1 Death and the Lighthouses (1 January 2001)

1 

Death and the Lighthouses 

(1 January 2001)

A Zoilus Press publication 

EDITOR: Macdonald Daly 

Postgraduate School of Critical Theory and Cultural Studies 

University of Nottingham 

University Park 

Nottingham NG7 2RD 

United Kingdom. 

Tel. +44 (0) 115 951 3377 

Fax +44 (0) 115 951 4827 

Email Macdonald.Daly@nottingham.ac.uk 

DEATH AND THE LIGHTHOUSES 

(1 January 2001) 

Largely eschatological in emphasis, but occasionally luminary, the founding issue of Labyrinths conflates 

incommensurables. Three tales studying and/or meditating on the end of individual and collective lives attract 

a coda incongruously concerned with the management of the most romantic and most phallic of navigational 

aids. 

How to Deal with Death in Twenty-four Easy Steps: Notes Towards an Essay on Bereavement 

P Julien’s existentialist exploration of the end of existence. 

1 

The Transfiguration 17 

Ellis Sharp’s memorial to the late Diana, Princess of Wales. 

Trotsky Lives 25 

Mac Daly’s long-awaited sequel to “Trotsky Dies”. 

The Administration of Lighthouses 36 

A lecture by Frank Key on a matter of vital social concern. 

Review Article 39 

Mark Currie’s lambasted by Ronald Binns. 

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appears quarterly, on 1 January, 1 April, 1 July and 1 October each year. We publish all kinds of imaginative 

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A publication of Zoilus Press, PO Box 9315, London E17 4UU, United Kingdom 

Director: Beth Cullingford Editors: Seth Greenman and Tim Beckett

P Julien 

* 

It was a hot day in July when Matthew and Mark witnessed Luke’s 

horrible death. He’d seen them across Princes Street, called to them, and 

when they didn’t answer had started towards them. According to those who 

saw it, a bicycle appeared from nowhere, knocking him into the lane nearest 

the brothers. Neither he nor the cyclist was injured, but before he could 

stand up, and before the cab driver had time to brake, his body was thrown 

to the pavement, where it fell twisted and lifeless at Matthew’s feet. 

* 

How should we go about dealing with the deaths of those we love In 

truth, most of us are not affected by the miserable deaths of whole nations 

of people in countries about which we know nothing, yet emotional balance 

is all but destroyed when somebody we have grown to care about is 

suddenly not with us. In one sense it is easier to accept the death of a friend 

1 (1 January 2001) 1

when we have witnessed it, because at least we can be certain that his or 

her absence is real and permanent. There are stories of parents whose 

children went missing in foreign lands, who after twenty years of suffering 

have not given up their search. For these parents, a sentence in a news 

report which claims the death of so-and-so, is not real, is not death, and an 

inner denial will torment them until their own deaths. 

* 

But what do we mean by death Matthew, Mark and Luke, whose 

opinions otherwise differed, found a middle-ground in their shared views 

about death, and were discussing it in the bar only days before the accident. 

—It’s often portrayed, said Luke, for example in Egyptian art, as a 

journey. People will either look forward to it or fear it. It doesn’t matter 

which, because at least both feelings allow for the belief in a continuation of 

travel, of going somewhere. 

—When people realise, added Mark, that the only journey is life itself, 

they might find it easier accepting death. For death is the end of the 

journey and there’s nowhere else to go. 

—We rarely meet a rational person who is not afraid of death, unless he 

or she believes in a spiritual after-existence, proposed Matthew. We try 

desperately to find and keep religious faith, especially as we grow closer to 

death through age, because religious faith promises a new life. 

—But isn’t the thought of immortality even more frightening than the 

alternative asked Luke. If we really consider what living forever actually 

entails, how can we still desire it 

* 

* 


—Even with advanced technology and scientific understanding, continued 

Luke, we hold precisely the same opinions about death as our primitive 

ancestors. They might not be able to formulate their thoughts about death 

in abstract language, but the feeling is surely there. None of us can accept 

death as the end of existence. We are afraid of death not because of any real 

knowledge of hell or heaven, but essentially because nothing is known 

about it, and we’re habitually afraid of what is unknown or what we don’t 

understand. First we wanted to sail across wild seas to discover unexplored 

worlds; then we wanted to reach the heavenly bodies themselves, only to 

find out about lifeless rock; and before long we will have reached the most 

distant planets. But in death there is no return ticket. 

Primitive man and modern man are standing above the corpse of 

somebody who has lived among them for many years. They reach down and 

feel that the body is hard, cold, and motionless. They wait for a long time, 

believing that by some magic the friend will join them again; but eventually 

they bury the body, because it has started to give off an unbearable stench, 

and they go away to be sad. When Kim Il Sung died, the whole nation of 

North Korea wailed for its President’s death. But by that time, the wailing 

was simply habitual or conditioned. We might compare this with those 

cultures where death is a celebration and funerals become carnivals. 

Perhaps they have the right idea. 

But neither primitive man nor modern man understands how the person 

once known through her laughter and knowledge — yes, even primitives 

had knowledge, how to hunt perhaps, or protect themselves from the 

elements — neither man can understand how this person can cease to exist. 

The body which becomes stiff and changes colour is not her. It cannot be so. 

Thus they invent the concept of the soul. Now everything is fine! Our souls 

will be together again when we die! And we should not doubt that when 

some of the less sane heard this news, they ran to the river and threw 

themselves to their doom. There are still those who are not so afraid of 

death, or too afraid of life perhaps, to meet death voluntarily. Those who 

commit the crime of suicide — in our country around five thousand people 

are known to kill themselves annually, twice as many deaths as through 

road accidents — are said to be irrational. Why are people described as 

“disturbed” if they exercise the (denied) right to have control over their own 

lives, their own bodies 

Matthew and Mark were always pleased to hear their own views expressed 

by a third person. That night, they made sure that Luke fell to sleep with 

his head spinning from the drink! 

* 


In the police report of Luke’s accident, his death was described as 

“horrible”. But isn’t death, by definition, always horrible Whether our 

bodies are eaten by disease, or sliced a little at a time by a psychopathic 

killer, or if they simply decay with age, isn’t it always horrific It should be 

clear that what has just been described is not death, but the process of 

dying, and it is this which is horrific. Although Luke did not understand or 

condone suicide, he did respect the right a suicidal person feels he or she 

has to choose when to die. For Luke the most unacceptable thing is when 

one human being or organisation assumes the right to take another’s life, or 

conversely, the right to forbid people from deciding their own destiny. Jack 

Kervorkian, the American “Doctor Death”, understands this, although the 

morality of the methods he employs to assist in the voluntary euthanasia of 

his pain-stricken clients is questionable. But Luke was fond of the guy. 

* 

Matthew and Mark both accepted that Luke was dead: they saw the men 

in white, wrapping his body in a zip-bag. But death is not non-existence. 

For Matthew, Luke’s soul is in limbo, and at the judgment will continue to 

exist in paradise. We should not criticise Matthew’s assumption that Luke 

will be one of the fortunate souls. He knew him only as a decent, kind, 

amusing young man. All of us spend most of our lives judging those we meet 

solely from appearances, projecting our own personalities onto theirs. Mark, 

his brother’s junior by six years, believed something quite different. But the 

elder could never have guessed the full extent of the differences which 

existed between them. Mark was tormented not by the fact that he was 

haunted by the ghost of Luke, but because he wanted to slice through the 

heart of the ghost. The ghost was not his lost friend, nor his love for him; the 

ghost was his own fear of Luke. How is it possible to be terrified by the 

memories of those we have loved Mark sought explanations. Along the way, 

he heard a story about a man who was haunted by the ghost of his wife. The 

man saw a therapist, who was sympathetic to his client’s position. The ghost 

was so real, she conversed with the man for long periods, seemed to know 

his inner thoughts. This is what the doctor advised: The next time you see 

the ghost of your wife, he said, go to the pantry and take a handful of beans 

from a jar. Ask your wife how many beans you are holding in your closed 

palm. The man followed the instructions, and when he asked the question 

his wife’s ghost disappeared. A simple but effective cure for a dysfunctional 

imagination. 

* 


One month after the funeral the brothers were strolling up The Mile, 

when Mark became nauseous, blaming the crowds. At his request they 

found peace in St Giles Cathedral. In Matthew’s mind their silence signified 

mutual understanding, an for words. He was satisfied with the way 

he imagined he and Mark were handling the terrible affair. It was a great 

loss, but he’d lived long enough to get the damned thing into perspective. It 

had been fun having Luke as a friend, but Matthew had no real feelings for 

a man who had only become a part of their lives half a year before his death. 

On the carved oak bench, Matthew was caught up in the patterns of stone. 

But Mark’s thoughts were not in the cathedral. He was trying hard to hide 

his true feelings from Matthew, not because he liked to deceive him, but out 

of respect for him; and the fear that he might lose, now that he’d lost Luke, 

the one most important man in his life, his dear brother. He was determined 

not to cry: he felt his chest tightening, and tears pushing against his eyes. 

The church was spacious and cool: he felt trapped in a confined, airless 

place. Suddenly his limbs reacted, in seeming independence of the brain. 

His body jerked forward, elbows on knees, forehead in shaking hands, and 

from his lips came a sound that neither brother had heard before, a low, 

drawn-out mammalian moan. —Jesus! exclaimed Matthew, trying to 

whisper. He struggled for words but could only say, feebly: Are you alright 

Mark smiled: Do you want me to answer that —What the hell’s got into 

you asked Matthew. Mark hesitated. —It doesn’t matter. —Look, said 

Matthew, I understand if it’s something you feel you can’t tell me, but don’t 

say it doesn’t matter and expect me to accept that. Mark didn’t reply, but in 

the moments that followed, his mind was filled with the images of torment 

that had threatened to infect their relationship since their teens, if not his 

tenth year, when Matt was sixteen and both were mature for their years. 

Matthew had lost a friend in Luke. He would never know that Mark was 

mourning the death of a lover. 

* 

He felt the need to purify himself of his ghosts, so the next day he 

boarded a train for Durham, a town he’d never been to before. He enjoyed 

the sights, but as the afternoon passed he started to feel dizzy again, walked 

as in a daze. He roamed the back lanes for hours until he came across a 

small park where he could be alone. The park must have been a graveyard 

once, he thought. Headstones were lined up along its inner perimeters, 

except for one which remained in place, perhaps that of an important local. 

A spiked fence protected it from dogs and children. He tried to alleviate the 

heaviness in his body by playing on the roundabout and swings, from which 

he could see the carved names of the dead. The park symbolises the whole 

of life, he mused: children in their earliest years playing around the token 


stones of death. Across the street, there remained a church and its 

graveyard, of which the park, before the building of the road which divided 

them, must have been a part. As the natural light faded, he wande red 

among the stones, waiting for the fear to grip him. But he felt no fear. 

Darkness surrounded him and his senses grew alert. He could hear the 

wind through the branches, and listened carefully for the groaning of those 

buried beneath his feet. He was angry with Matthew and his preaching. 

Matthew’s god. He sat with Matthew in St Giles and knew there was no 

supernatural presence in there. People prayed to brick. Death was death. 

He found a long stone, a tomb, engraved with a stranger’s name, and laid 

down on it. He felt blasphemous and it gave him pleasure. The blackness 

seemed to deepen. He waited for some kind of punishment. When nothing 

happened, he stood up, loosened his flies, and pissed happily on the grave. 

* 

Painful and unexpected events in our lives are like the concentric rings 

made by throwing a heavy stone into a still lake. The event is the stone, 

which soon sinks, and isn’t important in itself. At first the rings are wild, 

close together, easy to see: in the same way, after disaster our emotions are 

wild, friends can see the immediate damage. Later the rings spread out, are 

less easy to see, and the further they spread, the calmer seems the water. In 

the course of our lives, several stones are thrown (by whom) into the calm 

of our existence. These stones are gathering on the bed of the lake (so 

perhaps they do have importance in themselves) — cold, hard, unbreakable 

— because if one day we sink down into our own suffering, drown in our 

pain, the stones, the disasters and disappointments that have marked our 

lives, will be waiting for us. What company they will make when we are old! 

And the rings, the effects of pain, do they really spread out and disappear 

Are they not always there, somewhere And what if somebody pollutes the 

lake with poisonous waste Can we ever find purity again And what if the 

lake is drained, leaving a plain of barren clay Even from childhood, has the 

lake already started to drain 

* 

When Matthew married Elizabeth she came with a teenage son from a 

previous marriage. The father had disappeared when Johnathon was five, in 

strange circumstances. To all intents the match between Matt and Liz was 

an arranged one, carefully coordinated by the church community to which 

they both belonged. The decision for Matt to legally adopt John was also the 

work of the ecclesia, who with subtlety and discretion convinced the happy 

couple of the advantages and, in their view, the necessity of adoption. 


Not long after the funeral Matt and Liz wanted to see a play, and asked 

Mark to keep John company. Disappointed with the production they 

returned home early, surprised to see that the house lights had been 

turned off. —Perhaps they’re sleeping said Matthew. —At nine joked Liz. 

—They’re probably at the pictures... —If that brother of yours has taken him 

to the pub I’ll have his guts for... 

When they stepped into the hall, it took only a second to recognise the 

awful sounds within, and for the shock to make their hearts beat faster. 

Elizabeth rushed to open the door of the guest room, saw her naked son in 

the arms of her brother-in-law, and collapsed into her husband’s arms. 

* 

Elizabeth had also witnessed Luke’s death, but in the commotion that 

followed, nobody saw her running away, nobody saw her frightened face. 

She didn’t realise it was Luke, but it reminded her of another death only 

months before. 

She’d been asked to look after a friend’s music shop while the friend was 

on vacation. On the first morning, she pulled up the shutters, opened the 

door, and saw her friend hanging by a guitar string, a toppled stool on the 

ground below. It was the first time she’d seen death, and the new 

experience caused strange emotions. 

She was frightened not by the sight of a friend hanging proudly in a 

chosen death, but by the excitement she felt, the sheer sexual excitement. 

She would never forget the details, the exact shades of blood, the 

contrasting colours of excrement on the tanned skin of her friend’s inner 

thigh, the way the hanging girl’s feet pointed to the ground like those of a 

ballerina in flight, the open eyes, the eyes that spoke even after death only 

of the calm and precision that were characteristic of the woman in life. She 

wondered what had actually caused the death. Was it the breaking of the 

neck, or was it asphyxiation Could it have been heart failure at the point of 

impact, or was it simply a conscious decision, I want life no more, this will be 

my last breath, like the myth about cancer victims accused of voluntarily 

giving up the ghost when the time is right for them and pain has become 

unbearable. 

But pain is always bearable. When it is not, the only escape is death. 

When Elizabeth found out about her father’s death, the first thing she did 

was telephone her lover. They met at his apartment and she made love to 

him like never before, violently, and with passion. 

What does it mean to make love with passion To answer this, we need 

only remind ourselves of the Latin root word . It means: suffering. 

Elizabeth would describe their lovemaking in a different way. She said they 

made love holistically: when, as individuals, they came together, the union, 


the “whole”, was worth much more than the sum of its parts. 

When she caught Mark and John together, it was as though all these 

memories were simultaneously fighting against each other — if memories 

had fists there’d be bloodshed — and she collapsed. 

* 

Not long after the discovery, Mark began to be haunted by unwanted 

dreams. There was a cycle of three main ones which returned to him every 

night. In his waking hours, the dreams were always very clear to him, and 

unlike those he’d had all his life whose images were dark and vague, he 

remembered these as being somehow bright. 

In shadowy darkness he is running after Luke. He is wielding something 

in his right hand, a hack-saw perhaps, or a bread-knife, with which he 

lashes out randomly, recklessly. Sometimes he hacks off a whole arm. At 

other times, he slices through a finger, slowly, trying to cut away Luke one 

piece at a time. Each day he wakes up shaking. Each night, he dreams the 

same thing: slicing, chopping, desperately, violently, physically trying to 

eliminate his lover. 

* 

He is struggling to keep afloat in a calm but dangerous ocean. Most of the 

time, his head is below water, and he sees nothing except darkness. But 

when he struggles to breathe, he sees the blue sky, and all about him, 

countless small islands. On each island he recognises the figure of an exlover: 

he doesn’t know how many islands or how many lovers, but three or 

four faces are very clear to him. He can hear the laughter of his lovers, and 

the humming of the sea which is pulling him down. He knows it is a 

bottomless, shoreless sea, and that he is drowning. He swallows water, loses 

his vision, and as he goes under into the dark, he understands its necessity, 

its irreversibility. 

He can still hear the laughter of all those who have loved him, and who 

are now indifferent. 

* 

He belongs to a bowling team: he’s the youngest member by about forty 

years. The colours and textures of the grass on the playing lawn are as 

defined and smooth as those created by the wax crayons which 

schoolchildren use to fill in the inked outlines of fantastic landscapes, windmills 

and wizards, in picture-books. The sky is blindingly blue, and the 

sunlight — not the darkness — blurs his vision. He can see that beyond the 


edges of the green there are rose bushes, and the old people with deep tans, 

dirty tans, sitting on the newly-painted green benches. Old England, he 

always thinks. That overwhelming feeling of calm, the members of this 

private club, wearing white flannels and soft shoes, all relaxed, smiling the 

habitual smile of the old. A frightened man seeking solace might feel more 

secure here than anywhere. 

He takes his turn, rolls the polished bowl, which curls at the last moment, 

comes to rest behind a pointer. He turns to pick up the second ball, and 

faces a line of well-groomed octogenarians, stooping in their club blazers, 

each one gripping a heavy, pristine sphere in his strong, worn hand. One of 

them, an elegant lady in a flowing, flowered dress, who has a peaceful face, 

leans on a walking-frame with blotched hands. 

They move forward slowly, their eyes fixed on Mark, and in every dream 

he tries to remember what he has done to cause disturbance of play, tries to 

understand why these lovely people, the friends of his grandparents, have 

been offended, for he knows intuitively that they have. He steps back, but is 

surrounded. The midday sun is high in the sky. Sometimes he can hear the 

playful screaming of children on nearby swings, or the song of a chaffinch. 

Each player raises his black bowling ball, and suddenly he feels the first 

heavy missile against his skull, can hear the hollow percussive sound which 

is produced, and then more. He closes his eyes, but still sees; he bows his 

head, but still sees; he raises his arms to protect his face, but then he can 

feel the hard balls against his chest; and then he is on the floor, with his 

knees against his stomach and his hands about his face, as the old people 

continue with decorum and calm, bruising his body and breaking his bones. 

He imagines the deep red of his blood changing shade on the bright green 

of the lawn, and spectators on the benches, reading cheap romances, 

glancing unflinchingly at the progress of the violence. And Mark knows that 

this is their judgment: even when he is awake and crying, he knows that he 

has done something wrong, something to cause suffering amongst these 

worthy, dying people. 

* 

After the dreams came the insomnia. Memories, as though living things, 

kept him from sleeping. He tried to push them away but they held on to him 

with their long, long arms. Sometimes they would wield hammers and he’d 

feel them pounding on his chest, crushing his rib cage. And they had voices. 

As the dawn approached, they started to whisper, whispering the names of 

those who were dead, and they mocked the laughter of those he had loved, 

and then their voices grew louder, screaming at him until he was forced to 

leap out of bed, knock on the light, and make other, real noises to drown 

out the imagined. He used the sound of a pencil across a page, so loud at 

nights, and turned the pages of books, trying desperately to... 


Yes, he thought, if memories had fists there would be bloodshed. What 

did he mean when he wrote this in a childhood poem, years before he could 

understand it He wanted to say that the memories battled for attention, so 

forcefully, and all together, that his skull seemed fit to explode. Still they 

were pounding. Where he thought. That place called the mind The soul 

The spirit The spirits of the dead, the spirits of those who had ceased to 

exist for him, were alive within the tissues of his brain. 

He saw the memories as clearly as living things. He saw their actions, how 

they would not let him go. The child he used to be, ten or twenty years 

before, kicked from within, would not die, although he tried in every way to 

destroy it, to destroy that damned, bastard child. I want to be who I am now, 

he cried. But inside the chambers, canals, vaults, who knows where inside 

here, here, I am still the wailing boy at the feet of my unconscious, snorting, 

dying mother. I’m still the boy in the playground, the fat boy trapped 

between the bars of a climbing frame, the enforcer who bullies the bullies, 

the child seeking justice, and later, the rude one, shouting for attention, the 

vain, the cowardly. Here, here, the boy filing invoices, the boy shaking with 

fear, the star, the victim, the barman, the pianist, the busker, the teacher. 

Such heaviness. For Mark, each memory — and there were thousands — 

each memory was equal to the weight of a boulder. And he was no Giles 

Corey, who, when being tortured to confess his supernatural powers, heavy 

slabs crushing his chest, had only said, before he expired, “More weight.” 

Less weight, thought Mark. Less weight. 

* 

Once upon a time there lived a boy who spent all his days wandering 

through the woods, plucking juicy apples from defenceless trees, singing 

easy songs with meaningless words. One day he came to the edge of the 

forest, which he’d never before seen. He looked back at all the 

expressionless branches, and then at the long meadow and rolling hills that 

stretched out before him. He was afraid, and excited. Soon he was 

scrambling up the first hill: when he reached the top, he was thrilled at all 

he could see. It was almost as though he had a new pair of eyes, because 

he’d never seen all before. On the far side of a hill, in a beautiful valley, 

he saw a magnificent house, which looked like it had many, many rooms. 

After reaching the steps which led up to the grand house, he surveyed 

the land, all the shining meadows, and the stone sculptures at the gable 

ends. Then suddenly he heard his father’s voice. 

—Father! I was just playing ... when I came to a place where there were no 

more trees and... 

—It’s alright, boy. You don’t have to explain. I’ve been waiting a long time 

for this moment. 


—Father Who lives in this wonderful house 

—Listen to me, son. I followed you today because I wanted to say goodbye. 

This is home, and I cannot live here. I must go back to my own 

house. My only wish is that you visit me some day. 

The boy understood and tried not to cry as he watched his father walking 

back to the forest. It took him the rest of the day to explore all the rooms in 

the house, and just when he thought he’d seen them all, he kept finding 

new ones. He saw that there were many things he wanted to change. I want 

to make this home just perfect, he told himself. He started with the 

entrance hall, stripping the walls, painting the skirtings his favourite colour, 

sanding down and varnishing the old floorboards; then he furnished the 

hall with his favourite pictures, with hand-carved chairs and cushion 

tapestries. When it was finished he moved on to the music room, which took 

six months to rebuild, because he decided to completely re-design it. 

At this time he started to invite new people into his home, showing them 

some of his rooms, but keeping many of them private. Some people liked the 

changes he was making and came back again and again. But others never 

returned, only whispered among themselves about the dreadful lampshades 

and the gaudy stairwell. 

After forty-five years, he still hadn’t completed his work of making each 

room in the house just as he wanted. But one day he was strolling in the 

garden after locking the door to the last room at the very top of the house. 

He looked up at the great building and felt very proud of all he had 

accomplished. His home was perfect, and nothing remained to be done. He 

smiled, drew a deep long breath, and fell lifeless to the ground. 

The days and weeks passed by and the west wind had just swept away his 

body, when a young man stepped out of the shadows of a large leaf-tree. A 

friendly goblin had visited him in a dream and told him all the about the 

house that was destined for him. Now then, the man was very young, but 

the dream had a profound effect on him, so on the day after the night of the 

dream, he decided that he no longer wanted to stay at the orphanag e, and 

ran away to the forest. A beautiful moth whose wings sparkled even at nighttime 

had been the boy’s guide on that strange journey. 

The boy was very pleased with his new home and at first he felt 

overwhelmed because of the sheer magnificence of the house. But it didn’t 

take long for him to realise that there were many things he wanted to 

change: he started to knock down a wall here, build a new one there, 

changing this and that, and that and this. 

Throughout every hour of each long day, he was happy and distracted and 

busy with toil. 

* 


Mark took the advice of a colleague and saw a therapist. He entered the 

office with an open mind and expected to gain something positive from the 

meeting, especially since the doctor was an old friend he’d always trusted 

and respected. He told the doctor, who listened attentively, about his affair 

with Luke and about Luke’s death; he spoke about how he’d been forced by 

his own feelings into deceiving Matthew; he described his dreams, the 

debilitating cramps he suffered in half-sleep; and lastly, he explained his 

feelings towards Elizabeth’s son. 

The only time his old friend interrupted was when Mark was trying to 

explain how he felt he had failed, how he had disappointed everybody, how 

he shouldn’t have allowed his emotions to take control of his... 

—But Mark, said the doctor, hesitating. You’re only human. 

* 

Peter’s life had become an experiment in conflict resolution. Until he 

reached forty, he felt he’d found an acceptable balance between his career 

as a psychiatrist, often dealing with people who revealed perverse secrets, 

and his vocation as a church leader in his local ecclesia. He found that his 

faith in God helped him to help his clients. He never preached to a patient, 

but his own moral beliefs underpinned his professional comments. 

The balance changed when an old friend, a student from his days 

teaching psychology in a small Northern village, booked himself in for a 

course of sessions. 

When Mark came through the door, Peter was genuinely pleased to see 

him, and hoped that the problems weren’t too serious. Although he hadn’t 

seen Mark for years, he knew a great deal about him, and hearing about 

Luke’s death through a mutual acquaintance, assumed Mark’s problems 

would be related at least in part to that trauma. 

But Peter could not have prepared for what he was about to hear. Mark 

made it clear that he wanted to tell Peter everything, and that some of it 

would shock him. Peter was composed, but as he heard one confession after 

another, the homosexuality, the affair with Luke, described in brutal detail, 

he struggled to keep his benevolent appearance, when inside his emotions 

were turning cartwheels. He had also been a victim to the lies, to the years 

of deception. Peter felt that homosexuality was unnatural, against God, and 

the thought of his friend engaging in these acts made him want to vomit. He 

had to be a professional, and did sympathise with the torture that Mark had 

inflicted on himself. Mark said he felt ill with guilt, he felt helpless and 

hated himself for lying to Matthew for so many years. What could he do 

Peter could not distance himself from Mark’s painful confessions in the 

way he distanced himself from patients who were strangers. He wanted to 

say something which would help Mark but he had no words. When Mark 


explained the feelings he felt for Elizabeth’s son, and about the evening 

when Elizabeth and Matthew caught them making love, Peter did 

understand how Mark had struggled to resist, was tormented by his 

conscience, but was overpowered by true feelings. He wanted to say 

something which would calm Mark. His revulsion at the whole affair, he 

must keep secret. 

—But Mark, he began, and although he was deceiving Mark and deceiving 

himself, after a pause he said: You’re only human. 

* 

What does it mean to be human We might give biological definitions, or 

quaint axioms such as how man is the only animal that blushes and the 

only animal that... Before finishing this famous tag, those of us who have 

seen pigeons walking blindly into a post, or dogs on ice, or a male orangutan 

waving his arms stupidly in the air to attract his mate, should consider 

how man is not the only animal that to blush. 

A more suitable axiom might be: Man is the only animal that lies ... and 

the only animal that needs to lie. This is one definition of what it means to 

be human, the one chosen by the doctor, and the one which concerns Mark. 

Humans are alone among animals in possessing the ability and desire for 

dissimulation. (Those who wish to create something from it become writers 

— for indeed, a good novelist is the cleverest liar of all.) 

This concept — of dissimulation, pretence, deception, disguise — had 

been with Mark since his earliest poems at the age of eleven, and it now 

called out for attention from the depths of his memory. He remembered the 

fascination he felt at phrases such as and , used 

them for ingenious and stupid poems. And later, in lessons, the masked 

balls, the reversed identities, the betrayal of Caesar, Pip’s utter belief that 

his fortune came from Miss Havisham. He learned that masks could 

symbolise the falsity of the essence of being itself, the false nature of the 

face behind the mask. It doesn’t take long to realise that one of our most 

exciting characteristics is an unlimited capacity (and opportunity) for telling 

lies. 

His earliest experiences with women, on one level at least, were games in 

which he would try to deduce whether the things they told him were truths 

or untruths. Later he realised, after much meditation, that the mind also 

allows us to deceive ourselves. 

Matthew and Elizabeth, like most religious people, were striving to be 

striving to suppress their essential They were 

interested in becoming divine. Why else would they eat the body of Christ, 

drink his blood, symbolised by wine, every Sunday morning Indeed, they 

didn’t believe in symbols. That silver chalice really did contain the blood of 


Christ, and drinking it made a part of you Christ. 

Among the religious-minded, Rabelais is alone in his ability to grasp, 

uncompromisingly, what it means, what it really means, to be human. 

Matthew and Elizabeth, according to Mark’s understanding of their beliefs, 

would find in Rabelais’ carnivalesque world. But why Perhaps because 

they realised that evil is not God’s responsibility, whereas the responsibility 

for and all it represents, as Rabelais knew too well, lies solely with God. 

Another person who must have realised this is the second century Gnostic, 

Valentinus, who had problems with the theological implications of shit, and 

so suggested the following: God really did come down to earth in the body of 

a man. Jesus Christ needed to eat, to drink, and to breathe. But — and it’s 

quite a big but — Jesus didn’t void his bowels. 

* 

Five years before his death, Luke visited Moscow with his university. 

When he saw a long queue of people, he imagined they were waiting for 

bread or supplies. In fact, they were waiting to see the preserved corpse of 

Communist leader Lenin. 

Luke died in the same year as the President of North Korea. Kim Il Sung’s 

corpse was embalmed (we have to trust that it was embalmed and not 

stuffed) by the same experts who have kept Lenin presentable for almost a 

century since his death. Naturally fascinated by mortality, people crowd not 

only around the corpse of Lenin, but in museums throughout the world at 

the preserved bodies of ancient peoples, at the mummified monarchs of 

Egypt, at those poor souls who, their agonised expressions and contorted 

beauty preserved for centuries in the peat bogs of Northern Europe, have to 

suffer the indignity of endless years of public display. 

On Luke’s second visit to Moscow, it seemed that the same people were 

still queuing to look death in the face. But when Luke reached the front of 

the line, he saw that the people were queuing to visit the newly opened 

MacDonalds. 

* 

Luke enjoyed his life and did not look forward to death, but he knew that 

when he died he wanted to be buried in the earth. His views on death , he 

admitted, were poetic and idealistic, and we should not criticise them. It was 

important that he tried to believe that when he died he could return to 

nature. He dreamed of belonging to the seasons, the soil, the new growth. 

This was his way of attempting to accept the frightening inevitability of his 

own death. And it is also why, although he left no Will, he made it clear to 

his friends that if he should die before them they were to make certain that 


no headstone or wooden cross was erected in his memory: stone, in Luke’s 

mind at least, symbolised the cold, hard corpse, and the cross, which would 

rot with time, was too much of a visual reminder of the rotting of the body. 

He requested that the roots of an oak tree, the grandfather of trees, be 

planted anonymously and with no inscription (which he feared might 

reduce his life to kitsch) at the place of his burial — namely, on a moor top 

in the wild dales of Yorkshire. 

* 

The television cameras focus on the corpse of Kim Il Sung and the nation 

bewails his death. 

The television cameras focus on a large pit in Goma, Zaire. It is filled with 

the corpses of Rwandan refugees, Hutus, thousands dying daily from 

cholera, and no nation is wailing for their deaths. It brings back memories of 

other disasters, previous famines, Ethiopia, 1983. 

Death is relative. Relative in terms of numbers, causes, times and 

locations. And each international disaster overshadows the one before it. No 

sane person cares for the hundred thousand people who died in 

excruciating torment in a war between two African kingdoms in the 

fourteenth century. Every day following the abduction of a baby girl from a 

maternity ward, the national press runs it as its lead story. Reports of the 

thousands who perish in earthquakes or hurricanes in the same week 

attract only a paragraph in less prominent columns. Luke spoke to many 

people during this time and saw that they were really more concerned about 

the welfare of the missing baby than about those being murdered in the 

Balkans, Rwanda, Algeria, Palestine, Haiti, Cambodia, Northern Ireland. 

This priority of concern is about perspective, and those who were concerned 

about the baby were genuinely worried, thoroughly decent people. Luke 

realised that people cannot be criticised for their ignorance of the horrific 

killings which occur in obscure countries. Nor for their ethnocentricity. That 

has always been and will probably remain a kind of natural hidden 

curriculum, a fundamental, underlying policy for the people of his country. 

Death is only real, he thought, when we witness it ourselves. When a 

neighbour or friend dies, mortality ceases to be an abstract concept and 

becomes something which we fear intensely. But death is not a classifiable 

concept because it has different meanings for different people. Matthew and 

Elizabeth believed in eternal life through death, for those who belonged to 

the Christian god. Johnathon was too young to be certain and generally 

followed his mother’s example — but for him, the idea of death was less real 

than for any of those around him. Luke and Mark were both striving for the 

same natural acceptance of death. At the time of his own death, Luke was 

probably as content as he could ever hope to be about the meaning life had 

for him. He was doubly content because his views were shared by his lover. 


But even Luke and Mark, although not realising it, were dealing with an 

unreal concept. And when Luke died, Mark’s beliefs were shattered. 

* 

Luke hadn’t felt so happy for a long time. As he sauntered along Princes 

Street he became introspective: his past had followed him into new worlds, 

was something he wanted to discard. But I’ve no right now, he said inwardly, 

to be unhappy. I enjoy my work, I love my new city. And Mark, my beautiful 

lover. 

He was scanning the architecture, when he saw his lover and his lover’s 

brother across the street. He waved and called out their names, but they 

were busy talking. Always talking, he thought, and Matthew learning little. 

Ah well, Mark knows best. 

Is it possible for a body to suddenly take on a physical lightness, a 

lightness of joy This is what happened to Luke as he crossed to meet his 

friends. Everything was as it should be. He was happy not for the past or the 

future, but for the 

He was alert to the bright colours of the city and the humming of a 

summer wind through the avenues. When he caught Mark’s eye, a profound 

sense of calm seemed to take control of the movements of his body. And he 

felt his face breaking into the biggest smile. 


Ellis Sharp 

1 

A grunt in the dark auditorium. A whisper transforming into whispers, 

whispering, a gasp, other grunts, shudderings as of a firm sweet reiterated 

friction upon a moist clitoris, an engorged penis. Someone breaks down and 

begins to howl; others join in. Soon the entire audience is sobbing 

helplessly. 

The lights come on. 

“It’s not true! It can’t be!” “It is!” Trembling couples stagger out into the 

night, supporting each other in their misery. Across the nation the windows 

stare darkly out at desolate streets. A telephone begins to ring, then 

another. “Have you heard the news” “But that’s awful!” 

Now every room seems too big, every door too tall. There is pressure in the 

air as if a storm is about to break. “Have you heard the news” “But that’s 

awful!” 

A long, grey day drags into another. Schoolteachers weep openly before 

their pupils, whose cheeks a moment later are shiny with tears. A surprising 

diversity of people meet the news with sobs of grief. Spontaneous and 

unaffected, the sense of loss stuns the nation, and many weep in anguish. 

Immense multitudes move spontaneously to the centre of the great city. 

Those closest to the deceased, who loathed and feared the deceased 

intensely, speak in a restrained, sluggish way. Many years later historians 

speak of . 

“Have you heard the news Stalin is dead!” 

“It’s not true! It can’t be!” “It is!” 

Having that afternoon heard the news about PaP, having witnessed the 

BBC’s hydrodynamical efforts, having observed the reaction, Plomer thought 

at once of Stalin. A GIANT IS DEAD sobbed his old soiled 1953 copy of 

. Later, still huddled in his wardrobe, eating a palmful of dry 

roasted peanuts enhanced with modified potato starch, monosodium 

glutamate, maize starch, hydrolysed vegetable protein, onion powder, 

flavouring and spice extract, Plomer glanced idly at the packet, choked, 

underwent a mild coughing fit that brought tears to his eyes, dabbed his 

cheeks dry, and ran to the bookshelf at the other end of the wardrobe. 

HYDROLYSIS, he read. “Decomposition by chemical reaction with water.” 

He squashed the black and gold dictionary back on the shelf, between the 

green and the blue . 

After Stalin he thought of before Stalin. Of grey, jerky grieving dead 


crowds thronging in dead streets the funerals of obscure, faded Czars. 

Asleep all morning after an evening of Fuller’s Old Winter Ale and Tesco’s 

Export Lager and a slug or two of Gilbey’s gin and a glass or so of an old 

bitter yearless Claret he’d found and filched from behind the waste pipe of 

an archaic lavatory on the floor above, and having watched the first ten 

minutes of on BBC2 then left the rest to the video recorder and gone 

to bed, he’d not heard the news until well after three the next trembling, 

aching, dehydrated afternoon. 

Huddled in his sleeping roll inside the dark, dusty wardrobe Plomer 

stared astonished at his small, grimy television. Oozing its syrup of dense, 

dripping voices and moist golden footage the sugar content was almost 

unbearable. It made his old, streaked teeth throb with pain. It made his jaw 

ache. A headache cut open his skull like a brutal saw at a post-mortem. 

Stared. Baffled. At the coverage. The weeping mob in thrall to 

anamorphosis. But then they had not had their pug strangled by her, as he 

had. (Flashback to that terrible afternoon when he’d mislaid her suntan 

lotion and, enraged, she’d snatched poor Julie by the throat until the pug’s 

eyes had swelled to the size of small pale skinned glistening onions and 

then popped out across the room, bouncing with a surprising spring, 

bounce-bounce-bounce, out through the half-open door and along the 

corridor hung with magnificent eighteenth century Gobelin tapestries and 

past the magnificent Weisweiler cabinet and the Sèvres porcelain and the 

superb nineteenth century dixons and the magnificent imitation onyx 

croissant d’or and on down the grand drab peeling stairwell and past the 

malodorous Royal Closet out through an open window and across the 

parade ground to the street, where they were mistaken for the evacuations 

of one of the young princes, and promptly gobbled by a pair of loyal 

readers who were loitering by the railings with a detumescent flag.) 

The wardrobe seemed claustrophobic, smaller, fuggier than usual. The 

sweet sickly smell which tickled his nostrils was like the nauseous scent of a 

rose bush or a trickling incense stick. He wanted to puke but knew that the 

vomit scene would be better later, and so restrained the tidal surges rocking 

impatiently in his guts. A gastric stench of rotting shellfish chugged and 

bubbled and coiled with the sour laughter in the upper reaches of his 

throat. 

Plomer lashed out at the sticky strands of 

cobwebs which embraced him as in a daze he walked briskly to and fro from 

one side of the wardrobe to the other, trying to locate a meaning in the 

grotesque carnival passing interminably in front of his tired eyes. Like wool 

smeared in treacle, the strands wrapped themselves around his ribs, his 

throat, his cheekbones, as if attempting to bind him to the mood which the 

flickering sordine in the corner was softly and sombrely and soberly and 

solemnly manufacturing. 


Later still, stupefied, he watched the hotel swing door’s surly treadmill 

disgorge the dead. A blurred huddle in the lobby, the beaming spectral 

chauffeur silently treading for eternity the de Luxe carpeted corridor 

modelled on 

. The straps lying by the mangled, bloodied 

machine, waiting to cradle it. The ambulance turning in to the grounds of 

the hospital, barely reaching it before it was whisked back through time and 

space to try again. 

2 

How much — how little — had changed. 

Seven years during which he’d continued to abhor sexual intercourse. 

The act — the very notion of the act — brought out in him the same striking 

intensity of feeling. It made him sweat and flush and shudder and gasp and 

grunt. The very idea (barely imaginable) of lowering himself naked and 

helpless between the dangerous, powerful boa-constrictor limbs of a female 

personage, of — like a visitor to a dark revolting aquarium with a wet floor 

and a marine stench — having to bring his face close to a set of staring eyes 

and dark nasal gashes and a saliva-sodden mouth, of being obliged to 

exchange language with this creature, of having to croak the words the stars 

used in the movies, patently bogus rhetoric involving meaningless 

abstractions (“love”) or obvious blatant charlatanism (“I just couldn’t live 

without you”) or drivel whose only function was to flatter and cajole and 

clearly to perpetrate a fraud (“you’re so .. . so wonderful, darling”), and of 

being obliged (apparently) to run his hands over the creature’s naked 

sweating fibro-areolar tissue and then to have to grope around like someone 

searching for a lost coin beneath a sofa, pushing or thrusting or otherwise 

inserting the most tender and vulnerable and precious portion of his body 

into a dark, narrow, slime-draped malodorous cleft obscured by dense 

clumps of dark wiry vegetation, seemed about as attractive as pushing it into 

a patch of briars in order to trap it between a couple of slices of raw liver, 

vegetation moreover which he’d read in the medical pages of innumerable 

publications during a lifetime spent in dentists’ and opticians’ waiting rooms 

for help in coping with the agony of a mouth in the grip of time and rot was 

a zone often infested with tiny vicious crabs with an itch to move to another 

neighbourhood, while the dank passageway in question was really little 

more than a ditch swimming with cloudy, flickering schools of screw-shaped 

spirochaetes and other hideously agile aquatic vermin, a nightmare to equal 

anything in the films, giving him the sweats and shudders all over 

again, necessitating a cold shower and a good scrub down under the 

perforated bucket which hung from the wardrobe’s ceiling (you stood in a 


plastic washing-up bowl and pulled on a string) and, afterwards, at the very 

least, a tumbler or two of Bushmills and a clean pair of underpants. 

Plomer no more desired to slot a delicate complicated section of his 

anatomy into another sentient being than he wished to pop his nose into a 

mincer or slip his hand inside the mouth of an alligator, and quite what 

she’d seen in the dim-witted major or the chubby-faced gigantic-thighed 

rugby player let alone the hairy, thickening Dodo, he found impossible to 

comprehend, he did really. 

Seven years! 

And his cat Andrew, his toy tug, his rug, his mug, his fug, his jugs, his 

drugs, his bugs, his slugs The tug sank in the Round Pond. The mug 

cracked, scalding Andrew, who died (buried next to Julie under the rhubarb 

behind the Queen’s Gallery). Plomer’s jugs vanished in the night, perhaps 

abducted by Venusians (perhaps not). 

Drugs After a troubling hallucination involving a naked angry red-faced 

erect Sigmund Freud, Britt Ekland’s buttocks, an umbrella, a whirring 

sewing machine, an illuminated operating table, Amanda Donohoe’s breasts 

together with her phallus in and the gigantic 

suction pump from 

, he didn’t do drugs any more. 

As for the slugs. A footman from the Degenerate Duke’s floor below 

maliciously scattered salt across their glistening flesh, transforming them 

into blobs of green, hissing froth which greatly resembled the liquid which 

dribbled intermittently, uncontrollably, from both the Duke’s long, 

mildewed, maggot-infested penis and its drooping twin, his mouth (which 

much resembled the terminal excretory opening of a congested alimentary 

canal). 

The rug and the fug and the bugs remained, fouler than ever, oddly 

Windsorish. 

Seven years! 

That hot awful trip he’d made with her to Africa. The climate hitting you 

like a wet soggy towel as you stepped off the plane. The unbelievable squalor 

which began at the airport and lapped the route of the motorcade. He 

couldn’t even remember the name of the bloody country, now. Mumbosomething 

or other. 

Unforgettable the dark hall where they kept the beaming children who’d 

been selected for the photocall. She strode down the line, eyeing them 

professionally. Who could forget the chubby black child with red T-shirt 

which matched her dress . “And which limbs would you like lopped 

off, ma’am” enquired the obsequious Minister for Very Impotent 

Personages. She was in a bad mood that day. Three amputations below the 

knee, an ear and seventeen facial scars, and in the end, of course, only the 

child in the red T-shirt was used, hopping shyly forward to crouch beside 

her as she stretched her bronzed legs against a specially constructed wall. 


Plomer darted forward with the deodorant and gave her dripping armpits a 

good squirt of Versace Exotica and only then was she ready for the 

photographers. The put her on the front page, though she screeched 

that the colours were wrong and that the wretched orphan looked anxious 

rather than grateful, upset rather than soothed. 

“Belt up!” PaP used to shriek at him, ignorant of her destiny. He didn’t 

mind the verbal abuse but he never forgave her for what she did to poor 

Julie. He vanished from PaP’s entourage on a night in June, leaving her for 

an entire morning muttering obscenities, unsure where her hairspray was. 

PaP as in Petulant and Asinine Princess. Though sparkly and lithe and 

looking as bright and alert as a fierce, vocal authoress on a TV book show, 

Plomer knew that she had in fact the nervous structure and mind of a 

jellyfish, hard to imagine now as he thought of the stiff dissected blue -hued 

remains sealed up inside that box draped in a rather loud tablecloth which 

was being drawn through the city by some toy soldiers who’d sprung stiffly 

into life or at any rate motion. 

The wax candle which Plomer had pushed inside his rectum during the 

performance was a standard white domestic one, six inches in length, of 

which just a half inch remained, bobbing around his piles like a gull in a 

stormy sea while the buried tip playfully toyed with spongy folds of his 

intestines, or whatever it was that returned sparks of exquisite pleasure to 

his groin, his rump, his trembling fist. All the excitement unfortunately 

disturbed a slumbering lagoon of intestinal gas with the consequence that 

the sombre minute’s silence was bifurcated by a tremendous explosion, 

which launched the greasy, sauce-dipped candle with such a tremendous 

velocity that it punched a hole in the wardrobe wall, smacked against the 

stained wall of the corridor and shot off in the direction of the room where 

Charles stored his perfumed corsets. Before reaching there it struck a small 

acquatic crustacean with oarlike feet, which emitted a yelp. A tabloid 

recorded the royal event: CANDLE IN THE WIND CONCUSSES COPEPOD. 

Throwing tomatoes at him, sometimes a used omelette, she used to call 

him Mister Fat or Plumps, breaking out into peals of laughter at her own 

wit, laughter that was like the sound of sleigh bells on a winter’s night in 

old St Petersburg. 

Plomer was never seen again on the fifth floor and his existence was 

promptly forgotten. 

What happened. He slithered up the fouled stairwell and took refuge in 

another wardrobe on the cold draughty seventh floor, where the other 

lackeys, observing his faded costume, took it for granted he was one of 

them, and ignored him with an icy hauteur, making no effort to assist him 

when he was weak and weighted down with icicles. 

Seven years! He’d bought a video recorder. He’d become a cinquecentist. 

He’d lost the last few shreds of hair on his vast scalp. 


His weight had continued to fluctuate between thirteen and twenty-three 

stones. Always fond of the occasional paperback he’d continue to devour 

them, mostly dictionaries. He calculated that he had eaten over three 

million words while living in his new wardrobe, which no doubt accounted 

for the sooty colour of his tongue, which matched the melon-shaped scorch 

marks on his bottom, the unfortunate consequence of a combination of 

circumstances involving a power cut, a sudden desire to read Nigel 

Dempster’s moving biography of H.R.H. The Princess Margaret, a lighted 

candle and a stupendous fart. 

BUTTOCKS BLASTED BY CANDLE IN THE WIND would have been the 

cruel headline, had Plomer not remained inside the wardrobe for an entire 

month. There, wrapped in folds of dead, burnt skin, his wounds oozed a 

gentle pus with such an intriguing aroma that he passed many happy hours 

with a pair of dipped fingers pressed up his quivering nostrils. 

And now 

Stupefied, he watched the hotel swing door’s surly treadmill disgorge the 

dead. A blurred huddle in the lobby, the beaming spectral chauffeur silently 

treading for eternity the de Luxe carpeted corridor modelled on . 

The straps lying by the mangled, bloodied machine, waiting to cradle it. The 

ambulance turning in to the grounds of the hospital, barely reaching it 

before it was whisked back through time and space to try again. 

3 

What was the sub-text, he wondered. 

Market forces PaP as a commodity 

He scrutinised . He read how the product becomes increasingly 

one-sided and 

. This imposes upon it a social character, 

one which is closely bound up with existing social relations. He read how 

is a transfiguration of capital that has valorised itself. 

Marx spot on, as usual. 

Excitedly Plomer next turned to his copy of 

, written by 

someone killed in a road crash in Paris. “The ‘Blue Blood’ Cruise” seemed 

apposite to PaP’s Mediterranean gallivanting with Dodo. “The New Citroën” 

vibrated with the sinister magic of cars. The essay on photography summed 

the whole bloody PaP phenomenon up: the anti-intellectualism of her 

image, the evaporation of politics from her global movements. 

After that he thudded through Ballard’s , entranced by scenes of 

head-on collisions with concrete pillars in underpasses. He read of blood 

and zoom lenses and photography and excitement; of morbidity and 

mutilation and perverse sexual pleasures; of smashes directed by the vectors 

of speed, violence and aggression. It was narrated in cool calm dispassionate 


sentences which made him race on to 

, the exquisite 

American RE/SEARCH illustrated and annotated edition, where he read 

how a car crash may be perceived as a fertilising rather than a destructive 

event. A liberation of sexual energy, even. He read 

, and reached page ninety-seven 

(ninety-seven!) with its commentary on cars and on the origins of and 

on “the Mercedes look”. 

He glanced at the lurid, disturbing illustrations of cut-away bodies, 

exposing the internal organs. And then, as he scanned “Queen Elizabeth’s 

Rhinoplasty”, he remembered an unfulfilled narrative obligation. He’d no 

sooner read Ballard’s marginal note that “As it happens, I have met the 

Queen and was genuinely impressed by her intelligence, concern and the 

sheer hard work she put into her role” than he began to puke, a puke on 

the grand scale, beginning with six or seven powerful custard-yellow jets 

which smashed like fists against the far wall of the wardrobe, followed 

almost at once by surge after oceanic surge of vegetables marinated in bile, 

a rich dense mix reminiscent of an emptied tureen of soup which splattered 

softly across the floor like diarrhoea, pungent and lumpy, propelling scraps 

of cabbage and carrot and sweetcorn in every direction, giving a glistening 

amber ambience to the wardrobe’s furnishings. Some cheese sauce, an 

omelette and a few spluttered gobbets of lime marmalade manufactured by 

royal appointment brought the paragraph, like the last trip of a boozy 

grinning chauffeur, to a sticky conclusion. 

It wasn’t until the next day that Plomer remembered the video and at 

once understood the contribution he himself might make in establishing 

the real significance of the Princess’s death. 

Of course! 

The showing of began on BBC2 at 10.50pm (British Summer Time) 

on 30 August 1997. The Princess’s Mercedes had crashed at 12.24 am Paris 

time (11.24 pm BST), thirty-four minutes into the movie, at the point where 

Warren Beatty returns to Diane Keaton with a bunch of white flowers and 

she’s angry because it’s a Saturday and he was due back Tuesday. 

And at the end, three hours later, Keaton pauses in the hospital corridor 

and sees ahead of her the hushed, staring nurses, the grim doctor. No one 

speaks. No words are necessary. She knows at once that Jack Reed is dead. 

And before the credits have even finished rolling, before the Lenin and 

Trotsky lookalikes have been identified, a blue bar materialises across the 

base of the screen. It bears the words . 

Later, squirting another burst of eye-watering air freshener around his 

wardrobe, Plomer squatted in the least damp corner and set to work on his 

essay “The Death of Diana, Princess of Wales, Considered as a Commentary 


on ”, with reference to the sets, the costumes, the star performances, 

pastiche, the social construction of reality and romance. He pondered the 

roles played by animals, and photography, and Jerzy Kosinki’s Zinoviev, and 

Kosinski’s suicide, and Kosinksi’s last big book, the self-obsessed referencedrenched 

, which ends with a quotation in bold, 

. 

Later, his essay incomplete, brooding on the Kosinksi as well as on (the 

hydrolysis presumably wouldn’t start for some considerable time) the 

penultimate paragraph of 

, Plomer crawled into the darkest 

quarter of the wardrobe. It was also the wettest, but it was peaceful there, 

just him and the dozen or so headlice which nested and feasted and partied 

in the dense shrubberies of his ears and nostrils. 

He knew he was playing for time and maybe there was less left than he 

realised. Maybe now was the moment to leave the wardrobe. He would 

develop a taste for black coffee and Gauloises. He would go and live in a 

geodesic dome. He could change his name to Cromer or Switchman or even 

Switchman Cromer (or perhaps Cromer Switchman). Maybe he should get 

into space travel. As a bald, worm-like, wrinkled creature of indeterminate 

gender and with no interest in copulation he didn’t think he’d be fazed by 

aliens. In fact aliens would probably warm to him heaps more than some two 

metre tall slab of blue-eyed muscle with a throbbing penis, a meagre, 

reactionary and a reading age of thirteen. What’s more his 

long, lonely years in the wardrobe were a perfect training ground for the 

monotonous rigours of space travel. 

He thought he could handle Mars. The views weren’t so good as in and 

around Chamonix but there was sand there and punts and intriguing 

phenomena like the blue shimmering soft fiery globes he’d read about in 

. They sounded more intriguing than a lot of the 

things that happened on planet earth, like the freak whirlwind at Suttonon-Trent 

which occurred on the Tuesday following the crash. Caused by a 

huge drop in air pressure in the aftermath of the royal death, it cast some 

forty pugs into the air, lifting them abruptly and causing them to fly 

distances of up to half a mile. Astonished onlookers saw them, high above 

the rooftops, writhing and swirling around until they plummeted down 

again, crashing among chimney pots and tiles. There were dead pugs 

everywhere. 

It was only later, after he’d removed a pesky, escaped eyelash from his left 

eye, that Plomer re-examined the source of this information and recognised 

his error. 

(September 1997) 


Mac Daly 

“Someone who can write epigraphs should not fritter away his time writing stories.” 

—TROTSKY 

You have emerged, reader, from the hectic underground station of your 

everyday concerns, past the turnstile of the title and out through the exit 

gate of the epigraph, into the first, simple sentence of my story. You blink 

slightly in the bright glare of the second period. You gasp a little at the 

tense, tight heat of the third. 

Indeed it is hot, for our story is set in Mexico City, which, even in March, 

is typically far warmer than an English summer. But do not, my friend, 

judge me by the standards of one particular literary experience that 

“Mexico” may have set vibrating in your memory. I am not M. Lowry, nor was 

meant to be; am a modester hack, one that will do to pen a brief hyperfiction 

or two. No one is going to approach you, as you turn south now and start 

down Avenida Universidad, and enquire 

, firing at you, before you can utter a reply, the supplementary 

and then walk 

off in the direction of Barranca del Muerto, not waiting for or interested in 

your answer, whistling 

Unlike Lowry, is not 

for either my purposes or yours. I am not particularly concerned 

to ingratiate myself with a Spanish speaking audience, while you, for your 

part, are equipped with the 1992 edition of the Lonely Planet Publications 

for Mexico, written in perfect English and containing 

excellent maps. Fear not, then, as you turn the corner into Avenida Río 

Churubusco, that the woman coming towards you will, when she draws 

level, peremptorily remind you 

Or at worst, if she does, be assured 

that I am here to translate for you. 

By the third paragraph you have turned into Calle Allende and are 

watchful for the corner where it meets Calle Londres. Six words and a 

comma later, you are standing before the huge blue wall of the Museo Frida 

Kahlo. You begin to doubt your (not for the first time: it 

tells you that was published in 1965 and that 

is a book of short stories). “Admission is free”; but there is a neat 

bright brown-eyed young woman at the politely demanding ten 

pesos for your entry. You cough, bringing up two five peso pieces, which 

take a detour at the back of your throat, eventually dropping onto the 


counter out of each of your nostrils. Distastefully, the young woman hands 

you a and scoops the coins up gingerly in a clean 

white tissue. You whisper , your “c” an incongruously Peninsular 

“th”, and move on. 

Kahlo was a rich (the house is huge) colourful (its contents exhaust the 

chromatic scale) artist (her paintings adorn its walls), and lived in the house 

with ditto (Diego Rivera “was apparently not a faithful husband,” a Lonely 

Planet staff member invaluably informs). But your visit is brief, a mere 

prelude to your main intent, a warm-up act which is exciting mainly 

because it defers enjoyment of that which really is desired — little more, in 

fact, than a calculated exercise in orientation. Before you know it (the 

cafeteria and bookshop are mysteriously closed) you are back on Calle 

Londres, wondering, as you often do, about the relationship of Marxism to 

the arts and the multiple contradictions therein, or at least marvelling, 

, at the thought of 

(But, of course, you know that 

they became Sodawater Stalinists after their break with Trotsky, and, in 

true Stalinist style, obliterated all traces of his two year sojourn in the 

house, an utterly false inscription — 

— proclaiming the deliberateness of the deception, a bust of 

Stalin squatting awfully, malevolently, hideously in the bedroom where 

Trotsky and Natalia slept.) 

Now you turn and go on, on, down Allende, over Calle Paris, across 

Xicoténcatl, past the 

, on, on, across Calles Malitzin and 

Cuauhtémoc, past the Fondo el Moral at Moctezuma and the Panificadora 

América at Hidalgo, then right, right into the Plaza Hidalgo, past the 

guitarist and the flamenco dancers and the fruit sellers and the little boy 

playing, manikin-like, with his dark penis, between the house of the 

murderer Cortés (“on this spot, it is said, the Spanish tortured the defeated 

Aztec emperor Cuauhtémoc to try to make him reveal the whereabouts of 

treasure”) and the of San Juan Bautista (“the doorway beside the 

tower is Plateresque”), for you have come to Coyoacán to see none of these, 

and have misread the Lonely Planet map, thinking feature numbe r 11, the 

Jardin del Centenario (“with its coyote fountain”), is feature number 1, the 

Museo León Trotsky (“a fascinating monument to a revolutionary’s life, with 

secrecy and danger ever-present”), and have arrived before a 

postcard rack which displays, , monochrome snaps of J. Joyce and 

O. Wilde, on the spot where you were expecting to see how “high walls and 

crude watchtowers — once manned by bodyguards with high-powered 

weapons — surround the house and small garden”, and for one dizzying 

instant you feel the kind of nausea experienced by all good revolutionaries 

in a counter-revolutionary period, when the reactionaries are tearing down 

the monuments to the insurrectionary dead. 


you wish to cry. 

literati 

You cast around for the Revolution Betrayed Cafe (“on most afternoons it 

welcomes a range of lost or exiled characters”), but it has gone too, as if it 

were a mirage in a capitalist desert. Instead, in Restaurante “El Guarache”, 

you sip coffee (tepid) and consult the (hotly). Something must be wrong. 

Can this really be the end — to be stuck inside a fiction with the factual 

blues again But why, if such is the case, are there three thousand seven 

hundred and twenty-six more words of it And how are you to endure them 

A wisp of talk reaches you from a neighbouring table — 

— and at this last word 

you dart a glance in the direction from which it is spoken. You glimpse the 

twinkling, supercilious eyes of a lone male figure, moustachio’d but 

otherwise indistinct (for he is sitting in a shady corner, sheltering under a 

trellis), who has on the tinny table before him an ICL NB386s laptop 

computer, a triumph of technological petiteness whose diminutive size and 

weight (220x280mm, 3.3 kgs) permit it to fit comfortably into a briefcase, 

allowing its fortunate owner to work at home, in a hotel room, while 

travelling by plane, or between sips from a small glass of Corona beer in a 

Coyoacán restaurant. 

I put down my glass and grin at you. You eye me suspiciously, as is your 

right. I type a few more words (or pretend to) and, looking up once more, 

read them to you (or pretend to). 

I say. You seem about to reply, 

but I am already typing again. 

I tell you after a few moments, 

tap a few more keys. 

Informed of your alias, you look squarely at me, wishing to say, 

I 

But I anticipate you. 

Now I am preparing to leave. 

And I go, not waiting for your thanks, not even looking over my shoulder 

to see how you are now sitting back, with relief at my departure breaking 

across your face, deciding to take my advice, and requesting 


. 

And now, to you, from this calm terrace, Coyoacán seems trendy, trendy, 

trendy, a haunt of smiling leisured student types, a mellow spot in which to 

buy overpriced beads and bangles from underage street vendors, the sort of 

place where a monocyclist or a mime-artiste or a metafictionist, but not an 

ex-Red Army general-in-chief, might glide into view at any moment. An air 

of disbelief that he could ever have been here, like the amber smog that 

hangs daily over the city and hides Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl, descends 

upon you. Lev Davidovich on a Sunday stroll through the Jardin del 

Centenario Pull ! 

* 

Trotsky 

improvises and hums the tune through in a medley of languages, the music 

booming from the Wharfedale Linton GX speakers attached to the brackets 

in two high corners of his study, pacing the length of the room between bed 

and desk, tennis racquet in his arms, fingers plucking the catgut and 

fretting along the peeling wooden neck, surreptitious eyes sliding 

frequently, narcissistically towards the wall mirror. Half way through he 

tosses the racquet on the bed, flings himself into his working chair, swipes 

newspapers and books and pens aside, and begins frenetically to pound the 

keys on the computer keyboard on his escritoire, head gyrating up and 

down and from side to side above the pretend organ, tiny flecks of dandruff 

jumping out into the shaft of sunlight that bisects the room, until the final 

verse: 

Then, as the music fades and you walk through the door, he hurls an 

exhilarated expletive roofwards. 

“At last!” he cries, then he turns to you to double check. “You’ve arrived!” 

It takes you some moments, but eventually you manage, “T-T-T-T-Trotsky!” 

And, another hesitation later, “Is it really you” 

Trotsky rises to his feet, sardonically gesturing at his own body. “As a 

material object my boundaries are somewhat vague, both because I am 

continually losing and acquiring electrons, and because an electron, being a 

distribution of energy, does not cease abruptly at a certain distance from its 

centre, and furthermore because the adjectives that might be applied to my 

physical appearance, not to mention the adverbs that might be attached to 

my actions, are no more within my control in the present fictional discourse 

than they are in yours. I may therefore be said to have a certain ghostly 

impalpable quality, which you would find it hard to associate with the solid- 


seeming being you see before you. But it is not necessary to go into the 

niceties of theoretical physics or postmodernist poetics in order to show that 

I am sadly indeterminate. When I am cutting my toenails there is a finite 

time, though a short one, during which it is doubtful whether the parings 

are still part of me or not. When I eat a mutton chop, at what moment does 

it become part of me When I breathe out carbon dioxide, is the carbon part 

of me until it passes my nostrils Even if you answer in the affirmative, there 

is a finite time during which it is questionable whether certain molecules 

have or have not passed beyond my nostrils —” 

You interrupt eagerly. “Engels! That’s Engels, isn’t it 

, no” 

Trotsky glares disapprovingly. “Bertrand Russell, actually. 

. Well, most of it. You know, the chapter on sentences, 

syntax and parts of speech, the one with the elegant analysis of the 

sentence ‘Brutus killed Caesar’ But I digress. As I was saying, in these and 

other ways, it is doubtful what is part of Trotsky and what is not. One might 

go on to conclude that the issue of what is, in your words, 

, is 

likewise dubious. Does that answer your question” Trotsky (is it really 

him) eyes you impatiently while, flabbergasted, you search for appropriate 

words. 

“I wish you would get off the floor and stop looking for those words,” 

Trotsky says. “You won’t find them down there.” 

You raise yourself onto your knees to see that he has resumed his place 

at his keyboard and booted up his computer. “Shall we get on” he asks 

pointedly. 

“Get on” you repeat in bewilderment. “I hope so. I’ve always wanted to 

meet you.” 

“I mean,” Trotsky sighs, “shall we with the story or the novel or the 

play or the biography or the epic poem, whatever it is Please don’t waste 

my time on pleasantries. Just dictate. I’ll fill in the blanks as we go along, 

whenever your research data or your imagination let you down.” 

“I’m sorry. I can’t believe this is happening.” 

“Yes, you were lucky to catch me in, actually.” Trotsky drums his fingers 

on the desktop, then chuckles as he glances his Series Y SVGA monitor (14 

inch anti-glare screen with medium-short persistence phosphor, supporting 

1024 x 768 IBM 8514/A graphics and text interlaced, radiation compliant 

with Vfg 243/1991 and EN55022 limit B, its X-ray dosage less than 

0.5mR/hour, CRT meeting Anläge III RÖV requirements). “Like my 

Permanent World Revolution screensaver” 

Squinting, you see a graphic of planet earth, turning steadily on its axis, 

blinking in the centre of the monitor. 

“Enough of this levity. What’s this book of yours called” 

“Book” 


“I see. Haven’t settled on a title yet. Okay. Let’s just call it — provisionally 

— . Snappy, huh” Trotsky is typing. “ 

by — your name, my friend” 

“My name. Er — Binns.” 

“Binns” 

“Binns.” 

“ ” 

“Yes. Binns.” 

“That’s dreadful! You can’t be a writer with a name like Binns.” 

“Actually —” 

“You need something sharper, more cutting — less —” 

“— Ronald Binns.” 

“— .” Light has dawned in Trotsky’s piercing gaze. “Ah, I see. 

A fellow exile.” 

“No, that’s . Ronald Biggs. And he’s in Brazil, not Mexico.” 

“I beg your pardon. Please forgive me. All the same, it won’t do. With a 

name like that all you’d get away with is a book about sanitation, called 

something like 

, or —”. Trotsky frowns across the top of his 

spectacles. “I trust you don’t expect to appear in a book with a title like 

” 

“No. Lev Davidovich, I did not come here to write a book or a story or an 

epic poem or a biography or a play.” 

Trotsky sighs. “Alright! So it’s a brief libretto or a concise sonnet. I won’t 

pretend I’m not disappointed. But it’s better than nothing. It’s been a lean 

year so far.” 

By this time you are sitting. “Lev Davidovich, I came here expecting only 

to see the house. I didn’t anticipate —” 

“The house Not for sale, my friend. It has too much money-spinning 

potential as a museum, I suspect, to be within your price range. In any case, 

I only rent it.” He leans towards you. “Are you prepared to tell me, 

categorically, that you are not a writer” 

You pause. Then, cautiously: “I like to think of myself as primarily a 

reader.” But Trotsky notices that you cannot meet his searching gaze full 

on. “I admit to a handful of literary critical essays —” 

“A-ha!” 

“— a slim critical volume on the works of J.G.Farrell —” 

“Enough! Soooooo! You’ve just finished your stint on the Sheep’s Head 

peninsula, and now you’ve jetted over here in pursuit of your next project. I 

knew it! That’s good. You have the appropriate experience. It’s no secret that 

Farrell didn’t just slip off those rocks into the sea. It’s open knowledge that 

he was halfway through a historical reconstruction of the corruption of the 

Soviet revolution. Stalin had to do something.” 

You make to protest — had you the chance you would say, “Farrell 


left-leaning, Lev Davidovich, yet at the heart of his work an anguished, 

embattled and perhaps unfashionable liberal humanism expresses its sense 

of compassion and helplessness before the dark, turbulent and ultimately 

tragic forces of history” — but Trotsky waves your incipient complaint into 

silence. “Listen, my friend,” he continues reassuringly. “Let me put you in 

the picture. No doubt you think I will be offended at being asked to do your 

work for you. But try to understand. Let me confess. 

After Stalin sent me packing, what became of me I spent the 

next twelve years . My existence — as far as the world went — was 

merely . I lived exclusively in my . Only by writing could I stay 

alive. Paper and ink — my meat and drink! But writing is so , and you 

run out of ideas eventually. One day in August 1940 I found myself staring 

death in the face. A blank page! I knew immediately that I needed vigorous 

assistance to stay alive. Younger, less desiccated wits than mine had to be 

drafted in to help. I advertised. Big mistake. One of Stalin’s henchmen 

turned up. Isidor Schneider. Travestied me in 

. Like 

commissioning a portrait and having a crudely bedaubed canvas smashed 

over your head in return! But even this thin and polluted air inspired my 

collapsing lungs! I was like a vampire who had tasted his first blood. I 

wanted more, and I’d risk garlic, crucifixes, silver bullets and sunrises to get 

it. One of my bodyguards from the Rivera house, Bernard Wolfe, wrote a four 

hundred pager, 

, psychoanalysing me, imputing 

suicidal motives to me, and moralising egregiously to me about the 

Kronstadt uprising.” 

“Kronstadt” you say, detecting Trotsky’s wounded tone. “Sounds like old 

hat. I heard a very solid defence of your conduct over Kronstadt a few years 

back.” 

But Trotsky is not listening. His eyes are deep memory pools. “Then there 

was Isaac Deutscher. He was on my side, but I have to say that by the time 

I’d got three quarters of the way through volume two I thought my balls were 

going to explode!” 

He savours your look of puzzlement. 

“I was nearly fifty and I hadn’t had sex yet! Oh, I’d been married twice, I’d 

fathered children, but I seemed to have done all of this without the slightest 

sickle crossing the path of my hammer! If I remember rightly he excused 

himself by saying that his trilogy was situated in the materialist sociological 

rather than the bourgeois individualist biographical tradition. So I kicked 

him out on his materialist sociological ass and told him he could write 

volume three on his bloody own. But that is one reason why the world had 

to wait for Jean van Heijenoort’s to discover the 

inflationary effect Frida Kahlo had on my winkie. Don’t get me wrong. It’s 

not just that I wanted people to know I had a libido. I’m as sentimental as 

the next man. I’ve been in . Anthony Burgess wrote that up in 


. It’s a shame he did it to the exclusion of my political 

activism. Stuck me in a ludicrous tripartite plot involving Sigmund Freud 

and a spaceship fleeing a destroyed earth. Worst of all, had me sent to New 

York in 1917 to open a political folly, the Manhattan — Manhattan! — 

branch of the Bolshevik party, absenting me entirely from the October 

Revolution in Petrograd! Even Stalin didn’t go to those extremes! Pah! These 

English novelists! No grasp of dialectics. As if one can’t have a revolutionary 

and a romantic life at one and the same time! As if these seeming opposites 

are not always and everywhere bound up in a dynamic unity! Witness 

Orwell: acknowledged my political work. But how did he choose to depict 

this most human side of me He portrayed me, literally, !” 

“There was Cabrera Infante, too, I believe. Didn’t he have a section on you 

in ” 

“You mean ‘The Death of Trotsky as Described by Various Cuban Writers, 

Several Years After the Event — or Before’ That was a typically shabby 

surfictional enterprise. Simply used me as an excuse to parody his rivals. 

Didn’t even leave the Cuban Embassy in Brussels to consult me about it. 

Ditto Saul Windbag Bellow. Sends his Augie March character down from 

Chicago to meet me, without checking the facts out for himself. Some of the 

ones who come are no more bearable, mind you. Alan Brien wanted my 

life story 

. I ask you!” 

Hesitantly you say, “Isn’t that understandable” 

“Understandable” 

“Given, I mean, that Lenin himself is dead” 

“Lenin dead” Trotsky cackles drily at the back of his throat. “Vladimir 

Ilyich is alive and living in Africa, fattened on a diet of Solzhenitsyn, 

Alexandra Kollontai, Mikhail Shatrov and Ellis Sharp! We still swap the odd 

e-mail.” 

There is silence while Trotsky taps keys and shuffles mouse, calling into 

his local America Online server and opening its Web browser. He 

like Trotsky. The notion that the man is an actor, the product of a newfangled 

trend in museum management, a virtual substitute, a player who 

refuses ever to drop his mask, has been bothering you for some time. But 

his air of erudition is too keen to be contrived. After all, the opportunity — 

this opportunity — needs to be grasped. 

“Lev Davidovich, what would you say is the role of revolutionary socialists 

in a post-industrial, post-Fordist, post-Marxist, postmodernist age” 

“Pah!” says Trotsky, twiddling and fiddling. “Talk about slow dialups! I’ve 

put a 166MHz Cyrix processor in this fucker, there’s the mother of all 

motherboards in there, a Tyan S1562S, the kind of animal the HX chipset 

was invented for! And what happens I have to call into an AOL point of 

presence run through an impotent 14,400 b.p.s. modem! Jeez!” He rattles 

the desk impatiently with his fingernails. “At last!” He flags triumphantly at 


the monitor. “Take a look at my Home Page!” 

Perversely, there is no link to Trotsky’s homepage in this web version of 

this story. Readers who wish to see it will have to buy the book in which this 

tale will finally appear. It is represented here, in an impoverished form, 

solely by its prose elements: 

Witness revolutionary babes in full orgasmic flight! 

Let these red hot insurgents dandle with your dander! 

Choose from five steaming parlours of promiscuity: 

Frida’s Fantasy Fucksuite 

Natalia’s Nest of Nipples 

Krupskaya’s Kinky Kitchen 

Rosa’s Romping Room 

Tussy’s Titillating Torture Chamber 

Just click on any room for instant delight with 

a scarlet chick! And when you’re finished, click for 

a hot link to the Marxism and Masturbation Website. 

The joint silence (sadness on your part, pride on his) has to be broken. 

“Lev Davidovich, I like the joke. The Tsarists and the Stalinists, even the 

historians, always underestimated your sense of humour. But I don’t have 

much time and we must talk seriously. Mexico is in a state of upheaval and 

crisis. President Zedillo yesterday demanded a ‘temporary sacrifice’ of 

ordinary Mexicans and imposed ‘harsh, painful but transitory measures’. 

Fuel and electricity prices are being hiked up, a 50% sales tax has been 

loaded onto most goods, while paltry wage increases are offered in the teeth 

of soaraway inflation. Prices for most foodstuffs are about to rise by an 

average of 42%, including traditionally subsidised foods like beans, corn, 

tortilla and milk. All because the peso is crashing on foreign exchanges and 

international currency speculators must be appeased! All because the IMF 

sees an opportunity to foist yet another free market austerity plan on an 

historically exploited nation! Meanwhile, a revolutionary force lies in 

waiting. The Zapatistas in Chiapas are still stubbornly silent despite the 

government’s duplicitous offer of an amnesty. They are arming in the south 

and marching in the streets of the capital. I cannot believe that the 

individual with the richest, most successful experience of revolution in all of 

the continent is not planning an intervention of truly historical magnitude. 

What will Leon Trotsky say and do in the present emergency” 

Trotsky looks at you languidly. “I’ll say this,” he replies. “Politics I no 

longer give diddly squat for them.” He lifts his left leg. “And I’ll do this.” With 


some effort, he forces out a suppurating fart; a fart that sounds weak but a 

few seconds later proves toxic; a fart which fills the room with the 

coagulating smells of anthraxed soil, crushed animal bones, old graveyards, 

radioactive moss, sewage, stagnant ponds; one of those farts that seems 

close to having physical substance; the kind of fart that Salvador Dali alone 

might have been able to paint; a fart that demonstrates contempt for all and 

any human purposes undertaken with any degree of constructive 

earnestness; a fart that seems to have its provenance, not in ordinary or 

irregular digestive activity, but in a disregarding cynicism towards truly 

human society; a non-realist fart; a fart to which only a story like this can do 

justice; a fart on which its plot turns. 

Your nostrils twitching, you make to leave. Trotsky has his back to you, 

scanning his screen. “Besides, I have more than enough to do these days 

checking my portfolios against these stock market quotes. It’s been a bad 

few months for the Bolsa Mexicana, you know. Shit, look at Grupo Televisa! 

Down three quarters of a peso on yesterday’s close! Industrial Durango! A 

peso sheared off this morning’s opening mid-price, already half a peso down 

on yesterday’s! Those poor bastards who can’t spread their money abroad. I 

pity them. I’m luckier. U.S. stocks rallied along with bonds in heavy trading 

today as a weaker-than-expected retail sales report bolstered the notion that 

a slowing economy eases the pressure on the U.S. Federal Reserve to nudge 

interest rates higher to curb inflation. Buy Citicorp! Sell Pepsi!” 

By this time you are in the garden. Inevitably, so am I. You see me from 

afar. I am standing at the main door, holding some kind of tool — it looks, 

from where you are, like a farm implement — which I now hurl across the 

empty space between us, which falls with a soft clunk in the dust a yard or 

two from your feet, which, after glancing at me once more, and 

understanding, you pick up. 

You re-enter the house. Trotsky is performing a Webcrawler search on 

“Central American brothels” when the icepick pierces his pericranium. 

Having performed the act more out of pity than duty (in fact, even more 

strongly impelled by a wish to end this dismal story and get out of it the 

only way I will let you), it surprises you that Trotsky fails instantaneously to 

cooperate. You had half-expected him not to prove human at all, like the 

critic Bradley in Mac Daly’s “Fog Did You Say Fog”, but there is an 

alarmingly realistic amount of blood and brain tissue around, and Trotsky, 

reeling like a genuinely wounded man, has turned on you and bitten your 

finger! 

“Ouch!” you cry, swivelling to avoid him as he lunges vindictively at you, 

wincing at the loud crack of his spectacles as his face impacts with the floor. 

As you look for an escape the voice of Trotsky — with some of that sharpedged 

oratorical power on which all first-hand observers agree, friends and 

foes alike — painfully throws words after you, words which you will never 


forget, which you will spend the rest of your life attempting to understand, 

and which you will be unable ever to fathom: “There will be more dramatic 

snapshots, more amazing eye-witness testimony, maybe even a snatch of 

movie film of something dark and ambiguous, churning away into the far 

distance!” Then, as you run past me (for I am there, framed by the doorway, 

holding a sign with an arrow which reads BACK TO THE UNDERGROUND), 

Trotsky dies. 


Frank Key 

IT is with great pleasure that I have come to this charming — if windswept — 

seaside resort, at the invitation of Mr Daly, to speak upon that most 

fascinating of topics, the administration of lighthouses. First of all, I must 

confess that it is a topic of which I am almost wholly ignorant. Ask me about 

ponds, or badgers, and I can rattle on like a maniac for days on end. But I 

have never even set foot in a lighthouse, and can think of no conceivable 

reason why I should ever want to. Much as I adore ponds, I am terrified of 

the sea, for the sea is a fearsome and horrible thing, progenitor of countless 

nightmares, a vast and unpitying force of nature, hideous to behold and 

murderous in its immensity. 

BUT I have promised to speak of lighthouses, and I am not a man to shy 

away from a challenge. As luck would have it, my oldest and dearest friend, 

the Reverend J. H. Jowett, has spent the best part of his life engaged in the 

administration of lighthouses, and he has been kind enough to share with 

me some of the more thrilling aspects of his career. 

YOU may think it odd that an ordained clergyman, indeed a Jesuit, 

should devote his life to such a calling. Jowett spends his days on 

horseback, speeding across the land from one lighthouse to another, his 

pipe clamped in his jaws and his catechism tucked into the pocket of his 

soutane. The man hardly knows the meaning of rest. Sometimes he will 

accept an invitation to sleep overnight when a kindly lighthouse keeper 

offers Jowett a mattress upon which to sprawl; but more often, this most 

driven of men will ride his trusty steed through the night, galloping with 

alarming speed along cliff top roads whose tempest-wracked fences have 

been damaged or uprooted, and where both man and horse are in constant 

danger of plunging hundreds of feet into the churning waters below. I beg 

your pardon, I must pause for a sip of water. 

WHAT is Jowett up to, careering from lighthouse to lighthouse I have 

asked him this question myself, many times, and he simply refuses to 

answer, merely clamping his pipe in his jaws and raising his eyebrows in a 

highly irritating manner. Oh, there have been times when I have felt like 

dashing the man to the ground in a fit of deranged violence, but he is much 

stronger than me, and indeed much taller; at seven and a half feet in 

height, he is bigger than most people I have come across as I wend my way 

through life. But I digress. The invitation to give this talk prompted me to 

ask Jowett once again about life as an administrator of lighthouses. I 


tracked him down to a filthy harbour south of Hooting Yard, where he was 

being forced to pause a few days due to his horse having a bout of lockjaw. 

Jowett was curled up in a wicker chair in the corner of the veterinarian’s 

waiting room. A number of sick animals — a badger among them, I was 

distressed to note — huddled together fearfully in the opposite corner of the 

room, staring wild-eyed at the Jesuit and every now and then emitting 

whimpers of abject terror. “I have this effect upon animals,” said Jowett, 

languid and unconcerned. “They regard me with fear, as well they might.” I 

wondered whether to pursue this matter, and decided against it. I have said 

that Jowett was my oldest friend, but I admit that there are times when he 

scares me fair out of my wits. As it was, I had no opportunity to say 

anything, as my old mucker continued to speak. “I understand that you 

wish to know something of my lighthouse administration activities, Key,” he 

sneered, “otherwise you will suffer humiliation when called upon to speak of 

them at some godforsaken seaside resort. Is that correct” He did not wait 

for a reply, but — his voice growing louder, and causing the pitiful huddle of 

ailing badgers, mice, hedgehogs, lampreys, pigs, hamsters and bison to start 

up a soul-wrenching cacophony of squealing and whining — he stood up, 

towering over me, and thundered: 

“IMAGINE a world, Key, a Godless world, bereft of divine order, in which 

each lighthouse keeper is allowed to do as he or she wishes. Picture them, 

hundreds — nay, thousands of lighthouses, each running to its own 

timetable, each setting its lights flashing and rotating and signalling and 

whatnot whenever the keeper feels like it. What is the result Chaos, pure 

and simple, chaos leading to shipwrecks, buoy disasters, tugboat accidents 

and the Lord knows what other kinds of marine catastrophe. Is that the 

world you wish to inhabit Eh You would be no better off than one of these 

confounded beasts here” — he gestured violently toward a tiny 

hummingbird with a stab-wound on its head which was attempting to hide 

behind a chaise-longue — “these foul beasts which quiver and quake at my 

every word. No, that is not the world we wish to live in. In our world — in 

God’s world — we must make sure that lighthouse keepers do their work 

according to a plan. I carry in my saddlebags a thumping great book of over 

nine hundred pages. It is a manual of lighthouse administration. I have 

memorised every word in that book, Key. Indeed, though it pains me to say 

it, I know it better than the Bible. So, as I traverse this evil land astride my 

sick and neglected horse, I go from lighthouse to lighthouse to ensure that 

the keepers behave in accordance with the manual. If they stray from its 

commands, I smite them. 

“THINK not that the commands are onerous. Most of them are simply 

common sense. But the devil works to undermine the sensible workings of 

the average lighthouse. I have seen with my own eyes, for example, a 

lighthouse keeper of many years experience failing to sharpen his pencil 


over a wastepaper basket. Does he not know that wood shavings are a cause 

of fire That by his actions he could burn down his lighthouse in a matter of 

hours Again, I have seen a lighthouse keeper using a frayed rope to tie up 

his boat on the jetty. It is barely imaginable!” 

SUCH was his excitement that Jowett began to hurl pieces of cutlery at 

the cowering animals. “Tell me,” I ventured, “do you simply call round to 

these lighthouses and declaim instructive passages from your manual” 

“Why no,” he replied, “I am not a harsh man. If I keep in one saddlebag the 

manual with which to strike terror into the hearts of these ingrates, in my 

other bag I carry a selection of useful supplies: the items they do not receive 

in their usual hampers from the local lighthouse supply warehouses. I am 

thinking, for example, of gigantic rolls of blotting paper; hard-boiled eggs 

halved and steeped in syrup; specially darned flags from many continents; 

buckets filled with a solution for the removal of crusted ink from hair; 

reticules for the blind; nozzles which can be attached to burst cartons...” 

AT this point the veterinary surgeon entered the room to announce that 

Jowett’s horse was fully recovered. The Jesuit took my hand, and nearly 

crushed it in bidding me farewell. Within seconds, he was gone, galloping 

away to administer his peculiar form of justice tempered with mercy to the 

lighthouse keepers of the land. I am glad I am not one of them. 


Ronald Binns 

Mark Currie, 

0-333-68778-7 £37.50 hardback. 169pp. 

. Macmillan, Houndmills and London, 1998. ISBN 

This book aims to provide an account of developments in the study of 

fictional narrative in twentieth century Anglo-American culture, paying 

particular attention to the various critical schools which have flourished in 

university English departments in recent decades. 

In the first fifty years of the century “narratology” (as Currie terms it) 

concentrated on analysing point of view in fiction. In the past thirty years 

the study of narrative has taken many different forms, unde r a variety of 

influences, including Saussurean linguistics, Louis Althusser’s notion of 

ideology, film studies, feminism, Marxism, structuralism, poststructuralism, 

etc. In the clutter of competing literary theories two basic opposing trends 

could be discerned. Deconstruction focused on the language and structure 

of the text, “on the discovery of doubt and the celebration of irreducible 

complexity”. At the other pole, Marxists, New Historicists and feminists 

asserted that formalist approaches to literature excluded issues of politics, 

ideology and gender. According to Currie there is now a liberating 

convergence of critical schools. Contemporary postmodern narrative theory 

(for example, “socio-narratology”) is able to draw on formal, historical, 

psychoanalytic and political thinkers for its insights. 

This book is aimed at students in higher education (hence the chic 

references to Madonna, David Bowie, 

, Quentin Tarantino and 

) but I doubt if they’ll find this book very useful. It never delivers 

what the title seems to promise. Currie has no coherent new narrative 

theory to offer; he merely sketches various trends in recent criticism, 

concluding (rather thinly) that formalist and contextual critical approaches 

have now merged. He never bothers to define “postmodern” and though a 

chapter is devoted to “theoretical fiction” Currie’s choice of authors and 

novels is dismally narrow and conventional (Joyce; 

; ; ). Not a squeak about 

Pynchon, Barthelme, Coover, B. S. Johnson — or scores of others. Indeed, 

Currie’s assertion that “for those in search of the intellectual weight that 

gets a novel onto a university reading list or wins them a literary prize, 

historiographic metafiction is the right path” seems positively perverse in 

the year that won the Booker Prize for fiction. 

The most popular literary criticism of our time manifests itself outside of 

university English departments and takes the form of the literary biography. 

It is sometimes said that literary biography has become a substitute for the 


often unintelligible criticism produced by academics enraptured by literary 

theory. But Currie has nothing at all to say about biographical criticism, 

whether populist or professional. Instead, while acknowledging that “the 

language of literary criticism and theory has become the ugliest private 

language in the world”, Currie guides the reader through the quagmire of 

the writings of a theorist such as Jacques Derrida with explanations like 

this: 

A concept as apparently innocent as the “minimum free form” turns 

out to be a multidimensional repression of difference, a structure of 

exclusion which seeks to establish hard and fast boundaries around 

its meaning as if that meaning were not marked by protensions and 

retensions of other signs in the discourse, of former discourses and 

those still to come. 

Currie’s explanation of what Derrida means by “supplementarity” yields the 

following insight: 

Supplementarity names one of the ways in which a structure of 

exclusion can be opened up to difference, where the purity of an 

origin is seen as already structured by the loss of purity which follows 

from it. This might be called an intra-narrative structure of exclusion, 

since the mythic origin excludes the future events which form the 

remainder of the same narrative. I want to turn now to another kind of 

structure of exclusion which could be called inter-narrative 

exclusion... 

If observations like these were meaningfully applied to fictional narrative in 

order to yield new insights or intelligent and persuasive new readings, this 

would be okay. But they aren’t, and simply remain at the level of mindnumbing 

waffle. 

There are two references in the book which suggest that Currie may have 

once actually talked like this and been laughed at. In Chapter Two (entitled 

“Terminologisation” — a word only teetotallers should ever be required to 

pronounce) Currie hotly refers to “those stupid arguments in university 

bars” about deconstruction. According to Currie, deconstruction has been 

much misunderstood. Ten pages earlier in the chapter Currie remembers a 

dark moment in the evolution of postmodern narrative theory: 

Stupid arguments broke out in university bars. If you die of exposure 

in a snowstorm, is it exposure to language If you are attacked by a 

lion in the jungle, are your wounds generated by the differential 

relations between signs 


What would anyone in a university bar say to someone who booms out (this 

is the opening sentence of Currie’s last chapter), “Conrad’s 

is the most analysed narrative in history.” Oh yeah In China, 

mate In Russia In Iran More than Proust More than Joyce Even in 

Britain I have a sneaking suspicion that over the centuries the Bible may 

well have clocked up more interpretations than Conrad’s novella — not to 

mention . 

Currie’s naïve use of the word “history” is paralleled by his coarse, 

figurative use of the word “schizophrenia” to describe division or 

contradiction, and “dumb” to mean stupid. This is particularly crass and 

offensive in an intellectual who purports to be concerned with meaning, 

culture, language and critical self-consciousness. Currie’s vocabulary is a 

problem throughout the book. The book appears in a series called 

“transitions”, so this particular verbal dead horse is given a severe flogging 

throughout the text. Currie’s years of immersion in the vats of theory have 

done nothing to mature his critical vocabulary, and those wizened old 

chestnuts, “undermine” and “subvert”, pop up amid the froth with 

depressing regularity. 

He is also sloppy at a fairly rudimentary level. The two quotations from 

get the punctuation wrong, and there is a glaring error in 

the quotation from 

. And there is something hugely, 

howlingly, hilariously and hootingly Freudian about Currie’s failure to 

notice the misprinting of “theory” on p. 49, of “signs” on p. 105, and of 

“represented” on p. 108. I also suspect that “temporary culture” on p. 107 is 

probably a misprint for “contemporary”, but as Currie is not always 

intelligible it is difficult to be sure. 

Currie provides a very inaccurate guide to the landscape of modern 

criticism. He says, strangely, that “Althusserian Marxism has flourished 

from the late 1980s to the end of the millennium”, which is simply not true. 

In 1978 the historian E. P. Thompson launched a ferocious, pioneering and 

very influential assault on Althusser’s structuralism, accusing him of 

evicting human agency and process from history. Not long afterwards 

Althusser murdered Mrs Althusser. These two events helped to account for 

the steep decline in Althusser’s fashionability and influence. 

Something similar happened with Paul de Man, the chief theoretician and 

guru of deconstruction. Indeed, E. P. Thompson’s exasperation as an 

historian with Althusser’s woolly abstractions (accusing him at one point “of 

banalities, of elaborate verbalisations which offer no purchase whatsoever for 

actual historical analysis, and of ridiculous errors”) oddly pre-empts the 

criticism of deconstruction (especially the verbose and windy Derrida). But 

Currie, who seems to have cut his critical teeth as a disciple of 

deconstruction, is unwilling to acknowledge this. Deconstruction, like 

Monty Python’s parrot, he insists, is not dead. 


There is one brief, disagreeable episode in the history of deconstruction 

which Currie is anxious to get out of the way as quickly as possible. In 1989, 

Currie says, Paul de Man’s wartime journalism, “mostly inoffensive reviews 

for a collaborationist newspaper in Belgium”, was discovered by a Belgian 

scholar. It resulted in “a peak of absurdity” in the quarrel between textual 

and contextual critics, with historicists preposterously viewing de Man’s 

journalism “as confirmation of the latent fascism in deconstructive 

narratology”. 

This account of the de Man scandal strikes me as misleading and 

dishonest. Characteristically, Currie gets the year wrong (the revelation of 

de Man’s unknown wartime newspaper articles was broken by the 

on December 1, 1987). When de Man died in 1984 he was America’s 

leading deconstructionist, a celebrated and much admired member of the 

Yale faculty. It subsequently transpired that the Belgian-born de Man, who 

had first arrive d in the United States in 1948, had a number of rather 

malodorous skeletons in his cupboard. It wasn’t so much the grubby, 

unpleasant personal details that mattered as those wartime writings. It 

turned out that de Man had written 170 articles for and 10 pieces for 

(i.e. not one newspaper, as Currie wrongly says). 

Here, context is everything. before the German occupation was a 

leading mainstream national newspaper. As with other publications the staff 

were sacked and replaced by hacks, opportunists and collaborators who 

were happy to turn it into a stridently pro-Nazi paper; it became popularly 

known as (the stolen ). Paul de Man wrote for these 

newspapers from December 1940 until November 1942, advancing a Nazi 

cultural agenda. He wrote toadying, arselicking reviews of books by the 

major collaborationist writers. He saluted the bravery of the German soldier. 

He praised the poetry of Italian fascism. He applauded the German 

occupation of Belgium. He promoted the “blood and soil” ideology of Nazism. 

A contemporary Belgian resistance pamphlet entitled 

identified Paul de Man as one of forty-four contributors who were 

collaborationist scum, noting “his energetic propaganda” on behalf of the 

Nazis. From the tough, gruelling perspective of the rooms of the University of 

Dundee’s English department at the end of the twentieth century de Man’s 

articles may seem “inoffensive”, but this was not how they appeared to 

citizens of Brussels under Nazi rule. 

Currie says that when de Man’s wartime journalism was exposed “his 

work was the subject of a kind of witch hunt”. Here Currie’s choice of words 

seems to me offensive and perversely ironic in the light of what de Man 

wrote about Jews and what actually happened to Belgian Jews. De Man’s 

poisonously racist piece, “The Jews in Contemporary Literature”, appeared 

in on March 4, 1941. De Man’s conclusion (that “a solution to the 

Jewish problem” which resulted in the departure of the Jews from Europe 


“would not have, for the literary life of the West, regrettable consequences. It 

would lose, in all, some personalities of mediocre worth”) carries, to put it 

mildly, an unfortunate historical resonance. What is doubly offensive is the 

timing of this article. The systematic persecution of the Jews in Belgium 

began at the end of 1940. On January 30, 1941, Hitler told the Reichstag 

that the war would result in “the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe”. 

In February 1941 the German authorities in Belgium stopped issuing exit 

permits to Jews. In March 1941 de Man published his vile piece about 

Jewish writers, and on August 20, 1941, de Man published an article in 

asserting that the Jews were responsible for an “aberrant” 

trend in modern literature. That same month the first Belgian Jews were 

taken away by train to Auschwitz. By the end of the war some twenty-five 

thousand Belgian Jews had been deported and murdered in Nazi death 

camps. Paul de Man’s complicity in the holocaust may have been of a very 

minor kind but that that complicity existed is beyond dispute. 

What were the implications of all this for deconstruction De Man argued 

that “considerations of the actual and historical existence of writers are a 

waste of time from a critical point” and that “instead of containing or 

reflecting experience, language constitutes it”. This was not simply true of 

literature but of everything; thus, for example, “The bases for historical 

knowledge are not empirical facts but written texts, even if these texts 

masquerade in the guise of wars or revolutions.” 

Terry Eagleton sensed the reactionary and introverted aspect of 

deconstruction well before the de Man scandal broke, writing (in 

[Oxford, Blackwell, 1983]) that deconstruction “is 

mischievously radical in respect of everyone else’s opinions, able to unmask 

the most solemn declarations as mere dishevelled plays of signs, while 

utterly conservative in every other way. Since it commits you to affirming 

nothing, it is as injurious as blank ammunition.” The subsequent revelation 

of de Man’s secret pro-Nazi writings was sensational and had devastating 

consequences for the theory of deconstruction precisely because it showed 

that de Man had compelling personal reasons for wanting to deny, reduce 

and erase the significance of biography, history and social context. Far from 

being detached or intellectually honest, de Man’s own critical vocabulary (for 

example his pejorative use of the word “resistance”) now appeared highly 

suspect, equivocal and evasive, sodden with guilty self-interest of the very 

worst kind. 

As might have been guessed from Currie’s bland and sanitising account of 

the de Man scandal, he is a firm upholder of the deconstructionist faith. 

Chapter Two ends by defending the jargon and gibberish of contemporary 

criticism because “it subverts something as deep as the knowability of the 

past”. Which is, alas, just more reactionary gibberish. At times Currie seems 

almost unhinged by the spectre of Marxist criticism. His fourth chapter ends 


with the bizarre screech: “The revolution will not be like the new 

historicisms. The revolution may never happen and, if it does, will be more 

like a consumerist atavism than a progressive Marxism.” (More gibberish, 

though I what may be troubling Currie is those TV news scenes of 

people looting shops of electrical goods at times of social unrest.) 

One of the requirements of the “transitions” series is that the theory 

under discussion be tested against the same two texts, 

and 

This requirement exposes 

the paucity of Currie’s critical approach. The best he can do with 

Stevenson’s novella is a deconstructionist reading which proposes that 

perhaps Jekyll’s narratives are actually narrated by Hyde and that this 

whacky and idiosyncratic reading is as valid as any other critical 

interpretation, proving deconstruction’s point. The objection to this strategy 

is that the rhetoric of Stevenson’s narrative involves persuasion and that 

some versions of what this text is about are plausible on both internal 

and/or external grounds, while others aren’t. Currie’s isn’t, in terms of 

Stevenson’s own readings of his text, the conventions of Victorian narrative, 

or the sub-texts which a twentieth-century critic can reasonably identify. It 

is symptomatic and revealing that Currie never once gives Stevenson’s book 

its correct title. 

When it comes to Conrad he describes the interpretations of J. Hillis 

Miller, Peter Brooks, Nina Pelikan Straus, Edward Said and Christopher 

Miller, finding in the latter critic especially “a new kind of reading. It 

represents the new narratological world in which the critic can be deeply 

engaged in the projects of historicism and formalism at once.” To test this 

claim to novelty, I scraped the half-inch layer of dust off my copy of C. B. 

Cox’s (London, Dent, 1974) to see 

what an old-fashioned untheoretical critic made of 

. Cox 

begins by looking at Conrad’s versions of the two female characters in 

relation to Freud and Conrad’s own attitudes to sexuality, while cautioning 

that “Conrad’s impressionist method gathers itself into a wealth of possible 

meanings of which the Freudian constitute only a part.” Cox describes 

Conrad’s own experiences in the Congo and quotes from his notebook, 

contrasts this with the use of mythology in the narrative, but warns that 

Conrad’s intention was not to compose an allegory. He notes the thrillerish 

aspects of the narrative, the pervasive irony, the twin meanings of the title, 

the contradictory uses to which the word “reality” is put in the text, and the 

double-edged aspect of Marlow’s quest, which is “both a search for moral 

enlightenment and an investigation into the appropriateness of aesthetic 

forms”. He examines “the failure of civilised language”, the unresolved 

tension between imperialism and the wilderness. He discusses the wide 

variety of critical responses evoked by the novella. He offers an 

interpretation of that strange figure, the harlequin. 


In other words, even an old-fashioned right-wing liberal humanist offers 

an account of both the form of the novella and the social issues it raises and 

an approach that seems to me very much more interesting than bogus and 

pseudo-scientific commentary along the lines of how Marlow’s method of 

storytelling involves “a theme closely related to Derrida’s critique of the 

Saussurean sign”. (That Conrad is perceived to be interesting because he 

supposedly shares an interest of Derrida’s is a curious symptom of the 

vanity of this school of criticism.) 

This turgid and arid little book is a massive disappointment. 

Postmodernism (and postmodernist fiction) certainly raises a host of 

stimulating questions in relation to the study and understanding of 

narrative, but no one will find these issues broached in an intelligent or 

intelligible fashion by Currie. I would recommend instead Brian McHale’s 

excellent, lucid, fascinating 

(London, Routledge, 

1992). 


2 

“This labyrinth into which these 

unpolitick 

have 

brought us” 

(1 April 2001)








Tel. +44 (0) 115 951 3377 

Fax +44 (0) 115 951 4827 


“THIS LABYRINTH INTO WHICH THESE UNPOLITICK HAVE BROUGHT US” 

Clement Walker, , vol. 12 (1648) 

(1 April 2001) 

Do not allow the date of 2 to fool you: everything herein is true. 

Ratlines: a Story About a Sailor 1 

Neil K. Henderson tosses a little lamented late magnate overboard. 

Hal 8 

Ty Rey’s collocation of Kubrick and Ginsberg extends 

’ obsessive allusiveness to the recently dead. 

“Suddenly in Paris”: a Newly Discovered Poem by W. B. Yeats 9 

A startling find by Jonathan Wort(TM). 

Inconsistency in : Slip or Tip 14 

Alexander George meditates on betrayal and circularity. 

The Medieval Bulgarian Analogue to English Literature 18 

James Rainolds explains why medieval English will never be the same again. 


Ronald Binns reviews new books on literary postmodernism in his regular column. 



















Neil K. Henderson 

You could tell just by looking at him that he was a sailor. He had “Navy Cut 

—Extra Strength” written all over him. Years spent awash upon the grimy 

seas of strife had etched their cryptic chart into his demeanour. Every hardfought 

nautical mile was delineated by a mark of character on the weatherbeaten 

mask which now confronted the window-pane. And as he sat there 

motionless, watching the condensation tracks weeping their way through 

the hand-rolling tar and the frying-pan grease which coated the glass of his 

solitary land-locked porthole, it was obvious that he was seeing something 

else, beyond the filth which hid the outside world from view. Something far 

distant ... far, far off ... a million miles away, and several lifetimes ago ... 

ebbing and flowing on the fickle tide of memory ... 

Yes, you could tell just by looking at him that he was a sailor. There were 

a thousand and one tell-tale signs: the waterproof maritime trousers ... the 

salt-marks on the wellies ... the cable stitching of his inside-out navy blue 

sweater ... the little gold anchor on his hat. But it was the tattoo which 

really set the tone, the tattoo which he was now absent-mindedly — almost 

protectively — caressing, and which his swarthy nautical knuckles suddenly 

revealed in a flash of fiery lettering: 

MY OLD MAN’S A DUSTMAN 

The uncompromising message was picked out in smoky blue-black script 

against the garish red and yellow silhouette of flames. Set lengthwise on the 

mariner’s left forearm, the legend was yet disfigured by a ragged and 

ancient scar at an angle across the graphics — as if to denounce such 

artistry of design as mere effete hand-coloured needlework, and add another 

dimension of savagery to the already aggressive signal. There was clearly 

some mystery here. If only that tattoo could speak ... what would it say to 

us Beneath the surface of that defiant hint at dry-land lineage, what 

message was it trying to convey 

“Fat Bastard Overboard!” the sailor erupted. “Fat Bastard Overboard!” 

The sudden outburst was accompanied by rolling eyeballs, and there was 

a drop of the briny in the foam upon his lips. But his frenzy was soon 

becalmed. Slowly, he turned from the window and addressed an object 

perched atop the squat dresser of his cramped bed-sitting room. It was a 

tiny round mirror, set in a frame of green plastic shaped like a parrot 

2 (1 April 2001) 1

preening itself on a branch. The frame was much bigger than the mirror — 

almost the size of a real parrot. Embossed on the green plastic branch were 

the words: PIECES OF EIGHT. It was made in Taiwan. 

“Oh, Perky...” said the sailor to the plastic parrot mirror frame. “What’s it 

all about What’s the name of the game What left-handed deeds have been 

done out there on the lonely sea-reaches of yesteryear Whar be all me 

shipmates now” He would have slaked his sea-dog’s thirst on a barrel of 

grog — but all he had was Lucozade, and he was frightened it might have 

been contaminated by piratical extremists of the New Age. 

He let his thoughts wallow about in his sin-sodden past. There was no 

doubt that a crime had been committed once upon a time — but who 

was to blame And who, for that matter, was the real victim In these fits of 

pained reminiscence, he always began by blaming himself. He sat so low in 

his own esteem that he would have taken the full cargo of man’s inhumanity 

to man aboard his own heavy -laden conscience, as if duty-bound to accept 

the ballast of another person’s guilt. Of course, in the event of capsizing, he 

would never have felt himself deserving of a life-line. For him, it seemed 

forgiveness would be always out of reach. 

Indistinctly, through a mist of denial and enforced forgetfulness, the 

problem began to heave into view. All so long ago now ... and yet it had 

seemed inevitable at the outset that he would get caught in no time. 

was going to believe that a fat bastard size was simply going to fall 

overboard by accident. There had been a waist-high safety rail right around 

the deck of the yacht. Nobody could “just happen” to fall over it — not even 

by the most imaginative intricacies of tumbling. It was glaringly obvious that 

the obese old boar had been helped on his way. Some “unknown assailant” 

had deliberately dumped Maximilian Crockafellah into the deep blue ocean, 

somewhere off the Carmelite Islands. As for finding the identity of the 

culprit, well, it would just be a case of looking out for a suspicious character 

with shifty eyes and a forklift truck. 

As a matter of fact, Maximilian Crockafellah was a bit shifty-eyed himself 

— what with his black eye-patch with its silver skull-and-crossbones motif. 

Dressing up was one of the Boss’s peccadilloes. Once safely out to sea in the 

luxury yacht 

, he could become in his mind the reincarnation of 

anyone from history. He specially liked pirates — having an affinity with the 

calling. But he enjoyed all kinds of charades. Strange to say, however, he 

had never been known to indulge in imaginary pig-farming, because in his 

manner he personified the very essence of Traditional Porker. And he didn’t 

even need to dress up. Ask anyone who’d ever met him — he was a natural 

exponent of piggery-jokery. To know, know, know him was to dis-, dis-, trust 

him. 

But in the cut-and-thrust reality of “fancy goods redistribution” you had 

to have dealings with Big Wheel opportunists like Crockafellah. Fortune 


favours the fat, these days, and the victims of his “commercial role-playing” 

soon found themselves innocently walking the plank. Like children led on 

by the Pied Piper of Bacon, the clients of plunged to their watery 

graves in droves, their lifebuoy of trust dragging them to the bottom like a 

stone. Somehow, Crockafellah always came out smelling like a rose ... up till 

now, that is. Now his luck had run out. 

Back in his lonely bed-sit, our salty sailor sat and stroked his scarred 

tattoo. It was all flooding into his mind again. He had been there wh en the 

balloon went up. He’d even overheard Maximilian Crockafellah talking to his 

son Benidorm by phone, from the deck of the 

. His voice had been 

booming at ear-busting volume. Business, on the other hand, was less 

ebullient. 

“Didn’t they have loss adjustment Some kind of contingency fund Well, 

what did they expect, Benidorm could shift half a million magic 

self-replenishing fake beer mugs. Even has its limitations. What! 

want their money back Did we have a contract Well, burn it 

then, Benidorm! Do I have to spell it out What You don’t mean...” 

The Boss was suddenly sitting bolt upright in his gaudy Caribbean-style 

party chair. To Able Seaman Jack Taylor’s keen eye, he looked decidedly 

unwell. Of course, someone of his bulk should have been more concerned 

about his health. Stress can kill. Especially if you’re overweight. It may be 

an old wives’ tale that meals between snacks can cause pre-menstrual 

tension in , but nevertheless, over-eating can lead to all sorts of unusual 

side-effects. Stranger things happen at sea, after all. Look at mermaids... 

And Sailor Taylor knew for a that men can develop breasts due to a 

steady diet of brassieres and jam. You had to be careful what you stowed in 

the ship’s hold, in case the crew were forced to eat the contents in an 

emergency. 

“Raise more money! Sell the board of directors!” Crockafellah’s body fat 

was quivering uncontrollably. He could be about to metamorphose at any 

moment into some sort of Behemoth. “What’s going on, Benidorm Is 

someone interfering Give it to me straight!” 

The Boss’s floating lard masses suddenly froze solid. All the fight had 

gone out of his flab. “No … surely not ... She can’t be! She belongs to my 

bus company’s store detectives’ alarm-clock club!” Crockafellah put down 

the receiver. The fat git was shedding tons by the second. Flying fish were 

leaping out of the water to snap at silvery gobs of sweated fear which were 

spurting from the tycoon’s pores and into the sea. 

“Sailor Taylor,” he announced, “it’s not all right, Jack. Thar’s trouble on 

the starboard bow.” Maybe this was the kind of crash diet he needed. The 

so-called “Centipede” Recession had reduced many a bloated carcass to 

skeleton level with galloping speed. It was hog eat hog out there. Anyone 

who lost their footing in the peccary order soon landed up in the trough, 


and for Maximilian Crockafellah, the slippery slide had begun. Someone 

had plumbed the depths of his dishonesty, and they’d soon be grappling for 

his sunken treasure. 

“It’s that bitch Dishy Isabella Ray. She’s put the finger on my Invisible 

Investment Novelty Trust Sandwich Scheme. All my clients want their 

money back! And they can’t get it ... because it’s not there. Benidorm’s 

declared himself bankrupt, and I daren’t risk going back home, or they’ll 

seize my ... takings ...” The jellified folds of his jowls wobbled in the 

seaman’s direction. “Of course, you’ll know all about this sort of thing, 

Taylor. I haven’t forgotten where I dredged up from. You’d be in Shit 

Creek if I hadn’t got you away from the Muckfinder General after your 

Grand Garibaldi Antimacassar Scam. Now it’s your turn to 

get off the hook!” 

But something was already stirring in the bilge-tanks of the sailor’s mind. 

Certain items were connecting up. He was familiar with the name of Dishy 

Isabella Ray. She was a plain-clothed princess of accountancy; the 

undercover Duchess of Fraud. Her red-haired ferocity was legendary. 

Indeed, many an unwary privateer had been lured to his doom by the 

glamour of her “business trappings” which concealed hidden rocks of 

investigative bookkeeping, ever circled by the sharks of retribution. 

Sailor Jack Taylor saluted the Boss. “Aye-aye Cap’n. Leave everything to 

me, Sir.” 

“Good man, Taylor. You may go below to ponder your plans.” 

Taylor clicked the heels of his wellies, and did as he was bidden. He made 

straight for the yacht’s hold, negotiating the ladders with practised ease, 

though never loosening his grip on the coiled rope of the handrails. 

However, when he got there, he didn’t find it so easy picking his way among 

the crates, sacks and netted bundles of assorted bric-a-brac with which the 

space was filled. No matter where he was, Crockafellah liked to take some of 

his so-called “stock-in-trade” with him as “moveable collateral”: toys, games 

like ludo and snakes ’n’ ladders, clocks, mirrors, lamp-stands, you name it. 

Taylor spat with disdain. He knew fine that Crockafellah’s stock-intrade 

was gullible investors in his get-rich-quick disaster packages. As for 

this “treasure trove”, none of it was worth tuppence. What about the wages 

of the crew, now that was down the tubes 

He concealed himself among the cargo, and began rolling up the sleeve of 

his seaman’s sweater. The fresh new colours of the MY OLD MAN’S A 

DUSTMAN tattoo shone out bright and clear in the beams of a miniature 

battery-powered lighthouse. Without pausing for thought, he whipped a 

huge clasp-knife out of a pocket and slashed fiercely across the indelible 

message. He flinched as the red smear spread along his forearm, then 

hissed through gritted teeth: 

“I swear on the blood of my ancestors that I’ll be no man’s slave! With the 


lade of this knife, I make a pact with Destiny to get the better of 

Maximilian Crockafellah and claim that prize which truly is my own!” 

* 

“Jumpin’ Jack Flash an’ it’s a GAS, GAS, GAS!” The next morning saw the 

sunny side of Sailor Taylor. He and Peg-Leg Marzipan, his companion of the 

waves, were at the stern of the 

, each holding an end of a vast 

tarpaulin-covered mass which they were rocking back and forth between 

them. “Splish, splash, I wuz havin’ a bath!” sang Taylor merrily, as the 

unwieldy article began to gather the momentum needed to carry it clear of 

the stern rail. “Happy days are here again!” They swayed in unison, keeping 

time with the rhythm of the song. At length, they let go of their burden on a 

high up-swing, and out it sailed in a smooth arc, to hit the water with a 

wallowing crash — at once violent and lazy. 

“That’ll give the mermaids something to play with!” sniggered Peg-Leg. 

“Roll over, Moby-Dick, here comes a meaty man o’ war!” 

“Wait till they find out he’s at the male menopause...” 

It had come to Sailor Jack in a flash of inspiration. It was the lighthouse 

lamp-stand that had given him the idea. He’d been surprised by the heat it 

had given out against his slashed arm. And then he’d remembered a certain 

“curiosity” he’d picked up on his travels. A native of one of the secluded little 

islands they’d visited in the South Seas had sold him a special black magic 

compound which vaporised at high temperatures and released a fatal toxin 

into the immediate surrounding atmosphere. Maximilian Crockafellah 

always slept with a nite-lite on. 

It had been easy to slip into the master cabin on the pretext of “arranging 

the Boss’s affairs”, and then to smear the bunk-side lamp-bulb with some of 

this compound. Nobody took any notice. Next morning, Crockafellah was 

found dead, with all the visible symptoms of six or seven rare and horrible 

tropical diseases. Hence the hasty and undignified funeral arrangements. 

From the bridge, the dawn watch yelled a solemn farewell orison: 

“Fat Bastard Overboard! Fat Bastard Overboard!” 

That certainly took care of all the Boss’s problems, though it left Taylor 

wondering what next move would be. Most of the crew genuinely 

thought the old tyrant had succumbed to something seriously catching — so 

the lifeboats were manned with all speed, and away they went in the 

direction of the Carmelite Islands, like rats from a stricken ship. Sailor Jack 

could only pray that they’d endeavour to cover up their own dereliction of 

duty, and somehow satisfy the authorities on land. But, even assuming the 

“disease” scare subsided once further symptoms failed to materialise among 

the men, the mysterious disappearance of Maximilian Crockafellah still 

remained to be explained. No one ashore would believe that he’d simply 


fallen overboard …would they 

Time would tell. Meanwhile, Jack had a phone call to make. The 

was fitted with a helicopter landing-pad. This was going to prove 

most helpful to his designs. His call was over in seconds — he had to keep it 

short, in case the creditors were tapping into the matrix. Nor did 

they have long to wait before the cacophony of rotor blades could be heard 

approaching from somewhere out in the azure yonder. 

“I knew she’d be at the Grand Carmelite Hotel, Peg-Leg! Apparently she 

was ‘in conference’ at the Paparazzi Pool. But if my ears don’t deceive me, 

here comes the lady now — Dishy Isabella Ray in her flying tadpole!” 

The Duchess of Fraud touched down with ease. As she manoeuvred her 

broadside out of the chopper, it was clear she had left the “conference” in a 

hurry. She still had her swimsuit on, and Peg-Leg couldn’t take his eyes off 

her bulging bulwarks. He only hoped his pacemaker could take the strain. 

She was keen to go below straight away, to inspect the hold. After years 

investigating ’s shady deals, she thought she had finally tracked 

down the gold at the end of Crockafellah’s rainbow. Boy, was she 

disappointed when she discovered all the toys and novelties! 

“This stuff is crap,” she said coldly. Her fierce green eye-beams pierced 

Taylor to the quick, stripping his assets right down to the lead-lined 

jockstrap. “Mind you, considering he ran his business like a game of 

Monopoly, I shouldn’t have expected to find any money.” 

“These are the only pieces of eight round here, I’m afraid,” said Jack, 

reaching out his left arm to pluck a parrot-shaped mirror from a batch of 

merchandise. Dishy Isabella Ray caught her breath as she saw the tattoo 

which the movement revealed. 

“A dustman knew my great, great grandmother,” she confided. “Though 

probably only in the biblical sense … I can’t quite make out the design … 

Have you cut yourself” 

Jack began muttering something about careless shaving in a storm, when 

Peg-Leg Marzipan, who had been keeping a steady lookout on the heavy 

swell of bosom beneath the fabric of Isabella’s costume, suddenly keeled 

over in a severe state of shivered timbers. They tried all they could to revive 

him, but his heart had given out. With a last longing look at the fo’c’sle of 

the Duchess of Fraud, he expired. 

“Mermaids don’t wear vests,” he had sighed at the end. 

Back in the dry dock of his bed-sit flat, Sailor Taylor remembered how 

they had rigged out the body with Maximilian Crockafellah’s fancy eyepatch 

and pirate hat, and left it propped up in the wheel-house to add 

confusion to the mystery of the tycoon’s fate. Then, as soon as they had 

concluded their negotiations, they had abandoned ship in the helicopter. 

Taylor watched as the receded into the aquamarine distance. 

“Just like the 

,” he remarked to his red-headed pilot, “cast 


adrift because of ‘mildew on the beam’.” 

And the rest, as they say, is history. Everything just seemed to fall into 

place. As public speculation grew, concerning the disappearance of the 

mogul, Dishy Isabella Ray and Able Seaman Jack Taylor were quick 

to cash in by setting up the infamous FAT BASTARD OVERBOARD! 

newspaper lottery game. As official receiver for the Crockafellah business 

consortium, the Duchess of Fraud had taken control of Benidorm’s tabloid 

organ, 

, along with his late father’s long-distance coach 

company and various other ill-assorted commercial enterprises. The lottery 

game, with its “Pieces Of Eight” tokens and “Find The Hidden Skull” eyepatch 

scratch cards, promised a dream holiday for two in the Carmelite 

Islands as first prize, with shares in for the runners-up. 

Taylor had felt the boat begin to rock when she and Benidorm actually 

won the dream holiday. But when later announced that 

Dishy Isabella Ray was about to marry into the Carmelite aristocracy, and 

sell their joint holdings to the rapacious Eddie Beaconsfield Complex, all the 

sailor’s hopes of fortune faded. In due course, he found himself reduced to 

this sad bed-sitter in a seedy seaside town, where he now sat huddled by 

the electric fire, with his hand upon his genealogical tattoo. 

“Whar be all me shipmates now, Perky” he asked the mirror. “You’re me 

only keepsake of a life’s travails. Oh, how am I to salvage something of my 

soul Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s a pretty Perky, then” 

A sudden noise made him turn. A piece of paper had been shoved 

beneath the door. What could it mean Had someone discovered the truth 

about Crockafellah he had deserved to die, but what if one of the 

crew members had squawked Then again, there was the Garibaldi 

Antimacassar matter. There would be no amnesty from the Muckfinder 

General. 

, after all. 

He picked up the paper with shaking fingers. It was addressed to “Jolly 

Jack Taylor, Esq.” and the message was brief: 

“SET SAIL FOR LONDON — DO NOT PASS .” 

Under the words, he saw a small dark blob. Was this the ominous “black 

spot” Or was it just a patch of smudged treacle What was going on He 

sensed a new move forward in the chequered board-game of his fate. Well, 

he was ready. 

“Aye-aye! Heave-ho, me hearties!” he cried aloud. 

It was time to weigh anchor, and sling his hook. 


Ty Rey 

I saw the best minds of my Yale career destroyed by Warcraft, 

fanatical lonely obsessed, 

dragging themselves through Elm City alleys at uneven hours 

searching for lost exams, 

angelheaded disciples in anticipation of post-zeitgeist 

Morrisonian ideals held, nay entombed, in crowded graves of Paris, 

who apathetic sunk into torpor and Bedlam with 

highway markers at the tails of languid cigarettes 

contemplating Boss recollections, 

who fried their brains in sacrifice to dirty gods under 

Tungsten lamps threaded on blotchy ceilings 

who passed (sic) through the University with fractured signatures 

of benevolent Deans and parental reprimands, 

“who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear” granting 

for the love of chaos, the anarchy of filth, 

who got busted by Ticket Nazis of Highs and Dukes 

of York, 

who bagged Epicurean subsistences for over-qualified, 

over-patronizing literary didacts, 

who sank like weights into tedious routines, and scavenged 

the Breadbasket in sticky diners, 

who HAL-ed on old campuses in the dastardly New Haven 

miasma, looking through bloodshot eyes for a gleam of salvation, 

who sought Tangiers, or InterZone, or Neither in crippled 

townie bastardizations of ball-in-hand, corner-pocket sanctuaries 

—and such— 

who envisaged the breath of dynamic instabilities, 

and at ANYtime A.M. closed the door, creased the 

covers, ran from bleakness, and in their failures 

succeeded, 

who, with 50-mission stares, obligated themselves to 

mass productions of Eros and applause, 

and who, in compassions, weeped the fires— 

out. 


Jonathan Wort (School of Business Studies, Culture and 

Tourism Division, New University of South Woodford, UK). 

The following remarkable and hitherto unknown poem by W.B. Yeats was 

written on the inside cover of a copy of Baron Von Schrenck Notzing’s 

, translated by E. E. Fournier d’Albe, and published 

by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co. Ltd., London, 1920. 1 Both the 

signature (“Willie”) and the handwriting have been authenticated by Seamus 

Hobsbaum, a leading Yeats scholar and an old friend of the Yeats family. 2 

There is no reason to suppose that the date appended to the poem (April, 

1915) is not the date on which the poem was written. 3 Forensic scientists 

are currently analysing an ink sample, and the brand of ballpoint pen 

favoured by Yeats will almost certainly be identified in time for the next 

issue of 

For further details, the reader is advised to turn to the extensive notes 

appended to the poem. 

1 Suddenly, in Paris, I saw upon Eva’s shoulder 

2 While day-dreaming of fifty-seven swans 

3 A curious materialised form. Madame Bisson 

4 Half-closed the curtains. I sat 

5 Quietly in front of the cabinet. Paris, France, 

6 Where dancers like to dance. 

7 This is no country for old loons 

8 In aerostats at night. At night! 

9 A white patch moved in the dark, 

10 I leaned forwards, held Eva’s hands. 

11 Beheld, twenty inches from Eva’s head, 

12 A sort of face which seemed to look at me. 

13 Turning and twisting in that cabinet 

14 Eva could not hear my questions. She 

15 Extended her hands and screamed. 

16 As if it was a scene I’d dreamed. 


17 Things fell apart; the curtain could not hold, 

18 A flowerpot fell of a shelf. Nine already! 

19 I undid my necktie. Felt unsteady. 

20 Recovered, Eva removed her clothes 

21 And sat naked in front of me. There followed 

22 A series of remarkable phenomena. 

23 A large, flat, dark-grey patch appeared upon 

24 Each breast, white at the rims, remaining there 

25 For some considerable time. Then, slowly, 

26 It disappeared in the direction of her navel. 

27 In the left ovarial region was joined 

28 A large black ball-shaped structure. 

29 It folded itself at right angles to the axis 

30 Of Eva’s body, and formed a broad band 

31 Extending from hip to hip beneath her navel. 

32 This apparition then folded up and disappeared 

33 Up her vagina. Eva parted her thighs. I saw 

34 That the material assumed a curious shape, 

35 Resembling an orchid. It decreased, swelled 

36 And once more entered in. Eva said, “Wait! 

37 We will try and facilitate the passage!” 

38 She sat upon my arm-rest, parted her 

39 Plump French thighs. A mass some eight inches long 

40 Manifested itself. As I bent forwards, Eva grunted, 

41 Moaned, and fell into a shuddering faint. 

42 The phenomena ceased. The sitting closed at ten. 

43 I sit for hours and think upon these things 

44 Without finding the least explanation. 

45 And now my rump is sore. All’s bright again. 

46 Once more the wind is blowing, and so 

47 I will arise and go now, for 

48 The hour is late. I feel a sudden spasm, 

49 A strange ache. I know that I shall meet my mate 

50 Somewhere amid life’s shining ectoplasm. 

51 Cast a bold eye on Fife, on Neath. 

52 When I am dead, I’ll be back 

53 To pester Eva, just you wait and see. 

54 Parisian, sceptic, Norseman, piss here! 

55 See if I care. I am a windy 

56 Apparition of the night, of the air, 

57 Entranced by Eva, bare. 


1 Baron von Schrenck Notzing was at that time a practising physician in 

the German city of Munich, later to become famous for its so-called 

“agreement”. The translator, Fournier d’Albe, a D.Sc. (Lond. and Birm.), was 

the author of , , and 

. The frontispiece of the volume bears the following booksellers’ 

label: . 

2. Hobsbaum’s , and are 

sadly out of print but are very well known to scholars of Eiro-Scotch 

literature. 

3. At that moment in time the First World War was, of course, raging, as 

Jeremy Hobsborn observes in his book 

, “furiously”. 

As this poem is about paranormal experiences it is impossible to 

ignore the strangely prophetic nature of this title in relation to a very sad 

event which shook the whole world at the end of the summer of 1997! Of 

this no more need be said, other than to recognise it. As Wordsworth said, 

some things are just too awesome and deep for words. 

Famous Frank Sinatra film prophesying the assassination 

of JFK. Note the skill with which Yeats thrusts the reader into the heat of 

the action. Yeats almost certainly intended the reader to have in his mind 

his famous assertion — an aesthetic in a nutshell — that “the end of art is 

peace. And the pursuit of art is like the pursuit of religion in the intense 

preoccupation it demands”. See: W. B. Yeats, Quoted by Sean O’Hagan, 

sleeve notes to (Mute, 1998), p. 

17. 

Possibly a reference to a small town in Texas, but more 

probably the famous French city, home of Napoleon and many other historic 

figures. The cubic mass of the Paris opera house is 4,287,000 feet. 

A famous French medium, who found that communication with 

the spirits was best achieved naked, and who attracted a considerable 

following of impartial questers after the truth of immortality. 

An allusion to Greek myth. Dr. Heinz Benz points 


out in that fifty-seven was commonly held to be 

a lucky number in the Athens of the third century. 

Eva’s controller and guide and the author of 

seventeen illustrated chapbooks about the after-life. She also took the 

money at the door. 

A type of pre-printed French airmail letter. 

The poem in a nutshell. 

Ectoplasm. See also line 50. 

Possibly an umbrella. For many 

centuries the umbrella was in common use in China and Japan (home of 

the haiku, a possible influence on this poem) before its introduction into 

London by Jonas Hanway, a friend of Thackeray. For some years it was 

considered effeminate and ridiculous to use an umbrella. Hanway later 

discovered that when the multiplier is 3 figures, 2 of which can be evenly 

divided by the 3rd, then only the two partial multiplications need be used, 

greatly simplifying the process. Line 2 obviously alludes to this. 

Region in Scotland famous for its learning. Ptarmigan may be 

shot there between August 20 and December 10. 

Capital of Bavaria 

Strange kind of marine animal commonly sighted in the 

Bay of Biscay during the nineteenth century. 

A small award made under the New Enterprise, Modern Training and 

Labour Camp Council’s “Blue Riband Scheme for Academic Excellence and 

Marketing Achievement” proved invaluable in allowing me to pursue my 

researches in Dublin and Dalkey. My colleague Seamus Hobsbaum kindly 

read this article and offered many incomparable insights. Dr. Pauline Quick 

also made a number of suggestions, not all of which I have taken up. 

Responsibility for any mistakes in this article must, of course, rest entirely 

with them, bearing in mind the late Northrop Fish’s famous that “it 

is always easier to proof-read for others than for oneself.” 

Credit for discovering this new poem by W. B. Yeats is entirely mine and 

mine alone and no one else’s, and all rights, including those of an notation 


and interpretation are reserved. No reproduction, copy, transmission or 

critical questioning of this feature may be made without my written 

permission. No paragraph, page, sentence, phrase, word, full stop, comma, 

hyphen, colon or semi-colon may in any way whatsoever be reproduced, 

copied or transmitted save with written permission, strictly in conformity 

with the provisions of the Copyright Act of 1956 (as amended by the 

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988), or under the terms of any licence 

permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 19 

Tottenham Mews, Penge. 

I, Dr. Jonathan Wort, bachelor of this realm, identify myself as the sole 

author of this work in accordance with section 77 of the Copyrights, Designs 

and Patents Act. Any person of whatever gender, ethnicity or deviationist 

tendencies who does any unauthorised act in relation to this feature may be 

liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. 

Finally, I wish to express my profoundly profound and deep sense of 

gratitude to Snodgrass Supermarkets PLC for sponsoring me as the 

Snodgrass Lecturer in Literary Commodities and Marketing at the New 

University of South Woodford, 1998-1999. Had he lived longer I am 

convinced that William Butler Yeats would himself have been a Snodgrass 

loyalty platinum card holder. The recent extension of opening hours to 

midnight would surely have proved a real boon to Yeats, who often kept 

irregular hours and was sadly obliged to write many of his greatest works in 

a draughty stone tower, far from the warm, brightly lit aisles so familiar to 

today’s Snodgrass customers. I hope I will not be accused of bias if I make a 

hearty personal recommendation of the South Woodford branch of 

Snodgrass Supermarkets, which is conveniently located at the end of the 

M11 motorway, just twenty minutes drive from the M25. Customers who 

download this article and present it at the check-out will be entitled to £2 off 

each copy purchased of Ted Hughes’ 


Alexander George 

In this note, I shall describe a hitherto undetected “error” in Arthur 

Koestler’s 

, one that seems to render the narrative 

internally incoherent. I shall then present newly discovered evidence 

establishing that it was in fact deliberately introduced into the text by the 

author in furtherance of very private ends. 

The reader will recall that the old Bolshevi k, Rubashov, awaits his fate in 

a Soviet prison camp. He is kept in cell No. 404, other even-numbered cells 

to his left and right, and, across from him, separated by a corridor, a row of 

odd-numbered cells. The novel begins: “The cell door slammed behind 

Rubashov”, and continues: “On the bed to his right...” 1 This is crucial, for 

after we learn that cell No. 402 lies just beyond the wall by his bed: “He 

tried the other wall, which separated him from No. 402, next to his bed” 

(19/26). Putting these together, we infer that No. 402 is on Rubashov’s left 

when he faces his door from inside his cell. Since we know he is between 

No. 402 and No. 406, it follows that No. 406 is to his right. And indeed we 

find this conclusion confirmed throughout the text, e.g.: “To his 

astonishment, the stifled wave was carried on to the right. through No. 406 

and beyond.” (114/115). 

An internal contradiction seems to be generated because in one passage 

No. 406 is inexplicably described as being on Rubashov’s It follows in 

full: “Since the morning of the tenth day after Rubashov’s arrest, his new 

neighbour to the left, the occupant of No. 406, tapped out the same line at 

regular intervals, always with the same spelling mistake: 'ARIE' instead of 

'ARISE'" (98/99). This passage is especially intriguing because in it our 

attention is explicitly drawn to a of the prisoner in No. 406. 

What explanation can we supply for this strange discrepancy Its 

significance will be downplayed by someone who places great emphasis on 

the admittedly unusual circumstances of composition of 

at 

It is known that Koestler, in 1940 in Paris, then an alien with a Communist 

Party past, completed the manuscript with a suitcase at his bedside, ready 

to be deported at a moment’s notice. Koestler was also suffering financial 

hardships and had to break off his work to write a sex book under the pen 

name “Dr Costler”. 3 The novel was eventually finished and the completed 

manuscript was quickly translated from German to English by Daphne 

Hardy, with whom Koestler was having an affair, and sent to Jonathan Cape, 

his English publisher in London on May 1. Koestler was deported soon 

after, but made his way, via Lisbon, back to London, where he was detained 

by the British authorities at Pentonville prison. It was there he received the 


page-proofs for 

and corrected them. 4 Koestler was known 

to be extremely thorough and exacting in his proof-reading, but it might be 

claimed that these extraordinary conditions led to what was in fact nothing 

more than an inadvertent slip in composition and proofing. 

And there matters would have rested had it not been for a letter from 

Koestler that appeared on the auction block at Sotheby’s in London in 

1991. 5 The letter, dated “29/ii/77” and addressed “Dear Matthilda,” was 

written by Koestler to an ex-lover from the 1930s with whom he had kept in 

sporadic contact over the years. Most of the letter, extending his 

condolences to her for the recent death of her husband, consists in reminiscences. 

At one point, Koestler writes the following: 

An interviewer at the house recently, asking about the genesis of . 

Made me think back to that lunch at Simpson’s.—That must have been 

your choice! “Do as the English do,” was your motto then, right I haven’t 

been back since. And you—It was there that you convinced me to go with 

D’s title rather than the original. What a struggle though: mine pointed 

the way to the personal root, a torment then because of the news from 

Baku. And I was right at least in this sense: no one to my knowledge has 

ever spotted it. But more importantly, I think you were right that at the 

time it was best to bury the matter about N— healthier, you said. I didn’t 

mention any of this to the interviewer. 

Koestler is here referring to the fact that the novel’s actual title was 

suggested to him by Daphne Hardy. Its original title was 6 

But in what way might this provide “the personal root” of the novel 

Through the help of longtime friends of Koestler, the present author was 

able to trace the whereabouts of Matthilda Plesch, the recipient of the letter, 

who was at the time residing in a public institution for the elderly on the 

outskirts of Bournemouth. She granted this author permission to interview 

her in connection with her relationship to Koestler. Some of her remarks 

shed as much light as we can expect to get on the subject of our inquiry. 

They also speak for themselves and so we shall simply conclude by quoting 

them. 

AG: Can you clarify what Koestler was referring to when he wrote of his 

“torment" 

MP: Arthur suffered a great deal for what he thought he’d done to 

Nadeshda— 

AG: Is that whom he was referring to by “N” 

MIP: Yes, Nadeshda Smirnova. They were lovers when he was in Baku 

sometime in the early thirties. Nadeshda — this is what Arthur said: I 

never met her of course — Nadeshda was apparently prone to irrational 

attacks of jealousy — again, this is what Arthur claimed: if any man could 

drive a woman to such a state, it was Arthur. Could you spare a cigarette. 


y the way 

AG: Why, certainly. 

MP: Thank you. Yes, well, anyway, one day Arthur discovered that a 

telegram be had received the day before had been taken from his jacket. 

A week or so later — the relationship had already broken up and Arthur 

was heading out of town — he was stopped by the secret police. They 

asked him about her and said that she and her mother were being 

investigated for espionage activities. Arthur told me that he immediately 

thought back to the telegram incident and informed them about it. He 

regretted it the moment he finished his sentence, because of course he 

knew why she’d really done it. But by then it was too late. 

AG: What do you mean “too late” 

MP: Well, I’m sure they took her away. Arthur thought so also, though no 

one knows for sure. His subsequent letters to her were never answered. 7 

AG: But Koestler writes of “news from Baku”. Do you know what he was 

referring to 

MP: No, no, I don’t. I just don’t remember. Perhaps he heard that she’d 

been imprisoned. But I don’t recall him telling me that. 

AG: How does this incident concerning Nadeshda relate to 

, the original title of 

MP: Oh, that was Arthur’s private joke — well, joke is not the right word, 

really. You see, he felt he’d betrayed Nadeshda, that this act of betrayal 

was what his allegiance to the Party had led to. He was very depressed 

about it for quite some time He accused himself of having gone so far over 

to the political left, that he had come round full circle and was behaving 

like an unscrupulous rightist. 

AG: And that’s why he first titled the book 

NIP: Yes, yes. Of course, he also thought it reflected more overt political 

themes in the book, but, yes, it had personal relevance too. In fact, I 

would say that was primary. 

AG: But you suggested he change the title 

MIP: Yes, I did. In the end — there was much arguing, mind you — but in 

the end, he did change it. He wouldn’t drop the circularity of the cells 

though, which— 

AG: “The circularity of the cells” 

NIP: Yes. Somewhere in the book — I can’t remember where now — one of 

Rubashov’s neighbours is described as being on his right, when 

previously he had been described as being on his left. Or maybe it’s the 

other way around. I don't really recall. Well, you can’t get to the cell on 

your left by heading off toward the right unless the cells are arranged to 

form a circle. I didn’t spot this, mind you. Who would Arthur told me. He 

was like that. He enjoyed setting puzzles of that sort. Especially when 

they had some kind of emotional symbolism too. Didn’t really matter to 

him if nobody caught on to them. 

AG: So, you might say that it was a crypto-textual memorial to the novel’s 


“personal root”, as he called it in his letter to you. 

MP: Well, yes — could I bother you for one more cigarette Thank you 

ever so much, you’re very kind — yes, you might put it that way, yes. 8 

1. Bantam Books, 1986, p. 1/9. The book was originally 

published in Britain by Jonathan Cape in 1940. Page references to the 

British edition (Penguin Books, 1985) appear after the backslash. 

2. The error is not one of translation, for the passage in the original German 

reads: “Seit dem Morgen des zehnten Tages nach Rubaschows Verhaftung 

klopfte sein neuer Nechbar zur , der Insasse von No. 406, in 

Abständen immer den gleichen Vers, mit immer dem gleichen 

orthographischen Fehler, ‘BÜRDER’ anstatt ‘BRÜDER’.” 

(London, Hamish Hamilton, 1946, italics added. 

3. He had already written two in the mid-1930s: 

and . 

4. For further particulars, see Iain Hamilton, (London, 

Macmillan, 1982). 

5. The letter was purchased by an anonymous collector who was kind 

enough to make a copy available to the author. 

6. Hamilton, p. 49. 

7. Mark Levene reports Koestler’s remarking that “During my seven years in 

the Communist party, the only person whom I denounced or betrayed was 

Nadeshda, and she was the person dearer to me than anybody during those 

seven years.” See (New York, Frederick Ungar, 1984) p. 13. 

8. For a fuller account and a complete transcript of the interview, see my 

"Recollections of Koestler", 

, vol. XVI, no. 1 (January 

1999), pp. 15-27. [Note added in proof: as this article was going to press, 

the author learned that Matthilda Plesch died in December 1998.] 


James Rainolds (Humanities Research Centre, Holdness 

College, New Mexico 27468, USA) 

A. Todorov and S. Berttin’s monumental survey of medieval Bulgarian 

vernacular and Latin literature, completed in 1990 (Sofia, Bulgarian 

Academy of Sciences, Scripta maiora 131-2, 2 vols.), has hitherto been 

known distantly by repute, rather than read by medievalists in the 

Anglophone world, given that few Anglo-American medievalists nowadays 

are competent in Bulgarian (though the work did contain succinct 

summaries in Polish of its main arguments). But the recent and welcome 

publication of the Spanish translation of this work, by Pedro Sannazar at 

Barcelona in 1996, the 

, as it is generally known, has at last opened up this important 

topic to the generality of western medievalists. Bulgaria had of course always 

occupied a significant position in the history and literature of the Middle 

Ages. On the fringes of the Roman Empire, and with many connections to 

the world first of the Byzantine and later of the Ottoman empires, it also 

conveniently straddled the land trade routes from the southern 

Mediterranean and North Africa to those northern Christian communities 

on the periphery of the medieval world, the present day Sweden and 

Norway. Precisely for this reason, medieval Bulgarian studies have never 

suffered from the parochialism and narrowly vernacular-based approach 

that so characterises all too many Medieval Centres today, particular after 

their explosive growth on both sides of the Atlantic in the last decade. (I am 

informed that one can now do one-year taught MA courses in Medieval 

Studies in no fewer than thirty-seven British universities.) 

The importance of medieval Latin for medieval Bulgarian studies has 

been strongly emphasised for over half a century, in part for political 

reasons, one must admit. Iona Pallbarra, an influential founder member of 

the Bulgarian Communist Party, was not only a great admirer of the 

classical learning of Karl Marx, but himself a keen student of medieval Latin 

and, by 1948, as influential Second Secretary of the Party, and Praesidium 

member with special responsibility for Higher Education, he poured money 

into the (Sofia, 

1946-, in progress), into the prestigious Bulgarian Medieval Studies 


Institute, and into the renowned editions of vernacular and Latin medieval 

Bulgarian texts series, the 

, which has now 

made available scholarly editions of some 135 Bulgarian vernacular writers 

and 3200 medieval Latin ones, this figure reflecting the approximate 

proportions of the extant material between the two languages. Pallbarra also 

made competence in Latin a precondition for the study of medieval 

Bulgarian. As a result of this inflexible line, which was contemporaneous of 

course with the authoritarian days of Bulgarian Communism, more is 

known about the relationships between Latin and the vernacular in 

Bulgaria than for any other European country, since it simply was not 

possible to study the medieval vernacular without first acquiring a 

reasonable competence in medieval Latin. There has thus never been a 

tradition in Bulgaria (unlike England, say), of neglecting the national 

literary heritage because it was not in the national language. 

Yet paradoxically it becomes clear straightaway from this newly translated 

study that the country which evidences the clearest analogue to medieval 

Bulgarian literature is in fact England, which in its own maritime way also 

straddled the trade routes and served as an important mart facilitating 

interchange of all types, commercial, literary, cultural and intellectual. The 

English too, like the Bulgarians, were great travellers, and were well-known 

in the Middle Ages for their hospitality to strangers, being thus unusually 

open to influences from abroad. Of all European countries, only England 

and Bulgaria produced a thriving and extensive vernacular literature in the 

period before the middle of the eleventh century. The anonymous 

is the most significant extant pre-1100 vernacular poem after ; and 

in Bulgaria as in England there is a rich tradition of pious and devotional 

writing both Latin and vernacular, and of translation into the vernacular of 

Latin works, e.g. Orosius’s translated into Old English by King 

Alfred and into Old Bulgarian by the Anonymous of Vrada. Writers in both 

countries also cultivated the elaborate hermeneutic Latin style, typified in 

England by Aldhelm of Malmesbury, in Bulgaria by Dagobert of Dennja, a 

style which was in both cases so superior to the corrupt latinity of say the 

Merovingian courts. Strikingly, both Aldhelm and Dagobert wrote important 

and influential collections of or riddles, a genre which remained 

popular with Latin writers down to the seventeenth century (see, for 

example, the massive collection of Nicholas Reusner, the , 

Frankfurt, 1599). After the middle of the eleventh century, both countries 

witnessed a great renaissance of Latin. The dominance and importance of 

the Anglo-Latin writers of the Angevin empire is known to some extent; but 

it is clear from this new study that the Bulgarian writers of the period were 

equally dominant in eastern Europe. In part this must be explained by the 

well-known educational reforms of Boris the Fat in 1160, which totally 

transformed the educational system, opened it up to a wider range of 


children, and placed a high value on the study of both religious Christian 

[Orthodox] writings and on epic poetry championing the virtues of the 

Bulgarian peoples, primarily in Latin, but also in the vernacular. At the 

same time, just as in England a great deal of writing in Anglo-Norman and 

French is extant, so many Bulgarian writers wrote poems not only in a 

Bulgarian dialect strongly influenced by Old High German, but also in the 

challenging , a Bulgarian dialect of the thirteenth-century Magyar 

tongue. (The interface between Middle English and Medieval Welsh is 

roughly parallel to this.) 

What emerges from this exciting book is the strong probability, indeed 

the virtual certainty, of the significant impact of medieval Bulgarian models 

on middle English literature. Here Waldemar of Carinthia, who spent some 

years in both countries, is undoubtedly one of the key figures. The discovery 

in 1985 in the remote town museum of Gradzkal of twenty-five manuscript 

volumes of his voluminous Latin correspondence, hitherto thought lost, was 

a significant event, whose importance has scarcely yet been recognised by 

English scholars. It is now clear, for example, that this indefatigable 

polymath and traveller knew many details of the lost collection of pilgrimage 

stories by the great vernacular Bulgarian poet Bougerrova, whose 

significance for the world of Chaucer and middle English scholarship was 

recognised only very recently, when some of his admittedly difficult writings 

in the Magyar-influenced early fourteenth-century dialect of Bulgarian 

(though well-known across Europe at the time in contemporary but now no 

longer extant Latin versions), were made available at last to the international 

scholarly community in the new plain-text Latin translations of the 

Bulgarian Medieval Institute ( , Sofia, Bulgarian 

Academy of Sciences, Scriptores Medii Aevi, series secunda, 186-9, 1989). 

The similarities between Bougerrova’s and 

, to give but one obvious example, will be readily apparent to 

every Chaucerian. Waldemar’s great interest in fables and narrative also 

comes across clearly in his correspondence and his voluminous observations 

are of the very greatest interest for literary scholarship. One wonders, for 

example, who was the “Frater Ioannes” of Leominster, with whom he 

discussed a poem which seems very like an earlier analogue of , and 

precisely where Waldemar was present at the performance of a play by the 

Strigian Sisters (the 

). Waldemar’s correspondence contains 

many such anecdotes and accounts of literary discussions, whose precise 

significance now awaits elucidation by English scholars. The is full 

of such 

too many to list here. Clearly some knowledge of the 

medieval Bulgarian literary scene will be essential for English medievalists 

from now onwards. 

There is much of interest in this volume for other areas of medieval 

literary study too. The of Borisius Zirkoius, the 


satirical dialogue in which three doctors of law, medicine and theology 

debate putting to death three representative females of the time, a gossip, a 

whore and a woman who is “pushy” (the 

, a 

portrait which clearly owes a lot to Juvenal’s sixth satire) will both delight 

and appal the feminists, whilst the same author’s must 

surely significantly modify much conventional wisdom about thirteenth - 

century optics and theories of illumination. Discussions of economic theory 

in the of Nikolaus Morodov clearly owe much to the author’s 

unusual knowledge of medieval coinage, and may have influenced the much 

better known later treatise of the same title by Nicholas Oresme. The book is 

full of such insights. It is not too much to say that this book will — or should 

— both transform and inform western medieval studies, particularly the 

middle English literary scene. Learned, stimulating, witty, accurate and a 

mine of information, it will set the agenda for the next generation of middle 

English scholars, and should be in every university library and on the 

shelves of every English medievalist. It remains only to add that the 

translation, so far as this writer can judge the matter, is a masterly one. 


Ronald Binns 

James Annesley, . 

Pluto Press, London, 1999. Paperback; 175pp; ISBN 0-7453-1090-7; £12.99. 

Josh Cohen, Spectacular Allegories: 

Pluto Press, London, 1999. Paperback; 169pp; ISBN 0-7453-1207-1; £12.99. 

These matching paperbacks examine different strands in postmodern 

American fiction. James Annesley focuses on the so-called “blank fiction” 

associated with Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney, while Josh Cohen 

examines the work of Robert Coover, Joan Didion, Stephen Dixon, James 

Ellroy, Jerzy Kosinski and Norman Mailer. Annesley writes in a cool, lucid 

style slightly reminiscent of the fiction he discusses, whereas Cohen’s book 

reads like a polished Ph.D thesis and is dense with quotation from other 

critics and theorists. 

Each book has a central argument to make. Annesley sets out to defend 

blank fiction from the charge that it is superficial and trivial, asserting that 

it at times engages critically with the consumerism it ostensibly celebrates. 

Cohen defines “postmodern America” as being dominated by 

“spectacularisation” in which there is a struggle between a “masculine” 

visual consciousness and “feminised” mass culture, resulting in an 

“allegorical impulse” in postmodern narrative. 

I found Annesley’s book much the more readable of the two. He has a 

brisk no-nonsense style and wears his theory lightly. “You might not be 

sure what it is, but you can be sure that it’s out there,” he be gins, going on 

to identify the “blank” aesthetic to be found in contemporary fiction, 

magazines, confessional biographies and rock music. At its core is an 

interest in at least two or three (and often all) of the themes of extreme 

violence, sexual excess, boredom and indolence, drugs, style and 

fashionable commodities. The tone and style of this aesthetic is usually cool, 

detached, deadpan, deliberately superficial. In fiction, various labels have 

been attached to it: the “fiction of insurgency”, “new narrative”, “blank 

generation fiction”, “downtown writing”, “punk fiction”, and the one favoured 

by Annesley, “blank fiction.” 

It is primarily an American mode and in fiction is dominated by writers 

like Bret Easton Ellis, Jay McInerney, Donna Tartt, Susanna Moore and 

Douglas Coupland. Other blank writers discussed by Annesley include 

Sapphire, Mark Leyner, Ray Shell, Evelyn Lau, Dennis Cooper, Brian 

d’Amato, Richard Hell, Gary Indiana, Tama Janowitz, Lev Raphael, Susan 

Sontag, Lynne Tillman, and David Wojnarowicz. Annesley points out that a 


central reference point for these writers is the New York of the 1980s, “the 

world of cocaine, Wall Street, exotic eateries and major-label suits” — 

though “postmodern cultural forms” also include “the geography of Los 

Angeles, fast food and MTV”. Five key themes are identified and made the 

subject of a chapter each: violence, sex, shopping, labels and decadence. 

Often, the titles used for blank fiction defiantly assert its one-dimensional 

content: , , “Weird fucks”, 

. 

Annesley pays particular attention to Ellis’s (1991), 

widely condemned on first publication as, among other things, a “how to 

manual on the torture and dismemberment of women”. He argues that the 

novel satirises the consumerism and hyperreality of a media society, and 

that it has in fact “an intensely moral agenda”. However, Annesley rightly 

senses problems with Ellis’s satire, and proposes that “the culture [he] 

attacks is as much a product of his own imagination as a reflection on real 

conditions in late twentieth-century America”, and that the book’s use of the 

language of advertising and its interest in consumer products collaborates in 

the very processes of commercialisation it ostensibly attacks. 

Susanna Moore’s (1995) is interpreted by Annesley as an 

exemplary blank fiction about sexual excess. The novel concerns the 

experiences of a New York college lecturer who enjoys brutal, masochistic 

sex and who becomes entangled in a series of murders; at the end she 

coolly narrates her own murder. Annesley argues that Moore’s 

representation of commodified sexuality and her cinematographic style, 

which concerns itself with surfaces and how things look, expresses “the 

intensified levels of commodification generated by late capitalism”. 

The chapter on shopping examines the ways in which blank fiction’s 

treatment of sex and violence is integrated with contemporary commerce. 

Annesley examines in some detail Lynne Tillman’s fiction, especially 

(1991), about a nameless American woman’s wanderings in Europe 

and North Africa. He puts the novel into the context of the commodification 

of leisure and the role played in the book by shops, cafés, tourist sites and 

markets, and applauds Tillman for “her efforts to peel away the crust of 

commodified culture and reveal the material conditions lying beneath”. 

A recurrent criticism of blank fiction is that its obsession with consumer 

style is shallow, uncritical and parasitic. Annesley examines Bret Easton 

Ellis’s seminal 

(1985), concluding that the book is more 

subversive than it appears: “while offering a vision of a world dominated by 

an increasingly commodified culture, [it] finds itself still able to recognise 

the cracks and contradictions in this supposedly totalised edifice.” 

Blank fiction’s “decadent sensibility” is scrutinised in Douglas Coupland’s 

seminal “slacker” novel (1992), in which Annesley detects a 

central contradiction. The text is antagonistic to commercial culture but that 


antagonism is expressed in commodified terms; Coupland’s slackers resent 

middle-class affluence and lifestyles only because they themselves are 

excluded from it. 

Annesley concludes that blank fiction is reaching a bigger and bigger 

readership and becoming central to contemporary American culture. He 

forecasts that the work of writers like Ellis and Tillman will endure and that 

Dennis Cooper, author of gay blank fiction, including (1994), k 

(1991), (1989) and (199 4), will soon be established as a major 

American writer. He sees its influence spreading to the U.K., citing the work 

of Will Self, Helen Zavahi and Irvine Welsh. 

should be of interest to anyone who likes this kind of 

fiction or who is contemplating trying to write some themselves. It’s a 

shrewd, lively, well-written survey which introduces a range of writers, many 

of whom will probably be unknown to British readers. In the end, though, I 

was not really convinced that blank fiction is as subversive or as challenging 

as Annesley would have us believe. More persuasive is his claim that there is 

now a body of work which makes up a substantial sub-genre in 

contemporary fiction (though I’m a bit surprised Annesley doesn’t mention 

J.G. Ballard; (1973) is surely an outstanding example of blank fiction, 

arguably one of the very first). I only spotted two very minor errors in the 

book: the screenwriter Ethan Coen’s name is spelt wrongly and Catherine 

Texier appears as “Katherine” Texier (except in the index). And one minor 

quibble: when Annesley discusses Lev Raphael’s story “Betrayed by David 

Bowie” he seems unaware (or at any rate doesn’t mention) that this draws 

on Manuel Puig’s . 

is a much harder read and is strictly a book for 

those involved in the professional study of literature in higher education. 

This is Josh Cohen explaining what he means by allegorical narrative: 

Spectacular culture, this book will argue, is characterised by an opacity 

and indeterminacy which manifests itself in what I call an allegorical 

impulse. 

Allegorical narrative, in the sense intended here, is rooted in a 

discontinuous, non-linear experience of time famously theorised by 

Walter Benjamin in “Theses on the philosophy of history” and elsewhere. 

This conception of time has been influential on a number of 

contemporary theorists, including Christine Buci-Glucksmann and Craig 

Owens. 

As I have suggested, this allegorical model is different in a number of 

respects from Richard Godden’s more orthodoxly Marxist hermeneutics. 

For Godden, modern American fictional narratives are a means of 

metaphorically representing social experience. Taking up Paul Ricoeur’s 

definition of metaphor as the communicative meanings opened up by 


conflicting social intentions... 

And so on. In other words, this is a book for those immersed in deep theory. 

Personally I found that the endless recourse to other authorities and the 

clotted academic style created a curiously fuzzy, out-of-focus feel to Cohen’s 

arguments. All kinds of interesting insights flash up, only to get lost in a 

mist of abstraction. This is a pity, as when he gets his teeth into a fictional 

text he is a very interesting critic. His analysis of Mailer’s 

is provocative and engaging, and his interpretation of Kosinksi’s 

is shrewd and persuasive. 

The overall problem with Cohen’s book, I think, is that his quest for an 

underlying “allegorical impulse” in writers as different as Mailer, Kosinksi 

and Coover is strained and unconvincing. Noting Robert Coover’s “relentless 

traversing of different discursive registers”, Cohen says that “It is partly in 

this exhausting verbal play that the allegorical impulse of his fiction can be 

identified.” But in dealing with Kosinski he remarks that, compared to 

Coover or Stephen Dixon, his “narrative strategies are most flatly premised 

on an optic of domination which seeks to contain the instability of visual 

relations which marks the allegorical impulse”. Cohen, one feels, would have 

no problem at all in discovering allegories on the Nile. (It’s also odd that 

Cohen doesn’t mention let alone discuss Kosinksi’s most overtly postmodern 

work, the amazing .) 

Cohen deserves credit for drawing attention to the fiction of the very 

obscure, marginal and unstudied American writer Stephen Dixon. The story 

“The moviemaker”, in the collection (1983), sounds like an 

interesting piece about power and culture, consisting as it does of a single 

telephone conversation between a male novelist and his ex-lover regarding a 

screenplay of his novel based on their affair. She, it seems, is as anxious to 

rewrite what happened according to cinematic convention as he was to 

fictionalise their relationship in the first place. Dixon’s very short story 

“Joke” also sounds intriguing; a woman takes away the male narrator’s 

clothes and hits him with her shoe when he tries to do the same thing to 

her. (Cohen’s interpretation of this story is characteristically abstruse: “the 

Deleuzean Elsewhere is now radically disruptive, resistant to mapping by 

the male narrator’s framing mechanisms, and conveying the irreducible 

difference of the woman’s gaze”.) 

In the final chapter, “Allegorical city: Los Angeles in postmodern 

American writing”, Cohen provides an excellent critique of the pessimism 

underlying Joan Didion’s 

(he speaks at one point of “the 

wearily disengaged tone and flatly denotative rhythms of her prose”) But 

the writer who seems to engage Cohen’s interest more than any other is 

James Ellroy, and he offers a lively and persuasive account of Ellroy’s LA 

Quartet. Ellroy’s characters, he concludes, “driven by a hypertrophied will to 


penetrate the city’s criminal history, are forced to confront the destabilising 

surfeit of meanings that lie buried beneath its spectacular surface”. It’s a 

pity that his prose doesn’t crackle like that more often. 


3 

Collected Culture Libel 

(1 July 2001)

3 

Collected Culture Libel 

(1 July 2001)

John Herdman 

Inspector Banal, Special Branch, was a man without doubts. An impressive 

man with a head he thought of as leonine, and a countenance which he 

imagined resembled that of Tennyson, or the Ancient of Days as depicted by 

Blake. With a briefcase he prowled and stalked in splendour, his features 

ennobled by lofty scorn for the ignorant masses among whom he was 

obliged to move, his pace befitting his professional dignity, glancing neither 

to right nor to left. Yet this man of power and influence, before whom many 

trembled, had an Achilles heel in his helpless passion for Wanda, the lovely 

dogs’ stylist who had revolutionised canine fashion in the little town of 

Balsillie. He who held the fate of many hapless mortals in the palm of his 

hand was himself but clay in the hands of this entrancing poodle plucker. 

Inspector Banal shared lodgings with the local constable, P.C. John 

(‘Jock’) Underdog, love -child of the Big Jannie of Craigiebristle School. 

Slack-mouthed, gangling buffoon that he was, Underdog ravaged the 

susceptibilities of Balsillie’s womanhood with his oafish charms. One May 

lunchtime these two were conversing over a pint in the bar of the Balsillie 

Hotel. 

— I have reason to believe, said Inspector Banal, staring at the mirror 

behind the bar with an expression of tragic realism, that Wanda is 

unfaithful to me. 

— Knickers! exclaimed Underdog with assurance. 

— I have discovered in her apartment, continued the inspector, ignoring 

with dignity this wretched interpolation, an object. He affected an 

expression of extreme distaste, and paused for effect. Underdog’s pipe 

puffed away steadily in the terrible silence. 

— A love poem, Banal pursued after a suitable lapse of time. I can bring to 

mind only one deplorable couplet. With grim displeasure he intoned: 

‘Were I with you when your knickers fell 

I would walk with a smile through the gates of hell’. 

Underdog blushed becomingly. 

— What is worse, continued Inspector Banal with a stoical sigh, it seems 

inescapable that she left the effusion in a place where she knew it could not 

fail to draw my attention. 

— I cannot find it in my heart to believe, said the constable firmly, that 

3 (1 July 2001) 1

Wanda, whatever her failings, could be capable of an unkind action. 

— Hm, said Inspector Banal. 

— You sound sceptical, returned Underdog, unabashed. 

—Some are born sceptical, said Banal impressively, others have scepticism 

thrust upon them. 

And indeed the good inspector was not mistaken in his fears. He could 

not fail to observe that Wanda treated him more and more often like a piece 

of furniture, which, whatever his limitations, Inspector Banal was not. It 

made him very unhappy, and unhappiness seemed to affect him in some 

rather surprising ways. He had always been a man who spoke well; 

sparingly, perhaps, but always with justice, dignity and precision of 

utterance, and even at times with a certain conceptual elegance. Yet now he 

became subject, especially in the company of Wanda, to attacks of heavyfooted 

blundering in conversation, which amounted on occasions to virtual 

inarticulacy; while Underdog and their landlady, Mrs Funnel, observed how 

his talk at meal times (when he could find anything to say at all) was 

increasingly laced with clichés, stale proverbs and contemptible platitudes. 

‘Ah, life’s like that,’ he would sigh, ‘but least said, soonest mended’, or more 

cheerfully, ‘What you lose on the swings, you gain on the roundabouts’; or 

again, ‘It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.’ This sort of thing made 

him an intensely boring table companion. Matters came to a head when he 

was returning with Wanda by bus one day from an outing to a neighbouring 

town. Their relations were exceptionally strained, and a desperate silence 

soon sat like a chilly ghost between the unhappy couple. While the bus was 

moving this atmosphere could just about be tolerated, but when they had to 

halt for five minutes at a level crossing the need to say something ended by 

torturing Inspector Banal to such a degree that almost without his volition a 

short sentence, expressive of the inchoate desolation of his soul, somehow 

emerged hoarsely from within the depths of his chest. ‘It would be better if 

we were back,’ he said. 

After this Inspector Banal gave up attempting to communicate with Wanda 

by word of mouth and enrolled in a correspondence course in letter writing. 

When her birthday came round he sent her a £1 note, and along with it a 

letter subtly designed to suggest to her that he had gone mad for love, a 

plight which he hoped would engage her sympathies. This was the letter: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Wanda understood quite well that this letter was not by any means from 

Jack Point, but rather from Inspector Banal, for she recognised the latter’s 

handwriting. Oh, there were no flies on Wanda. She replied in this wise: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inspector Banal’s response was to send a further letter to Wanda, which 

he cunningly left unsigned: 

 

 

 

 

 


On receiving this communication Wanda invited Inspector Banal round to 

supper one evening, on which occasion, it seems, he consumed a Hungarian 

goulash. Shortly after this Underdog and Mrs Funnel began to notice a 

further strange deterioration in his mental condition. His conversation was 

no longer infested with hoary saws and mind-boggling strokes of bathos, but 

he rapidly developed an all-consuming obsession with pigs. He now spent 

most of his spare time at a neighbouring farm, leaning abstractedly over a 

fence while he gazed entranced into a field full of pigs rooting for truffles 

and wallowing in the glaur. At feeding times he would lurk outside the door 

of the sty, a gentle smile hovering about his lips, his ear cocked to catch the 

happy gruntings and slurpings of the swine and the homely rattle of their 

feeding vessels. He began to talk of keeping a pet pig on the balcony outside 

his bedroom, and to give himself the illusion that this dream was already 

reality he set up there an elaborate arrangement of empty beer cans which 

he attached by a string to his big toe, so that whenever he turned over in his 

sleep he would be awakened by the resultant din. ‘Ah, there is Peter rattling 

his pail,’ he would say to himself with a happy sigh, and fall contentedly 

asleep again. But he had his darker moments, too. At meal times he was 

mostly silent, but occasionally he would stir from his reverie and come out 

with some sinister comment well nigh in-comprehensible to his startled 

companions. ‘God, I must help that poor wart-hog smouldering on the 

dump-heap,’ he would exclaim; or ‘Christ preserve me from the snortings of 

exultant peccaries!’ 

Underdog tended rather to welcome all this as a sign that Inspector Banal 

was beginning to get over Wanda and develop new interests. 

— Has your ardour cooled a little, for the beauteous and virtue-infested 

Wanda he asked amiably, tapping his pipe out on the hearth as they sat by 

the fire one evening. Are you less in thrall to the glamorous dogs’ 

beautician 

— Perhaps a little, muttered the inspector vaguely. His thoughts seemed 

far away. 

Underdog thought it his duty to do what he could to encourage these 

tendencies. He drew Mrs Funnel confidentially aside one day. 

— Mrs Funnel, he said in measured tones of high seriousness, I have 

been meaning to have a quiet word with you for some time. It’s Inspector 

Banal. It has reached the point now at which ... well, to be honest with you, 

Mrs Funnel, he thinks that he’s a pig. 

— Oh, I see, said Mrs Funnel, in an unconvincing way. Her head moved 

up in the first half of a nod and remained poised there, the chin raised half 

inquiringly in an unconscious expression of her utter inability to cope with 


so savage a fact of existence. 

— It’s best to humour him, I believe, said P.C. Underdog, to go along with 

him as far as possible. It’s all right, he went on peremptorily as Mrs Funnel 

made signs of protest, and raised his hand as if to halt on-coming traffic. 

The bed-linen won’t be affected or anything like that. But I think it will help 

if, instead of offering him his various courses on separate plates, you mix 

them all up in a pail to give him the illusion that he is consuming pig-swill. 

Tomorrow at breakfast, for instance, just tip his fruit-juice, porridge, bacon 

and eggs, toast and a couple of cups of tea into an old pail, stir them all up 

and leave him to it. We’ll see what happens. 

So the following morning a large waterproof tarpaulin was spread on the 

floor and on it was placed a plastic pail containing the inspector’s breakfast. 

He came downstairs grunting and snorting, and on entering the room at 

once dropped to his knees and plunged his head into the bucket, setting to 

with a vengeance. When he got near the bottom he overturned the pail and 

with his head still deep within it pushed it on its side about the room, 

striving to reach the innermost recesses. He emerged at last licking his 

chops in satisfaction, but yet with a vague hint of frustration in his eyes. 

Underdog understood at once what was amiss. 

— We have to laugh, don’t we Mrs Funnel, he said sententiously, for 

otherwise we would cry. But there is still one thing needful. While labouring 

under this Circean enchantment he likes to rattle his pail. 

Mrs Funnel’s chin rose helplessly. 

— A metal pail is called for, explained Underdog. But dinna fash yersel, 

Mrs F., I will do the necessary. 

Thereafter Banal seemed contented for a while. But without P.C. 

Underdog’s knowledge Mrs Funnel called in the doctor after a time to have a 

look at the distracted inspector, on the pretence of treating his halitosis. The 

doctor emerged from the consultation shaking his head. 

— An interesting case, an interesting case, the poor devil, he said, half to 

himself. There’s little I can do. Still, a definite pattern to his proclivities is 

beginning to emerge. First it’s women, now it’s pigs. God knows where it will 

all end. 

One evening Mrs Funnel went early to her bed, and immediately after his 

tea P.C. Underdog left the house for an assignment. Scarcely had the door 

closed behind him when a terrible urge seized Inspector Banal and he too 

strode out of the house. Underdog was standing in the middle of the garden 

path taking in deep gulps of the evening air. As Banal saw him silhouetted 

there, oafishly handsome in the moonlight, he was moved by a generous 

impulse. 

— Are you my friend he asked impetuously. 

— As the blood of the brawny janitor flows through my brains, returned 

Underdog, with deep feeling. 


They clasped each other tightly in a manly embrace, then, dashing the 

tears from his eyes, Banal strode off into the night. When he reached the 

farmyard he marched unhesitatingly into the pigsty, and lost to shame 

dropped to his hands and knees among the hooved creatures, and 

rummaged with his head in the capacious, swill-laden troughs, vying with 

the swine for a share of their stomach-turning repast. What love can do to a 

man. 

Some time later the stricken detective, now raving mad, took leave of his 

swinish companions and stormed back into the house, his clothes all 

befouled with mud and excrement and his beard defiled with pig-swill, 

shouting, ‘Now I am equipped for barbarism!’ He swept aside the astonished 

Mrs Funnel, who had emerged from her bedroom in her dressing-gown to 

see what all the fuss was about, and grabbed hold of the phone. 

At that moment in Wanda’s flat a romantic conversation was in progress 

between the charming dogs’ stylist and P.C. Underdog, for whom she had 

recently cooked a very tasty Hungarian goulash. 

— By the bones of the Big Jannie I swear it, the constable was saying, I 

think I am falling in love with you. 

— But there is yet a dark shadow between us and the consummation of 

our desires, my Jock, returned Wanda, the hapless shadow of Terence 

Banal. 

— I must think about this problem deeply and long, my love. A stitch in 

time saves nine. I shall think deeply about this problem, Wanda. 

At this juncture the phone rang and Wanda answered it. Though she did 

not immediately grasp the fact, it was Inspector Banal. From the darkest 

depths of his being in a phoney American accent he bellowed down the line: 

‘Send all the cats to purgatory 

Send dogs down the railroad track 

When someone’s ripped your heart out 

It’s not easy to put back.’ 



1 THE METAPHYSICAL DOOR 

2 THE THEOS0PHY OF ROCK JOURNALISM 

3 ESKIMO STREET CRED. 

4 DIPLOMATIC DEAFNESS IN A COWPAT ECONOMY 

5 GOLF H0OLIGANS OF THE SAHARA 

6 RELIGIOUS OPTIMO-PESSIMISM 

7 ART AS VOYEURISM 

8 SUPERPERSONALISATION 

9 CHINESE RAIN DANCING 

10 BEATNIK TAX COLLECTORS 

CULTURE LIBEL is the practice of attributing totally erroneous 

social/political/moral/religious attitudes/viewpoints/lifestyles to completely 

inappropriate cultural groups, as a means of bringing about greater 

diffusion of ethnic identity and confusing the aliens the various 

global cliques. Thus, one might explore the significance of the bar-mitzvah 

in London docklands trades unionism, stamp-collecting as virility symbolism 

in tribal Africa, or the role of the disc-jockey in negotiating internal radio 

allowances in Siberian paper-clip factories. And let us not forget the 

relevance of metaphysical hasp-contemplation to astronauts. Effective mass 

participation in CULTURE LIBEL can, if given the correct degree of hysterical 

mass obsession it merits, ultimately bring about total unity-throughconfusion, 

equality of disorientation, world peace, happiness-ever-after and 

a slight inky smudge on the last page of history. 

1 THE METAPHYSICAL DOOR 

Cerebral astronauts cease to exist as humans, in any conventional sense, 

once they have passed through a metaphysical door leading from clay -footed 

‘reality’ into the territory of the socially orbital non-functioning escape- 


mechanism of ‘fate’. Closing down any, or all, of their previ ously-accepted 

communicative personal contact modes, all they can hope to achieve, in the 

‘inter-dimensional’ state of being, is a kind of cosmic ‘ignore it, and it will go 

away’ attitude. This is fine until nature calls. 

Nature usually calls something like: ‘Get out of the mould! Your tonsils 

need detergent!’ Which, of course, breaks transmission silence on the other 

side of the metaphysical doorway, inciting each astronaut, regardless of 

personal courage, to brave the Threshold of Reorientation, with a view to 

making some kind of comeback onto an understandable plane of social 

interaction. This is the move which separates the space cadets from the 

amateur astronomers (though failing to eliminate solar wind). 

So, what’s stopping the astronauts from returning from limbo, to ‘boldly 

go where one giant footstep has been left behind’ Ah, but this is the very 

nub of the problem. The metaphysical door has by this time become sealed 

into Eternity by some kind of existential hasp, the spiritual contemplation of 

which can alone return the astronauts to the ‘mundane’ state of being. 

In a sense, of course, we are cerebral astronauts in our daily lives, to a 

greater or lesser degree: continually entering some metaphysical doorway, 

groping around on the other side for the light switch, contemplating the 

existential hasp and returning to the earthbound office jobs of our 

forefathers. All this naturally renders space travel totally 

unnecessary, and the vast sums of money wasted on such irrelevant 

exertion should surely be better spent in providing oil for the Squeaky 

Hinges of Relativity. 

2 

THE THEOSOPHY OF ROCK JOURNALISM 

Theosophy, when interpreted as an inspired insight into the nature and 

workings of the Almighty, is fundamental to the practised code of conduct of 

that most revered and time-honoured of world cultural establishments — 

rock journalism. Indeed, taking this observation to a further level of 

profundity, it can fairly be said that it is by adhering to theosophical 

tradition that the rock journalist can function at all: for, without such 

inspired insight, how indeed could he or she (or it) make pronouncements 

of such earth-stopping certainty as to allow for no possibility of demur from 

such feeble humanoids as ourselves 

But rock journalism is an international brotherhood of esoteric mystics, 

perpetuated through the ages by means of reincarnation, to bring to bear 

the Wisdom of Eternity upon the questions, doubts, misunderstandings and 

superstitions of the masses, who strive daily to come to terms with the 

transcendent reality of Rock and Roll, as we perceive it in the nature of 

things around us. 


Many of us would be content to lay back in our spiritual hammocks and 

declare: ‘What’s the fuss It’s only rock ’n’ roll (but I like it).’ But, as we must 

at least admit to our innermost selves, this is not enough. We need the allembracing 

and unrenounceable opinions of these great-souled sages to 

provide us with the unassailable solidity of . 

And so, we come to realise, through studying the theosophical teachings 

of these omniscient beings, that while, say, the way bass guitar strings are 

plucked or caressed may have bearing on the actual of certain 

forms of Rock and Roll (as we perceive it today), yet it is the angle of 

the zip-fasteners attached to the performer’s thigh-length leatherette anklewarmers 

which defines the measure of worth of particular rock acts. 

Paradoxically, pop stars in suburbia fail to make that ‘chained to a 

hamburger’ connection — even although it affects them closely. Yet, with 

typical theosophical panache, rock journalists never fail of providing indepth 

fast-food gnosis of a brightness and intensity which no one can doubt 

will illuminate human Reason for centuries, nay millennia, to come. 

3 

ESKIMO STREET CRED. 

The most important consideration affecting the life of any young Eskimo 

today, come hail, snow, sleet, snow or hail, is his street credibility. There is a 

strong tradition of ‘sidewalk wisdom’ orally handed down from stepfath er to 

grand half-nephew, by which each generation of young Eskimos learns the 

time-harpooned code of acceptable conduct for ‘new blades’. 

Yet it is the very nature of the pre-heated waterproof snowshoes now 

affected by the new brat-pack school of fur-traders which is threatening the 

fabric and condition of the Arctic pre-Victorian street substructure, once 

considered so important to the folk stability of everyday Eskimo ‘life 

awareness’. 

The melting of the polar credibility standards results, inevitably, in 

erosion of ice paving slabs and slush road underfelt to such a degree that 

only the neo-classical layout of high-rise igloo developments marks any 

attempt at ‘streetwise’ overview on the state of ‘things’. Naturally, with traffic 

now reduced to a single lane of one-track thought processing, the steady 

disappearance of the Arctic hub-cap is only a matter of time. 

In a brave, though we can’t help thinking vain, attempt to restore some 

semblance of street credibility to otherwise decadent icebound identities, 

many elder statesmen of established Eskimo families have broken so far 

with tradition as to install concrete ceilings in their prefabricated igloos, 

with a view to causing trouble later to hordes of expected gas-flue extension 

engineers. 

Alas, the best laid plans of seals and men... The new trend in warm 


snowshoes causes the bottom layer of ice-blocks (the ones at street level) to 

melt prematurely, bringing the concrete superstructure down on the heads 

of the well-meaning, but fundamentally stupid, old-timers. Thus, many of 

the younger ‘green banana’ set of Eskimos are now embracing the ‘Whither 

away And who cares, anyway’ school of thought, and are wholeheartedly 

following the train of doom-laden whalekind into the tepid subconscious 

stream of psychological extinction. 

And some have become accountants... 

4 

DIPLOMATIC DEAFNESS IN A COWPAT ECONOMY 

No one wants to hear the truth about state-of-the-art household requisites, 

least of all the Cowpat Economists who vie with the Gnomes of Zurich for 

financial control of world trade. These darlings of the Swiss Uphill 

Tobogganing Set will merely stare you straight in the knees when 

confronted with facts, eye you up and down, and exclaim: ‘Not totally mad 

Eat more fleas!’ 

This is regarded nowadays as fairly basic economic filibustering. It is 

when we ask them to define parameters, that the diplomatic deafness comes 

into full play. Although psychologically aware, these pin-striped bastions of 

the stainless steel tupperware armchair generation will stare aimlessly into 

space, totally oblivious to the questions of an anxious world. Chit-chat 

becomes impossible. 

And sometimes world opinion demands the application of a poultice to the 

voice-boxes of such malcontents, before reply can be made. The suitably 

colourful ‘Gorbachev necktie’ has often been brought to bear on these 

occasions, liberating the seized vocal cords of the Cowpat Eoonomist, and 

interrupting his spell of diplomatic deafness. 

Eventually, the real reason for all this studied non-awareness becomes 

apparent. It is a long, long time since the humble beginnings of the cowpat 

economy which, you will remember, started with a group of menial civil 

servants meekly using thin paint rollers to apply white lines to the fronts of 

butchers’ aprons. What an example of mushrooming growth the cowpat 

economy has since proved to be! Yet, now the very future of mankind hangs 

in the balance, as these financial supermen experiment boldly with giant 

cushion covers in which to wrap the legions of portable greenhouses which 

are currently orbiting the globe, ready to plummet through the hole in the 

ozone layer and destroy the remnants of ‘big bang’ peacekeeping in what 

shall come to be called the Final Crackdown. Is this the way the world ends 

Not with a bag, but a cushion cover 

Of course, the Cowpat Economist has every need of diplomatic deafness in 

such circumstances. He must have silence in which to choose shades of 


paisley-patterned covering material, without the distraction of frivolous 

financiers who would wish to wallpaper the sky with used notes. Yet, on a 

clear day, he can sometimes be heard to suddenly scream: ‘People keep 

telling me things that don’t matter!’ 

5 

GOLF HOOLIGANS OF THE SAHARA 

The nomadic Sahara Golf Hooligans form a global sub-culture of almost 

noticeable proportions. Ever chasing an elusive ideal (vandalising a hole-inone), 

they roam the desert sands in packs of fifty-two, intent on cheating life 

of the very dregs of a fair day’s game for a fair cop, Guv. This is what 

anthropologists call ‘the wages of sin’. Apologists for zoologists, on the other 

hand, often remark upon the nicety of environmental self-determination 

which prevents these Sahara Golf Hooligans from completely dominating the 

sparser pockets of world population with their party-pooping credo. It is 

giraffes, though, that we really have to thank. 

Giraffes grow on trees and are, in fact, one of the few species of animal life 

which only flower once in ten years; a delay which causes great distress to 

Sahara Golf Hooligans, who are totally devoid of any hint of the patience of 

horticultural responsibility. However, their half-hearted attempt to oust 

these unbearable quadrupeds by introducing Malayan giraffe -eating 

cucumbers into the eco-structure, has so far only succeeded in alienating all 

concerned from the goodwill of the International Geographical Society. 

The Golf Hooligans of the Sahara hold the belief that giraffes have existed 

for upwards of thirty-five thousand billion years — longer than the Earth, in 

fact. This causes much sandy speculation whether the giraffes maybe 

originated (in a possibly green, perhaps extra -large format) on, say, the 

Moon, or even another galaxy. At any rate, given that a giraffe’s brain is less 

than one two-hundred-and-seventieth the size of a split lentil, the problem 

still remains whether they were ever intelligent enough to be capable of 

discovering space travel, or simply flew to Earth on cosmic ‘wings’, now long 

atrophied and discarded like those of fallen angels. In many ways, it is a 

Godsend that they were too stupid to realise that the heat of entry into the 

Earth’s atmosphere would burn them up into carbonised shrimps, which 

would thensink in the oceans, to fossilise into small, black ichthyologists’ 

nightmares. 

These depressing anti-prophetic thoughts are probably what drives most 

Sahara Golf Hooligans to their infamous mass-suicide charges onto mined 

fairways in a last-ditch kamikaze attempt to wipe golf, themselves, the world 

and burnt giraffes from the collective folk memory of the science 

correspondents of independent sports magazines. 


6 RELIGIOUS OPTIMO-PESSIMISM 

Inspiration is not always immediate for Negative Quakers — or ‘Statics’, as 

they are often known. Founded in the mid-nineteenth century in a sturdy 

pencil-sharpening environment, the best most of the Brotherhood’s present 

members can hope for out of life is late realisation of the coming worth of 

decay. Cheerful acceptance of the imminent destruction of life on Earth, and 

indeed, contemplation of this as a definite source of hope for the future, 

allows the Statics to refrain from suicidal inertia for as long as it takes to fall 

apart with dignity. 

Thus, as our natural heritage succumbs gradually to annihilation, a 

smile-weary Static might be heard to greet the dawn with: ‘Ah! I see the 

spiny anteater count is down today!’ And even a nuclear holocaust is viewed 

as a wonder fecund with unseen delights. Many Static Brothers openly sport 

T-shirts emblazoned with the legend: ‘ARMAGEDDON 1992 — I CAN’T 

WAIT’, and speculate aloud on what time of year and weather conditions 

would be most favourable to the outbreak of the Final Conflict. 

Many Optimo-Pessimists veer towards a ‘Wish Yourself Happy’ philosophy, 

involving lying in an acid-filled bathtub following the unanaesthetised 

removal of various of their appendages, then wish-wish-wishing they felt ... 

well, if not , then at least more comfortable. The time-consuming 

ineffectiveness of this spiritual outlook does little to deter hard-line 

fundamentalists, plumber’s mates, and an assortment of uninvited 

onlookers. 

The subsequent jovial abhorrence of all this has led inevitably to the 

formation of a more realistic Integrated Concrete Breakaway Sect, whose war 

cry of ‘I Fucked It Up For Jesus’ has done wonders for international apostolic 

nihilism. They certainly had a nice sideline in T.V. evangelism, incorporating 

minority-group guilt lessons, nuclear weather forecasts and live coverage of 

mass self-mutilation jamborees. The viewing figures soared. The angst 

donations poured in. Success loomed large ... Needless to say, they fucked it 

up. During the screening of a ‘Deprogramming Special’ the entire studio 

spontaneously lost faith in itself, and they all went home. 

And the rest is apathy... 

7 ART AS VOYEURISM 

Just as repetition is a form of self-plagiarism, so is art a form of plagiaristic 

auto-voyeurism, and repeated self-automation is a form of plagiarised 

voyeuristic art. To put it another way ... take a look at life through the 

window of self-consciousness, and you will perceive yourself in the mirror of 


insubstantiality (as the poet said). And verily, a school of creativity has 

grown up around the principle of art as voyeurism, giving unto a grateful 

public the varied output of a group of self-styled ‘Peeping Artists’, whose 

manifesto expresses a heartfelt desire to get its own back on A World That 

Wants To Know Too Much: 

‘You do it by washing your windows in an Interesting Style, while watched 

by members of “society”. Then you stand peering at washing each 

other’s windows, witnessed by reflections of you, watching their reflections 

watching you watching them. Of course, you have to be prepared for a 

certain amount of self-plagiarism during the repetitive performance of this 

exercise.’ 

Similarly, the telephone brings its own audio version of the same 

voyeuristic art dilemma. Ever been pestered by wrong numbers Who 

hasn’t Well, you should know that there is nothing accidental about this. 

All the big telephone companies are infiltrated by Peeping Artists, who use a 

surrealist address phenomenon to deliberately dial random numbers, so 

that can listen to wondering whether should be watching our 

window- washers, or answering the call. At this point, Peeping Artists find it 

helpful to employ telepathic interrogation tactics to find out exactly it 

is we don’t want them to know we don’t want the window-watchers to 

witness. 

All the information received by Artistic Voyeurs is then processed through 

a cultural computer and translated into colour-coded brain matter, which is 

then smeared over canvas to produce an exact pictorial representation of 

what we, the public, don’t want anyone to see. 

An interesting postscript to all this is that, in attempting to tap my 

telephone, someone, overdoing the surrealism, wired up my cat to the mainframe 

of the canvas switchboard. Therefore, at eight o’clock every night, 

when Peeping Artists think they are spying on me, my cat is going ‘Cluck’ in 

precisely the same tone as my neo-Victorian chicken-phone. 

8 

SUPERPERSONALISATION 

Everything which affects the rich today will eventually come to affect the 

poor at some future time, once it has filtered down through the various 

social and financial strata of modern civilisation. Therefore, in order to offset 

the subsequent rise in the cost of waiting for things to materialise, we 

exponents of Meta-Monetarism expect that every poor person should at all 

times keep about him at least one personal rich hostage, for the purpose of 

boosting his economic wherewithal. 

This is one example of what we call ‘superpersonalisation’: the 


strengthening of weakened individuality by stealing worth from the betteroff. 

Of course, we are all dewdrops hanging from the nose of Old Father Time 

— but this doesn’t mean we are all equal. Don’t you believe it. Some rich 

bastard probably has a higher credit rating in Heaven than even the most 

divinely inspired low-paid Meta-Monetarist lackey. Holding such people to 

ransom is only poetic justice — and so much more profitable than simply 

shooting them. 

But superpersonalisation can bring an end to violence. When every 

individual on Earth has his own private army composed of other individuals 

better-off than himself, all war will become an impossibility. On the opening 

of hostilities, every member of every army (who each h as an army of his or 

her own) will be faced with questions of whose side they are on, 

sides they are on, who is on side(s) and who they are fighting. When 

these questions are multiplied through all the permutations of ranks and 

leaders interconnecting all the armies controlled by all the individuals in all 

the armies of all the individuals in all the world, the concept of organised 

warfare ceases to have any meaning in the subsequent crisis of identity 

confusion. 

Does all this sound like a dream too far-fetched to sustain the hopes of 

the common man Believe me, it is — in principle — happening now. Take a 

look at your circle of close friends. Take a look at circle of close friends. 

Punch a couple ... see what happens ... 

9 

CHINESE RAIN DANCING 

How do you keep your paddy fields wet, when the weatherman is forecasting 

prolonged droughts You could, as many wealthy Chinamen do, simply lay a 

pipeline from the Trossachs to Canton, and pump Loch Lomond through 

frae Bonny Scotland to dampen your rice. You could even import vast 

quantities of water-retentive frogs from Australia to squeeze out individually 

over the fields, and provide a modicum of ersatz rain. Indeed, you could just 

sit down and weep — watering the crops with the bitter salt of your tears ... 

Smart Chinese rice growers, however, go in for rain dancing. 

Now, Chinese rain dancing is not for the uninitiated. The instructions are 

very difficult to follow. Being written as they are, from right to left and 

starting from the bottom of the last page, it becomes clear about halfway 

through the process that the dance has to be undertaken in 

order to successfully follow the sequence of steps and movements laid down 

in the plans. This often involves intricate and embarrassing feats of 

biological gymnastics and physical self-humiliation which can, if practised 

carelessly, even end in the dancer’s finding himself sticking his head up his 


own rectum ... 

But it is the pyrotechnic element which makes the Chinese rain dance so 

potentially dangerous. Any error or miscalculation in the positioning of the 

fireworks can make the already hypersensitive rain dancer as jumpy as a 

bingo-box, especially if any of the crackers go off they are lit, in 

accordance with the principle of reversed-instruction performance. This can 

bring about an unpleasant bush fire of rice-destroying magnitude which, of 

course, rather opposes the desired effect of wetness. It is only when an 

inscrutable Oriental plantation owner throws a bucket of water onto the 

field, to extinguish the conflagration, that we perceive how the ritual has, in 

fact, been successful. 

10 

BEATNIK TAX COLLECTORS 

Due to a mistranslation of ancient beat literature, we are accustomed to say, 

nowadays, that ‘there is no such thing as a free lunch’. However, it is not ‘a 

free lunch’ there is no such thing as: it’s 

. Similarly, 

when we say, ‘Are you free, Thursday afternoon’ we are really saying, ‘Are 

you a flying umbrella stand’ Thus we come to realise the ultimate truth 

that, in the anarcho-syndicalist Post Office savings account that we call 

‘social awareness’, there is, in fact, 

. 

Someone must pay ... Thursday afternoons occur on a regular weekly 

basis, the world over. Yet no one is willing to bear the burden of financial 

responsibility for such a boon to mankind. Thursday afternoons should be 

privatised at the earliest opportunity, and a global Thursday Afternoon Tax 

speedily implemented. As beat translators are undoubtedly responsible for 

the initial confusion of terminology, it seems only right and proper that 

beatnik tax collectors be employed to gather in the revenue from this vast 

untapped resource. 

With their identificatory goatee beards and standard introduction of 

‘Transmit the shekels, daddy-o, lest we rattle your bongoes,’ these softspoken 

beatnik tax collectors are a delightful addition to anyone’s financial 

menagerie. Cute and cuddly, they make ideal bar-mitzvah presents for 

London docklands trades unionists, helping to offset the painful and 

distressing effects of bare-cheeked tax-extraction with their cheerful 

singing-telegram beat messages, such as: 

‘They tried to tell me I was hip, baby, 

But I’m only a taxman guy from Earth, 

Disguised as a defaulter’s truss — 

Lay it on me, man.’ 

Needless to say, though, you don’t want to send a beatnik tax collector to 


London docklands on a Thursday afternoon. It’s more than their job’s worth 

... know what I mean 

lump of ) 

(A new 

While researching further into the nether reaches of CULTURE LIBEL — the 

philosophy of wanton misrepresentation of the cultural backgrounds and 

social practices of innocent ethnic establishments, for the purpose of 

uniting mankind in a common confusion too elaborate to accomodate strife 

— I began to realise the value of a complete reappraisal of our 

understanding of human communication, with particular reference to 

stamp-collecting, as an enhancement of existing disorientation. Thus an 

attitude of speculative cultural vivisection can be attained, by which we may 

enter spheres of contemplation beyond the dull confines of mere 

‘awareness’. 

Analytical scrutiny of Communication, then, under the dissecting knife of 

CULTURE LIBEL, reveals many hitherto unsuspected organs of 

dissemination, such as SOCIALLY ILLOGICAL LYINGISM, POSITIVE NON- 

SEQUI-TOURISM, TANGENTIAL ABSURDITY and LARYNGEAL ICE-CREAM 

METAMORPHISM. Of course, all this needs to be boiled down in a hard 

solution of VERBO-NUCLEAR INDISTINGUISHABILITY before it can yield up 

its secrets in a kind of minced-meaning polyunsaturate senseconglomeration. 

Otherwise it would all be far too heavily concentrated for 

extrapolation by the naked intellect. 

This is where stamp-collecting comes in. An element of Mystery, 

Wonderment and Awe needs to be introduced into the discourse, in order to 

sustain the curiosity of the hard-pressed student. And about time, too. But 

before we brave this quantum leap into the dark chasm of Diverted Thought, 

let us consider the proposition in the wholesome light of ‘Truth’. For there is 

more than a little of the ‘treacle-toffee surprise’ pertaining to our 

understanding of this fundamental, yet stubbornly viscous, enigma. 

In metaphysical terms, the Firmament may be considered as a vast 

illuminated smoke chamber, in which the myriad Particles of the Cosmos 

can be observed in a state of Brownian Motion as they are continually 

bombarded from all directions by the Spirit of the Universe. And as these 

particles of Cosmic Smoke are inhaled and exhaled during the Celestial 

Rhythm of Divine Inspiration, so an irritation is set up in the Lungs of God 

which needs must result in an Expectoration of Matter, as an oyster rejects 

intrusive grains of sand from its silky innards. The pearl of wisdom which is 

thus produced is no less than the physical embodiment of Absolute Truth — 

consisting as it does of the Essential Substance of the Universe suspended 


in the medium of Immaculate Mucus. 

‘Truth’ as we know it, therefore, is closely allied to a ball of recently 

expelled sputum, accidentally come upon on the pavement at our feet. It is a 

semi-congealed lump of possibility, capable of yielding to idle prodding with 

old lollipop sticks, eking out with tweezers, or even obliteration by a heavy 

coating of road-mender’s bitumen. And it appears to possess different 

outward dimensions and shape according to the angle from which it is 

viewed, the light it is viewed in, and the presence or absence of awkward 

nihilistic skate-boarders intent upon invading the Sidewalk of Speculation. 

It is hardly surprising, then, if the language we would use in attempting 

to pin down such a nebulously glutinous proposition as Truth should of 

itself fail to live up to the expect-orations of even the most skilfully 

phlegmatic dialectician. Crusty mundane vocabulary lacks cohesion. What is 

needed is something which will , but there is no hard-and-fast pink 

gravy solution. Clearly, the language of definition needs to be sugar-coated 

with nectar-intensified mucilage to produce the desired tenacity of contact 

with the concrete paving slabs of discursive realism. But beware the fate of 

the twenty thousand Samurai philatelists who, carried away with the 

ceremony of ‘kissing the enemies of Light to death’, became so dry of saliva 

as to be unable to lick their own stamp hinges, and so lost touch with the 

very truth they had been trying to defend. 

Ideally, in a society striving toward 100% treacle-tongued efficiency, 

children would be conditioned from the earliest age to produce a kind of 

intellectual syrup direct from the brain, which would mingle with their 

naso-bronchial excretions to form a perfect stream of phlegmatic dialectic. 

This could best be done by bottling the infants — from four or five years old 

— in large demijohns or other suitably-sized glassware urns, into the necks 

of which a funnel could be introduced for the purpose of frequent feeding on 

an exclusive diet of raw molasses. The jars could be conveniently stored in 

dark, sound-proofed attics, to prevent contamination of the inhabitants by 

external educational variants. The glass sides of the containers, however, 

would yet permit regular checking of the children’s well-being, by means of 

a monthly torch-lit scrutiny of each chubby, smiling face. 

So much for the production of a phlegmatic dialectic. But for real 

effectiveness, this cerebral cud needs to be utilised in conjunction with a 

truly prehensile language to enable the gelatinous glossary of flexible 

certainty to coil up and around the tangled creepers of our late twentieth 

century linguistic jungle and firmly grasp the very Nub of Sense. While we 

know children will respond sucro-verbally to the stimuli of rhythmically 

banging the demijohns with soup ladles, accompanied by the frenzied 

amplified chanting of unbridled flim-flam, yet recent experiments with 

chimpanzees indicate that prehensile language can only be elicited 

from the deepest centres of primeval psychological wherewithal. Prehensile 


language is more fundamental to our evolutionary development than 

laboratory-induced artificial sweet-talk. 

Discussion of stamp-collecting can no longer be procrastinated. Studies of 

chimpanzees in the wild reveal fascinating insights into the common origin 

of such apparently disparate communicative mechanisms as prehensile 

language and philately. Careful analysis of brain samples scooped from 

obliging chimps fitted with pre-stressed concrete head-clamps have already 

yielded a wealth of information in the form of data-processible lumps of 

squashed thought. Sometimes the good old-fashioned tried-and-tested 

methods of assimilating information remain the best, even in these times of 

unstoppable technological advancement. I still favour the tea-strainer 

approach to lump-sifting, provided one has a constant intensity of finger-tip 

pressure, and avoids the risk of a right-hand swivel bias. Nevertheless, and 

all things being equal, we have achieved results showing apparently 

undeniable evidence of a MISSING LINK in the chain of communication 

connecting phlegmatic dialectic and true prehensile language. 

Here we must turn our attention to the actual of these, our 

closest living relatives in the animal kingdom. And, perhaps not 

surprisingly, we discover that they frequently engage in scientific 

experimentation on their own account, presumably intent on isolating this 

‘missing link’ for themselves. Most of the research carried out by 

chimpanzees involves tearing apart small live monkeys, throwing the bits at 

each other and either eating them or, if they have already eaten recently, 

using them to wipe their backsides. This is often followed by bouts of 

petulant teapot-hurling, thought to be a primitive, and largely unsuccessful, 

lump-displacement activity. 

But it is the tearing and wiping actions which give the game away, and 

lead us directly to the discovery of our missing lingual dimension. It is 

commonplace in our society to speak of ‘tearing someone off a strip’ or, more 

coarsely, ‘tearing someone up for arse-paper’. The behaviour of these apes, 

then, can be seen as a physical expression of the same communicative 

principle: a principle still deeply ingrained in our own human folkconsciousness, 

the world over. Here is the mystery element we have been 

searching for in our Quest for Sense — modern linguists call it 

PERFORATED SEMANTICS. 

Its history is straightforward enough. When the great apes, including 

man, evolved, natural selection dispensed with the tail — that fifth limb, so 

useful for the and aspects of day-to-day forest life. New 

species quickly arose — each developing its own distinctive outlet of 

expression for the frustrated backside-wiping function originally fulfilled by 

the tail. Perforated semantics grew out of the urgency of communicating the 

need to invent toilet paper; just as prehensile language verbally replaces the 

security of the tail’s clinging grip. And while some species, like 


chimpanzees, never advanced further than fundamental monkey-rending 

and misguided anthropomorphical teapot propulsion, many new hominids 

appeared, each progressing closer, with every evolutionary improvement, to 

the attainment of man’s greatest invention — the perforation — which yet 

outshines even the wheel in splendour and usefulness. 

So (‘upright man’) gave way to (‘handy man’) 

who was succeeded eventually by (‘perforating man’), ultimately 

to be supplanted by modern man, as exemplified by his most refined 

manifestation — (‘stamp -collecting man’). Indeed, 

such a noble beast is man that, thrusting his burgeoning intellect out 

beyond the base origins of paper-strip perforation in anal hygiene, he 

eagerly continued evolving until fully modern enough to avail himself of the 

ultimate sophistication of expression — philately. And, far exceeding its 

primary telecommunicative purpose, the perforated postage stamp has come 

to symbolise all that is virtuous, dignified and artistic in man’s nature. 

You hardly need me to teIl you about stamp-collecting as virility 

symbolism in tribal Africa. It is as old as the hills — living philately, 

operating in the very heart of men’s affairs. In some parts, a ‘Man Of Many 

Albums’ can command a palatial residence, exotic harem and vast herds of 

wildebeest; while ‘one of scant hinges’ is often openly derided, and even 

urinated upon in the fashionable drawing rooms of his tribe. Yet, in a 

society where the number of a man’s penny blacks is said to reflect the size 

of his penis, and Stanley Gibbons is worshipped as a god (and gibbons are 

perforated by chimpanzees), is it surprising that the real basis for inequality 

lies not in levels of testosterone production, but in 

In reality, it is a chap’s stamp and/or hinge-licking potential which is the 

measure of his worth; and this brings us back to the realms of phlegmatic 

dialectic, wherein may lie the denouement. Returning, then, to our 

genetically-sweetened infants in their bottles, Pavlovian conditioning might 

be brought to bear, whereby salivation rates could be regulated by means of 

buzzers and ball-bearings. It is to be hoped that in some future time we will 

see a true equality in the stamp/hinge-licking endeavours of all men: ‘from 

each according to his means of production, to each according to taste’. Truly, 

there is a land. of milk and honey just waiting for us all. 

Until then, we must rely on the revolutionary research techniques of 

phlegmatic dialecticians to seek out answers to questions hitherto 

unsuspected — ‘softly, softly catchee monkey’. Failing this, they should be 

tickled to within an inch of their graves, then put back into the bath to soak 

for another twenty minutes. (Twisting the scrotums of chimpanzees is also 

fun.) 


Lawrence Douglas and Alexander George 

The New York Times 

‘And tell us about our next fabulous item, Connie.’ 

‘Joannie, here we have a two-inch statuette designed by the world-famous 

Franklin Mint of the Vice-President —’ 

‘Dancing the ! —’ 

‘Isn't it marvellous And the detailing! — These collector's items have 

been painted exquisitely —’ 

‘That you can actually see the thinning hair!’ 

‘It’s no wonder that shoppers as far away as Indonesia —’ 

‘Unbelievable!’ 

‘— have paid for these. But for this visit only, we're offering it for 

$13.95 —’ 

‘A ! And it's one of those rare items that would look just as good on 

an executive's desk as in a toddler's shoe box!’ 

‘Absolutely! But hurry to your phones now because we want to take you 

to another great value ...’ 

‘Connie, this is one of those feel-good, fun items — a totally faithful 

reproduction of the President's boxer shorts —’ 

‘I it!’ 

‘Made of unbleached Arkansas cotton, these shorts come in two sizes 

only, extra-large and extra-extra large —’ 

‘Just perfect for that loveable bear in your life!’ 

‘And you can order them plain, with a saxophone motif, or with our 

specially designed “Kiss-and-don’t-tell!” logo.’ 

‘Wow! What a choice!’ 

‘And the proceeds from their sale will service the Federal debt —’ 

‘Now when was the last time that you bought yourself something really 

fun helped solve a national crisis So run — don’t walk — to those 

phones now because we have another fabulous item coming your way!’ 

‘Connie, get ready for this. Here we have a four-inch, silver-plated 

sculpture of the bridge to the twenty-first century —’ 

‘I don’t believe it! Can the cameras get in close here You’ve got to see this 

detail!’ 

‘Created by Leroy Nieman, the internationally celebrated artist, and 

expertly forged in Guadalajara, this very expressionist rendering is designed 


to look like a cross between the Throg's Neck Bridge and the Yellow Brick 

Road —’ 

‘It !’ 

‘Now take a look at this here: across the top of the first suspension tower, 

you can just make out the tiny inscription “E Pluribus Unum”, and across 

the second, “Don't Stop Thinkin’ About Tomorrow” —’ 

‘It's unique! And — well, you can just see the countdown clock ticking 

away on your screen — it won’t last long, so please dial now before you meet 

our next fabulous items.’ 

‘Now Connie, I'm really excited about these pieces. Because, in an 

absolute exclusive, we're offering our viewers an opportunity to purchase, by 

charge or instalment, Warren Christopher, Leon Panetta, William Perry —’ 

‘Oh my goodness!’ 

‘—And George Stephanopolous! What's incredible Connie is that I’m not 

talking about the dolls or porcelain figurines that you will find on the other 

shopping networks — these are the actual men who until very recently ran 

our country —’ 

‘Including one eligible bachelor —’ 

‘And he could be all yours! And as fabulous an offer as this is, if you buy 

them all together in the next ten minutes, we'll throw in Dick Morris and 

Boutros Boutros-Ghali, absolutely free —’ 

‘Terrific conversation pieces!’ 

‘For the home or office!’ 

‘And while we have this special on the board, let's go to the telephones ... 

Good morning, you're on the air with Connie, and who is this ... We're 

terribly sorry, Newt, but the bronzed food-stamps have completely sold out. 

You’ve got to watch that clock! ... Yes, absolutely, we can have Mr Panetta 

boxed and wrapped — now how would you like to charge this ... Oh, Newt, 

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid that's not an authorised method of payment ... 

Newt, honey, sorry ... no, that isn’t either ... sorry ... Newt, I'm going to have 

to put you on hold while we take our viewers to another great value —’ 

‘Connie, these next items are terrific for the house. This thermos, 

guaranteed to keep hot beverages hot, and this toilet seat, designed to fold 

up and down, were purchased by the Pentagon for $8,750. Well you know 

what that means! Somebody at Foggy Bottom wasn’t watching Connie and 

Joannie! Because these identical goods — not cheap imitations or facsimiles 

— can be yours for an incredible $12.99.’ 

‘I it.’ 


Jago Morrison 

Since T.S. Eliot first fetishised in 1923 1 as the most important 

expression of the modern age, Joyce’s novel has been difficult to escape. 

Indeed, the reception of has become a phenomenon of considerable 

significance in its own right. Much of the novel’s wider renown, certainly, 

continues to centre on its ‘enigmas’, its ‘difficulty’ and ‘complexity’, and on 

the multiplicity of its language games. Beyond the recognition of mere 

difficulty, however, has gone on to accumulate a more religiose 

regard. According to Jeffrey Segall in ‘Culture, Politics and Ideology in the 

Reception of Ulysses’, 2 indeed, the experience of reading the text is such 

that ‘Before the altar of we are always humbled’ (48). 

In his essay ‘Two words for Joyce’ 3 Jacques Derrida is certainly cowed by 

the idea of Joyce’s ‘greatness’ (207). Joyce becomes ‘a sadistic demiurge, 

setting up a hyperamnesiac 4 machine, there in advance, decades in 

advance, to compute you, control you, forbid you the slightest inaugural 

syllable because you can say nothing that is not programmed on this 

1000th generation computer — , — beside which 

the current technology of our computers and our micro-computerified 

archives and our translating machines remain a of a prehistoric 

child’s toys’ (208). For Hugh Kenner in his expressively titled , 5 

meanwhile, Joyce’s is a work that transcends mere cultural or political 

engagement, becoming in far grander style the ‘fulfilment of his old promise 

to forge abroad, in the smithy of his soul, the uncreated conscience of his 

race’ (1) — a bold enough claim, one would have thought, even for a text 

which can be assessed unambiguously as ‘the most influential Englishlanguage 

work of the twentieth century’ (2). In the opening of Kathleen 

McCormick’s Ulysses, 6 too, ‘ is 

generally recognised as the most influential of all modernist literary texts. It 

has dramatically altered how fiction is read and written ...’ (ix). The effect of 

Joyce’s work on the practice of criticism cannot be underestimated. 

Deconstruction itself, we are given pause to understand, ‘could not have 

been possible without Joyce’ (ix). 


For Brian McHale in , 7 however, has 

recently embarked on an extraordinary process of metamorphosis. McHale 

quotes the judgment of Maurice Beebe’s 1974 essay ‘ and the Age of 

Modernism’ first of all, suggesting that in relation to modernism ‘ [...] 

can be seen as a demonstration and summation of the major features of the 

entire [modernist] movement’ (McHale, 42). Nevertheless, the argument of 

is that it is itself that has now achieved 

a cultural transformation, and not only that ‘culture’ has been transformed 

in response to . For McHale ‘ has lately entered upon a 

strange second career as a modernist text’ (42). He describes the novel 

in terms of a ‘landscape made up of two adjacent but disparate geophysical 

terrains, brought together by the massive displacements of tectonic plates. 

To map literary-historically is to describe the relation between these 

terrains, and between the plates on which they ride ...’ (44). The structure of 

becomes the evidence for delineating a clash of underlying cultural 

forces, the ‘tectonic plates’ of modern and postmodern. ‘The’ text that was 

read just as modernism now illustrates instead the divide or transition 

between modernism and postmodernism. Its power here may not be simply 

to shape our future culture, but also to facilitate a privileged understanding 

of change. 

One of the primary features of ’ career as a text has clearly, then, 

been the development of a bullet-proof intellectual and aesthetic reputation 

that seems to have survived even the transition to postmodernity unscathed. 

However, the reception and valuation of has by no means been 

limited to the sphere of the highbrow. For Vincent Cheng, for example, an 

understanding of the novel’s texture demands a fuller recognition too of the 

more organic material which it contains: ‘in Joyce’s carnivalesque corpus, 

Love has indeed pitched his mansion in the place of excrement’ 8 (98). 

Further, in his essay ‘‘Goddinpotty’: James Joyce and the Language of 

Excrement’, Cheng quotes a 1922 review from the which 

inscribes a history of contention over the cultural placing of Joyce’s novel. 

According to the review ‘appears to have been written by a perverted 

lunatic who has made a speciality of the literature of the latrine’ 9 (85). 

Simply to dismiss such assessments as marginal would be at the same time 

to miss something of the complex history of this most complex of texts. 

Indeed, Cheng’s essay is interesting in its play on the tension between the 

literally organic processes of ‘shit and birth’ (85) and the rarefied status of 

the artwork. It meditates in these terms on certain equations which he sees 

as set up in the text: ‘If litter is equivalent to letter, and shit is thus 

equivalent to words/language ...’ (86). 

If Cheng’s argument remains provocative then perhaps we need to 

consider why that might be. If it is at all transgressive to link excrement with 

high literary reputation in such a sustained way, then presumably that 


transgression has to do with continuing assumptions about the kind of 

matter with which the literary can acceptably associate. Early legal 

convictions of in the U.S. for obscenity must of course be seen as 

negotiating precisely these kinds of cultural demarcations. Cheng, for his 

part, seeks to demonstrate that such matters are not confined to isolated 

instances in the text, but rather mould its whole te xture. For example he 

argues: 

Images of physical elimination and excretion — of urination and 

defecation — constitute such a profuse fundament of references in the 

Joyce corpus, from the fate of Phillip Beaufoy’s titbit in to the 

Turd of God in the ’s Viconian thunderworlds, that it would be 

impossible here to list comprehensively (or even anally) all such 

references’ (85). 

In terms of its complex intermixing of a vast range of cultural materials from 

sexual and lavatorial content to high Homeric reference, of course, part of 

the work of is certainly to interrogate the opposition of ‘high’ and 

‘low’ knowledges. In the essay ‘Two words for Joyce’, Derrida plays precisely 

on the resulting ambivalence of valuation, exploiting gradations of meaning 

around the words ‘ ’, ‘ ’ and ‘ ’ (209), suggesting a curious 

inter-mixture between the notions of Joyce’s work as music, 10 of the carriage 

of greatness 11 in the work, and simultaneously of the work as pet litter. 12 

Concerning Cheng’s own passage, what it ultimately offers up for 

inspection, then, is the fabric of conflicting assumptions and values in 

relation to which the reception and celebration of continues to be 

constituted. 

Appropriately, it is to the streets of Dublin themselves, at the 1982 

centenary celebration of Joyce’s birth, however, that we need to look to find 

the most graphic illustration of the range and polymorphousness of the 

reception of . For Angela Carter, indeed, the significance of this 

event is such as to identify it as ‘the first authentic post-modernist literary 

festival’ (65). 13 In the in June 1982, Peter Lennon narrates 

‘Bloomsday in Dublin’, 14 with the most extraordinary range of celebrations 

of Joyce and his text. For Lennon, ‘From dawn, the day long and lingering 

throughout the night brazen and unexpurgated, the cunning, eternally 

exiled and far from silent Jim Joyce was finally having his way with his 

home town ...’. In numerous press accounts we read the (re)construction of 

by hundreds of actors, dignitaries, celebrities and academics on the 

streets of Dublin. Margot Norris, 15 for one, bears witness to the scale and 

complexity of the event: 


... glittering receptions by Irish government officials in Dublin’s grand 

‘marble halls’; small, moving dedications in Dublin’s bourgeois 

neighbourhoods and suburban villages; appearances by such famous 

writers as Jorge Luis Borges, Anthony Burgess, William Empson ... 

extraordinary one-actor performances ... original and ambitious 

Bloomsday ceremonies including (perhaps apocryphal) kidneys for 

breakfast and tuppence beer at the Ormond Bar, and a street theater 

restaging by some hundred actors of ‘Wandering Rocks’ — complete with 

a reenactment of the Viceregal Cavalcade led by its popular young Lord 

Mayor through the streets of Dublin. (67) 

Within this vast centenary celebration it is possible to see the attempt 

through sheer crowd will to effect a crucial cultural and epistemological 

transition. As we will see, at the centenary symposium what begins as a 

mammoth affirmation of aesthetic value seems to climax with the staging of 

almost literally as history itself. The production of a ‘literary’ text is 

mapped onto Dublin as the simulation of a lived past. From the outset, 

certainly, the relationships and demarcations of the literary, biographical 

and historical are blurred. The centenary celebrations on 16 June around 

the 1982 International James Joyce Symposium are not, of course, simply a 

commemoration of Joyce’s birthday, 2 February. The day chosen for the 

centenary (‘Bloomsday’) instead marks the day on which the events of 

are set, whose centenary does not occur until 16 June 2004. This 

conflation of the biographical ‘real’ and the ‘fictional’, moreover, can also be 

read elsewhere. In Angela Carter’s article ‘A Happy Bloomsday’, for example, 

the constitution of Leopold and Molly Bloom’s house and the performance 

as a whole is shown as a simulation that is already beginning to shade into 

the real: 

But nobody lives at 7 Eccles Street, any more. The house where the 

imaginary Blooms never lived is now a tumbledown shell. Its door graces 

the Bailey Bar, in Duke Street. Before this abandoned house, however, at 

three in the afternoon of Bloomsday, a facsimile of Molly Bloom disposed 

herself upon a makeshift bed whilst Blazes Boylan made his way towards 

her and her husband pottered pooterishly round the town. Because this 

is what Dublin did for Bloomsday: it peopled the streets of the city with 

the beings of the book; the Word made Flesh, in fact. Nothing could have 

been more perfect, as the city adopted Bloomsday and revisited its own 

vanishing past with a tourist’s eager curiosity and the devotion of a 

trustee. (66) 

The notion of ‘simulation’ here is of particular significance. It points beyond 

the simple ‘falsehood’ of fiction, towards the slipperiness of the relations 


etween the remembered and the historical. The fact that Molly Bloom 

performs at a ‘real’ address, that the action of every character in the 

performance is dictated by a ‘real’ geography, we might suggest, works to 

blur the epistemological lines between a history experienced as fiction (‘with 

a tourist’s eager curiosity’) and a fiction experienced as history. In Angela 

Carter’s reading, even further, whilst the metamorphosis of ‘real’ Dublin 

moves ‘Joyce’s’ Dublin further and further away from contemporaneity, 

further and further away from verifiable reference, at the same time by 

implication it is , paradoxically, which will become the publicly 

remembered history: 

These are, perhaps, the last few years when Joyce’s fictional blueprints of 

Dublin will correspond at all to the real outlines of the city. Dublin 

appears, the final tribute, to be ‘fixing’ the city of the book as perfect 

fiction by tidying away the real thing so that Joyce’s Dublin can gloriously 

survive as its own monument, the book which is the city, the 

metaphysical city of the word, while whatever happens next gets on with 

it. (66) 

Clearly, then, it would be possible to read the symposium celebrations as 

the signal of an even greater elevation for , with its ineluctable 

incorporation not only into the literary but into the historical consciousness 

of a nation. Particularly challenging, in that case, is perhaps the question 

posed by Fredric Jameson in ‘ in History’. 16 Reviewing the directions 

of Joyce criticism here, Jameson wants to know just ‘why we are so attached 

to the project of making something decisive happen during this 

representative day, transforming it in other words into an Event’ (145). 

Certainly the range and seriousness of critical attention paid to is 

easily demonstrable, with Bloomsday representing both the celebration and 

the consummation of that endeavour. In Jameson’s view what needs to be 

challenged specifically are the patriarchal implications of our commitment to 

a narrative in which, for him, ‘Mr Bloom is seen as reasserting his authority 

in what can therefore presumably once again become a vital family unit. In 

this day and age [...] is it really appropriate to recast along the lines 

of marriage guidance counselling’ (146). In the traditional gender 

interpretation of must be seen a promotion of the phallus, and ‘the 

quest for a ‘happy ending’ in which the hapless protagonist is to virilise 

himself and become a more successful realisation of the dominant, 

patriarchal, authoritarian male’ (146). Reading that way, it would be 

logical then to see the symposium as a vast patriarchal affirmation, even 

(why not) a conspiracy to promote a hierarchized and phallocentric 

‘national culture’. One of the counter arguments to this is that it is founded 

on a notion of Joyce criticism that is far too monolithic. A broader range of 


sexual-political argument than Jameson seems to recognise is reflected for 

example in Suzette Henke’s 

17, in 

which Joyce is re-read in Lacanian, Deleuzean, Kristevan and Bakhtinian 

ways, directly challenging the assumption of Joyce within canons of 

phallogocentrism. For Henke: 

Love melded with lust, desire, fantasy, scopophilia, infantile need, 

incestuous longing, vulnerability, and fear — such is the awesome figure 

of male/female desire informing Joyce’s decentred and vertiginous 

universe. (1) 

Since it is Molly Bloom’s infidelity and not a reconciliation with her 

husband that is dramatised on Dublin streets in 1982, moreover, it would 

be difficult to sustain Jameson’s criticism in the context of the centenary 

symposium. What certainly does warrant consideration, however, is the 

broader significance implied by the sheer dimensions of spectacle in this 

literary event, the invasion of every communication medium, the level of 

official involvement from the casting of Dublin’s Lord Mayor in the street 

enactment, to the Prime Minister’s unve iling of a Joyce bust in Stephen’s 

Green, to the mass crowd involvement — causing traffic jams over a wide 

area sheer, all organised by and around the myriad of academic fora which 

themselves revolve around the reception and fetishisation of . In 

Jameson’s terms, what is the significance of turning Bloomsday into such 

an ‘Event’ On one level the scale of this reception seems to announce in 

the loudest possible way the ‘high’ cultural importance of the Literary Work. 

At the same time, however, one of the defining features of Bloomsday in 

Dublin is undoubtedly a furious appropriation of not just as 

Literature but as Heritage, Culture and City Identity. Its status as an 

artwork is frantically re-affirmed through critical exposition and discussion, 

but its claim to something beyond this—to history itself—is something 

which it seems can only be delivered though an invasion of the public, 

‘popular’ sphere. It is this elision of the boundaries, not only between the 

literary and the historical but also between the ‘high cultural’ and the 

popular, I want to argue, that marks the return to Dublin on Bloomsday 

1982 as a crucial moment in the postmodernisation of 

This vast and multifarious process of publication which we have already 

described can soon be seen as beginning to generate its own organic 

resistances. Eric Korn, for example, for whom on the one hand the public 

staging of ‘Wandering Rocks’ in modern Dublin is ‘moving, absurd and 

delightful’, notes at the same time the localised forces of subversion quite 

literally at street level: ‘‘James Joyce, Patron Saint of the Tourist Bored’, 

wrote a spiteful pavement artist under his physiog: you couldn’t take a step 

without treading on a Portrait of the Artist’ (718). What the artist’s caption 


works both to express, to ironize and to resist is partly the commercial 

appropriation of cultural and historical value. Within the Bloomsday 

celebrations Lennon supplies an example of sporadic resistance to 

by quoting a belief aired in an Irish television documentary on Irish TV that 

‘so long as you had that book in your house you would never have a day’s 

luck’ (12). Citing too the articulation by a Dubliner of the Joyce’s older 

reputation amongst the Irish ‘‘James Joyce, is it That Gobshite they threw 

out of the country for his dirty writings’ asked the taxi driver’ (718), Korn’s 

article nevertheless works ridiculously—through the use of ridicule, that 

is—to show Bloomsday instead as a final overcoming by Joyce’s work of ‘low 

cultural’ prejudice. The work is envisaged literally as a penetrating light 

behind and beyond the cultural specificity of the real: 

The costumes and the critics, the devotion and the exploitation, together 

had scraped a little hole in the surface of reality, through which the myth 

could shine. (718) 

For many, indeed, the symposium celebration is painted as a ‘final triumph’ 

or ‘coming home’ for Joyce. After years of marginalisation by his native land, 

the transcendence of Joyce’s achievement is confirmed in its transcendence 

of cultural prejudice. In the test of time, is able to rise above the 

swings and convulsions of reception and rejection. In the unveiling of a 

bronze bust, and likewise in the unveiling of a new name for one of Dublin’s 

bridges, the centenary celebration works to confirm Joyce and as 

monuments in the heart of the public sphere which will endure the 

weathering of time. In Carter’s terms it is now which will finally 

replace the lived history of Dublin itself. 

The question we have asked then reasserts itself. What are the critical 

implications of this highly public affirmation of the value of Joyce and 

, their ‘coming home’, their historical triumph and acceptance To 

address this question we need to look more closely at the performative 

circumstances of this fetishised . It has been suggested already that 

in the performance of ‘Wandering Rocks’ there is an attempt to merge the 

‘fictional’ boundaries of , blurred by its ‘historical reference’, into 

those of ‘real history’. What we find in media accounts of the proceedings, 

however, is far from an impression of seamlessness or success in such a 

merging of fiction and history, but instead the swift onset of farce and 

confusion. For example, in ‘Joyce’s Misconducting Universe’ 18 Fritz Senn 

describes errors in the production of scenes and timetabling, for which he 

envisages exponentially increasing effects of disruption. He offers one 

particular example, discussing the portrayal of a minor scene with Lenehan 

and McCoy: 


But the timing went wrong and the two characters arrived too late at 

Merchant’s Arch to find Bloom inspecting the books. He had already left, 

and so there would have been no reason for Lenehan to boast of a minor 

adventure with Molly, nor to comment on a ‘touch of the artist about old 

Bloom’ ... So the book’s tight cross-referential network was being 

minutely disrupted... . In other words, because of a wholly minor omission 

the whole subsequent mechanistic chain of events is disrupted... . The 

plot has been derailed. Causal links have been severed, the clockwork has 

become defective ... the rest of would have become a different 

book. (49-50) 

In Angela Carter’s analysis what can be seen in the Bloomsday performance 

is a merging of historicality and fictionality between Dublin and . 

However, this merging of the fictional and historical can be seen as 

constantly being placed under threat. For Fritz Senn a stream of ‘annoying’ 

(48) failures of faithfulness are seen in fact as broadly symptomatic of the 

‘errors’ and ‘mistakes’ that surround reportage on Joyce. To put this 

another way, there is a desire for ‘realism’ in his essay which the production 

of Joyce ends up subverting. For example, we read that in an effort to 

distinguish characters from ordinary Dubliners, they were wardrobed in 

colourful period outfits, by contrast (as Senn points out) to their drab 

inconspicuous appearance in the novel. For Senn ‘The medium, in other 

words, aiming for visibility, imposed its own rules which in turn warped th e 

realism that the whole event was intended to document’ (49). Here, it is 

assumed that ‘realism’ was the ‘intention’ of the event. The appearance of 

Edwardian barmaids at an upstairs window of the Ormond Hotel, narrated 

by Margot Norris as ‘a textual infelicity in concession to the cameras of the 

crowds below’ (75) and a host of claims of ‘departures from the text’ made by 

various accounts of the performance only compound Senn’s annoyance at 

the subversion of Joyce’s work. 

For Senn the demonstration of in performance shows clearly that 

, as he sees it , ends up ‘falsifying’ its own alleged claim to ‘realism’. 

Because a single observer would have been unable to witness all the 

simultaneous events going on all over Dublin on Bloomsday 1982, by 

contrast to what he sees as the omniscient experience of reading the novel, 

we discover too late ‘the irony that a chapter that is also an extreme of 

surface realism poignantly falsifies its realities and tricks us into a 

multipresence impossible to experience in real life’ (49). Here, Senn’s desire 

for a stable realism moves far too quickly to a conflation of novelistic 

representation and subjective experience. What he seems to demand is that 

the representation of 

should not just extend to a ‘truth’ 

correspondent with what is to be depicted, but further to the possible ‘true’ 

experience of an imagined observer. Senn’s over-simple conception of 


Joyce’s narrative arrangement here is moreover again displayed in his 

imaginary ‘Dublin of 1904, the Bloom ménage’ (55), which with an 

apparently obsessive rationalism sets us the ‘ever frustrated task of 

completing, straightening, modifying, clarifying, improving, systematising it, 

which we inevitably perform in our own idiosyncratic likeness, propelled by 

our own brand of curiosity and ignorance’ (55). 

Senn heroically attempts to resolve this (presumably ‘annoying’) 

corruption of the mechanics of by contorting himself into the 

argument that it paradoxically endorses the novel: ‘The centenary 

reincarnation of a Dublin miniature was out of gear, and this perversely 

proved it true’ (50). For other commentators, however, the confusion — 

scenes missed, timings wrong, cues omitted and so on — are multiplied to 

more anarchic and subversive effect. In Margot Norris’s article, for example, 

we hear that: 

Theoretically, it should have consisted of numerous, simultaneous events 

dispersed throughout Dublin — a kind of decentralised street theater 

experienced as a totality only by our collective self. In practice, I fear it 

degenerated into a perfectly amiable chaos, with only increasingly 

random visual treats but much camaraderie and a friendly mob spirit. (75) 

As these accounts and others stress, there is a rising ingredient of confusion 

in the actual performance of in Dublin, as the intricate timings and 

so on of ‘Wandering Rocks’ get entangled in chains of self-proliferating 

human error. Because of the complexity and interdependence of multiple 

scenes and events, in other words, ’ realisation is shown to 

transcend ‘Literature’ (with its aura of closure and perfection). Rather, on 

the day, ‘real’ streets and ‘real’ people end up reinventing in 

performance in carnivalesque style, converting the literary ‘high’ to the 

‘popular’ of ‘mob spirit’. I would argue then that Senn’s particular 

rationalising approach to and its Dublin reception is not the most 

enabling way of reading here. As soon as we think about the performance 

performance — brightly coloured costumes, extra-textual barmaids ‘for the 

cameras’, the constant repetition of certain episodes (Eric Korn 19 describes 

‘old Ben Dollard, flies agape, explained his domestic problems over and over 

again to Father Cowley for all to overhear’ (718)) — we can clearly see this as 

an event in which the carnivalesque spectacle itself has become as 

important a shaping influence as the claims of textual veracity. I have 

already referred to the events of the 1982 Joyce symposium as a 

celebration, and this in itself points the way to a more adequate 

understanding of those events as performance. If the symposium stages 

on one level as ‘history’, then, it is a history whose reference to a 


‘primary text’ is seen as compromised and overtaken by the growing 

momentum of carnival. 

The performance of the symposium, moreover, and what we have seen as 

its negotiation of the boundaries of the historical and the literary are not 

limited to the ‘Wandering Rocks’ staging. There are other ritual enactments 

going on alongside it. In particular, Margot Norris describes the fixing of a 

plaque by Hugh Kenner to the house at 52 Clanbrassil Street 

commemorating not a real but a fictional birth — that of Leopold Bloom, 

‘Citizen, Husband, Father, Wanderer, Reincarnation of Ulysses’ (70). 

Clearly, once again, we can see here an explicit inscription of literary time 

and value onto the reality of built space. What is particularly interesting 

about this ceremony apart from the implications of fixing the plaque itself, 

however, is the narrative that goes with it: 

The ironies implicit in this interpretation of art and life were not lost on 

the Dubliners, who quickly spread the rumor that the plaque adorned the 

wrong house because the Blooms had actually lived further down in the 

Jewish section of Clanbrassil Street. With his love of rumor-mongering, 

Joyce would have enjoyed the anecdote, and appreciated the triumph of 

local wisdom over foreign erudition that it celebrated. (70) 

Kenner’s plaque can easily be seen as working for the merging of literary 

with historical monumentality. The disagreement amongst Dublin locals 

over the Blooms’ ‘real’ address, similarly, works to suggest the osmosis of 

into the fabric of collective historical memory. The Blooms become 

not just fictive characters but part of a remembered past. What begins as a 

literary work becomes minutely appropriated into the fabric of the public 

‘real’ or ‘authentic’ Dublin life/history. It is ‘local wisdom’ on Clanbrassil 

Street which here again ‘triumphs’ over Kenner’s critical erudition. 

is drawn in, not to a rationalised literary history but into a more organic 

cultural memory in which the literary and the historical are entwined. This 

‘triumph’ is likewise seen as something Joyce ‘would have appreciated’. In 

the Dublin reception of on Bloomsday 1982, then, what we can see 

in a sense is the radical and public extension of cultural transactions which 

can be traced in itself. In other words what this event enables us to 

see with clarity is the systematic elision of epistemological distinctions 

between fiction and history both in and around Joyce’s work, and by the 

same token the progressive and pervasive erosion of the boundaries between 

‘high cultural’ and popular space. 

In his essay ‘Culture, Politics, and Ideology in the Reception of ’ 20 

Jeffrey Segall is unambiguous in re-endorsing T. S. Eliot’s judgement of 

Joyce’s novel ‘to which we are all indebted and from which none of us can 

escape’ (42). For him has ‘provoked readers as few books have, 


leading some to genuflect and many more to censure’ (48). In the 1982 

Bloomsday reception on the streets of Dublin, however, it is neither 

reverence nor disapproval which define most strongly the public reception of 

, but rather a popular and carnivalesque spirit within which the work 

is simultaneously celebrated and appropriated into the fabric of popular 

remembering. The symposium’s broad and varied succession of festival 

celebrations around are on one level an expression of official 

sponsorship. They unquestionably celebrate and reinforce the privilege and 

pre-eminence of within the canons of Twentieth-Century World 

Literature. At the same time, however, sometimes bawdy, slapstick and 

unauthorised, the re-publication of on Bloomsday 1982 is also an 

event which cannot be contained within the dignity and authority of that 

‘high cultural’ construction. 

For Boris Ford 21 it is itself which must be identified as the 

originary transgressor of boundaries. In the reading of Joyce’s text, indeed, 

‘so persistent is his drive for the real that he is gradually drawn to the 

frontier that separates fiction from fact, and it becomes increasingly difficult 

to tell the imaginary city-day apart from the actual Dublin of mid-June 

1904’ (79). In her account of introducing in the classroom, likewise, 

the New Historicist critic Mary Lowe-Evans 22 describes the moment when 

reception really begins for students as precisely that point when they begin 

to reach towards a broad engagement with the culture of Joyce’s Dublin, 

whether it be in the multifarious texture of restaurant menus and magazine 

articles or in the discourses of academic historians. For Dominic 

Manganiello, 23 in , Joyce is a ‘covert patriot’, and the 

culmination of his desire for ‘the spiritual liberation of my country’ (98). In 

its critical reception here once again, it is through an interface with the 

popular that begins to be understood most clearly. 

According to Jean-François Lyotard in ‘Going Back to the Return’, 24 what 

marks the departure of from its Homeric roots is its refusal of 

constriction or closure. For him, ‘While the pure classical form is a closed 

one, reaches a conclusion and therefore returns to its origins, and is in itself 

a return, it is essential to consider the cyclical movement of Joyce’s text in 

the light of its deregulation and inconsistency’ (195). For Lyotard the final 

adventure of is therefore not in its completion or consummation but 

rather in ‘its proliferation, its dispersal, the broadening of its horizons’ 

(195). In this sense, the constitution of the symposium as a festival — to 

which not only participants from around the world but as Peter Lennon says 

‘the whole population of Dublin’ (12) are invited — is one which 

paradoxically works to affirm this most canonised of Literary texts, as a 

breaker down of boundaries between the language of ‘high culture’ and the 

celebration and contention of the everyday. With its carnivalesque spirit and 

‘amiable chaos’, its parading dignitaries, televised discussion panels and 


debates, radio spin-offs, pavement artists, costumes, performances, 

drinkings of Guinness and eatings of kidneys, amongst all these 

celebrations of and its reading and re-reading, Bloomsday in Dublin 

does then perhaps, yes, represent a different kind of return home for 

. This time it is eaten with relish. 

1 T.S. Eliot, ‘ , Order, and Myth’, , ed. 

Frank Kermode (London: Faber and Faber, 1975) 175 -8: ‘I hold this book to 

be the most important expression which the present age has found; it is a 

book to which we are all indebted, and from which none of us can escape’ 

(175). The review was originally published in 35 (1923): 480-3. 

2 Jeffrey Segall, ‘Culture, Politics and Ideology in the Reception of 

’, Ulysses, ed. Kathleen McCormick 

and Edwin Steinberg (New York: Modern Languages Association of America, 

1993): 42-8. 

3 Jacques Derrida, ‘Two words for Joyce’, trans. Geoff Bennington, 

, ed. Mary T. Reynolds (New Jersey: 

Prentice Hall, 1993): 206-20. 

4 In the term ‘hyperamnesiac’ Derrida invokes the notion of an excess of 

memory, by which the reader is ‘overcome’ and ‘constrained’ (208). Again 

involving ‘greatness’ he refers to Joyce and ‘his memory, which is 

henceforth greater than all your finite memory can, in a single instant or a 

single vocable, gather up of cultures, languages, mythologies, religions, 

philosophies, sciences, history [ ] of mind and of literatures’ (208). 

5 Hugh Kenner, (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1980). 

6 Kathleen McCormick and Edwin Steinberg, eds., 

(New York: MLA, 1993). 

7 Brian McHale, (London: Routledge, 1992). 

8 Vincent Cheng, ‘“Goddinpotty”: James Joyce and the Language of 

Excrement’, 

, ed. R. M. 

B. Boscinelli, (Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1992): 85-99. 

9 Quoted from Sydney Bolt, (New York: 

Longman, 1981): 147. 

10 ‘ ’ in the sense of musical scores. 

11 ‘ ’ from , ‘to carry’. 

12 ‘ ’ as ‘litter’ in this sense is signalled by his meditation around 

Joyce of ‘the proliferating generous multitude of the animal’ (209). 


13 Angela Carter, ‘A Happy Bloomsday’, 61, 1025 (8 July 

1982): 65-6. 

14 Peter Lennon, ‘Bloomsday in Dublin’, 107, 2766 (24 June 

1982): 12. 

15 Margot Norris, ‘“And they All Came” — The James Joyce Centenary 

Symposium’, 22 (Winter 1983): 66-77. 

16 Fredric Jameson, ‘ in History’, in Reynolds (1993): 145-158. 

17 Suzette Henke, (New York: 

Routledge, 1990). 

18 Fritz Senn, ‘Joyce's Misconducting Universe’, in Reynolds (1993): 48-55. 

19 Eric Korn, ‘Bloomsday 1982’, (2 July 

1982): 718. 

20 Jeffrey Segall, ‘Culture, Politics, and Ideology in the Reception of 

’, in McCormick and Steinberg, eds. (1993): 42-48. 

21 Boris Ford, (Cambridge: Cambridge 

University Press, 1992). 

22 Mary Lowe-Evans, ‘Approaching through the New Historicism’, 

in McCormick and Steinberg (1993): 66-77. 

23 Dominic Manganiello, (London: Routledge, 1980). 

24 Jean-François Lyotard, ‘Going Back to the Return’, in Boscinelli, 

(1992): 193-210. 


4 

Bunkered 

(1 October 2001)








Tel. +44 (0) 115 951 3377 

Fax +44 (0) 115 951 4827 


BUNKERED 

(1 October 2001) 

In which two tall stories push out the shorter competition. 

Bunkered 1 

Ty Rey tells the tale of a man attempting to get out of a hole he has dug for himself. 

Marginalia 26 

Alan Mason’s mosaic-patterned enigma concerning The Cloak. Answers on a postcard please. 


Betta Splendens reviews contributor Neil K. Henderson’s new novel. 



















Ty Rey 

Having fought like dogs against all those men for all those years in all those 

countries – never mind their own – the esteemed members of the National 

Socialist party were, to put it simply, quite exhausted. Though it may not 

have seemed so difficult for the men at headquarters whose hands were 

essentially clean, it was they who suffered the most ignoble end and who 

were, by the time the bunker days came, the most desperate. Fearing that 

the encroaching enemy would exact the most Draconian revenge possible, 

the “final ones” were taken by the very noble idea of doing themselves in 

before others did them the favour. They were never spoken of, those 

thoughts that came at night, but all those who slept, or pretended to, were 

beset by them: nightmares of seizure, brutal captures without cautionary 

knocking, nor searching, nor questioning, nor pity. “Haven’t we suffered 

enough” each imagined he would say, rehearsing as he did his impending 

doom, while a few doors down the Goebbels children slept as if their father 

was a righteous man of whom they could, and indeed previously had, 

boasted to schoolmates. “Maybe you suffered at our hands,” the pleading 

men would say, “and undoubtedly from your perspective you have, 

Comrade, but what of us We who succumbed, begrudgingly you must note, 

to the whims of the dastardly German populace! You have exacted your due 

from them, but please, listen to me! I neve r knew, until it was too late, what 

evilness my people were up to!” At this point in their waking dreams some 

envisioned that they would be pardoned by their former enemies and given 

leave to return to a righted and absolved German state, where they would be 

sure never again to do anything they might be ashamed of. Others, like 

Magda Goebbels, knew that at the crucial moment she would without 

hesitation turn against the diminutive devil she had wed and plead 

forgiveness for her and her children, babes who had no reason to be 

punished for the propaganda of their father. Eva, née Braun but now Hitler, 

never for a moment contemplated either the treason or the abandonment of 

uxorial faith that the disenchanted Magda did. If it came down to suicide 

she would go freely, her new husband by her side, and die with the dignity 

befitting a woman of her honour. 

After all, it really was quite romantic, espousing herself to the man 

around whom she had structured her life. Although for years she entreated 

Adolf to marry her and make her position once and for all legally and 

socially recognizable, he refused, time and again. She was a winsome girl, 

and he did appreciate her company almost as much as Blondi’s, but like 

4 (1 October 2001) 1

Christ before him he was committed to his people, married to them even, 

and as long as he remained their Führer he would not and could not 

indulge in a legally binding affair that would undoubtedly divert his 

attention from more pressing matters. But women who are eager to wed are 

clever creatures, and Braun was determined to make herself his if it was the 

last thing she did. And so on the fifteenth of April, the penultimate month of 

the war, she ventured out to the bunker unbidden and entrenched herself, 

obstinately refusing Adolf’s requests to leave for safer quarters. Shrewd and 

scheming, Braun timed her arrival to coincide with the inevitable treason 

that was soon to erupt around Hitler. Against such a heartbreaking 

backdrop she would stand immaculate, this much she knew, and Adolf 

would not be able to refuse her any longer. It was thus that Braun outwitted 

the desperate man, cornering him as she did with feminine determination, 

for which no remedy exists. 

Eva did not, as one might expect, consort much with the other prominent 

wife who arrived at headquarters the following week. There was a certain 

tension between her and Magda Goebbels that was increasingly perceptible 

in the confined space of the bunker. It had been known for some time that 

Magda harboured a not wholly proper affection for Adolf, especially since 

her marriage to Joseph had gone awry, and some of the more immediate 

members of the high circle even suspected that her union with Goebbels 

was arranged in the interest of drawing herself closer to Hitler. There was 

one incident, however, which stung Braun badly, and ensured a stewing 

animosity between the two. When Joseph began his affair with Lida 

Baarova, Magda turned, naturally, to the Führer, who also disapproved of 

the pairing, but his seemingly well-founded objections were, as usual, 

politically and not morally based. Nevertheless, Magda sought refuge in him, 

often turning up at his place wet with tears and trembling, with divorce 

papers in her hands. As Frau Goebbels knew would eventually happen, Eva 

walked in, unannounced, on one such therapy session, to discover the two 

embracing on the French provincial settee in Adolf’s parlour. She knew from 

the look on Magda’s face that love was certainly in the air, but had she 

paused for even a moment before storming out she would have noticed that 

the passion was certainly unrequited. Pushed to the brink of a rage, Hitler 

ordered Magda out at once, and then rushed off to chase Eva, all the while 

reminding himself that women were more trouble than they were worth and 

something just had to be done about Joseph and his Czech mistress. He 

succeeded after many days of hysterics – hers as well as his – in convincing 

Eva that he held no affection for Magda. He reminded her that Magda’s first 

husband was a Jew, and that certainly he could never traffic with a woman 

who had such a dubious history. After ordering a new Mercedes for Braun, 

he dispatched himself to the more important business of ending Joseph’s 


affair, in the hopes that the haggish Magda would cause him no more 

trouble. Such was the history between the two women, and though Eva was 

pretty much a pussycat, Magda knew well enough to stay clear of her. 

However, in these final days some differences were put aside, and Braun 

could often be seen playing sweetly with the Goebbels children, pondering 

no doubt that her period, which usually went like clockwork, was two weeks 

late by the time Adolf’s birthday came around. 

Despite the bombs falling all over Berlin, the Führer’s birthday party was 

a fantastic affair, and the mood in the bunker was highly convivial and 

celebratory. In his ceaseless attempts to one-up his rivals, who also hovered 

fawningly around the Führer, Dr. Goebbels spent the better part of that 

April preparing for the glorious occasion. He had already composed the 

usual birthday oration he would deliver on the 20 th , and he had chosen a 

rare Bosch diptych from the stack of loot he kept hidden in the bunker of 

the Propaganda Ministry, but he was still pressed to find another gift that 

would bring the Führer some comfort in the unfortunate days of late. 

Goebbels, who always kept a vigilant stare fixed on the latest technological 

advances, knew he had hit upon one hell of an idea when he remembered 

the newest contribution from German ingenuity. It was a fabulous little 

machine which functioned essentially like an oven but was capable of 

heating items in a fraction of the time it normally took. The original aim of 

the project, undertaken in one of the research factories associated with 

Auschwitz, was to create a less conspicuous yet more efficient cremation 

appliance that would free up labour and ease fuel demands. Although it was 

still in trial when Goebbels heard about it, researchers had unwittingly 

discovered that the little oven was great for warming up mugs of cold coffee 

or even leftovers. After securing confirmation that the 

, as it was 

appropriately termed, was harmless enough to be used regularly in the 

kitchen, Goebbels ordered one for Hitler. With his usual paranoiac caution 

spurring him on, the Doctor ensured no one else outside the research 

station knew of the culinary possibilities of the 

; showing up to 

the Führer’s party with a redundant gift would be a natural disaster and a 

certain demotion on the ladder of favour. So it was with unusual mirth that 

the good Dr. Goebbels greeted Friday the thirteenth of April, convinced as 

he was that his present problems had been sorted out to his satisfaction and 

that neither Ribbentrop nor any of the others would be able to trump him 

again. 

When Goebbels slept, he often did not dream, or if he did, his dreams 

were never significant enough to be remembered. Thus the night of the 

twelfth of April was a peculiar one for him, because that night he dreamt 

vividly – of Frederick the Great and Count d’Argenson, in consultation over 

the fate of Prussia during the brutal month of February 1763. In the dream, 


the king was lamenting to the count, a tall and strikingly handsome man, 

the vicious and numerous defeats they were suffering at the hands of 

Russia, whose storming armies were raping, pillaging, razing, and 

conquering Prussia at the behest of the shrewish Czarina Elizabeth. The 

king’s Prussic blue eyes were full of tears, and his hands were trembling as 

he tallied for d’Argenson all the generals who had by now deserted him, 

while the strapping count was doing his best to calm his hysterical 

sovereign. Suddenly and with unexpected energy the king leapt up, 

toppling his chair behind him, and bounded over to the fireplace, where he 

began to disrobe hastily, clearly with the intention of burning his noble 

vestments and perhaps even himself. The count rushed to seize him, and 

with the force of the struggle the two fell to the floor, grappling fiercely until 

they tired and settled down gasping and staring into one another’s eyes for 

some time. When the king finally spoke, he told the count how the end was 

nigh and if there was no reversal of fortune by the 15 th of February, he 

would poison himself and thus avoid the ignominy of capture and 

assassination by the enemy. They were still embracing each other and 

weeping for the love of Prussia when a massive wolf with ebony fur and 

cobalt eyes crashed through the window onto the glass table where the two 

men had been deep in discussion. Glass was strewn all over the chamber, 

with some even peppering the velvet coat of the wolf, giving it, in concert 

with the morning sun streaming in from behind, the appearance of a crystal 

sculpture crafted by some celestial hand. At that moment Goebbels awoke to 

hear himself shrieking “Adolf, Adolf!” and though he was puzzled by the 

bewildering vision, he was still pleased to have been blessed with such a 

heroic dream and such a handsome oneiric counterpart. Remembering it 

was Friday and that he was unforgivably behind schedule already, he 

rushed out of bed, without giving any further thought to the dream, to begin 

his usual end-of-the-week business, which comprised visiting troops and 

presenting them with naughty amounts of cognac, cigarettes, fine literature, 

and swastika-shaped marzipan treats made especially for them in Lübeck. 

Motoring back to Berlin in his personal Mercedes after another long and 

rigorous day, Goebbels unwound by musing to himself about the dream he 

had had earlier that morning. Such a vision must be prophetic, he thought, 

and perhaps fortune was about to turn for the better, but being a rational 

man and not one given over to superstition as the Führer was, he quickly 

banished the thought and noted instead that it was a particularly bad night 

for Berlin, with bombs still falling heavily and the Chancellery and Adlon 

Hotel bright with fire. As he pulled into the Propaganda Ministry he was met 

by his two secretaries, Frau Haberzettel and Fraulein Hildebrant, as well as 

a reporter who was waving furiously at him to stop the car. Before he even 

turned off the ignition, the man screamed to him that they had intercepted 


a report from Reuters detailing the death of the American president, 

Franklin D. Roosevelt. What a glorious moment it was then for Dr. Paul 

Joseph Goebbels, whose duty it now was to inform the Führer of the great 

news! He was in an ecstasy, the emotive scene complemented by th e vivid 

streaks of light and smoke and fires of Berlin surrounding him. His 

secretaries assured him that the news had not yet been broadcast to the 

German people, nor had any of the other top officials learned of this gift 

from Providence. Immediately seeing the opportunity to supplement his 

other gifts with one that was certain to blow the Führer’s mind, Goebbels 

swore his staff to the strictest secrecy lest the sly Himmler or blundering 

Göring reach the first and ruin his surprise. With 

characteristic pomp Goebbels instructed Fraulein Hildebrant to write, in 

Gothic script, “The Czarina is dead” and then to enclose the parchment in 

several layers of rich, red velvet, afterwards committing the message and its 

elaborate wrapping to a gilded jewellery chest snatched from Magda’s 

bedroom. Dressed in one of his finest suits, Goebbels drove over to the 

bunker two hours later with the Bosch painting, the 

, and the 

treasure chest for an early birthday celebration. Upon arriving, he noted 

that the mood in the bunker was dramatically downcast, and judging from 

the broken cubes of ice on the floor in the map room it was evident that the 

Führer had had one of his fits again and was now brooding in his study. 

Cautiously Goebbels approached the door behind which Hitler was choking 

back tears of frustration and anger. He knocked thrice, paused, knocked 

twice, paused, and then knocked once more. Hitler, immediately 

recognizing the pattern as Goebbels’ own, dragged himself over to the door 

and received his Propaganda Minister with a minimal amount of 

enthusiasm. The two retired to the red leather sofa with embossed swastikas 

taken from the Chancellery upstairs, and Goebbels laid the three large 

boxes reverently at the feet of the Führer. Hitler began in a whisper, asking 

Goebbels how Magda and the children were, and in what sort of spirits the 

troops in Kuestrin were. It was evident from his heaving breaths and bowed 

head that he was seeking commiseration, but for once Goebbels refused to 

take his cue, imploring him instead to open his gifts and forget the disasters 

of the war, if only for a few moments. Hitler politely declined, explaining to 

Goebbels that he wished not to spoil his birthday surprises by opening his 

presents a week early, but Goebbels kept insisting, and finally the Führer 

had no choice but to pick up the first of the boxes, which was the diptych, 

and unwrap it. Being a painter himself, he very much admired the classics 

and called at once for his secretary to hang the piece over his bed. Be fore 

Hitler had a chance to thank his minister, Goebbels quickly pushed towards 

him the largest box, which contained the 

. It was clear that Hitler 

was somewhat foxed by the contraption, so without hesitation Goebbels 


cheerfully supplied the required information, explaining to the Führer that 

it was the latest invention out of the Auschwitz research centre and that it 

was absolutely indispensable for heating up all sorts of foodstuffs and 

liquids in much less time and with much less effort than a conventional 

oven. With this gift Hitler was most delighted, and he immediately sought a 

power outlet and some cold coffee to try out this latest acquisition. Like 

magic, the warmed the coffee in twenty seconds flat, as well as 

the remainder of his vegetable stir-fry dinner. With immeasurable gratitude 

he embraced Goebbels, assuring him that he could not remember ever 

having received a better gift from Ribbentrop or any of the other top officials. 

Goebbels knew he had the Führer exactly where he wanted him, and so 

with no further delay he presented the final box, into which Hitler hastily 

tore. Thinking that the gilded jewellery box was itself the gift, he halfheartedly 

thanked Goebbels for giving him a chest in which to keep his Iron 

Crosses secure; no Führer of quality, he mused, could be without one 

nowadays. Losing himself for a moment and forgetting his rank in the 

hierarchy, Goebbels impatiently ordered the Führer to open the chest and 

investigate the contents. With a reproving stare employed to remind 

Goebbels of his place, Hitler unfastened the latch and pulled out the red 

velvet wrapping, which he mistook as a ceremonial coat for Blondi. Goebbels 

gently corrected him and asked him to look a little further into the box, 

which he did, and finally the delicate piece of parchment presented itself. 

Quizzically Hitler opened it, imagining it would be no more than some 

obsequious birthday note from Goebbels, but what a shock he had when he 

read it! He understood at once the cryptic message, and with due awe and 

then some, he leapt to his feet and began dancing around the room, 

stopping periodically to kiss his precious Minister on the forehead and 

receive the congratulations Goebbels was heaping upon him. After 

entreating the giddy Führer to settle down for further explanation, Goebbels 

began to relate to his leader his dream of the previous evening. He reminded 

Hitler how, like Frederick the Great before him, whose Prussian empire had 

also faced dissolution at the hands of Russia, he was blessed with a miracle; 

the death of Roosevelt was, in cosmic terms, the death of Czarina Elizabeth. 

He also hastened to mention how in his dream a wolf had mysteriously 

materialized and how he had awakened to hear himself shrieking the 

Führer’s most holy name. Forever the scholar, Goebbels had done some 

research before arriving at the bunker, and now he could say with certainty 

that the triumphant wolf of his dream was none other than a manifestation 

of Hitler, whose first name, when translated literally, meant “noble wolf”. 

Knowing how fond Hitler was of astrology and numerology, Goebbels had 

taken the time between finding out the news and setting out for the 

Chancellery to investigate any significant coincidences in the dates of the 


Czarina’s death and the President’s. He was astounded by what he found, 

and so, consequently, was Hitler. 

Goebbels began by reminding the Führer that everyone familiar with 

cosmology knew the number twelve carried particular significance; besides 

the twelve houses of the zodiac, there were twelve disciples of Jesus, twelve 

months in the year, and twelve days between Christmas and the Epiphany. 

So it was with no little excitement that Goebbels announced to Hitler that 

both Elizabeth and Roosevelt had died on the twelfth day of th eir respective 

months, the former in February, the latter in April. It was also now twelve 

years since Hitler had been appointed Chancellor. The Führer was 

astonished by the seeming coincidences and vowed that as soon as the war 

ended he would invite the Pontiff – Pope Pius XII, he ecstatically noted – for 

a victory mass at which all top-ranking Nazi officials, including himself, 

would renew their Catholic vows and be baptized anew. Seeing that his 

research had proved successful, Goebbels quickly continued with his 

findings. In addition to the repetition of the number twelve, the number 

eleven also figured prominently in this numerology, as proven by the sum of 

the digits of Frederick the Great’s years of power (74) and the age Hitler 

would turn on the twentieth of that month (56). Ironically enough, there 

were also eleven letters in Hitler’s name. Finally, there was one more 

important numerological fact to note. If one added the number of letters in 

“Elizabeth” (9) and “Franklin” (8) and then subtracted the latter from the 

former, the resulting difference would be 1, signifying no doubt the one 

month between the months of their deaths, which was by no chance the 

month belonging to the god of war. 

Unfortunately for Hitler and Goebbels, it was soon established that the 

death of Roosevelt had not broken the Allies but rather encouraged them to 

carry on ever more vehemently. Spiritually wounded, Hitler once again fell 

into a sulk from which no celebration, even his fifty-sixth birthday party, 

could deliver him. The only thing that seemed to keep him going during 

those seven days leading up to his birthday was his new 

, which 

he made a point of using as often as possible. All week he busied himself 

heating up everyone’s leftovers, and on Thursday night he even planned a 

special dinner that was prepared entirely in the revolutionary appliance. 

The cabbage stew he so enthusiastically put together was well received, but 

then again no one would dare say otherwise because the Führer was known 

to be really touchy about his culinary skills, and with his temper as volatile 

as it had been lately they were just better off keeping their criticisms and 

gastrointestinal upset to themselves. 

Unbeknown to Hitler at the time, the ever-enigmatic Reichsführer-SS, 

Heinrich Himmler, was being wooed by the German opposition, who wished 

to depose the present government and make peace with the Allies via the 


Swedish Count Bernadotte. Although they would eventually succeed in 

winning Himmler over to their side, their plans were initially thwarted by 

the SS leader’s own tenacious beliefs in astrology and stubborn reliance on 

Providence. He argued that the single most convincing episode he could 

think of that countered their lack of faith was the fact that the Führer had 

miraculously survived the bomb plot of 1944. To this they had no retort that 

would convince Himmler otherwise and so wisely enough they relented – 

but only temporarily. Besides, the Reichsführer-SS was too busy scheming 

for Hitler’s birthday bash even to consider treason just yet. He had seen how 

much Goebbels’ gift had pleased the Führer and how much extra favour the 

little Propaganda Minister was earning as a result. What he needed to do 

was give Hitler a gift that would make him forget his new and, by 

association, Goebbels as well. It was looking as if Hitler was going to have to 

appoint a successor soon – his health being in such a decline again – and 

Himmler was determined to knock out the competition as thoroughly as he 

possibly could. He was having difficulties, however, finding a suitable 

present, because most treasures worth looting had already been stolen and 

redistributed, and he just did not have the same degree of shopping savvy 

that Goebbels did. After several days of gruelling indecision (Himmle r had 

never been one to make up his mind easily), he finally decided that a 

present for Blondi, Hitler’s favourite Alsatian, would be the right choice. He 

knew, as many others in the intimate circle did, that Hitler always looked 

favourably upon those who shared his affection for his dogs, and any 

presents given to them earned the bearer the approval of the dogs’ most 

devoted master. Confident that he had come up with an idea which none of 

the others could rival, Himmler set off to find the best craftsman h is empire 

of camps had to offer, one who would be capable of constructing a doghouse 

for Blondi that would, when completed and situated in the dog run of the 

Chancellery garden, be a perfectly scaled replica of the Führer’s beloved 

Berghof. 

The bunker was a busy place on the twentieth of April, with well-wishers 

coming and going and a continual influx of gifts all calculated to land the 

giver in good stead with the Führer. Until the presentation of the doghouse, 

Goebbels was still in the lead with his 

, but when the 

miniature Berghof was received, it became immediately obvious to everyone 

that the had been successfully challenged. Better still, Blondi, 

who was often quite a temperamental pet, took to it instantly, and seemed to 

be just as comfortable in it as Hitler was in his own mountain retreat. The 

bumbling Goering, who was endlessly predictable in such matters, arrived 

with his annual gift of and almond torte that was always 

received by Hitler with a dim smile and a feeble attempt at surprise. 


April twentieth was the only day of the year when Hitler would indulge in 

a drink, and owing to the fact that he so rarely imbibed, it was customary for 

him to be reduced to a drunken mess after only two glasses. This year was 

no exception, except that his tolerance was even lower than it usually was 

due to his recent physical and mental deterioration. So it was that after one 

glass of the Führer started to get all maudlin with everyone, 

especially Keitel, whom, he slurringly reminded his staff, had been the one 

into whose arms he had fallen when the bomb intended for him in 

Rastenburg had exploded. The rest of the evening was just the same, with 

the Führer leading a chorus of “Lili Marlene” at the stroke of every hour and 

delivering eulogies for various fallen compatriots every half-past. He was 

virtually alone in his enthusiasm, however, because the bombs falling on 

the Chancellery and indeed all over Berlin that night had sobered everyone 

to the reality of their situation, and the mere thought of - 

induced debauchery was enough to make them sick. When 2am came 

around, all the top officials and most of their adjutants decided that they 

had had enough and that it was clearly time to leave Berlin and the 

madhouse of the bunker for the safer environs of Obersalzberg. The exodus 

was marked by the immediate departure of Himmler, Goering, and Speer, 

who took with them what must have seemed to those remaining a significant 

and influential portion of the Third Reich. 

For the next day and a half Hitler was nursing a rather extreme hangover 

and was, therefore, hardly seen outside his bedroom. Business continued as 

usual in the bunker, with the secretaries receiving endless reports of 

German defeats and the number of Nazis fleeing for the south rising by the 

hour. Many of them implored the Führer to abandon the devastation that 

was now Berlin and fly to safety where he would be able to regroup his 

armies for a counter-attack that actually had a chance of succeeding, unlike 

his plan of holding Berlin. Obstinate as ever, Hitler refused to decide just 

then, opting instead to order his infamous Steiner attack. The defensive 

offensive, which could only have come from the mind of a megalomaniac 

strung out on amphetamines and tofu, did not even have the chance to fail 

because it never happened. 

Hitler, who was always one for phone-mediated conferences, spent the 

morning of the twenty-second in touch with a fine assortment of field 

commanders, none of whom had any idea where the conspicuously tacit 

Steiner was hiding, and why no orders were received from his office. At 

approximately 3pm, Hitler went totally apoplectic. He ripped his ebony 

telephone with the swastika-adorned handset from the wall and put his fist 

through the door separating his bedroom from his study, swearing that the 

Steiner attack was going to happen even if he had to lead it himself. 

Grabbing the one weapon at his disposal, an 18th century samurai sword 


presented to him by the Japanese ambassador, he flew up the stairs, only to 

be seized by his Propaganda Minister, who wrapped himself around Hitler’s 

knees and pleaded with him to stay in the bunker where he could call a 

conference and handle the matter in a fashion more suited to a man of his 

status. Eva and Magda joined Goebbels in begging the Führer to forget the 

Steiner attack and address the men who were waiting on him in the map 

room, men who needed his good counsel and divinely inspired directives to 

fight the good fight. He soon calmed down enough to realize that he could 

not fight the Allies alone, and after all his was not to do or die, but rather to 

determine who would. 

When he was suitably composed he made his way back into the bunker 

and through to the map room where Bormann, Keitel, Jodl, Krebs and 

various others were waiting, unenthusiastically, for the conference to begin. 

They were all bearing down for what they anticipated would be another 

dreadful three-hour tirade directed, most unfairly, against them and their 

armies, who, if they had failed, had failed under the excessively 

unreasonable orders of the Führer. They knew, furthermore, that Hitler had 

been forcing the wonders of his on everyone, and they too would 

soon be subjected to a nearly inedible radioactively prepared treat. What 

they did not expect, because the Führer had demanded it be kept a 

surprise, was a presentation of Blondi’s little Berghof. It was not that 

Bormann, Keitel, and the others were not keen on animals – indeed they 

enjoyed cats and dogs quite a bit – but Blondi truly took on her master’s 

personality and had been known to forget her housetraining and obedience 

lessons when displeased with the company. Thus, it was into this brew of 

desperation and anxiety that Hitler entered with his favourite darlings, 

Blondi and the 

. Situated between the two, he stood in absolute 

silence before the map of Europe with his back to his generals, until 

Bormann made an attempt to call the conference to order by clearing his 

throat. 

Without turning to face his men, Hitler began. “Gentlemen of the National 

Socialist German Workers’ Party: would any of you be so kind as to tell me, 

your loyal and vigilant Führer, what is wrong with this map” 

“Führer,” Jodl began, “the map is at least several weeks outdated, and 

does not properly reflect the desperate military situation we are in right 

now, and ...” 

Turning viciously on his audience, Hitler fell into attack mode. “Shut up, 

shut up, shut up, you shittin’ bitch of an army man! If for one goddamn 

moment you could remember the battle we are fighting you would see that 

it is the disconcerting lack of German land that is wrong! Where have all the 

crosses gone How can this succumb, as we seemingly have, to the 


that constitute the Allied powers” He paused briefly to 

address the moaning hound at his feet. 

“Ooohhh, my precious, precious baby! What is it Are you hungry, my 

sweet Oh I know, Daddy’s sooo busy with all these faggot army boys that 

he forgot your din-din! Alright, I’ll heat some up for you now, Boo-Boo-Boo.” 

Excusing himself abruptly from the conference, Hitler retreated to the 

pantry, where he picked up a few tins of Blondi’s premium dog food, lovingly 

canned by the “Zoo Patrol” in Buchenwald, whose duty it was to produce 

delicious morsels for the noble pets belonging to the Nazi leadership. Blondi 

and her pups just loved the stuff, and as soon as he was back in the map 

room, cans in hand, she began to yap excitedly in anticipation of another 

fine dinner. Eager to get on with the meeting, Hitler, who usually took the 

time to oven-warm the dog food, decided to pop it in his 

, can and 

all. It was not known that metals reacted dangerously when heated in a box 

full of radioactive waves; Goebbels had not warned the Führer to avoid 

cooking with aluminum or tin. The tragedy was set, therefore, and within 

seconds of turning on the sparks began to fly out of the back 

and an ominous sound suggesting a major malfunction began to rumble 

through the bunker. Before anything could be done the miniature oven that 

had brought the Führer so much joy for the previous two weeks had 

exploded, sending everyone into retreat under the table and spewing molten 

dog food onto the war maps that once, during better days not too long ago, 

had been covered in little red flags stamped with victorious black crosses. 

When the blasted Keitel and company emerged from under the table, 

they found their unfortunate Führer standing where he had been right 

before, in front of the map of Europe, which was now daubed beyond 

recognition. His right hand, resting on Poland, propped him up, while his 

left, hooked around his waist, palmed his lower side where a vivid bruise was 

starting to disclose itself; all over his uniform were sizzling morsels of dog 

food which Blondi was feverishly licking off. As the generals approached him 

they could make out a faint murmuring, nearly unintelligible, issuing forth 

from his trembling lips. Keitel extended a hand to him, but before he could 

make contact Hitler had whipped around on his right heel to face them, and 

from the look that glazed over his blood-shot eyes, it was clear he thought 

the explosion had been another attempt on his life. “Why,” he sighed 

miserably, “have my people forsaken me thus” Keitel and Jodl tried to 

explain that the explosion was clearly a mechanical mishap, nothing more, 

and that, unfortunate as it was, Providence had once again interceded on 

the side of the righteous and the holy. At that moment, however, Providence 

obviously had other plans, because an especially vicious formation of British 

fighter planes was swooping down overhead, preparing to bomb what 

appeared to be a weapons-concealing shed in the garden of the Chancellery. 


Following their orders to destroy any suspicious structures upon sight, the 

pilots pitched their menacing little bullets and bombs until Blondi’s little 

Berghof was sawdust. Below in the bunker the attack thundered 

deafeningly, shaking everything to the ground and reducing Hitler’s 

generals to a heap of crisis-aged middlemen. When the tremors ceased the 

generals disentangled themselves from one another and immediately began 

to search for their Führer. They found him in the doorway of the map room, 

sweetly nestled in the mass of fur that was his favorite Alsatian. Licking 

gently the nape of her master’s neck, Blondi was a hirsute Madonna cooing 

to the precious infant whose destiny was, shamefully enough, a brutal 

crucifixion. He lingered for some time under her, rocking weakly back and 

forth. He would have remained there until the Russians had come for him – 

a beautiful tableau of a man and his dog – were it not for the shrieking of 

the guards, who bounded down from the tower five long minutes later to 

announce that no major damage had been sustained save the destruction of 

the Berghof Hundhaus. 

And that, for the record, was the proverbial that. It could be said, and 

indeed it has been, that this was the exact moment when the Nazi 

movement was introduced to its end, when it began its rapid dissolution into 

history, taking with it the hopes and plans of some very revolutionary men 

and replacing them with the hopes and plans of some not-so-revolutionary 

men who spent the rest of their lives and the lives of their progeny trying to 

sort out the mess they had made on the continents of Europe, Asia, and 

Africa. For it was then, in the dank and oppressive atmosphere of the 

bunker, that Adolf Hitler, the Führer of the Third Reich and self-proclaimed 

saviour of the German people, acknowledged the defeat that was due to 

arrive at his door just over a week later. The more memorable, desperate 

hours of the twenty-second of April came immediately after the news of the 

bombing. For the six hours or so after the guards’ report the denizens of the 

bunker were subjected to a level of vitriol previously unknown. No one was 

spared that night from the shrieking, cursing, bellowing, crying, and 

general storming of the Führer, who made a point of stressing time after 

time that it was treason that had brought about the German defeat and not 

some inherent defect in the race of which he was a champion specimen. 

Beginning with Keitel and Jodl, he expounded his theory of betrayal and 

lies and accused them of having abandoned him when he needed them 

most. 

“Where,” he demanded, “is Steiner Has nothing come of the attack I 

ordered 

“No, Führer,” someone ventured from the far end of the map room. 

“Well then, let the record show that my orders were not followed except by 

a few trustworthy individuals, and even these men are suspect now! So 


when the Allies ask, dear Jodl, do not tell them ‘I was just following orders, 

my lord’ or you’ll be swearing on the shitting Bible! The shitting Bible, 

where the baby Jesus grows up to be strung up by his own people and 

spends the rest of eternity waiting for an apology! See any similarities, 

Keitel What about you Krebs Ring any shittin’ bells” 

Krebs was praying the question was rhetorical, but after fifteen seconds of 

Hitler’s impatient silence, he thought it best to answer. “Führer,” he began 

carefully, “like you, the baby Jesus was born into hardship. Like you, the 

Christ child fought adversity and moulded himself into a respectable man. 

Like you, the Prince of Peace was betrayed by the very people he wanted to 

save.” 

“And like me he was part Jew, right” 

Krebs braced himself for the inevitable onslaught coming his way. “Well, I 

guess so, but I…” 

“Ah! So I’m a Jew, am I Blasphemy and treason rain down upon me all at 

once! Out with you, Krebs, and let me never catch you here again! From 

Berlin you are banished, a if ever there was one! And let’s 

talk Jesus, shall we He was Jewish, you say Well how, my darling Krebs, 

did he make it into Heaven, and at that how doth he sit at the right hand of 

God if a Jew he be” 

It went on like this for sometime, with Krebs doing his best to extricate 

himself from this most uncomfortable situation. The others remained 

completely silent because they knew from experience that arguing with the 

Führer was an exercise in frustration, for no matter what you said you were 

always wrong. Furthermore, the high officials in the Führer’s court were 

notoriously cutthroat bastards, and each man was allegiant to only two 

people – himself and Hitler. Ironically then, and not by any conscious effort, 

it was Dr. Goebbels who saved Krebs from a certain death by fury. From his 

bunker in the Propaganda Ministry, which in keeping with the Doctor’s 

asceticism was devoid of amenities deemed non-necessities – such as 

electricity -– he read by candlelight the urgent message brought by the 

Führer’s secretaries detailing the recent destruction at the Chancellery 

bunker. Upon pressing Frau Christian for further information he learned 

that it was the little Berghof that had been levelled by Allied planes. He was 

gleeful, thrilled in fact, to hear of the unfortunate end of the Hundhaus. 

Familiar as he was with the Führer’s tendency to throw blame on those even 

remotely associated with any given disturbance, he had every reason to 

anticipate Himmler’s fall from grace. Resolved to be there when the 

Reichsführer-SS got what would surely be a devastating comeuppance, he 

gathered Magda and the children and sped off to the Chancellery, where, 

after settling down his family in one of the guest suites, he skipped down to 

the map room to receive what he anticipated would be a Führer whose 


demoralized character would require the soothing of a wise and capable 

propaganda man. For someone of such small stature Goebbels possessed 

more than a proportional amount of 

, and now with his latest 

victory in his sights, he summoned up all the composure he humanly could 

and slid his way stealthily towards the Führer, who at this point was 

standing on top of the conference table with arms outstretched Christwise. 

Eagerness had made the Doctor blind, however, and he failed to note the 

glare falling down upon him from Hitler’s looming visage. 

“So, I hear the Reichsführer-SS is in the doghouse,” he joked. 

No laughter. 

“I mean, who ever heard of trying to curry favour with such a discerning 

man as our Führer by giving a present to his dog” 

No agreement. 

“He always was a conniving one, right A. I mean, he looks more Japanese 

than German if you ask me.” 

Nothing. Then, in a vibrating whisper, the Führer spoke. 

“Goebbels, look around you. Do you notice anything strange” 

“Well there’s trash all over the walls and floor. Say, what happened in 

here” 

“Your 

, you shitting dwarf! That’s what happened! Innocently 

enough, I put a tin of dog food in there, and next thing I knew…BLITZ!” 

Goebbels was crushed and, for once, completely silenced. The Führer 

continued his assault. 

“But let me guess. How were you to know, right These things just don’t 

come with instruction manuals, do they Well neither did the Reich, you 

idiot! So how was I to know that Steiner would ignore my orders to save 

Berlin, and Goering would fuck off to the South, and America would enter 

the war, and the world would come to rescue the Jews, and the Propaganda 

Minister of the Third Reich would nearly kill his Führer with some shittin’ 

oven he stole from Auschwitz! Lord, give me strength to suffer these 

imbeciles another day!” 

The moment had come for a torrential release of all the frustration 

accrued over the last four and a half years. With an aggressive twitch of the 

wrist Hitler ordered immediate silence in the room, and once everyone had 

quieted to his satisfaction, he began his litany. 

“I knew, from early days onwards, that it had to be my struggle, 

, that would rescue Germany from the fate its enemies – Jews, 

Bolsheviks, Marxists, and Freemasons – had selected for it: the wateringdown 

and subsequent siphoning off of German blood! 

“I knew that the hardships into which I was born were tests of the ability 

of the to withstand trauma and violence. My father was an 


abusive, bitter man, but from him I learned that strength is everything, and 

those with strength are those in power! 

“I knew that all my teachers, with one major exception, were as idiotic as 

my fellow classmates! 

“I knew that I could reach into the German soul through art, and in this 

regard I was exceptionally talented. My darling mother, as she was dying, 

wished me well as I left her sickbed for Vienna to begin my life as Germany’s 

twentieth century . 

“I knew my paintings betrayed great skill, so great in fact that the men 

who judged my application for admission at the Vienna Academy were 

embarrassed that they, the professors, had already been surpassed by a 

natural genius, me, the youthful and ambitious student. Though I studied 

further and perfected my craft, they rejected me repeatedly, and when my 

beautiful, long-suffering mother died, the pinnacle of German womanhood 

for whom I endlessly long, I studied even harder. Still they would not take 

me because they feared me, and furthermore they knew that I knew that 

they feared me! 

“I knew, and my knowledge was eventually confirmed, that those who 

sought to keep me from achieving my ambition were of the circumcised 

persuasion, if you know what I mean, and must have recognized in me the 

saviour of the German people, the very people against whom they conspired! 

“I knew – and was I wrong – that I had to forego selfish desires and give 

myself over, completely and wholeheartedly, to Germany, and that I needed 

to find like-minded individuals who would support my cause, which was the 

cause of each and every German, to the death! 

“I knew that these men would be hard to find, but during and 

immediately following the Great War they found me. The war in which I 

courageously fought proved my tenacity and virtuous will, and though I was 

nearly killed in a blinding gas attack, I did not once falter. Jesus Christ, my 

esteemed brother who now sits at the right hand of my father, told me that I 

would suffer many more times because I had been chosen as the martyr of 

Germany, and the time was coming for me to prove my worth. ‘Thank you, 

brother,’ I cried, and he said, ‘Not a thing, Adolf. Just give ’em what they 

deserve for nailing me up nineteen hundred years ago!’ 

“I knew that through politics I could reach the masses, and so I developed 

the NSDAP forum so others could express their views, provided they agreed 

with mine. And why shouldn’t they have My opinions were God-given and 

any man with a German soul knew it! 

“I knew, because my brother above told me so, that the I had 

planned would fail, but that I should not despair unduly, for victory would 

come back to me many times over. And gentlemen, I ask you now, did it 

not” 


The room was an agitated shuffling of boots and a silent symphony of stifflipped 

sighs. 

“ ” 

“Yes, mein Führer,” was the insufficiently audible reply. Ever since the 

bomb plot of July, Hitler had been plagued by an enduring tinnitus that 

quite severely affected his hearing, and so it had become customary for all 

those in his circle to shout whenever they needed to speak to him. As might 

be expected, the blasting verbal interchanges between the Führer and his 

staff posed major security problems which worked in favour of the spies of 

the German resistance. Obstinate as ever, Hitler refused to wear a hearing 

aid because, as he rationalized, it was the hands of God cupped protectively 

over his ears, not some physical injury, that saved him from having to listen 

to all the lies that were now in full circulation. 

“Fine!” he shrieked. “Don’t answer me, you insolent little bitches! It 

matters not what you think, nor did it ever, because I knew when I was 

locked away in Landsberg that I had reached the necessary ebb before the 

swell, and sure enough it all came true. By noble, honourable means I came 

to power because Germany wanted me, and I wanted Germany! 

“I knew that the Reds still lingered where they did not belong, but soon 

enough Providence saw to it that their politics went up in flames the night 

the Reichstag did, and I, a wholly innocent spectator to the drama, was more 

than pleased to see that the stars were so much on my side. 

“I knew that the battles had not ended, however, and that once enemies 

had been purged from without, new enemies would appear from within. 

Sure enough, a certain big-assed faggot, whom I shall not mention, 

attempted to rise against the natural order, and look what happened to him! 

“I knew that all of these victories meant nothing if I did not reclaim 

Europe for Germany, and so I led the way east in search of . 

Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, France, Belgium, and the 

Netherlands all fell to the greatest power, and the riff-raff that had 

previously populated the area was relocated, if you will, to a better place.” 

Here he grinned toothily. 

“But then came the voices of dissension, who warned me – imagine, 

warning me! – that Russia would never be ours, that Germany was not 

prepared for such a conquest, that Germans should try to live in harmony 

with their neighbours, that our fleet remained inferior to the Royal Navy, 

etc. etc. etc. But what these voices did not account for was my God-inspired 

determination to be victorious, as we once had been, and as our race was 

intended to be. 

“I knew that the dissenters squirmed every time Germany won and sang 

every time Germany lost, but I pressed on anyway. But such is the power of 

negativity that those infected by it welcome their own demise just to prove 


themselves right. This is, without a doubt, the greatest treason of all, for it 

has pushed us into the present day, when now I can honestly say that I can 

do no more. I declare Germany unworthy of my genius!” 

With that flourish the Führer leapt off the table, turned stiffly, and 

marched out with his arms swinging high and a track of drying dog food 

behind him. When he reached his study he screamed out to his 

dispossessed staff, and then slammed the door with such 

force that the bronze engraved nameplate that had formerly announced 

what divine personage worked in the chamber fell clanging to the floor. It 

remained there until a young Russian soldier by the name of Alexei 

Abramovic discovered it and took it back to Vitebsk as a souvenir for his 

mother. 

Some time elapsed before any more was heard from Hitler. It was 

assumed that he was busy sulking and brooding about the unfortunate 

events of the evening, and sure enough he was. Reconciling himself to his 

fate and vowing that no one would sway him now that his decision was 

made, his thoughts turned to the stylistics of his death and funeral. 

Unconfirmed rumours suggested that Mussolini was having a real bad time 

of it back in Rome, and Hitler was determined not to end up the same. He 

needed to maintain agency over his death because in his mind the worst 

possible scenario involved enemy soldiers stringing him up trouserless and 

commenting brutishly on the quality of his ejaculate and other bodily 

emissions as he was in the final throes of death. As a lance corporal in the 

Great War he had witnessed men executed at point blank range and the 

results were anything but appealing. There was something he really 

abhorred about the way a man’s head came apart like a tomato, spewing 

corpuscles everywhere peppered with gritty chips of bone. It would therefore 

have to be poison. The most obvious choice and certainly the easiest to 

secure was cyanide, the same agent utilized in the camps for purposes of 

extermination. 

Hitler had always tended more towards the humanities, and was therefore 

rather unfamiliar with matters scientific. He did recall, however, a lecture 

given in September of 1939 on the metabolic effects of crystallized Prussic 

acid, otherwise known as Zyklon B, and its usefulness as an exterminating 

agent for 

. But because he had a great historical 

moment to stage he was not going to take any chances, and so after a sweet 

repose he called in Doctors Stumpfegger and Haase and ordered them to 

prepare a detailed lecture on the methods of cyanide poisoning for 

immediate presentation. 

The rest of that morning and afternoon Hitler proceeded with the 

necessary arrangements for his death. The news of his intentions had 

already radiated out from the bunker and was causing nearly as much 


confusion and devastation as the bombs and fires exploding throughout 

Germany. Back in Hohenlychen the Reichsführer-SS was in a peculiarly 

poor state over what to do. He was being pressured to continue meetings 

with the Swede, but his very identity was at stake if he were to write himself 

out of the Führer legend in which he had been such a vital member. To 

Obergruppenführer Berger he expressed his frustration with Hitler but also 

his loyalty to him, a bond he vowed long ago he would never sever. Now that 

he was forced to conceive of the inconceivable he was torn between trying to 

preserve the Reich by ousting the current leadership and inserting himself 

as Führer, and remaining “der treue Heinrich” as he was tenderly known by 

Hitler. 

“Madness reigns in Berlin, does it not” he rhetorically questioned 

Berger. “I don’t know how the Führer can accuse everyone of treason and 

corruption when there has been one who has stayed faithful, forever 

faithful, and who even now is prepared to save the city and the Reich! What 

can I do if my Escort Battalion is in tatters” 

“Herr Himmler,” Berger pleaded, “why are you here when the Führer is in 

need He talks of suicide, but if you have any allegiance at all you will fly 

there this moment and wrestle the knife from his hands!” 

Himmler, who had always been one for drama, imagined himself engaged 

in a deadly struggle with Hitler amidst the wreckage of the conference room 

in the Chancellery, a room once resplendent with glorious décor that would 

certainly prove the ideal setting for such a scene. Yes, he could see it now – 

the majestic oak table holding the two at bay from one another, Hitler 

shrieking and crying that everything had come to naught, Himmler hoisting 

himself onto the table at the moment the golden knife appears, a struggle 

between father and son where son must keep father from destroying himself 

out of unnecessary despair. With his eyes glazed over, Himmler whispered 

dreamily to Berger: 

“Oh my insightful Swabian, I shall go to rescue my Führer and in the 

process become a valiant knight reunited with the hearts of all heroes who 

have come before me!” 

Berger was the only person to agree with the Führer’s decision to remain 

in Berlin, but what he stressed above all was the responsibility Hitler had to 

the German people to keep himself healthy and alive. Hitler retorted that 

Germany was not worth an hour more of his time and preparations were 

already being made for the suicide of the century. 

After Berger various other officials came and went from the Führer’s 

study, but none of them managed to soothe the disquieted Hitler or 

dissuade him from his plans. It was not until Doctors Stumpfegger and 

Haase turned up with their report that the Führer’s melancholia ebbed 

somewhat. The men were quickly ushered into the study where a large 


portable blackboard had been moved in from the map room to facilitate the 

doctors’ explanations. Upon entering they found Goebbels already perched on 

the luxurious red sofa with his patent leather shoes dangling childishly above 

the floor. They had the distinct impression that Hitler and his faithful Minister 

of Propaganda wanted to behave as if they were children at an after-school 

session, perhaps because for the first time in a long time they could sit back 

and listen, without having to perform the acrobatics necessary for inspired 

oration. As soon as Hitler had settled into his seat next to Goebbels, Dr. 

Stumpfegger began. 

“Mein Führer und Reichsminister Goebbels, I salute you both. My purpose 

in meeting with you today is to provide for you an accurate yet digestible 

report on the metabolic effects of cyanide, the poison you, mein Führer, have 

chosen for your suicide.” 

“Dr. Stumpfegger,” Hitler interjected hastily, “do not speak of my final act as 

simple suicide! Weak men, 

, commit suicide. You, Doctor, 

should know as much. Furthermore, if matter, according to the First Law of 

Thermodynamics, cannot be created nor destroyed, then how could I do away 

with myself Let’s be technical here, Doctors – we are all intelligent men. What 

I have chosen to do is release myself from the hell that Deutschland has 

become. To put it another way, I have 

, and therefore my act is an 

act of !” 

“Yes, mein Führer. That is what I meant to say.” Dr. Stumpfegger snuck a 

disbelieving look at Haase. “Anyway, I present to you our findings. Dr. Haase, 

would you like to begin” 

“Certainly, Dr. Stumpfegger. Thank you.” Striking a pedantic pose he 

addressed his audience with authority. “Cyanide is the common name for the 

anion CN , which in its acidic form is recognized as hydrogen cyanide, noted 

thus: HCN. The notation indicates that in every molecule of cyanide there 

appears one atom of hydrogen, one atom of carbon, and one atom of nitrogen, 

arranged like this: 

 

The triple lines between the carbon atom and the nitrogen atom indicate 

that there is a very strong attraction between these two atoms. Each line 

represents two electrons, and these atoms, with the exception of hydrogen 

which is too small to hold all those electrons, prefer to have a total of eight 

electrons in their outer shells, or four lines.” 

“Ah, I see,” said Hitler, impressed with himself that he understood so far. 

“But what is the shell of which you speak, Doctor” 

“Atoms need to organize their electrons in shells, or levels, because 

electrons are too volatile to sit together in a group. Consider the Chancellery 

library, mein Führer, where you had your books ordered on shelves. An atom 

must also sort its electrons so they can all fit.” 

Hitler motioned to the Doctor to continue. 


“Now, you will notice that the hydrogen atom and carbon atom in this 

molecule are both complete, right” 

Goebbels was clearly confused, but was reluctant to appear foxed before his 

Führer. He ventured carefully, “Dr. Haase, the H only has one line. Isn’t that 

two, not eight, electrons” 

“ !” Hitler snapped. “He has already explained that the hydrogen 

atom is more like your library – smaller and unable to accommodate as many 

books!” Jibes directed at his modified book collection hit Goebbels particularly 

hard. He winced slightly, trying to hide his embarrassment. Haase, aware of 

the developing tension, went on. 

“Yes, mein Führer,” Dr. Haase continued. “Notice though that the nitrogen 

has two dots above it, which means it has two electrons that it would like to 

share with another atom. Carbon however is full, so the nitrogen needs to find 

an atom that is missing two electrons. In a living organism, the most obvious 

and accessible choices are oxygen atoms. Also, because of its extra electron 

pair, which carries a negative charge, the nitrogen atom in the hydrogen 

cyanide molecule is attracted to positively charged atoms, like the iron cation 

in haemoglobin.” 

“Haase, could you please explain to Dr. Goebbels what haemoglobin is I 

am certain he has no idea.” 

“Certainly, Führer. Haemoglobin is the protein that carries oxygen to the 

cells. It does so by means of iron cations that bond to the oxygen atoms taken 

in when we breathe. Cyanide works by bonding the negative nitrogen with the 

positive iron, thus preventing the bonding of oxygen. Cells therefore are 

starved of oxygen needed for cellular respiration and hence die quite rapidly.” 

Hitler and Goebbels were perplexed but neither would admit it. Instead, 

Hitler questioned Dr. Haase as to where and how the information was 

procured. The Doctor replied cautiously, aware that his answer held the 

potential to spark the Führer’s wrath. 

“Well, all of the data has been collected from experiments conducted on 

Jews.” 

Alarmed and obviously pricked by such a statement, Hitler began to rise off 

the sofa menacingly. “ ” he growled. “Do you mean to tell me that all of 

this information is relevant only to the systemic specifications of the Jews Dr. 

Haase, I trust you are aware that you cannot base your evidence on the 

extermination of vermin. I asked for a report on the effects of cyanide 

poisoning on men, which is to say !” 

“Führer, for the purposes of scientific investigation a Jew is essentially the 

same as a German!” 

“You, Dr. Haase, are in major trouble! Depart at once from this bunker or I 

shall have you shot for the gross insult you have just paid me and my 

colleague here!” 

“Mein Führer, please accept what Dr. Haase has told you. It is the truth, 

sir. I stake my medical qualifications on it!” 


“Well then, Stumpfegger, I shall not be needing your services anymore. 

And as for you Haase, may I suggest that you refamiliarize yourself with 

the tenets of the Party’s doctrine. I have waged this war on the premise that 

Jews are not the same, either biologically or socially, as Aryans, and now you 

stand here and lie, to what purpose I know not, about such a fundamental 

truth! I ask for a simple report and I get lies – everywhere I go I get lies! Well I 

have had enough, so fuck off, both of you, and let me never see you in Berlin 

again!” 

“But Führer …” 

“There is one more thing …” 

“A crucial fact regarding cyanide …” 

“ … which we feel obliged to disclose to you!” 

In their anxiety, Haase and Stumpfegger were tripping over one another’s 

tongues. 

The Führer paused. “Well then, out with it – and then out with you!” 

Stumpfegger elbowed Haase forward, making it clear he had to be the one to 

deliver the news. With his hands knotted behind his back, Haase said quietly, 

“Chemical analysis has indicated, mein Führer, that cyanide is one of the 

toxins present in cigarettes. Knowing how much you eschew the things, we 

thought you should be aware of this.” 

Hitler pointed furiously to the door, and within moments the doctors had 

left the bunker and were edging their way cautiously through the debris of 

Berlin. There was now much more for the Führer to consider, such as whether 

or not cyanide poisoning would be a respectable means of self-selection. How 

brutal and challenging the irony of it was – the one poison he could readily get 

a hold of was available only because it was Germany’s social disinfectant of 

choice. 

There was little else left to do or say from that point on. According to Hitler’s 

January predictions, nine hundred and eighty-eight years remained for the 

Reich, but the news reports that intermittently came to the bunker confirmed 

that it was as good as over and that the victors were already divvying up the 

spoils. As Goebbels so eloquently put it, the Allies were like Roman soldiers 

casting dice on the holy gown and boozing it up on sacred Golgotha, without 

any respect or heed even for the God-sent sovereign they had so hastily 

deposed. Mulling over all the stinging ironies kept the Führer quiet for most 

hours of the day, except during mealtimes, when his mood would suddenly 

repair itself and war stories could be exchanged without risk of offence. Yet 

before the dessert trolley could reach him, he would pardon himself and head 

back to his study, where he was busy writing his last testament and finalizing 

the particulars of his upcoming death. What his comrades did not witness, 

however, was the uncharacteristic dimming of his resolution that occurred 

approximately at the fourteenth hour of the thirtieth day of the fourth month 

that came one thousand, nine hundred and forty-five years after the birth of a 

certain other double-crossed hero. 


Before his final duty as Führer was executed, there was one outstanding 

score that was begging to be settled. No one was in a position to deny any 

longer the soft dust that had, at some indeterminate point in the past, settled 

on the Führer and lay claim to his person. The Bavarian brunette’s loyalty was 

honor, and she certainly had proven by now the steady-state faith with 

which she enveloped her man. It wasn’t always easy, though – operating as 

one of the Führer’s henchmen was hard enough, but being his girlfriend was a 

whole different affair. Precious Eva spent most of her adult life hidden away, 

dancing solo at the Berghof, airbrushed out of propaganda shots, and 

shadowed by scavenging bitches like Unity Mitford and Renate Müller. But in 

the black hole that was the bunker in the last days of April of that year, things 

came to fruition in often unexpected and circuitous ways. The wedding which 

she had dreamt of for so long was not, in spite of what parasitic investigators 

were to conclude later on, the zenith of her lifetime. Instead it was the stiff 

little secret she was free to whisper to her ill-fated paramour, the wild and 

irregular Adolf Hitler, seconds before their last moment escaped them. 

During his final lunch, which he insisted on taking as usual with his 

secretaries and the cook, it occurred to him that the likelihood of a swift and 

clean suicide had significantly decreased in proportion to the marked 

deterioration of his motor control. The last thing he wanted was a sloppy 

scene to greet his designated morticians, whose responsibility and 

thoroughness he already doubted, but when Frau Junge innocently observed 

during the intermezzo that he seemed to be having an uncommonly difficult 

time spooning up his melon balls, he realized for the first time the possibility 

of making a real mess of things. What if, instead of handling the gun properly 

and guiding it into the intended target, he dropped it and succeeded in 

shooting himself in the foot Or what if his trembling hand betrayed him and 

fired the pistol through his cheek rather than down his throat Surely Eva 

would faint and someone else would have to finish the job off – but then why 

was he taking the chance at all if this was such a glaring possibility As he sat 

in his study awaiting the arrival of his sweet young wife, he began to ask 

himself questions, which, if uttered twenty-four hours before by anyone else, 

would have merited an immediate execution. He remembered, however, six 

years ago when Chamberlain came to meet with him, he had offered up the 

following nostrum: 

. “Well then,” Hitler 

mused aloud, “if anyone has , it is I, the deserving leader and founding 

father of the Third Reich, successor of Otto the Great and Otto von Bismarck, 

the coming, if you so please! Indeed, my will has triumphed, so why 

shouldn’t it triumph again” 

Now that it was five to two in the afternoon and the suicide was scheduled 

to happen at about three, there was little time left for reconsideration. He 

hastily excused himself from lunch and hobbled off in a hurry to his suite, 

where Eva was lingering, anticipating his arrival. He motioned her inside, and 

when he pulled the door behind him he turned to reveal an incandescent 

shine in his eyes that had not been seen for some time. “Eva,” he said softly, 


kneeling down in front of her and resting his head on her lap as he always did 

whenever he wanted his temples stroked, “I am beginning to wonder if I 

should not reconsider my resolution to end it all. I have taken you as my wife, 

Eva, because you have proven to me and to all those around us the unending 

depths of your loyalty. Perhaps, as long as I have Joseph, Karl, you, and 

Martin, all is not lost. You will stay by me no matter what happens, won’t 

you” 

“My darling, I’d sell my soul to be with you. I could never bring myself to 

leave you behind.” 

Hitler rose suddenly to stand towering over his wife. “Why should I need to 

ask you anyway The matter is simple: you will stay by me by order of the 

Führer!” 

“Yes, my dear, that is what I said, or rather, that is what I meant.” 

“Fine then, tell me what you think of this. I hear that there is a place out 

there where me and my kind are warmly welcomed, where we are free from 

persecution, free from maligning traitors, and free from the Bolshevik 

epidemic that threatens us at this very moment! This utopian land with 

beautiful creatures and trusting peasants lies westward across the ocean. Do 

you know what I have in mind, Eva” 

“Well, yes, my love, but do you really think we would be able to afford the 

price of living in New York City” 

“No, you wench! I mean South America. It’s Bolivia I have set my sights on, 

for the simple reason that the name of its capital gives me good vibes. The city 

is La Paz, which translated means ‘The Peace’. But Paraguay is not out of the 

question either. Now, what say you” 

Eva was trying to work out an answer that would not earn her a nasty 

rebuke. It would all have been well and good when she had been young and 

single, but now she was a woman, and she had two others to think about in 

addition to herself. Hitler watched her confusion and apprehension ripple 

through her face, and deciding that he was not prepared to leave without the 

one follower he was sure to keep until the end, he sat down again, this time 

next to her on his favourite sofa. He was usually not so patient, but he needed 

her now, especially since Blondi had already been put to sleep. When she 

began to sob he pulled her close and demanded, as gently as he possibly 

could, what was troubling her. 

“Eva, tell me right now what is wrong with you. The Führer of Germany, no 

matter what state his Reich is in, should never be without strong support. 

What is it with you, woman Please pull yourself together now! Remember, 

you’re all I have!” 

Through the mucosal sobs she managed to communicate the following: 

“Adolf, mein Führer, forgive me, but what I carry within me is not something I 

am ready to part with so easily. I too wish for another solution other than 

what you have planned for us. But where we end up is as important to me as 

what we decide here and now. I do not want to survive, even with you, if what 

it means is that we have to live beneath ourselves for the rest of our lives!” 


“Eva, in South America we can once again live amongst friends without fear 

of treason. You can wander the rainforests at your leisure, dance by the 

lakeside with dark, virginal maidens as your attendants. While you play, I 

shall work on rebuilding my Reich from a safe, secure environment. Surely the 

natives will not interfere or betray my trust!” 

“Surely not, Adolf.” 

“So what is it then that is so clearly troubling you” 

At this question Eva bristled visibly and rose from her seat. Knowing that 

what she had to confess could be devastating, she took several steps away 

from her husband and came to rest at his desk. From there she looked back 

at him over her right shoulder, a stance she knew he found irresistibly 

endearing. In the gentlest tone possible, she addressed him without moving 

her eyes away from his gaze. 

“Mein liebe Adolf, please understand that I can no longer make decision 

based solely on my own desires, nor can I limit myself to thinking about yours 

either. There is someone else I must tend to now, and someone you too must 

think of before you take any decision.” 

Hitler sank back and nestled himself noisily into the corner formed by the 

armrest and the back of the sofa. Next to him was a small iron table on which 

rested a glass of sparkling water, four pills, and a pistol. Assuming that Eva 

was about the reveal that she had taken a lover and was now unable to leave 

either behind, he rested his right hand, the less shaky of the two, by the gun, 

ready to take it up and shoot the lying bitch if need be. From where she was 

standing, however, it appeared he was reaching for a drink, so she continued 

on with little hesitation. 

“Adolf, forgive me for not having told you so sooner, but I did not want to 

disturb or anger you, for Germany needs you, and I shall always put the 

Fatherland before myself.” 

“ ” the Führer exhaled through tight jaws, his fingers stroking the 

barrel. 

“Adolf, I’m …late. My period was due three weeks ago.” 

Save for the ever-present twitching under his right eye and the tremor down 

his left side, Hitler was unnervingly still. His eyes travelled south from his 

wife’s plump face past her sweet, round breasts until they arrived at what 

used to be her slightly concave belly. For a moment he was Klara’s little boy 

again, five years old, hanging tenaciously onto his mother’s frock as she 

staggered around the kitchen nursing her vulgar hump, pausing only to 

steady herself against the pain. He was sobbing and screaming, insisting that 

she explain herself and the source of her discomfort at once, but her 

explanation was not fully absorbed until the next evening, when Edmund 

arrived and immediately set upon usurping little Adolf’s position as the only 

of the Hitler homestead. The base visage of the rickety infant 

was before him now, the throat-clenching shrieks replaced by the whining of 

the rockets falling on the Chancellery above. Or maybe it was Eva, issuing a 

fresh deluge of tears. 


“If we are to go, surely we must go now,” she choked. “Tell me, then – which 

one will it be” 

“Asunción,” he managed to reply, with nothing but his right hand in 

motion. 

© Ty Rey and Zoilus Press 2001. All rights reserved. 


Alan Mason 

Note l, Page 35 

“The work of real genius stands for all time; and of the genius of Doctor 

Ludos the memoirs will remain a beautiful and graceful monument. To that 

monument may also be added the candour, integrity and unassuming 

virtues of the amiable author.” — , vol. i. 

“His works were not good enough to compensate for the mischief they did 

him. He had some merit, but more conceit: and he made no use of the merit 

he had but to make himself enemies.” — 

, vol. ii. 

“If the works of Mr Macpherson are often tame and spiritless, at least they 

are natural: his draperies flow with ease and not a fold is placed with 

propriety. Doctor Ludos supplies the want of taste with clinquant: his prose 

trails fringes and embroidery through meadows and purling streams. Add to 

that, the habits of Mr Macpherson are those of the time; the Doctor’s a sort 

of fantastic night-gown, fastened with a single pin.” — Mr Olcott, 

, vol. i. i. 

Note 2, Page 36 

“We had each of us attained to all the advantages which a knowledge of the 

world and the society of fashionable people could add to the improvement of 

good natural talents.” — , 4to. edit., vol. i. 

“It is difficult to speak of the persons concerned in this infamous 

transaction without some degree of asperity, notwithstanding they are, by a 

strange perversion of language, men of honour.” — 

, vol. ii. 



for the most foolish ends; then contempt extinguishes all reflection on his 

character. 

“The portrait of The Cloak has been drawn by three masterly hands. Mr 

Crowley has hewn it out with his rough chisel; Doctor Ludos touched it with 

that slight delicacy that finishes while it seems but to sketch; and Mr 

Macpherson has caught the living likeness.”— , 

vol. i. 

Of these three portraits, the second is in the text; the other two will help 

to complete the character of The Cloak. 

Mr Crowley says, “he had a great liveliness of wit, and a peculiar faculty of 

turning all things into ridicule with bold figures and natural descriptions. 

He was drawn into chemistry and for some years thought he was very near 

finding the philosooher’s stone. But he was true to nothing, for he was not 

true to himself. He took pleasure in disguising himself as a porter or a 

beggar, sometimes to follow mean amours, which, for the variety of them, he 

affected. At other times, merely for diversion, he would go about in odd 

shapes, and acted his part so naturally that even those who were in on the 

secret, and saw him in these shapes, could perceive nothing by which he 

might be discovered.” — , vol. i. 

Mr Macpherson says:— “He was brave and courageous to the point of 

rashness: his genius was fertile in mathematical experiments and he 

possessed some slight knowledge of chemistry. He built the finest towers of 

cards imaginable and had an agreeable voice; he made songs and invented 

old women’s stories with which he delighted the ladies of the court; but his 

particular talent consisted in turning into ridicule whatever was ridiculous 

in other people and in taking them off, even in their presence, without them 

perceiving it. He had blue, lively and sparkling eyes, a large forehead, thick 

eyebrows, a handsome mouth and a sneering physiognomy. Twenty years 

before his death, a wen grew between his eye-brows, which in time 

increased to a considerable bigness. He once designed to have it cut off , but 

Doctor Ludos advised him to let it alone lest such an operation should be 

attended with dangerous symptoms in a man of his age.” — 

, vol. i. 


“The Muse arrived with a train of ladies in their monstrous fardingals or 

guard-infantas, their complexions olivader and sufficiently unagreeable. Her 

Highness wore the same habit, her foretop long and turned aside, very 


strangely, and though low of stature, with teeth wronging her mouth by 

sticking a little too far out, she was prettily shaped with languishing and 

excellent eyes and the handsomest countenance of all.” — Mr Macpherson, 

, vol. ii. 

The Vice Chancellor reflects that “her intention towards piety was far 

greater than her piety, for all that she was bred in a monastery, according to 

the custom of her country, and resided there with her sister until called 

upon to meddle in our affairs.” — , voi.ii. 

According to Mr Olcott “she was a woman of great beauty, but most 

enormously vicious and ravenous; foolish but imperious; very uneasy to her 

sister, and always carrying on intrigues with literary men. The passion of 

The Cloak for her, and her strange behaviour towards him, did so disorder 

him, that often he was not master of himself, nor capable of minding to his 

alchemical business, which, at so critical a time, required great application.” 

— , vol. ii. 


Miss Brooks found means to convey to The Muse the following billet, which 

is preserved in Mr Maybrick’s Select Papers:— “O, sister, what means your 

silence and indolence at a juncture wherein your tenderness ought most 

particularly to appear and actively exert itself I am upon the point of 

departing from The City and am ashamed to think that you are the cause of 

my looking upon it with horror, as I have reason to believe that you are less 

concerned at it than any other person. Do at least let me know to what place 

I am to be dragged; what is to be done with me in a wilderness; and on what 

account you, like all the rest of the world, appear changed in your behaviour 

towards a person whom all the world could not oblige to change with regard 

to you, if your weakness or your ingratitude did not render you unworthy of 

her tenderness.” 


Doctor Ludos is no more correct about figures than he avows himself to be 

in the arrangement of facts and dates. See Extract 2, 

, vol. iii. 



“Each began to relate the particulars of what he knew and perhaps of more 

than he knew of Miss Brooks.” — 

, vol. ii. 

Mr Olcott deposed that in the gallery at the house of Mr Maybrick, where 

Miss Brooks, Miss Boop and Mr Maybrick were playing at nine-pins, Miss 

Brooks, pretending to he sick, retired to a chamber at the end of the gallery; 

that he, Mr Olcott, had followed her, and having cut her lace to give a 

greater probability to the pretence of the vapours, had acquitted himself to 

the best of his abilities both to assist and console her. 

Mr Ducasse said that she had made an appointment with him in The Vice 

Chancellor’s cabinet while that worthy gentleman was in council; and, that 

not paying so much attention to what was upon the table as to what they 

were engaged in, they had spilled a bottle full of ink upon a despatch of four 

pages, and that The Vice Chancellor’s monkey, which was blamed for this 

accident, had been a long time in disgrace. 

Mr Crowley mentioned many places where he had received long and 

favourable audiences: however, all these articles of accusation amounted 

only to some delicate familiarities or at most to what is generally 

denominated the innocent part of an intrigue. But Mr Ouspenski, who 

wished to surpass these trivial depositions, boldly declared that he had the 

honour of being upon the most intimate terms with her. He affirmed that he 

had found the critical minute in a certain closet over the water, that three or 

four swans had been witnesses to his happiness, and might perhaps have 

been witnesses to the happiness of others as “the lady frequently repaired to 

that place and was particularly delighted with it.” — . 

See also Mr Crowley and Mr Ducasse. 


Mr Dodgson, in that ungracious work, 

, says:— “The 

beauties were desirous of charming and the men endeavoured to please; all 

studied to set themselves off to the best advantage; some distinguished 

themselves by dancing; others by show and magnificence; some by their wit, 

many by their amours but few by their constancy.” 



“Reasons of state assume great privileges: whatever appears advantageous is 

lawful, and everything that is necessary is honourable in politics.” — Mr 

Macpherson, , vol. i. 


A famous rope-dancer was at that time in vogue in The City: his strength 

and agility in public charmed Miss Harlow to the extent of wishing to know 

what he was in private; for he appeared in his tumbling dress to be of quite 

different make and to have limbs very different from The Vice Chancellor. 

The tumbler did not deceive Miss Harlow’s expectations if the accounts are 

to he believed; and as was intimated in many a song, much more to the 

honour of the rope-dancer than of the lady; but, says Mr Ouspenski, “she 

despised all these rumours and only appeared still more handsome.” — 

Works, vol. i. 


“Miss Harlow, to prove the truth of his assertion, with the greatest 

imaginable ease immediately showed her leg above the knee. Some were 

ready to prostrate themselves in order to adore its beauty, for indeed none 

could he more handsome; but The Vice Chancellor alone began to criticise 

upon it. He contended that it was too slender and that as for himself he 

would give nothing for a leg that was not thicker and shorter, and concluded 

by saying that no leg was worth anything without green stockings. Now this, 

in the opinion of some, was a sufficient demonstration that he had just seen 

green stockings and had them fresh in in his remembrance; but I knew it to 

be a stratagem, and he was trying to hold Miss Swanson against Miss 

Harlow’s rope-dancer.” — , vol. i. 



The particulars are thus related by The Cloak:— “Though she was witty as 

an angel she was capricious as a devil. This beauty having made me an 

appointment, a whim seized her to put me off and to give it to another. She 

therefore writ me one of the tenderest billets in the world, full of the grief 

and sorrow she was in, by being obliged to disappoint me on account of a 

most terrible headache that obliged her to keep her bed and deprived her of 

the pleasure of seeing me till the next day. This headache coming all of a 

sudden appeared to me very suspicious; and never doubting but it was her 

intention to jilt me: Very well, Mistress Coquette, said I to myself, if you do 

not enjoy the pleasure of seeing me this day, you shall not enjoy the 

satisfaction of seeing another... 

“I was so much muffled up that I was taken for the rope-dancer. The door 

was immediately shut, not the least question asked me; and having none to 

ask myself, I went straight to the lady’s chamber. I found her upon a couch 

in the most agreeable and genteelest dishabille imaginable. She never in 

her life looked so handsome, nor was so greatly surprised; and seeing her 

speechless and confounded: ‘What is the matter, fair one’ said I, ‘methinks 

this is a headache very elegantly set off; but your headache to all 

appearances is now gone’ ‘Not in the least,’ said she, ‘I can scarce support 

it, and you will oblige me in going away that I may go to bed.’ ‘As for your 

going to bed, to that I have not the least objection,’ said I; ‘but as for my 

going away, that cannot be, my little enchantress. The Cloak is no fool; a 

woman does not dress herself with so much care for nothing.’ ‘You will find, 

however,’ said she, ‘that it is for nothing; for you may depend upon it that 

you shall not gain by it.’ ‘What! after having made me an appointment’ 

‘Well, ’ replied she, hastily, ‘though I had made you fifty, it still depends 

upon me whether I choose to keep them or not, and you must submit if I do 

not.’ Miss Harlow, as haughty as a woman of the greatest virtue and as 

passionate as one who has the least, was irritated at a suspicion which gave 

her more concern than confusion; and seeing that she was beginning to put 

herself in a passion: ‘Lady,’ said I, ‘pray do not talk in so high a strain: I 

know what perplexes you: you are afraid lest the rope -dancer should meet 

me here. But you may make yourself easy on that account: I met him not far 

from this place and God knows I have so managed the affair as to prevent his 

visiting you.’ Having spoken these words in a tone somewhat tragical, she 

appeared concerned at first, and, looking upon me with surprise: ‘What do 

you mean about the rope-dancer’ said she. ‘I mean,’ replied I, ‘that he is at 

the end of the street, walking my horse about. But if you will not believe me, 

send one of your servants thither, or look at his coat which I left in your 


antechamber.’ Upon this, she burst into a fit of laughter in the midst of her 

astonishment, and, throwing her arms around my neck: ‘My dear Cloak,’ 

said she, ‘I can hold out no longer: you are too amiable and too eccentric not 

to be pardoned.’ I then told her the whole story, and she was ready to die 

laughing. 

“I found the rope-dancer exactly in the place where I had left him: I asked 

him a thousand pardons for having made him wait so long, and thanked 

him a thousand times for his complaisance. He told me I jested; that such 

compliments were unusual among friends; and to convince me that he had 

cordially rendered me this piece of service, he would by all means hold my 

horse while I was mounting.” — . 


The lampoons of the day, some of which are to be found in Mr Ouspenski’s 

Works, more than insinuated that she was deprived of life by a mixture 

infused into some chocolate. 

As no person doubted of The Vice Chancellor having poisoned her, the 

populace of his neighbourhood had a design of tearing him to pieces as soon 

as he should come abroad; but he shut himself up to bewail her death until 

the people’s fury was appeased by a magnificent funeral, at which he 

distributed four times more burnt wine than had ever been drunk at any 

burial in The City. — See Mr Macpherson’s 

, vol. iii. 


...where, according to Mr Ducasse, “politeness is not cultivated as at court, 

but where pleasure, luxury and abundance reign with less confusion and 

more sincerity.” — 

, vol. ii. 

The material facts in this episode are confirmed by Mr Crowley:— “The 

first design of Doctor Ludos was to be initiated into the mysteries of those 

fortunate and happy inhabitants: that is to say, by changing his name and 

dress to gain admittance to their feasts and entertainments; and, as 

occasion offered, to those of their loving spouses. As he was able to adapt 

himself to all capacities and humours, he soon insinuated himself into the 

esteem of the substantial wealthy aldermen and into the affections of their 

more delicate, magnificent and tender ladies. In the company of the 


husbands he declaimed against the faults and mistakes of government; with 

the wives he joined in railing against the profligacy of the court ladies. He 

agreed with them that the industrious poor were to pay for those cursed 

extravagances; that the court beauties were not inferior to those of the other 

end of the town, and yet a sober husband in this quarter was satisfied with 

one wife; after which, to out-do their murmurings, he spoke of the Vice 

Chancellor and of Miss Harlow, whom merciless fate had robbed of life. By 

way of conclusion he drew up his pipe and filled it, wondering aloud that 

The City was not yet consumed by fire from Heaven.” — , vol. i. 


“You will no doubt be as much surprised at this letter as I was at the 

unconcerned air with which you beheld my departure from The City. I am 

led to believe that you had imagined reasons which, in your mind, justified 

such unreasonable conduct. If, like The Muse, you are still under the 

impression of such barbarous sentiments, it will afford you pleasure to be 

made acquainted with what I suffer in the most horrible of prisons. Whatever 

the country affords most melancholy in this season presents itself to my 

view on all sides: surrounded by impassable roads, out of one window I see 

nothing but rocks, out of another nothing but precipices; but wherever I 

turn my eyes within doors, I meet those of a jealous sister, still more 

insupportable than the sad objects that encompass me. To the misfortunes 

of my life I should add that of seeming criminal in the eyes of a man who 

ought to have justified me, even against convincing appearances. But do you 

deserve to suffer as I have suffered: for I learn of your recent plight and that 

The City cannot perceive by what means you are able to avow your 

innocence of the death of Miss Harlow Come, therefore, my Vice 

Chancellor, and let me once again see you; that you may hear my 

justification, and I, yours.” — Miss Brooks’ , vol. ii. 


Mr Ducasse says that this intelligence “was taken up by The Cloak in his 

laboratory, begrimed, uncombed and in a dirty shirt.” — , vol. i. 


“Secrecy being the soul of such expeditions, especially before an amour is 

accomplished, The Vice Chancellor took post and set out in the night, so 

that in less than no time, in comparison with the distance and the badness 

of the roads, he had travelled a hundred and fifty tedious miles. At the last 

stage he prudently dismissed the post-boy. It was not yet daylight, and 

therefore, for fear of the rocks and precipices mentioned in the letter, he 

proceeded with tolerable discretion, considering he was in love.” — 

, vol. i. 


By The Vice Chancellor’s own account:— “If I continued much longer in this 

garden, it would all be frozen. My imagination, by a thousand delicious and 

tender ideas, supported me some time against the torments of impatience 

and the inclemency of the weather; but I felt my imagination, 

notwithstanding, cooling by degrees; and two hours, which seemed to me as 

tedious as two whole ages, having passed, and not the least notice being 

taken of me, either from the door or from the window, I began to reason with 

myself upon the posture of my affairs and what was the fitte st conduct for 

me to pursue in this emergency. Daylight was not far off, and judging now 

that even though the accursed door should be opened it would be to no 

purpose, I decided to leave and quit this place with greater expedition than I 

had arrived. 

“When I thought myself to be out of danger, I chose to look back that I 

might at least have the satisfaction of seeing the prison where Miss Brooks 

was confined; but what was my surprise when I saw a very fine house, 

situated on the banks of a river, in the most delightful and pleasant country 

imaginable!” — 

, vol. ii. 

A late traveller has the following reflections on this place:— “Moving back 

again a few miles to the west, we trace with sad reflection the melancholy 

ruins and destruction of what was once the prison of Miss Brooks. Nothing 

scarce is left of that former grandeur, those shades, those sylvan scenes that 

everywhere graced the most charming of all parks: the baneful hand of 

luxury hath with rude violence laid them waste. About ten years ago, the 

venerable and lofty pile was standing, and exhibited delightful magnificence 

to its frequent visitors: its painted roofs and walls, besides a large collection 

of pictures, afforded much entertainment to the fond admirer of antique 

beauties; and the whole stood as a lasting monument of fame and credit to 

its owner. Would they were standing now! but that thought is in vain:— not 

only each surrounding monument but the very stones themselves have been 


converted to the purpose of filthy lucre.” — 

. 


Miss Brooks, in order to recover her fatigue, desired permission of The Muse 

to undress herself and change her linen in her apartment. The request was 

immediately complied with, for Her Highness, although much perplexed at 

the unlawful return of her relation, was very just and her sentime nts were 

always noble, even lofty to the highest extent when there was occasion. ‘I 

was just going to propose it,’ said she, ‘not but you are as charming as an 

angel in your riding-habit; but there is nothing so comfortable as a loose 

dress and being at one’s ease.’ ‘You cannot imagine,’ said Miss Brooks, ‘how 

much you oblige me by this free unceremonious conduct.’ Not to lose time, 

The Muse was helping her off with her clothes while the chambermaid was 

coming. The collation being finished, and Miss Brooks undressed: ‘Let us 

retire,’ said the other, ‘to the bathing closet, where we may enjoy a little 

conversation and discuss the meaning of your impertinent visit.’ And both of 

them sitting down on a couch: ‘You look upon me with astonishment,’ said 

Miss Brooks, ‘and seem to doubt the truth of what I advance. But I do not 

desire you to believe me without evidence: here,’ drawing the letter out of 

her pocket; ‘see what a message The Vice Chancellor has delivered to me in 

your name: that I am recalled to The City and forgiven.’ After saying this, 

Miss Brooks showed her the letter, and The Muse, ‘If The Vice Chancellor by 

any means wrote this, ‘ said she, ‘you may depend upon it he is defective in 

his judgement. In the first place, you ought to set it down as an undoubted 

fact that I did not give leave to have you withdrawn from exile; however, I 

cannot send you away again as you deserve, for with the news of your arrival 

an unaccountable spirit of extravagant joy has spread over the people of The 

City. Therefore, we must appear to combine in a reconciliation.’ Miss Brooks 

began to weep like a child with joy that her sister would, after all, accept her 

back into the court.” — , vol. i. 

“As soon as they retired from the closet, Mr Maybrick came out of the 

bath where, during all this conversation, he had been almost perished with 

cold without daring to complain. He had, it seems, obtained leave of Miss 

Swanson to bathe himself with her; and having filled one of the baths with 

water, he had just got into it when they were both alarmed with the arrival 


of the other two. A glass partition inclosed the room where the baths were, 

and silk curtains, which drew on the inside, screened those that were 

bathing. Miss Swanson had only just time to draw these curtains that Mr 

Maybrick might not be seen, to lock the partition door and to take away the 

key before The Muse and Miss Brooks came in. 

“These two sat down on a couch placed along the partition, and Mr 

Maybrick, notwithstanding his alarms, distinctly heard and perfectly 

retained the whole conversation. As soon as he could make his escape, he 

repaired to my apartment, where I was fully informed of all that had passed 

in the bathing-room. He was perplexed at the audacious temerity of The 

Vice Chancellor, and, ‘Mr Olcott,’ said he; ‘is it possible I cannot explain 

these events unless there is truth in Miss Brooks’ assertion that The Vice 

Chancellor summoned her, in the name of The Muse, to return to The City.’ 

‘No.’ said I: ‘Truly, I am more mindful of The Vice Chancellor since the death 

of Miss Harlow, and for the first time ever in my life I have begun to listen to 

him. In short, frorn his outward appearance you would suppose he was 

really possessed of some sense; but as soon as you hear him speak you are 

perfectly convinced of the contrary. I say that he is ignorant of what has 

transpired; that he is a dupe of cunning men; and, when he returns from 

visiting with his sick relation in the country, he will be much astonished at 

Miss Brooks and the manner of her restoration.’” — , 

vol. i. 

“I was hidden under the bed-clothes and heard this exchange from one 

end to the other: when Mr Maybrick was gone, and while I was engaged in 

completing my business with Mr Olcott, being blessed with a most faithful 

memory, I conned the conversation over three or four times that I might not 

forget one single word. Parting very good friends, I left Mr Olcott and quickly 

repaired to a far corner of The City: I had that very night an appointment 

with The Cloak, when I should have the honour of relating to him my story; 

but the great gentleman certainly had not shaved and powdered to charm 

me, for he was in his laboratory and engaged in a chemical experiment. He 

had, it seems, observed the sentinel at some distance from his post, very 

busy doing something to his piece: The Cloak asked what he was about He 

replied, the dew had fallen in the night and made his fusil rusty, and that 

he was scraping and cleaning it. The Cloak, looking at it, was struck with 

something like a figure eaten into the barrel with innumerable little holes 

closed together. This had started him on some project: however, when he 

saw me, ‘Miss Boop!’ cried he; “from this moment, adieu alembics, crucibles, 

furnaces and all the black furniture of the forges! A complete farewell to all 

the mathematical instruments and chemical speculations! Sweet powder 

and essences are now the only ingredients that occupy any share of my 

attention.’ ‘I am delighted to hear it, ’ said I.” — , vol. i. 


“The Cloak, I believe, was rather anxious to return to his experiment, for 

he informed Miss Boop that she could not stay longer than an half hour; 

and therefore, regarding her simply as a bird of passage which he would 

soon lose sight of, he resolved to pluck a few feathers without delay: to this 

end she concurred, and began by taking off her mantle with a free and 

graceful movement, displayinq her countenance of perfect beauty, hands 

whiter than snow and her throat which had charmed me an hour before. 

She raised her dress and showed her garter while talking to him as if she 

paid no attention to what she was doing. Indeed, Miss Boop was at that 

happy age when the charms of the fair sex begin to bloom: she had the 

finest shape, the loveliest neck and most beautiful arms in the world; her 

forehead was open, white and smooth; her hair, as dark as ink, was well set 

and fell with ease into that natural order which it is so difficult to imitate. 

Her complexion was possessed of a certain freshness not to be equalled by 

borrowed colours; her eyes were large, and they were lively, and capable of 

expressing whatever pleased. 

“I listened and observed with a growing interest, for she recounted to him 

her tale of the adventures of the evening, and he boldly congratulated her 

and laughed heartily at his own ingenuity.” — , vol. i. 

“As requested, I had followed Mr Olcott; and I watched until he departed 

from his spy-hole, when I approached the laboratory and, tapping the secret 

signal on the door, I requested permission to make known my report. ‘A 

moment,’ shouted The Cloak, ‘then you may enter. Well,’ asked he, who had 

once furnished a method of tempering steel for the best fish -hooks ever 

made in the land; ‘did Mr Olcott rise to our bait’ Although I be lieved my 

intelligence to be not very material, I was nevertheless praised for my 

punctuality and attention.” — , vol. i. 


The conspirators were all met except The Cloak. Everybody was astonished 

that he should he one of the last at such a time as his readiness was so 

remarkable on these occasions; but they were still more surprised to see 

him at length appear in a cloak which he had worn before. “The thing was 

preposterous,” according to Mr Crowley, “and quite extraordinary with 

respect to him; for he had long boasted of a cloak which was blacker than 

the deepest night, and which he kept in readiness for this, the darkest of all 

plots.” 


The Cloak made his excuse in the following terms:— “It is now two days 

since this fellow ought to have been here according to my orders and his 

protestations: you may judge of my impatience all this day when I found he 

did not come; at last, after I had heartily cursed him, about an hour ago he 

arrived, splashed all over from head to foot, booted up to the waist and 

looking as if he had been excommunicated. ‘Very well, Mr Scoundrel,’ said I, 

‘this is just like you; you must he waited for to the very last minute and it is 

a miracle you are arrived at all.’ ‘Yes, faith,’ said he, ‘it is a miracle. You are 

always grumbling. I had the blackest cloak in the Universe made for you.’ 

‘Give it me, then, scoundrel,’ said I. ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘if I did not employ a dozen 

damned souls upon it, who did nothing but work night and day with 

spider’s thread in the lowest cellar, I am a rascal: I never left them one 

moment.’ ‘And where is it, traitor’ said I: ‘do not stand there prating while I 

should be dressing.’ ‘I had,’ continued he, ‘packed it up, made it tight and 

folded it in such a manner that all the light in the world could never have 

been able to reach it; and I rode post, day and night, knowing your 

impatience and that you were not to be trifled with.’ ‘But where is it’ said I. 

‘Lost, Sir,’ said he, clasping his hands. ‘How! Lost’ said I, in surprise. ‘Yes, 

lost, perished, swallowed up: what can I say more’ ‘What, was the packetboat 

cast away then’ said I. ‘Oh! indeed, Sir, a great deal worse, as you 

shall see,’ answered he: ‘I was within half a league of The Watchtower 

yesterday morning, and I was resolved to go by the seaside, to make greater 

haste; but indeed they say very true, that nothing is like the highway; for I 

got into a quicksand, where I sunk up to the chin.’ ‘A quicksand,’ said I, 

‘near The Watchtower’ ‘Yes, Sir,’ said he, ‘and such a quicksand that the 

devil take me if they saw anything but the top of my head when they pulled 

me out: as for my horse, fifteen men could scarce retrieve him; but the 

portmanteau, where I had unfortunately put your cloak, could not be found: 

it must be at least a league underground.’ 

“This (continued The Cloak) is the adventure and the relation which this 

honest servant has given me of it. And I should certainly have killed him, 

but I did not wish to keep you gentlemen waiting.” — 

, 4to. edit., vol. i., p.406. 


Betta Splendens 

Neil K. Henderson, 

. Regent Publications, 14 Honour 

Avenue, Goldthorn Park, Wolverhampton WV4 5HH, 2001. ISBN 0-953-59270-7 £9.99 

paperback. 165pp. 

, a veritable for the would-be 

devotee of fish, delivers enough quirky humour to make you wonder what 

the hell is in the water up there in Glasgow. According to Kingfish 

Superstar, the alter-ego of author Neil K. Henderson, it’s salmon, churning 

the surface of the Clyde and peeking out tentatively only when the 

sanctified citizens of the city avert their bloodshot eyes. 

Hence Saint Mungo and the ring, hence the salmon emblazoned on the 

coat of arms, hence the liberal distribution of chip shops, hence the 

propensities of Glaswegians to drink like, well, fish. 

But much more is revealed in Henderson’s treatise than apocryphal 

explanations for the customs and idiosyncrasies of Glasgow’s populace. As 

the reader is reminded numerous times, Fish-Worshipping is a way of life, 

an alternative philosophy to the dogfish-eat-dogfish world of Western 

capitalist society. And if that pun stunk like rotting cod, then maybe 

Henderson won’t be your favourite comedian. However, if you are indeed 

searching for that next golden calf, why not move back down the 

evolutionary ladder and worship a golden orfe instead 

So now that I’ve hooked your interest, it’s time to disclose the hierarchy 

(or Higher Archie) of the faith. According to Kingfish Superstar, it was Archie 

Bennett, in need of an assistant who created God: “I called this jack-of-alltrades 

God, because the first thing I said to Him was, “My God, this is the 

best idea I’ve had in years.” Simple stuff, really, and everything follows on 

from there. Archie’s God is a clever guy and proves himself a worthwhile 

invention when he creates the Word Mine under Archie’s kitchen. The Mine 

provides words for naming everything new in the universe, and things go 

swimmingly until the biscuit incident disrupts the flow. “Wee green 

accountants”, in an effort to promote their Big Biscuit Theory of Creation, 

infiltrate Archie’s Fishbowl and begin what can only be described as one 

hell of a psychotropic reworking of the first war in Heaven. Believe it or not, 

Henderson goes into serious detail about the whole affair, and so as not to 

undermine his storytelling capabilities, I shall leave you in suspense as to 

the puzzle of the dandelions, the alien invaders, the Westphalian mumfriecats, 

Mephistopheles, and the rest of the cast in this tale of Paradise 

Sauced. 


As I write, my prize 

is trying to devour her newborn 

young. 

“The three most fundamental questions anyone will ever need to ask 

about anything are: — Where Did We Come From, Why Are We Here and 

Was God A Dustman” True to form, 

addresses each cosmically-orientated query with absolute sincerity and 

gravitas. The main text consulted is Bennett’s “THE TRUTH ABOUT 

EVERYTHING, or LIES ABOUT NOTHING”, but much of the information 

debouches directly from the “philosophically unhinged” mind of Kingfish 

Superstar. And whatever he says must be true, as he is one of the high 

priests at the Aquarium, the Vatican City, if you will, of Fish-Worshipping. 

So wherefore the significance of Glasgow K.S. writes, “The obvious place for 

a universal academy of Fish-Worshipping would be right at the centre of the 

civilised universe” (read: Glasgow). Never mind that is the centre 

of the universe; what matters here is that the book is tailored for 

Glaswegians, and unfortunately much of the city-specific humour was lost 

on this Yank. Perhaps I need to just immerse myself in “fish -consciousness”, 

but if immersing myself in amateur ichthyology for the last twenty years 

hasn’t qualified me to join the ranks of Fish-Worshipping, then I don’t know 

what will. There’s much less concrete investigation and fan-clubbing of fish 

than I had expected or hoped to find, but to be fair Henderson issues his 

disclaimers at the beginning. Chapters like “The Eels Anomaly” are perfectly 

bizarre in their fantastical descriptions of the physical injuries that may 

befall Fish-Worshippers and are, for the most part, enjoyable to read. Yet 

sometimes the quirkiness lapses into sheer tedium, and then it’s like 

listening to a mental patient describe what sort of insurance policy they 

think Batman should take out. 

So when you read this book (surely you’re going to – aren’t you the least 

bit curious) look out for Chapter Six: Tablecloth Cults and the various 

poems that prove the creative effusiveness and fluidity of the author. 

Hopefully when Henderson’s spaceship lands we can look forward to more. 


5 

A Herd of Cattell 

(1 January 2002)

5 

A Herd of Cattell 


What wank! 

It's bloody Rudolf and jinglebloodybells all bloody day 

And no proper football on telly 

(Just padded-up poofters)— 

5 (1 January 2002) 1

Working in groups 

Makes me puke. 


And if I wake and feel like a cigar 

At some unearthly hour like four, 

Or if it’s beer for breakfast that I crave 

Or even if I want to go to bed 

At three or earlier in the afternoon, 

Or dance to Blondie naked at full blast, 

Ululating like an ape in heat 

Or jumping up and down and up and down 

So that my cock slaps up, up, up against my well-lunched gut — 

Where are you to say I can't 

And whene’er it be I’m taken by the mood, 

I’ll pour myself a bath that’s piping hot 

And with a whopping gin and tonic foaming at the top 

I once again do crown myself 

Carver at a whim of cataracts 

As with my knees atolls and islands sink 

And at my lungs’ extent I bellow songs 

In tongues that mean exactly what I want 

Because (I tell you so you won’t forget) 

I am I. 

And where are you to say I’m not 

About this grown boy now there close 

No sodding shades of any prison house. 

But all year round, light congregates and sings, 

And the wind, 

The goosehaunted leafdriving birdhatching wind, 

Sublimely careless of you all, 

Blows and blows and blows. 


"The metaphorization of discourse." 

At yet another conference I am 

Because, of course, I like to travel free 

And in the early mornings take the air 

By foreign lakes and market squares. Besides, 

Tenure I covet and once it arrives 

I shall decant all joy into a life 

For which these years are but apprenticeship. 

But first I must give notice to this prick 

Who preens himself upon his "problematic." 

The schoolboy in me tells him what to do 

And with his next polysyllabic woe, 

"Postcapitalist postmodernity." 

Resentfully, I ponder. Does that mean 

The postmodernity just following 

As night does day, that capitalist one, 

Or is it just, bathetic though it be, 

Postcapitalist postmodernity 

He cuckolds himself with quotation marks 

To show how much he's read but is above—- 

I wonder where he bought that shirt, and why. 

My wrist-jerked fingers carve an airy tube. 

I feel them beckon, beckon, grass and sky 

And all the moistures of the earth and leaves 

While here aridity of abstract nouns 

Silts down, ash from a crematorium, 

Upon this man who sees a poem form 

Upon his program’s back, in graphite strokes, 

Whose neighbour thinks, of course, he’s taking notes. 


Beltless gutless dunce! 

Sewage wafting on the breath, 

Zero at the brain. 


God There isn't one! 

The Universe Doesn't care! 

So why not fuck me 


Elizabeth 

Married an oaf 

And lost herself. 


My feet got all tangled up in the grass 

And I fell on my arse. 


I couldn't get the fucking motor started, 

So I went for a pint. 


Cmoffit! 

Meantersay, wot odds woodjer get down t’bookie’s — 

Trillion twun against 

Trillion trillion twun 

That the lot, 

The ’ole lot, lock’stock’n’bleedin’barrel, 

Got done in six days flat 

By some bearded bloke jus’ loike ’im over vair, 

Oo sometime artwards, when he wuz loafin’ about, loike, 

Wiv orl t’toime in t’world, the lazy sod, 

Gawpin’ at dinassers ’n shit or orluv us poor buggers, 

’ad a hippie sprog (fuck only knows oo the ole lady woz) 

Wot popped ’is clogs fruss wot keep on fuckin’ up ennyow 

Eh 

Gworn! Pull t’uvver wun! 

No orfence, pal, eh 


Creator of all I think and know, 

Up in heaven or down on earth below, 

Never of love can my true heart run dry 

Though days and months and years go by. 


Certain of the people whom I’ve known 

Over the decades have gradually grown 

Conscious of their inner need, belief 

Known deep since birth but buried long beneath 

Such daily traits as looks and wealth, 

Upward mobility and fame. True health, 

Conceived and conceiving in a pure mind 

Knowing God and how He loves mankind, 

Even in later years can make you whole, 

Refresh your pain-parched brain and save your soul. 


Meantersay, what oi mean is, frinstance, roight 

Snot loike cricket, this baseball milarky, 

Least, not from wot oi could tell. 

Moind you, oi wuz pissed as arseholes in the first arf owwer 

Wot wiv orl that beer jus’ pourin’ down me frote. 

Corsit’s not proper beer, loike ’ere in England, 

But it’s so fuckin’ ’ot in America you jus’ keeps yer elber goin’, roight, 

An’ then you don’t notice the diffrunce, f’you’re a discriminatin’ bloke loike wot oi 

am. 

Wot else Well, for starters there’s this bloody big soign, roight, 

Orl ’lectric, wot flashes fings — listen, will you — 

Workin’ geezers inter a larver, artyfishul loike: 

Mister Gary Fuckin’ Glitter ’imself Esquoire, woodjer bleeve, 

The one wot goes “rock ’n ro-ole, hey, rock ’n role,” 

An’ orl the wankers goes “HEY!” an’ shoots their fists inter the air 

Loike it’s fuckin’ Nuremberg orl over again. 

Christ alive, don’t people ever bloody learn 

Cumterfinkuvvit, dunno wossermatter wiv ’merican blokes. . . 

There’s orl that totty there, roight, jus’ gaggin’ for rumpy pumpy 

(Smashin’ bazookas ’n orl, as Wirdswirf wooduv sed) 

Showin’ the goods loike there’s no tmorrer, 

(An’ ow many toimes jersee a bint at cricket, eh, 

An’ then they’re orl so hoity-toity ’n lardy-dah 

That you woodn’t wanter shag ’em anyway). 

Fuck me, oi ’ad a stiffie loike the rock uv Gibfuckingraltar! 

Wodjer mean, “the game” I jus’ told you, didn’eye Didn’eye 

(Soime again, Alice, an’ a packet uv salt ’n vinegars.) 

Well, it’s rounders wiv knobs on, basically. 

Everyone gets a go, seems t’mee, 

So if you balls up first toime you gets eight goes more — 

Nuffin loike real loife but that’s America for yer. 

Oh aye, you ’ave to ’ave a fat neck ’n spit. An’ the bloke oo chucks, 

Ee orlways looks the uvver way first: oo the blue blazes ud fall for that 

Would oi go again You ’avvn’t got the brains God gave a maggot, you buggers! 


Bloody roight oi’d go again! At least it’s got some loife to it, baseball, some joy de 

vivvy. 

Makes you feel you can do fings. Any uv you cunts ’eard uv the ’merican dream 

Well, ooever ’erd uv the English dream ’An why not, eh 

Because there fuckin’ isn’t one, n’less you call it a dream 

T’go down dole wivver UB40 on Monday mornin’ 

An’ t’ave nowt for cumpny evry artnoon but foive-fingered Mary and the nags on 

the box 

Fyarsk me, a one-legged man at’n arse-kicking party 

’As a better loife than orluv us. John Lennon, 

Now ee got it roight, (’part from bein’ shot, natcherly), 

Cos ee didn’t fuckin’ fiddle when Rome started burnin’ but went’n scarpered 

sharpish instead. 

Scandal Oi’ll give you scandal: oo gives a finch’s fart ’bout Gobjobgate 

Arter fifteen fuckin’ years uv fuckin’ Fatcher 

Well, firteen then. Cmon! Jus’ look at us bunch! An’ take a butcher’s at this place: 

Same pickchers as ’uv been ’ere since me ole dad’s toime, 

Same fish-eyed syphillitics playin’ darts, Duran Duran. . . 


Sylvia Plath 

Is a pain in the arth 

(Americans say “ass”). 

Robert Lowell, 

Who didn’t write , 

Irritates my bowels. 

(Fudgepackers, the pair of them). 

Ann Sexton... 

Ann Sexton... 

Doesn’t rhyme with anything I can think of. 

Bugger her and all of that. 

Ann Sexton is a cunt! 

Millwall are at home on Saturday! 

“It is, to say the very least, hugely unhelpful that Zoilus Press sees fit to see as 

clever material that which parades the most dangerous of prejudices. This racist 

scribbler sets us on the first stage of a journey leading, via the British Movement 

and Belsen, to the unspeakable end of Lorca.” (Giles Cockburn, Editor, 

) 

“What at first sight appears to be artless spleneticism is in fact both literary and 

original. While nodding to Eliot, Stevie Smith, Hilaire Belloc and Ogden Nash, 

Cattell’s “Les Poètes” gibes both at the lisping British upper classes and at 

American lionizing of what poets it has (especially homosexuals) while all the 

while undermining the very nature of the rhyme it apes, rhyme which to the 

autodidact persona upholds the effete power of the university-educated over the 


self-taught football supporter in a poor area of London. Quietly vicious and 

shocking as the final stanza is, it enacts through the brutality of its language the 

only reaction possible – a fusion of defiance and defeat – of a speaker who, 

ironically, is marginalized more than those whom he professes to loathe, yet who, 

did he but know it, has real poetic skill, as his half-rhymes (“doesn’t/cunt,” 

“Lowell/ ”) attest. Not since Rimbaud...” (Christopher Commode, 

) 

“Since there are no lapine allusions in this poem, it receives no notice in our 

journal.” (Sebastian Doe, Editor, ) 


If life is imitating them 

Imitating life 

Until 

Becoming them 

And they becoming it 

All imitation ends 

Then surely what abides must be 

Itself 

Itself wholly 

Wholly alive 

Is it 

it, though 


Neither neurotic nor always on edge, 

You never ask me, much to my relief, 

Just where you stand in our relationship, 

Nor with quotation marks self-cuckolding 

Do you air your line on gender studies. 

Still nonfarting nonpareil of silence, 

You do not prattle of the latest soaps 

Nor summarize with zeal the films you’ve seen 

(In blockish spite of my emptying mind) 

Or yelp that all that you could think was wow. 

O shunner of anaphrodisiac traits, 

I’ve never heard you simper “I was like. . .” 

And pull a silly face with all your bricks. 

Until the cows come home you could complain— 

Scraped by handlebars of bicycles, 

Hearted and arrowed by chewers of gum, 

Tortured stubbingly by cigarettes 

Or made convenient to passing dogs 

Or worse — throughout all this you never carp 

(As well you might) at those your counterparts 

Who by accident of manufacture 

Are lionized for being stone, not brick. 

And what, besides, is wrong with keeping quiet 


“Feminization” 

(Abstract noun) 

Must derive 

From the verb “to feminize” 

Can this, I wonder, be a verb 

Habitually to conjugate 

While strolling down the street 

Munching a sandwich 

And whistling between bites 

I often ponder things like this 

Just to myself. A loneliness. 


nothing answers 

but 

the 

Kinks 

and dancing 

for hours 

naked into 

darkness. 


She gets her nipple caught inside her dress 

(The kind with straps or bars across the front) 

And so she says: 

“My fucking nipple’s caught inside my dress,” 

And so her friends 

(The English girls all tarted up 

For snogging lads and grabbing cock 

- - For this much I by now have ascertained) 

All laugh like drains. 

Like drains they laugh, 

Oh yes, they laugh like drains. 

And later on . . . 

And this, I understand, 

(As Philip Larkin said), 

Is England gone. 

But what concern is this of mine 


Self-help, therapy – 

What more wholesome could there be 

(And all about me.) 


Murmuring fountain. 

Cool of evening, jasmine, wine; 

Then a mobile phone. 


Beltless gutless twit! 

Breath melifluent as shit. 

Brain stone-dead. That’s it. 


In the room the women come and go 

Talking of Maya Angelou. 


The day our chocolate teapot dean resigns, 

I’ll drink six beers at breakfast-time, 

Eat my lunchtime salad with my fingers, 

And start each class by hauling out my dick. 

Plump roasted geese shall fly into my mouth 

While all across the academic world 

Feminists will have their students read 

None other than the great Sir Thomas Browne 

Who died in 1651 and wrote 

Nothing at all of marginalization. 

Then I’ll fly to Amsterdam 

And cashmere-scarved shall stroll beside canals 

Until five years of awfulness are gone. 


Inflated on the nation’s lawns she stands 

Wed but unbeatified beside 

Her lord’s red-robed rotundity. Benign 

In tiny spectacles she glows amidst 

The chafing antlered parcel-groaning sled, 

His welcome-armed huzzahs and ho ho ho 

And snow that neither drifts nor swirls upon 

The arctic wastes of supermarket glass. 

Can it be right for man to live alone 

Or natural to thrive a bachelor, 

His evenings all his own beneath a lamp, 

With book and pipe and, later, bath and bed 

America is having none of that, 

Still less for him, a present-bearing thief, 

Both brave and free, to plunge himself so deep 

Into a million chimneys’ secret flues 

And spangle bounties at the sock-hung hearth 

For little boys, and little girls, unless 

By matrimony’s filament he’s bound 

To her whose rosy bunched pincushion face, 

Grandmotherly-indulgent, free from death’s 

Disfiguring advance, is always there 

To smile approval on his toil, and us. 

But is this all she is, subordinate 

To him around whose rubicund physique 

Some mystery, however faint, still swirls 

Pronounce his name, in Dutch “San Nicolaas,” 

To be the immigrant you never were. 

Your saint once lived a persecuted man, 

Imprisoned, tortured for his faith. And her 

Could she have had a name, this Mrs. Claus, 

And what, if past she had, was ever hers 

Before her married immortality— 

A menstruating goose girl by a brook 

Shadowed by the dark Carpathians 

Before the soldiers came Or, if that fail, 

Just call her Jade and have her sliding down 

A fireman’s pole. Still unconvinced Try this: 

“That’s her, third from the left, at Bennington, 

Graduating class of ’21 – 

Not brilliant, but capable, at least, 

Of seeing something pointed out to her.” 


Consider creatures as were born in fire 

Or ash, the half-lion half-man manticore, 

Or else conceived by sun in muddy banks 

Or thriving jewel-eyed in the rotting hearts 

Of century-old oaks! How quaint these seem, 

Consigned to fable, woodcut, analect, 

And yet this Mrs. Claus, who year by year 

Proclaims the very insecurities 

That gave her birth, prodigious stands at ease 

As fear and dogma’s mismatched masterpiece. 


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7 

Richard A. Makin 


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1 Death and the Lighthouses (1 January 2001)

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