On the Temptation of Christ

Detail of an image showing the Devil bearing Jesus 

found in an old French liturgical book (c. 1470-75) 

Collection: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library 

(MS 425, fol. 48r) [1]

 

 

... the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, 

and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them ... 

                                                       - Matthew 4:8 (KJV)

 

 

I.

 

The biblical verses pertaining to the Temptation of Christ are among the most critically (and theologically) fascinating verses in the New Testament.

 

For these verses tell us something crucial about Jesus that any thoughtful and naturally questioning person who thinks the story of Christ through to the bitter end will ultimately have to acknowledge; namely, that Jesus was a kind of idiot [2] whose teachings were inadequate and displayed a fatal misunderstanding of the nature (and limits) of man.

 

For those who are unfamiliar with the verses and don't have the Good Book to hand, here's how they appear in Matthew 4:1-11 (KJV): 

 

 

1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. 

 

2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. 

 

3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. 

 

4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. 

 

5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, 

 

6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. 

 

7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. 

 

8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; 

 

9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. 

 

10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. 

 

11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

 

 

II. 

 

It's this version of the narrative that we shall base our reading upon here, essentially arguing - in agreement with Dostoevsky and D. H. Lawrence - that man doesn't want freedom (or even salvation), but demands rather miracle, mystery, and a powerful authority to whom he can willingly submit.

 

Only a very rare few can find fulfilment without these things and establish lives of sovereign individuality. Jesus either couldn't or wouldn't see this and via his ideal teaching he makes "demands greater than the nature of man can bear" [3]. 

 

Thus, if you want to establish a Christian Church and State, you're going to have to turn to "that other great Spirit" [4] who loves man for what he is and not for what he ought to be: the Father of Lies and Prince of Darkness, Satan.      

 

 

III. 

 

The first temptation takes place in the Judean desert, where Jesus has been fasting for forty days and forty nights; a symbolic period of trial and spiritual endurance within biblical mythology, during which Christ demonstrated his total reliance on God. 

 

The devil encouraged Jesus to surrender to his hunger and prove his divinity by turning desert rocks into bread, but, being the religious fanatic that he was, Jesus simply mumbled something about man not living by bread alone. 

      

One can't help wishing he'd replied rather: I can resist everything except temptation [5] and conjured up a fabulous feast, inviting the Devil to join him - that would have been the wittier thing to say and also would have thrown the Devil on the back foot; Jesus would have turned the tables and upped the stakes via an act of what anthropologists term potlatch. 

 

But, of course, Jesus is completely humourless - he is not recorded laughing even once throughout the New Testament, let alone cracking a good joke or making a genuinely witty remark of the kind Wilde was famous for. 

 

So we get the now proverbial line about bread which Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor says was his first mistake: Feed men, and then ask of them virtue [6] - that's the formula if one wishes to produce loyal followers. And if that bread happens to be produced miraculously from stone, all the better; men who are both well-fed and given a magical display of power will be doubly loyal [7]. 

 

D. H. Lawrence develops this criticism of Jesus. Like the Inquisitor, he insists that man "demands bread: and not merely as foodstuff, but as a miracle, given from the hand of God [...] The earthly bread must in itself be the miracle, and be bound up with the miracle [...] The earthly bread is leavened with the heavenly bread" [8].  

 

IV.  

 

The second temptation of Christ unfolds when the devil takes Jesus to the highest point of the temple in Jerusalem and urges him to throw himself over the edge, quoting scripture (Psalm 91:11-12) in support of the idea that the angels of Heaven would catch him, were he truly the Son of God and not just some delusional carpenter. 

 

This was an attempt not only to force Jesus into making a dramatic display of his divine status, but to manipulate God also into taking action. Predictably, Jesus declined to jump and refused to put his Father to the test.

 

Again, for me at least, it would have been more interesting had he succumbed to temptation and accepted the challenge. Or indeed if he had said something along the lines of 'Let's find out if the demons of Hell are as prepared to catch you as the angels me', and thrown the Devil off the top of the temple.

 

Casting himself down from the temple to be caught by angels - or turning the tables on the devil by pushing him from the temple - would, much like the stone-into-bread trick, demonstrate his godhood in the minds of the people and they would abandon their old ways and follow him to heaven and back.

 

But then I'm not a Christian and I suppose what I'm suggesting is, much like the Grand Inquisitor's philosophy, Satanic in character. 

 

 

V. 

 

Finally, the devil offers Jesus authority and political power over all the magnificent kingdoms of the Earth - providing that Jesus abandons his mission, derails God's plan, and agrees to kneel before him. 

 

Taking charge in this manner would ensure universal salvation, the Grand Inquisitor claims. But Jesus isn't tempted and firmly commands the devil to fuck off - Get thee hence! - making it clear that he submits to and serves no one other than his Father.

 

Lawrence is convinced that Jesus should have accepted earthly power and the responsibility of such; that he was profoundly and disastrously mistaken in his one-sided insistence on the Love ideal and his perverse self-absorption. 

 

For while he succeeds in providing a model of practice for the ascetic individual, by refusing to think of men as social beings and showing no understanding of how power and politics operate, Jesus surrenders us all to the State and opens the way for those who have no qualms about exercising power in the most brutal manner: 

 

"Jesus made it inevitable, when he said that the money belonged to Caesar. It was a mistake. Money means bread, and the bread of men belongs to no man. Money also means power, and it is monstrous to give power to the virtual enemy." [9] 

      

In his late essay 'The Risen Lord' (1929), Lawrence famously dreams of a very different Jesus: no longer a man of sorrows, but a power-lord who agrees to come down off his mountain top so that he might rule. Here is a Jesus with tongues of fire round his brows, not a crown of thorns, willing and able to take the devil on at his own game and resist those mechanical forces belonging to Mammon [10].   

 

It's a Jesus that the Grand Inquisitor would absolutely approve of. 

 

I suspect that the early founders of what became known as Christianity [11] quickly understood that it's the principles put forward by Satan - a kind of politics of evil - that allows for the long-term survival and success of an institution. Nietzsche writes of how, "with every extension of Christianity", it became more and more necessary to vulgarise the teachings of Jesus and incorporate "the doctrines and rites of every subterranean cult" [12]. 

 

 

VI.       

 

In conclusion: the Grand Inquisitor is quite right to say that the Catholic Church does not need Jesus - and that if he were to return, as promised, it would only throw a spanner in the works and interfere with their mission which is to rule mankind in the name of God, but using the Devil's tricks and techniques (even those which bring death and destruction).   

 

And even if Jesus himself were to kiss me on the lips, I would not say otherwise. For Dostoevsky's tale is, as Lawrence says, depressingly true whether we like it or not, presenting the "final and unanswerable criticism of Christ [...] borne out by the long experience of humanity" [13].   

 

Notes

 

[1] Artists have produced many visual representations of the Temptation of Christ, but this is by far my favourite, showing as it does Jesus being quite literally carried up the mountain. The image makes me smile, because Jesus appears to be no more than a large doll or dummy via whom the devil might ventriloquise his own Satanic philosophy.    

  

[2] The term idiot is used here in a philosophical sense that draws upon Nietzsche's characterisation of Jesus in The Anti-Christ (§ 29) as an idealist detached from material reality and living in his own inner world. It is highly likely that Nietzsche borrowed the term from Dostoevsky who used it in his 1869 novel of the same name to describe someone (Prince Lev Myshkin) who is equally pure in spirit, but seen as naive and foolish by others.  

 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, 'Introduction to The Grand Inquisitor, by F. M. Dostoevsky', Introductions and Reviews, ed. N. H. Reeve and John Worthen (Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 128.

 

[4] Ibid., p.129. 

 

[5] This profoundly anti-Christian line was written by Oscar Wilde in his play Lady Windermere's Fan (1892) and is spoken by Lord Darlington in Act 1. 

 

[6] 'The Grand Inquisitor' is a story contained within Fyodor Dostoevsky's philosophical novel The Brothers Karamazov (1880). The line quoted is found in Book V, Chapter 5.   

 

[7] The Roman poet Juvenal would famously sum this up with the phrase panem et circenses - a practice of appeasing the people that he condemns. See Satire X in Book 4 of his Satires (a collection of satirical verses written between 100 and 127 AD). Today, we might say cibus rapidus et TikTok.   

 

[8] D. H. Lawrence, 'Introduction to The Grand Inquisitor, by F. M. Dostoevsky', Introductions and Reviews, pp. 128 and 132.  

 

[9] D. H. Lawrence, Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation, ed. Mara Kalnins (Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 146. 

 

[10] This essay can be found in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 265-273.  

 

[11] As Nietzsche points out, the term Christianity is already a misunderstanding (and a corruption) of the glad tidings taught by Christ. See The Anti-Christ (§ 39), where he claims there has only ever been one Christian - and he died on the cross. What followed in his name was a reversal and negation of the values he had lived his life by.     

 

[12] Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ (§ 37), trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Penguin Books, 1968), p. 149. Nietzsche refers to this as Christianity's fall into morbid-barbarism, but we could just as easily use the phrase cynical-satanism.     

 

[13] D. H. Lawrence, 'Introduction to The Grand Inquisitor, by F. M. Dostoevsky', Introductions and Reviews, p. 127. 

 

 

This is a sister post to (or variant of) an earlier (unexpected) text published on TTA discussing the Spanish Inquisition in relation to Dostoevsky's 'The Grand Inquisitor' (5 Aug 2026): click here. 

 

  

Blake Morrison Spills the Beans on Memoir Writing

Blake Morrison Spills the Beans (SA/2026)

(Photo of Morrison by Charles Moriarty) 

 

 

The poet and author Blake Morrison is perhaps best known for three works of memoir: And When Did You Last See Your Father? (1993); Things My Mother Never Told Me (2002); and Two Sisters (2023).  

 

To be honest, I've not read any of the above and as I have an instinctive aversion to Morrison - even though he is a great champion of Lawrence, particularly Sons and Lovers [1] - I don't suppose I ever will.  

 

I have, however, ordered a copy of his new book published by Borough Press: On Memoir: An A-Z of Life Writing (2026), as this genre of writing is of increasing interest to me, even whilst it's one I remain somewhat suspicious of and hostile to.  

 

And, funnily enough - if a recent essay in The Guardian is anything to go by - Morrison himself has a few doubts himself about memoir writing in the age of Substack and digital self-publishing: 

 

"What was once a geriatric, self-satisfied genre (politicians, generals and film stars looking back fondly on long careers) is now open to anyone with a story to tell - 'nobody memoirs', the American journalist Lorraine Adams has called them." [2] 

 

Still, whether written by nobody or somebody, candour is the key to memoir writing; "no matter how fraught the consequences". In a post-Maggie Nelson universe, it doesn't pay to be shy and, as Morrison goes on to note, shocking revelation has long been "an integral part of memoir [because] sometimes the facts are shocking".

 

To be honest, I'm not sure I like such explicit (often brutal and ugly) openness. I do think an author can overshare and that there is such a thing even in confessional writing as too much information. I would like to know, as a reader, how a writer feels about the death of a parent; I probably don't need to know they recall masturbating in the bath on the day it happened. 

 

Whether "the divulgence is sad-fishing on Facebook, curated self-glorification on Instagram or out-there revelation in a memoir", I'm afraid that I'm one of those readers who feels irritated and affronted by exhibitionist authors who figuratively spill the beans whilst literally inviting us to watch them jerk off. 

 

As Morrison acknowledges, it's not essential for writers to reveal all; they should be able to write "on their own terms and in control of what's committed to print". It's often a mixture of laziness and narcissism that causes a writer to indulge in bean spilling and oversharing. Even in the age of social media, discretion can still be a virtue. 

 

But, on the other hand, says Morrison, discretion is not such a virtue when it becomes a form of evasion driven by dishonesty or fear of how others will react:

 

"There's no point in telling a personal story if you censor yourself and hold back too much. Be brave [...] it's your version of events and if people close to you object, never mind - let them write their own memoir." [3] 

 

Having said that, like the exercising of discretion, the expression of candour requires technique: "It needs compression, structure, the right tone of voice. The task is to set down what happened, not parade extremes of feeling." 

 

In fact, I would go further than that and say the task is to reimagine what happened, not just record like a machine; to fictionalise and transform life into art. Ultimately, the best form of memoir is called a novel. But writing a novel is difficult, whereas - as we have noted - nobody and anybody can write a memoir. 

 

Clearly, Morrison and I disagree on this point: 

 

"Truth-telling is the measure of memoir, and it's not the same as autofiction. Readers will allow an author wriggle room, for comic exaggeration, say, but where there's knowing fabrication they'll feel cheated, even outraged." 

 

To which one can only ask this Easter weekend: What is truth? And repeat: memoir that doesn't become autofiction is merely poor writing - or what Deleuze describes as dead writing [4]. 

 

Morrison says that readers want to be able to trust writers. But here he forgets his Lawrence, who sagely advised us to trust the tale, not the teller and reminded his readers that art speech is essentially a form of telling lies, but that, paradoxically, "out of a pattern of lies art weaves the truth" [5].    

 

But it's not the kind of truth that most people want to hear: it's the truth that Oscar Wilde declared to be anything other than pure and simple [6] and which Nietzsche described as a convenient fiction or a forgotten lie [7]. 

 

Finally, what of the argument that readers want more than blog posts or fragments and snippets of text on Substack; that when the story is interesting and the writer is good, then they are justified in demanding a full-length (professionally published) memoir and that ultimately only such will serve and satisfy ...

 

Obviously, I don't agree with that. I think the best way to illuminate a life is in a series of lightning flashes; thus I privilege the glimpse over the detailed portrait [8].

 

But Morrison defends the latter against flashy short-form writing:  

 

"For myself [...] I think published memoirs have plenty to offer that social platforms can't, not least the rewards of a full-length story with a narrative arc, a set of characters, and an approach that doesn't depend on sensational self-exposure, allowing room for reversals, surprises, digressions, complications and a tussle between adversity and reprieve. At their best, memoirs develop with a subtlety unavailable in a short extract [...]" 

Morrison concedes that published full-length memoirs can - "when the author is a bumptious blabber or a catastrophiser" - be "as much a turn-off as online snippets". But, he says in conclusion, "where the self-disclosure is nuanced and the writing compelling" nothing beats a book (how very arborescent, as Deleuze would say). 

 

Some might see this as a hard-working and highly respected professonal author defending the traditional art and craft of writing. But one can't help interpreting Morrison's remarks also as a form of gatekeeping;i.e., safeguarding the elite world of serious literature and those who belong to such - editors, agents, critics and publishers - from the barbarian content creators and bloggers such as myself who are not looking to turn memory into memoir and memoir into money ... [9]

 

 

Blake Morrison Spills the Beans (II)

(SA/2026) 

     

  

Notes

 

[1] See Blake Morrison, 'Sons and Lovers: a century on', in The Guardian (25 May 2013): click here. 

 

[2] Blake Morrison, '"Enough of this me me me": Blake Morrison on memoir in the age of oversharing', The Guardian (4 April 2026): click here. 

      All quotes that follow in this post are from Morrison writing in this article.  

 

[3] Interestingly, Morrison goes on to write: "Readers are no less sensitive than they ever were, just sensitive about different things [...] Push it too far and there might be a social media storm and public backlash. [...] Writers can't afford to ignore the moral climate of the times. But they don't have to kowtow." 

      Again, I take a rather more aggressive line than Morrison. For me, it's not just a question of not being subservient; a writer worth their salt should stand against public opinion and challenge (transgress) the moral climate of their age (move beyond good and evil, as Nietzsche would say). 

 

[4] For Deleuze, writing is not as an attempt to impose a coherent and conventional linguistic form on lived experience. Above all, Deleuze wishes to stress that literature should not become a form of personal overcoding, which is why any form of writing that is exclusively reliant upon the recounting of childhood memories, foreign holidays, lost loves, or sexual fantasies, is not only bad writing, but dead writing. Literature, he says, can die from an excess of truth-telling, just as it does from an overdose of reality. 

      See Deleuze's essay 'Literature and Life', in Essays Critical and Clinical, trans. Daniel W. Smith and Michael E. Greco (Verso, 1998). And see the post 'A Deleuzean Approach to Literature' (30 Aug 2013): click here.   

 

[5] See D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature, ed. Ezra Greenspan, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen (Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 14.

 

[6] Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). It can be found in The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (HarperCollins, 2003).   

 

[7] See Nietzsche; On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (1873). This essay can be found in Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche's Notebooks of the Early 1870's, ed. and trans. Daniel Breazeale (Humanities Press International, 1990), pp. 77-97. 

 

[8] See the post 'I Shall Speak of Geist, of Flame, and of Glimpses' (29 Sept 2021): click here.  

 

[9] I pick up on this phrase in a sister post to this one, with reference to the work of Mark David Gerson, a leading figure in the memoir industry: click here.  

 

 

Prince, Oh Prince of Darkness: Notes on the Case of Peter Mandelson

Lord Peter Mandelson 

(The Prince of Darkness) 

 

'He who knows not that the Prince of Darkness is also the King of Light, knows nothing ...'  

 

 

I. 

 

The Prince of Darkness is a term used in John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost (1667) [1], referring to Satan as the embodiment of evil. 

 

It is an English translation of the Latin phrase princeps tenebrarum, which occurs in the Gospel of Nicodemus (aka the Acts of Pilate), thought to have been written in the 4th or 5th century. 

 

It is, in my view, by far the loveliest of Satan's titles - much nicer than Lord of the Flies - one which makes the Devil sound like a true gentleman [2], whereas Beelzebub suggests some sort of exalted dustman.

 

The Prince of Darkness, however, is also one of the nicknames given to the Labour Party politician, lobbyist and diplomat, Peter Mandelson, who - as many readers will know - is back in the headlines at the moment ...

 

 

II. 

 

Mandelson's long (and hugely successful) career has famously been marked by controversy, which resulted in his twice resigning from the Cabinet and recently being dismissed as British Ambassador to the United States, after a scandal emerged concerning his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, an American financier and convicted child sex offender who died, in somewhat fishy circumstances, whilst in his prison cell, in 2019 [3].    

 

To be honest, before this latest scandal I knew very little about Mandelson (and cared even less). But now, knowing a bit more, I find I'm increasingly sympathetic; I certainly prefer him to Starmer, whether or not he passed on sensitive government information to Epstein and whether or not he's a corrupt moral monster of some sort.     

 

In fact, for me there's something a bit Wildean about Mandelson, as well as something diabolical. For like Wilde, Mandelson is outrageously reckless in the face of danger and forever flirting with scandal (behaviour driven, I'm told by a friend of mine who knows about this sort of thing, by a combination of psychological factors, including arrogance, hubris, and a belief in his own exceptionality).  

 

 

III.

 

Of course, I'm by no means the first to feel this way about Mandelson (to be taken in by his seductive charm, if you like).  

 

Way back in 2001, the innovation expert and social policy consultant Charles Leadbeater wrote a piece in The Guardian on his friend Mandelson, whom, he said, was an inspired political visionary who enriches British public life.   

 

Mandelson, Leadbeater continued, could think outside the box and had the "stamina, professionalism and attention to detail" [4] to push through significant change: "He made things happen when many around him simply talked. He was not afraid to take on fights when more cautious and calculating souls cowered." [5] 

 

Conceding that Mandelson has certain character flaws - including vanity and arrogance - Leadbeater points out that this is true of most politicians. And so, what if he likes the high life and his head is too easily turned by the rich and famous - at least he isn't boring and he dares to be different:

 

"That is why I like and support Peter Mandelson. In a political class marked by its limited imagination, Peter had the capacity not just to think big, but to deliver as well. He dared to stand up and stand out. Now he has been hammered back into place. The Oscar Wilde of modern politics, he embraced the establishment and challenged convention in the same movement. Those who were unsettled by his daring are the ones celebrating this weekend." [6]

 

That is a paragraph which is both uncannily resonant and extraordinarily pertinent to the present discussion of the Mandelson case.   

 

 

IV.  

 

In closing, I would like to refer readers to a spoof piece in The Daily Mash informing us that as well as losing his government post and stepping down from the House of Lords, Mandelson "will no longer be referred to as the Prince of Darkness or enjoy the benefits of the title [...] because he is a terrible representative of Satanism and the hellish underworld" [7].  

 

Continuing in the same satirical manner, the article quotes a spokesman who confirms that Mandelson has "disgraced the good name of the Devil" [8] by fawning over Epstein, rather than fulfilling his public duty of challenging God's authority and leading others into temptation. Thus, from now on Mandelson will no longer be able to possess souls, "shapeshift, or control the dead" [9].  

 

Notes

 

[1] See Book 10, line 383: click here to read online (The John Milton Reading Room).   

 

[2] See Shakespeare's King Lear (1606), Act III, scene IV, line 151: "The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman." Click here to read online (Folger Shakespeare Library). 

 

[3] Mandelson's friendship with Epstein, which had been publicly known about for some years, spanned at least from 2002 to 2011 (i.e., it had continued even after Epstein's 2008 conviction in Florida for soliciting prostitution from a minor).

 

[4-6] Charles Leadbeater, 'My friend the political visionary', in The Guardian (28 Jan 2001): click here.  

 

[7-9] See the article 'Peter Mandelson stripped of Prince of Darkness title', in The Daily Mash (6 Feb 2026): click here.  

 

Musical bonus: Bow Wow Wow performing their 1981 single 'Prince of Darkness' on German TV: click here to watch on YouTube (80s Rec.)

 

 

God Save Joe Orton

Joe Orton anachronistically wearing a 

Seditionaries Prick Up Your Ears T-shirt

in a photo by George Elam (1967) 

 

'The kind of people who always go on about whether a thing is in good taste 

invariably have very bad taste.'

 

 

I. 

 

Remembered primarily as a playwright who came to a sticky end at the hands of his lover, Joe Orton was a gay, working class English writer who, in a brief but brilliant public career lasting from 1964 until his murder in 1967, outraged and amused audiences with his scandalous black comedies, characterised by a mix of cynicism and sauciness [1].  

 

 

II. 

 

After leaving school, Orton got a job as an office junior whilst also developing an interest in the performing arts, joing a number of am-dram societies in his home town of Leicester. He obviously showed promise, as, in November 1950, he was offered a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, which he took up the following spring.   

 

It was at RADA that Orton met Kenneth Halliwell, seven years his senior, and they formed a strong romantic relationship, moving into a West Hampstead flat together (shared with two other students). 

 

After graduating, they collaborated on a number of novels. However, as these failed to set the literary world alight (or even find a publisher), Orton and Halliwell decided it might be best to write separately, scraping by as best they could on benefits and monies earned from part-time jobs, whilst amusing themselves with various pranks; such as removing books from their local library in order to modify them (i.e., deface the covers with comically surreal images and additional text), before returning them to the shelves [2].   

 

They were eventually nicked by the police and charged with larceny and damage to property deemed to be wilfully malicious in nature. After pleading guilty at Old Street magistrates (in May 1962), each received a six-month custodial sentence (and a £2 fine). Interestingly, whilst Halliwell hated being in jail and attempted suicide, Orton seemed to enjoy himself and find inspiration. His career as a powerful and subversive writer arguably has its origins in his time behind bars and shortly after his release he wrote Entertaining Mr Sloane [3]. 

 

 

III.

 

The unduly harsh nature of the prison sentence, which Orton suspected was due to the fact that he and Halliwell were queers, brought home to him the fact that corrupt priggishness and hypocrisy still exercised its power and authority in the UK, even after the Chatterley Trial: 

 

"It affected my attitude towards society. Before I had been vaguely conscious of something rotten somewhere, prison crystallised this. The old whore society really lifted up her skirts and the stench was pretty foul." [4]

 

Orton's next performed work was Loot (1965); a dark two-act work that satirises social and religious attitudes to death, as well as the integrity of the police. It opened to severe criticism, but, after numerous edits and rewrites, a London production in the autumn of 1966 received rave reviews, several awards, and established Orton's reputation. He was even able to sell the film rights for £25,000 (that's over half-a-million nicker in today's money and was a record figure at the time).     

 

 

IV. 

 

Orton's final play, What the Butler Saw, was a clever modern farce that he completed writing in July 1967, one month before his death [5]. It opened at the Queen's Theatre, London, on 5 March 1969 and was met with a hostile audience reaction; boos and cries of rubbish were heard coming from the balcony and some people walked out, protesting the play's raunchy character and obvious contempt for authority.

 

There is, finally, one more work I would like to mention; Up Against It - an unproduced film script written in 1967 for the Beatles, who were then at the height of their fame. 

 

After submitting the script to their manager, Brian Epstein, it was returned to Orton following a long period of silence and without comment. It's anarchic, sexually explicit, and subversive tone was deemed too potentially damaging to the Beatles' carefully managed public image and inappropriate for a mainstream movie audience [6]. 

 

In fact, the dark and chaotic script might have better suited Malcolm McLaren's Sex Pistols ...

 

 

V.   

 

It's not wrong to consider Orton a defining figure (and diarist) of London in the 1960s; his work and lifestyle embodied the rebellious and sexually liberated spirit of the counterculture during that era. 

 

But, having said that, I can't help thinking of him as more of a trickster-punk than a peace-loving hippie - even if he did have a Beatles song played at his funeral. And Malcolm McLaren was a great admirer, considering Orton an inspiration for the punk aesthetic that he and Vivienne Westwood had created in their shop at 430 King's Road.   

 

Thus it is that Orton's name appears on the right side (literally and figuratively) of the 'You're Gonna Wake Up' manifesto (1974). And thus it is that, in 1979, McLaren and Westwood produced the 'Prick Up Your Ears' shirt for Seditionaries, which comes with a quotation taken from Orton's diary (I write in more detail about this shirt in a post that can be accessed by clicking here). 

 

As Paul Gorman notes, for McLaren, Orton was a "remorseless cultural provocateur" [7] and a kindred spirit; someone who drew inspiration (as he did) from the gutter and delighted in the prospect of fucking the rich up the arse.    

  

 

Notes

 

[1] The comparison with Oscar Wilde is often made and it's not an unreasonable comparison to make; both used wit to expose the moral hypocrisies of their respective societies, often focusing on the absurdity of authority. Writing in the more permissive 1960s, rather than the Victorian 1890s, allowed Orton to be more explicitly transgressive than Wilde, though I'm not sure he was more anarchic or provocative.

      For a critical essay on this pair of queer iconoclasts, see John Bull, 'What the butler did see: Joe Orton and Oscar Wilde', in Francesca Coppa (ed.), Joe Orton: A Casebook (Routledge, 2002), pp. 45-60. 

 

[2] In their defence, Orton and Halliwell were protesting what they regarded as an appalling selection of books; endless shelves of rubbish, as they put it. See Ilsa Colsell's Malicious Damage: the Defaced Library Books of Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton (Donlon Books, 2013). 

      And see also the excellent article by Jonathan Jones titled 'Joe Orton's defaced library books and the death of rebellious art', in The Guardian (14 Oct 2011): click here. Jones argues that their amusing (if somewhat juvenile) defacement of library books was "a glorious rejection of the austerity and ordinariness that still set the British tone in 1962" and anticipated the manner in which the Sex Pistols scandalised a moribund nation in the following decade.  

      Amusingly, the book covers Orton and Halliwell vandalised have since become a valued part of the Islington Local History Centre collection and some are exhibited in the Islington Museum (i.e., they have been recuperated by the Spectacle). A collection of the book covers is also available online at the Joe Orton Gallery: click here.  

 

[3] Joe Orton (1964) as quoted on joeorton.org: click here. 

 

[4] The three-act play Entertaining Mr Sloane premiered at the New Arts Theatre (London) on 6 May 1964, produced by Michael Codron. Reviews ranged from praise to outrage, with one critic for The Times declaring that it made his blood boil more than any other British play in the last decade. The play was transferred to Wyndham's Theatre in the West End at the end of June and then to the Queen's Theatre in October, and Orton was hailed as a promising new talent. 

 

[5] On 9 August 1967, Halliwell bludgeoned 34-year-old Orton to death at their home in Islington with multiple hammer blows to the head. Halliwell then killed himself with an overdose of Nembutal. It seems likely that Orton had wanted to terminate their relationship (albeit not in such a literal fashion). 

 

[6] The screenplay was filled with what was termed outlaw sexuality and it should be recalled that homosexuality had only (partially) been decriminalised in July of 1967. Paul McCartney would later admit that the Beatles didn't wish to do the film because it was gay and they were not.  

      Interestingly, in 1979, John Lydon initiated a High Court case against Malcolm McLaren and his management company, Glitterbest. While the primary goal was to reclaim misappropriated royalties and the rights to the Sex Pistols name, Rotten also wanted to make clear his objection to the salacious and immoral elements contained in the script upon which the film that eventually became The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980) had been based. Arguing that the script portrayed him and other members of the band in a defamatory and harmful light, Rotten also made it clear that he had no wish to be associated with infamous figures including Jack the Ripper, Myra Hindley and Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs. Nor, indeed, did he approve of any scenes involving extreme sexual and violent content. 

 

[7] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 426.  

  

 

To read a sister post to this one - God Save Jean Genet (2 Feb 2026) - please click here. 

 

Bonus video: a short clip of Joe Orton being interviewed on The Eamon Andrews Show (ABC Weekend TV, 23 April, 1967): click here. A decade later, Andrews' co-presenter on the Thames TV show Today, Bill Grundy, would interview the Sex Pistols, who weren't prepared to play along in such a charming manner as Orton.  

 

 

God Save Jean Genet

Sex Pistols ft. Jean Genet (SA/2026)

Photo credits: Sex Pistols by Bob Gruen (1976) 

and Jean Genet by Brassaï (1948)   

 

Beauty is the projection of ugliness and to achieve harmony in bad taste 

is the height of style ...

 

 

I.

 

Jean Genet (1910–1986) was a seminal French writer and political activist whose life was defined by his transition from a marginalized outcast to a celebrated avant-garde icon. 

 

Born to a prostitute mother and placed into foster care, he spent his youth banged up in reformatories and prisons for crimes including theft and vagrancy [1], before joining the Foreign Legion at eighteen, from which he was dishonourably discharged on grounds of indecency (that is to say, well, I think we can all imagine what he was caught doing). 

 

After this, Genet stole and slept his way round Europe as a tea leaf and rent boy, before ending up in and out of prison in Paris; experiences that served as the primary inspiration for his lyrical debut novel, Notre-Dame des Fleurs (1943) [2].

 

Genet's later work - which includes novels such as Journal du voleur (1949) [3] and plays such as Les Bonnes (1947) [4] - is renowned for its stylised (but uncompromising) exploration of power and the beauty of evil, as well as the subversion of social hierarchies and the transgression of traditional morality (often giving iconic status to outlaws and outcasts, punks and queers).   

 

 

II.

 

Genet was championed by both Jean Cocteau and Jean-Paul Sartre [5] and, in his later years, following the events of May '68, he became increasingly active politically, advocating for all kinds of oppressed groups and radical causes and participating in various demonstrations. 

 

In 1970, Genet spent three months in the United States at the invite of the Black Panthers, before then spending six months visiting Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan [6]. He also became pally with Foucault during this time and, in his experimental text Glas (1974), Jacques Derrida contrasted Genet's ideas on crime, homosexuality and all the reste with Hegel's philosophy, in order to deconstruct traditional concepts of the law, family, and the ideal of Wholeness (or the Absolute) [7].   

 

Like Joe Strummer, Genet expressed solidarity with the Red Army Faction (or Baader-Meinhof Gang); a militant far-left group designated as a terrorist organisation by the West German government, publishing an article titled Violence et brutalité in Le Monde (2 Sept. 1977) [8]. 

 

Whilst Strummer was, of course, simply posing in a T-shirt - the Clash specialised in radical chic - Genet was driven by a deep-seated hatred for Western imperialism and French bourgeois society in particular; in 1985, the year before his death, he informed a shocked interviewer from the BBC that he loathed France so much that he had even supported the Nazis when they invaded Paris. 

  

 

III. 

  

Whilst Genet never collaborated with the Sex Pistols - nor ever refer to them in his writings or interviews - it's tempting to imagine that he would have found McLaren and Westwood's tiny shop at 430 King's Road a conceptual space very much to his liking, promoting as it did anarchy, sexual deviance, and the kind of transgressive behaviour that he seemed so excited by.

 

And if we define the denizens of 430 King's Road as Peter York once famously defined them - "the extreme ideological wing of the peculiars" [9] - or, alternatively, recall the description of them from the trailer to The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980) - "a kamikaze gang of cat burglers and child prostitutes" [10] - then it's possible that Genet would have identified with the Sex Pistols and acknowledged how his legacy found youthful expression via punk [11]. 

 

But, again, just to be clear - there is no evidence of a direct relationship between Jean Genet and the Sex Pistols and I don't remember Malcolm ever mentioning his name, whereas he would often refer to other poets and playwrights he admired, such as Oscar Wilde and Joe Orton. The speculative connection suggested here is largely based on the fact that both McLaren and Genet understood style as a form of refusal and aligned themselves with the counterculture. 

 

On the other hand, however, it's worth noting that while Genet may have appreciated the SEX and Seditionaries aesthetic, by the mid-1970s he had become increasingly cynical about art and theatrical rebellion and so it's possible that he would have dismissed punk as just another fashion and commercial commodification, rather than something genuinely subversive or dangerous - who knows? 

  

 

Notes 

 

[1] Genet's mother raised him for the first seven months of his life before placing him for adoption (one likes to believe she did so with good intentions and was putting the child's interests first). According to his biographer, his foster family was loving and attentive. Neverthless, his childhood involved numerous attempts to run away and incidents of petty criminality (even whilst the obviously bright boy got good grades at school). Eventually, aged fifteen, Genet was sent to a brutal penal colony, where he spent three unhappy years. 

 

[2] The first English edition, trans. Bernard Frechtman, was published as Our Lady of the Flowers in 1949. 

 

[3] The first English edition, trans. Bernard Frectman, was published as The Thief's Journal (1964).

 

[4] This work was again first translated into English by Bernard Frechtman and was published as The Maids by Grove Press in the United States (1954), and by Faber in the UK (1957). A famous film adaptation, dir. Christopher Miles and starring Glenda Jackson and Susannah York, was released in cinemas in 1975.

 

[5] When Genet arrived in Paris, he sought out and introduced himself to Jean Cocteau and the latter, impressed by his writing, used his contacts to help get Genet's first novel published. 

      Later, in 1949, when Genet was threatened with a life sentence after notching up ten convictions, Cocteau and other prominent intellectuals, including Jean-Paul Sartre, successfully petitioned the French President to have the sentence set aside. In gratitude - and perhaps realising there was more money to be made from art than crime - Genet stayed on the straight and narrow after this (or, at any rate, he avoided being caught doing anything that might return him to a prison cell).

      By this date, Genet had completed five novels, three plays, and numerous poems, many controversial for their explicit and often deliberately provocative portrayal of homosexuality and criminality. In 1952, Sartre wrote a long analysis of Genet's existential development (from vagrant to writer), entitled Saint Genet. Profoundly affected by Sartre's analysis, Genet did not write for the next five years, during which time he became emotionally attached to Abdallah Bentaga, a tightrope walker. Following Bentaga's suicide in 1964, Genet entered a period of depression and attempted to end his own life.

 

[6] A memoir detailing his encounters with Palestinian fighters and Black Panthers was published posthumously; see Un captif amoureux (Gallimard, 1986). Translated into English by Barbara Bray and with an introduction by Edmund White, it was published by Picador as The Prisoner of Love (1989).      

 

[7] The English translation of Derrida's book, by John P. Leavey, Jr. and Richard Rand, was published by the University of Nebraska Press, in 1986. A more recent translation, by Geoffrey Bennington and David Wills, was published with the title Clang by the University of Minnesota Press in 2021. 

 

[8] This Le Monde piece can be found in Jean Genet, The Declared Enemy: Texts and Interviews, ed. Albert Dichy, trans. Jeff Fort (Stanford University Press, 2004), pp. 171-177. 

      According to the blurb for this book, Genet affirms a heroic politics of protest and revolt with "an uncompromising outrage". In other words, it's that depressing mix of militant asceticism and pathological narcissism that I genuinely despise. In fact, the only thing I hate Genet for more is his reported sexual abuse of the eleven-year-old daughter of his friend and fellow writer Monique Lange. Viewers interested in knowing more about this should see the unconventional docu-drama Little Girl Blue (2023), written and directed by Mona Achache, and starring Marion Cottilard: click here to watch the trailer.

 

[9] This wonderful description of McLaren and company was coined by Peter York in an article entitled 'Them' which appeared in Harpers & Queen (October 1976). It was quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 329. 

 

[10] Click here to watch the trailer to The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980); the film that incriminates its audience. The narrator is the famous BBC newsreader John Snagge.

 

[11] Of all the Sex Pistols, I think it would have been guitarist Steve Jones whom the Frenchman would have found the most appealing. For as Glen Matlock once rightly observed, it was Jones who was the true spirit of the band and "like a character out of Jean Genet book [...] a real livewire scoundrel, unabashedly so".   

      Matlock was speaking in an interview with Matt Catchpole; see 'Trigger Happy - Sex Pistol Glen Matlock on Life as a Solo Performer and New Album Good To Go' (26 June, 2018): click here. Matlock later repeats this observation in an interview with Dave Steinfeld; see  'Glen Matlock - Truth or Consequences: Talking with the original Sex Pistol about politics and punk rock', on the website Rock and Roll Globe (18 May 2023): click here. 

 

 

For a sister post to this one on Joe Orton, click here. 

  

Musical bonus: Sex Pistols, 'L'Anarchie Pour Le UK', from the album The Great Rock n' Roll Swindle (Virgin Records, 1979), uploaded to YouTube by Universal Music Group: click here. The vocalist is Loius Brennon and he is backed by his merry band of street musicians on accordian and fiddle.  

 

New Year's Day: I've Said It Before and I'll Say It Again ...

TTA New Year's Day Postcard (SA/2026)*

 

 

Here we are on the first day of the New Year and I find that, like Oliver Hardy in Dirty Work (1933), I have nothing to say ... 

 

That being the case, I thought it might be fun to republish half-a-dozen posts from years gone by dated January 1st ...

 

 

Panem et Pyrotechnics (1 Jan 2014)

 

Fireworks, as Oscar Wilde observed, have one big advantage over the stars; namely, you always know precisely when they are going to appear in the sky. 

 

But public firework displays - no matter how spectacular - soon bore and disappoint and one can't help wondering at the politics of the event and the psychology of people who stand in the cold gazing upwards with their mouths open, fascinated by bright lights and loud bangs; content to obey their leaders for another twelve months thanks to the promise of panem et pyrotechnics. 

 

New Year's Eve makes North Koreans of us all ... 

 

 

A Nietzschean Message for the New Year (1 Jan 2015) 

 

For me, the greatest and most touching of new year blessings and resolutions remains the one with which Nietzsche opens Book IV of The Gay Science (written January, 1882): 

 

'Today, everybody permits themselves the expression of their dearest wish. Hence, I too shall say what it is that I most desire - what was the first thought to enter my heart this year and what shall be for me the reason, guarantee, and sweetness of my life henceforth. I want increasingly to learn to see as beautiful what is necessary in things, so that I may become one of those who makes things beautiful: amor fati - let that be my love from now on!'

 

 

Happy New Year From the Ghost of Jean Baudrillard (1 Jan 2018) 

 

When asked during an interview in January 2006 what it meant to wish someone Happy New Year, Baudrillard amusingly replied that it was 'a collectively remote-controlled symbolic ritual that has its place in a [...] cost-free sphere'. 

 

In other words, an empty gesture without value; a seasonal greeting from another time which, just like Merry Christmas, tries to desperately recreate a social bond or, more accurately, evoke nostalgia for such, via an exchange of disintensified signs. All the high days and holidays that we so want to enjoy and make special, invariably leave us feeling lonely and inadequate; hostages to our own lives of consumption. 

 

Having said that, Baudrillard hates to be thought of as a pessimist or a nihilist in the pejorative sense of the term. And he does, in fact, still anticipate that there might be an element of radical newness in times to come; a counter-force lodged within the present that's the source of future ambivalence; a catastrophic force that enables individuals to change established forms and punch holes in the order of things; an unverifiable force which, inasmuch as it has 'nothing to do with consciousness, common sense or morality', we might simply call evil. 

 

And so, in wishing readers a Happy New Year, I suppose I'm wishing them the courage to become complicit with l'intelligence du mal. 

 

 

Reflections on a Rose and a New Year's Resolution (1 Jan 2019)

  

New Year's Day: the world of my little garden forever undying. Roses, stained with the blood of Aphrodite, bloom and make happy. Sometimes, I think it would be nice to remain alone with the flowers and do nothing but quietly reflect upon their perfection. 

 

But then, after a few minutes, I realise that not only is such a life impossible, it's also undesirable; that one's main duty as a Lawrentian floraphile is to actively shelter the rose of life from being trampled on by the pigs. Thus, I resolve to 'go out into the world again, to kick it and stub my toes. It is no good my thinking of retreat: I rouse up and feel I don't want to. My business is a fight, and I've got to keep it up.' 

 

 

Why You Should Never Wish a Happy New Year to a Nietzschean (1 Jan 2023)

 

I don't know the origin of the zen fascist insistence on wishing everyone a happy new year, but I suspect it's rooted in the 18th-century, which is why in 1794 the Archange de la Terreur - Louis de Saint-Just - was able to proclaim: Le bonheur est une idée neuve en Europe ... 

 

Such a new idea of happiness - one concerned with individual fulfilment in the here and now and realised in material form, rather than a deferred condition of soul which awaits the blessed in heaven - had already become an inalienable right of citizens in the United States, although whether Jefferson was inspired by the English empiricist John Locke - or by the French philosophe Jean-Jacques Rousseau - is debatable. 

 

Either way, the pursuit of happiness was declared a self-evidently good thing that all Americans should uphold and practice; for ensuring the greatest happiness of the greatest number was, as Jeremy Bentham wrote the mark of a truly moral and just society.

 

The problem, however, for those who take Nietzsche seriously, is that this positing of happiness in its modern form as the ultimate aim of human existence makes one contemptible; the kind of person who only seeks their own pleasure and safety, avoiding all danger, difficulty, or struggle. 

 

Nietzsche wants his readers to see that suffering and, yes, even unhappiness, play an important role in life and culture; that greatness is, in fact, more often than not born of pain and sorrow. This is why his philosophy is a form of tragic pessimism. And this is why it's ironically insulting to wish a Nietzschean happy new year ...

 

 

Nothing Changes on New Year's Day (1 Jan 2024) 

 

I don't like - and have never liked - the Irish rock band U2. 

 

But that isn't to say they haven't written some fine songs, including 'New Year's Day', which contains the killer line: Nothing changes on New Year's Day - a line which counters all the mad optimism of those gawping at fireworks, popping champagne corks, and singing 'Auld Lang Syne' without any idea of what the phrase means. 

 

Often, these are the same people who criticise others for being despairing about the past or present and who insist on being hopeful for the future - even though the expectation of positive outcomes with respect to temporal progress seems entirely groundless. 

 

I don't want to sound too diabolical, but it seems to me that the phrase lasciate ogni speranza written above the gates of Hell is actually a sound piece of advice. For Nietzsche may have a point when he suggests that it is hope which prolongs the torments of man and is thus the most evil of all evils. 

 

* One of six designs in the official TTA postcard range, available as a set for just £29.99.

 

 

On the Art and Politics of Triviality (Wilde Vs Adorno)

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900) / Theodor W. Adorno (1903 - 1969) 

 

I. 

 

The narrator of Lady Chatterley's Lover identified the modern era as an essentially tragic age; one in which the skies have fallen and we are left among the ruins, with no smooth road into the future. Nevertheless, we are encouraged to live and learn, rather than weep and wail; to scramble over the obstacles and build new little habitats, have new little hopes. [1]

 

However, this post-cataclysmic emphasis on the small scale - on being more modest in all things, including our architectural ambitions and personal aspirations - does not mean a fall into triviality, as I very much doubt that Lawrence wants us simply to peel potatoes and listen to the radio, even if this is arguably a preferable alternative to tragically wringing our hands [2]. 

 

That said, Lawrence is surprisingly ambivalent when it comes to this subject: one might have expected him to be strongly opposed to things lacking significance or a certain grandeur and, at times, he is; often contrasting the elemental beauty and primeval darkness of a natural landscape with the ugly triviality and falsehood of modern life [3]. 

 

But, at other times, Lawrence criticises those who hold themselves aloof from small talk and playful banter, suggesting that it is this refusal that hinders their ability to develop more meaningful relationships: 

 

"They wanted genuine intimacy, but they could not get even normally near to anyone, because they scorned to take the first steps, they scorned the triviality which forms common human intercourse." [4]

 

 

II. 

 

Unlike Lawrence, some people are not so ambivalent on this question: they aggressively condemn those individuals who devote themselves to activities regarded as trivial pursuits; i.e., childish games, old-fashioned hobbies, pointless pastimes, amateur undertakings, etc. 

 

Doubtless, this includes blogging ...   

 

In fact, I recently received an email from an anonymous reader informing me that blogging in the almost obsessive manner that I blog - about what are trivial personal concerns disguised with philosophical or literary references in order to appear of import or possible interest to others - reveals me to be an affected narcissist who, in avoiding the serious challenges of the real world is effectively part of the problem. 

 

They close their email thus: 

 

I'm sorry to say, but you're essentially a complacent conformist who blogs more as a coping mechanism, rather than to bring about much needed social and political change and I would remind you of these lines from Adorno: 

 

"Triviality is evil - triviality, that is, in the form of consciousness and mind that adapts itself to the world as it is, that obeys the principle of inertia. And this principle of inertia truly is what is radically evil." [5]    

 

 

III. 

 

Now, appreciative as I am of such criticism, I can't say that I'm persuaded by Adorno's identification of triviality with evil (nor of evil with inertia, when the latter is not merely the negative ideal that he would like us to believe, but a vastly complex state) [6].      

 

Ultimately, as with his broader critique of the Kulturindustrie, I find Adorno's thinking on this question somewhat exaggerated and overblown; no one, as far as I'm aware, is attempting to consummate triviality and thereby lead us into absolute horror. 

 

The fact is, being trivial does not make you evil; it simply means that you prefer to linger at the crossroads, uncertain of which way to head, but happy to chat with others you may encounter rather than forge ahead on a single path leading you to the mountain top.  

 

And so, push comes to shove, I'm more inclined to side with Oscar Wilde rather than Adorno, who advised: 'We should treat all the trivial things of life seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality.' [7]  

 

It seems to me that it is this mode of thought - more comical than critical - that offers us the best chance of surviving among the ruins; for it allows us to find something more important than meaning and that's humour. Refusing to take things tragically, means learning how to laugh in the face of adversity, which might not make us better human beings, but it will almost certainly make us less earnest and the enemy of ascetic idealism [8].       

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm paraphrasing (and quoting words and phrases from) the opening paragraph to D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928). I have written about this opening in a post dated 21 September 2019: click here.  

 

[2] In the second version of Lady C., the narrator of the tale says: "We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen. Having tragically wrung our hands, we now proceed to peel the potatoes, or to put on the wireless." How we read this line is very much open to interpretation.

      See The First and Second Lady Chatterley Novels, ed. Dieter Mehl and Christa Jansohn (Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 223.  

 

[3] See, for example, the letter to J. D. Beresford (1 February 1916), in which Lawrence contrasts the Cornish coastline, with all its heavy black rocks, to the "dust and grit and dirty paper" of the modern world in all its non-elemental triviality and shallowness. 

      The letter can be found in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence Vol. II., ed. George J. Zytaruk and James T. Boulton (Cambridge Universty Press, 1982), p. 519. 

 

[4] D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, ed. Helen Baron and Carl Baron (Cambridge University Press, 1992), chapter VII, p. 178.

 

[5] Theodor W. Adorno, Metaphysics: Concept and Problems, ed. Rolf Tiedemann, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Stanford University Press, 2001), p. 115: 

 

[6] I know this because inertia became a key term in D. H. Lawrence's understanding of energy and materiality. Unlike other modernist writers - including Adorno - who disliked inertia and always wrote in praise of dynamism, Lawrence contrasted negative inertia (associated with industrialism and the ideal of limitless production) to positive inertia (associated with the limits and fragility of life and its generation). 

      Readers who are interested might like to see the essay by Andrew Kalaidjian, 'Positive Inertia: D. H. Lawrence and the Aesthetics of Generation', in Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 38, No. 1, (Indiana University Press, Fall 2014), pp. 38-55. This essay can be accessed via JSTOR: click here. 

      See also a follow up post to this one on the law of inertia and the principle of evil (21 July 2025): click here. 

 

[7] Oscar Wilde, from an interview with Robbie Ross, published in the St. James Gazette (18 Jan 1895): click here. This, of course, is the philosophy behind The Importance of Being Earnest (1895): 'A Trivial Play for Serious People' as it was originally subtitled.      

 

[8] In the third essay of the Genealogy, Nietzsche concludes that the ascetic ideal has "even in the most spiritual sphere, only one type of real enemy [...] these are the comedians of the ascetic ideal", i.e., those who arouse mistrust in the latter via a refusal to take things seriously. See On the Genealogy of Morality, ed. Keith Ansell-Pearson, trans. Carol Diethe (Cambridge University Press, 1994), III. 27, p. 125. 

      Readers interested in this, might also like to see Keith Ansell-Pearson's essay 'Toward the Comedy of Existence', in The Fate of the New Nietzsche, ed. Keith Ansell-Pearson and Howard Caygill (Avebury Press, 1993).