the State. 

 

In 2020-21, the old world ended. And it wasn't coronavirus to blame, or the Chinese Communist Party; it was our own leaders who shirked their duty (in the name of following the science and perhaps secretly fantasising of a Great Reset). 

 

If only enough individuals had kept their heads and their integrity, the pandemic would never have unfolded in the way it did. If only, in the beginning, there had been enough voices raised in opposition to lockdowns in the UK, then we wouldn't be in the mess we are in today. But the British - particularly the Welsh and the Scots - wobbled and lost their minds and the tide of horror accumulated. 

 

And now things will never be the same again ... (Although the snowdrops will soon be out.) 

 

 

Note: this post is written after (and in the manner of) D. H. Lawrence; see Chapter XII of his novel Kangaroo (1923), entitled 'The Nightmare', which details the unpleasant wartime experiences of the protagonist - Richard Lovatt Somers - who was subject to bullying authority, police harassment, and intimate medical inspection (much as Lawrence was himself). 

      As I have not indicated where I paraphrase, where I quote - or, if you prefer, where I borrow, where I steal - from Lawrence's text, I would encourage readers who are interested to go to the novel directly. The Cambridge Edition, ed. Bruce Steele, established from the original sources and first published in 1994, is the one I relied upon when writing this post; see pp. 212-259. 

      Finally, note that this post is not intended to be either a homage to or parody of Lawrence. And if I say things here which you don't agree with, well, don't allow yourself to be offended, or howl for me to be arrested or thrown out of Essex. I've not done anything to hurt you and there's really no need for personal enmity.       

 

 

Richard Lovatt Somers: Notes Towards a Character Study (Part 2)

 

Garry Shead: Flaming Kangaroo (1992) 

From the D. H. Lawrence Series  

etchinghouse.com.au

 

 

I. 

 

So, as we have seen in part one of this study, R. L. Somers is a queer fish, who desires (at times at least) to actually become-fish and leave cloying humanity behind. At other times, however, as we shall discuss here, he pledges his allegiance to dark gods and prides himself on the daimonic aspects of his nature. 

 

It might be argued, therefore, that in as much as he has a politics, the latter rests upon a philosophy of inhuman otherness and an opening up of self to alien forces; not something that is shared with Ben Cooley, who acts in the name of Love and remains human, all too humanistic (even when, physically, he resembles a kangaroo). 

 

Anyway, let's pick up from where we left off in Lawrence's Australian novel: I remind readers that page numbers given below refer to the Cambridge Edition of Kangaroo (1994), ed. Bruce Steele.

 

 

II.

 

Somers is a man who wants to be convinced by Kangaroo, so that he might submit to him. But he isn't convinced, so he can't and won't submit. Not to Ben Cooley, not to anybody. Nor will he allow himself to be carried away: "He had a bitter mistrust of seventh heavens and all heavens in general." [132] Like Larry David, Somers has learnt to curb his enthusiasm and come to the end of transports. 

 

"'I don't quite believe that love is the one and only, exclusive force or mystery of living inspiration. [...] There is something else'" [134], Somers tells an exasperated Kangaroo. And this something else is that which enters us not from above via the spirit, but from behind and below, marking the end of all that we are (or, rather, all that we think we are). 

 

With his devilish blue-eyes sparkling, Somers says: "'What you call my demon is what I identify myself with. It's the best me, and I stick to it.'" [136-37] As a reader of Nietzsche, I know precisely what he means and I sympathise with this position [a]. Many of us have grown tired of being moral-ideal automatons and long to escape our humanity as founded upon the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.

 

Whether this means flirting with one's next door neighbour's wife, however, is another matter; not that Somers follows through with his illicit desire for Victoria, despite having "stroked her hot cheek very delicately with the tips of his fingers" [142] and justified the possibility of an adulterous affair in his own mind by giving reference to the gods. 

 

For in his heart of hearts, Somers remained stubbornly puritanical and "his innermost soul was dark and sullen, black with a sort of scorn" [143] even for extramarital shenanigans. Better to collect differently coloured sea-shells on the beach, or to take off one's clothes and run naked in the rain, or to go for a swim in the sea and delight in the fresh cold wetness. 

 

Indeed, better even to chase rainbows than to get mixed up with the world: "The rainbow was always a symbol to [Somers ...] of unbroken faith, between the universe and the innermost" [155]. The problem is, even when feeling relatively peaceful Somers found himself in a "seethe of steady fury" [163] - a kind of general rage aimed at no one and everyone: 

 

"He didn't hate anybody in particular, nor even any class or body of men. He loathed politicians, and the well-bred darling young men of the well-to-do middle classes made his bile stir. [...] But as a rule the particulars were not in evidence [...] and his bile just swirled diabolically for no particular reason at all." [163]

 

At times, Somers feels himself to be a sort of human bomb ready to explode and cause the maximum amount of havoc. Again, one is reminded of Nietzsche, who declared: "I am not a man - I am dynamite!" [b] Is this longing for chaos a resentful expression of anarcho-nihilism? Perhaps. But more likely, it's related to the abuse Somers suffered at the hands of the authorities during the War years whilst in Cornwall (a period he refers to as the Nightmare and which inflicted lasting psychological damage upon him) [c].

 

But, thankfully, Somers manages to refrain from exploding and resist the urge to involve himself in bloody revolution; for he realises that this simply leaves behind "'the same people  after it as before'" [161-62]. His pessimism and his inability to summon up sufficient enthusiasm for any form of militancy or direct action is, of course, his saving grace. When, inevitably, there's a row in town (Chapter XVI), it's not Somers who breaks heads with an iron bar. 

 

Ultimately, Somers simply doesn't care: "How profoundly, darkly he didn't care." [178] What does the modern world of men and politics matter compared to the ancient fern-world, "before conscious responsibility was born" [178] and men too were shadowy like trees, "with numb brains and slow limbs and a great indifference" [179]? 

Later, Somers confesses his indifference: "'I try to kid myself that I care about mankind and its destiny. [...] But at the bottom I'm as hard as a mango nut. [...] I don't really care about anything [...]" [203] For Kangaroo, this - combined with his obsession with the magic of the dark world - makes Somers a traitor to his own human intelligence; a remark that causes Richard to smile and recall Nietzsche once more [d].

 

Thus, no surprises then that Richard Somers leaves Australia shortly after his falling out with Kangaroo - and shortly after the latter dies from a gun shot wound that resulted from a political meeting turning violent (Chapter XVI). 

 

Although Somers visits Kangaroo in hospital, there's no reconciliation and although Cooley pleads with Somers to concede that love is the greatest thing of all, the latter cannot make this concession - even to comfort a dying man. In fact, he tells Cooley: "'I don't want to love anybody. Truly. It simply makes me frantic and murderous to have to feel loving any more.'" [326]      

 

Jack Callcott thinks Somer's was a bit hard on Cooley as the latter lay on his death bed. But Kangaroo surely shouldn't have been surprised, as Somers has already made it perfectly clear that he wants an understanding between them that is deeper than love and allows each to retain their integrity: "'Let's be hard, separate men.'" [209] [e]      

Again, I find this diamond-like Somers who loves nobody and likes nobody, rather amusing (my middle name, as Katxu once said, is Hate). But so too do I like the Somers who walks round the Zoo and feels tenderness for the animals (to whom he feeds extra-strong peppermints). But then, tenderness isn't the same as love; it's deeper, darker and, as Lawence will later conclude, more phallic in origin than the latter. 

 

The Australian bush and the wildlife - the (mostly) unique flora and fauna - are what, ultimately, cause Somers (despite all that we say above) to declare his love for the country: "'I don't love the people. But this place - it goes into my marrow, and makes me feel drunk.'" [347]

But still he leaves: waving his orange silk handkerchief in the air as he sets sail for America; arguably one of the most fascinating characters ever to have found himself upside down at the bottom of the world (to borrow David Allen's phrase) [f]. 

 

 

Notes

 

[a] See the section entitled 'The Convalescent' in Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in which he asserts that man needs what is most evil in him for what is best in him. I am following Walter Kaufmann's translation in The Portable Nietzsche (Penguin Books, 1976), p. 330.

      It's clear that Richard Somers has read Zarathustra - later in the novel he quotes from the book re the idea of great events (and the need to unlearn our belief in them when they consist only of a lot of noise and smoke). See Kangaroo, p. 161 and see the section entitled 'Of Great Events' in Thus Spoke Zarathustra.  

 

[b] See Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, (Penguin Books, 1988), p. 126. 

      One wonders if, in making this startling declaration, Nietzsche forgets what he wrote in The Gay Science: "I do not love people who have to explode like bombs in order to have any effect at all." Perhaps it betrays a certain self-contempt; or perhaps it demonstrates how Nietzsche's position (and temperament) becomes more violent (more desperate) over the years. See The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann, (Vintage Books, 1974), III. 218, p. 210.

      Finally, readers might like to note that an actual bomb is thrown at the violent climax of Chapter XVI, just as a bomb explodes at the end of Lawrence's previous novel, Aaron's Rod. See p. 282 of the Cambridge Edition (1988), ed. Mara Kalnins. 

 

[c] See Chapter XII, pp. 212-259. Somers, we are informed, has an "accumulation of black fury and fear" [260] submerged like a horrible pool of lava ready to erupt deep in his unconscious. And when he does remember his time in Cornwall and what he experienced, it leaves him "trembling with shock and bitterness" [260] and a feeling not only of intense humiliation, but desecration.  

 

[d] Somers recalls, with a smile, the title of Nietzsche's third book, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches (1878-80). When Cooley goes on to call him a perverse child, this makes Somers laugh and reply: "'Even perversity has its points'". See Kangaroo pp. 206 and 208. 

      Ultimately, what Somers wants is to get clear of humanity: "That was now all he wanted: to get clear. Not to save humanity or to help humanity or to have anything to do with humanity. [...] Now, all he wanted was [...] to be alone." [265] This, for Richard, is the true starting (and finishing) point: "a man alone with his own soul: and the dark God beyond him" [281].     

[e] Again, this is Somers at his most Nietzschean. See the section entitled 'Of Old and New Law Tables' (29), in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in which the diamond instructs the charcoal on the need for creators to become hard. 

 

[f] Upside Down at the Bottom of the World is the title of a drama, written by David Allen, about the Lawrence's in Australia. It was published by Heinemann Educational Australia, in 1981. 

 

 

Surprise musical bonus: click here.