On Dis/Obedience

Portrait of le poète maudit Síomón Solomon

Stephen Alexander (2023) [1]

 

 

According to the Satanist Simon Solomon, at the root of all human sin lies a refusal to listen to the Word of God. This, essentially, is the meaning of disobedience; the turning of a deaf ear to the Holy Spirit. 

 

And, of course, as a natural born anarchist and self-styled anti-Christ, I'm instinctively disobedient; neither wishing to comply with nor conform to any external authority. Like Nietzsche, I fear that those who are too weak to command themselves and lay down their own law, will ultimately submit to tyranny and come to desire their own oppression (i.e., that a culture of obedience breeds fascism).

 

However, Nietzsche also says that the only thing which makes life worth living is the giving of obedience for a prolonged period in a single direction; that obedience is the essential thing in heaven and earth and the rebellious refusal to obey is merely the sign of a slave. 

 

And, as the cultural commentator James Walker reminds us, D. H. Lawrence also encourages his readers to obey the promptings of their own souls - not so much the voice of God within, but their own genius or demon: "Men are free when they are obeying some deep, inward voice ..." [2], not living in frictional opposition to such. 

 

This passage from his 1923 novel Kangaroo is perhaps the most memorable statement Lawrence makes on the joy of obedience

 

"If a man loves life, and feels the sacredness and mystery of life, then he knows that life is full of strange and subtle and even conflicting imperatives. And a wise man learns to recognize the imperatives as they arise [...] and to obey. But most men bruise themselves to death trying to fight and overcome their own, new, life-born needs, life's ever strange imperatives. The secret of all life is obedience: obedience to the urge that arises in the soul, the urge that is life itself, urging us to new gestures, new embraces, new emotions, new combinations, new creations." [3]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] This portrait - the first in the Simon Solomon Says ... series - is, in part, inspired by Shepard Fairey's phenomenal - and, apparently, phenomenological - Obey Giant project, which transformed from a sticker campaign to a successful clothing line. Click here to visit the official website.  

[2] D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature, ed. Ezra Greenspan, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 17.

 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, Kangaroo, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 112.  

 

 

I Don't Know as I Get What D. H. Lawrence is Driving at When He Writes of Bursten Bowels ...

Picasso: Gored Horse (1917) 

Graphite pencil on canvas with ochre primer 

(80.2 x 103.3 cm)

Museu Picasso de Barcelona

 

 

I. 

 

As readers of D. H. Lawrence are very well aware, he loves to write about the mysterious nether region of the human body known as the loins - i.e., that zone of libidinal intensity that lies somewhere between the ribs and the pelvis (or above the legs, but below the waist).

 

In fact, the only thing that excites his imagination more are the bowels ... 

 

 

II. 

 

Unfortunately, a bit like Frank O'Hara, I'm not quite sure I always understand what Lawrence is getting at when he uses this term [1]. On the one hand, it seems to be more than simply an anatomical reference to the gastrointestinal tract; indeed, for Lawrence, the bowels seem to be the seat of human compassion from which the deepest desires also spring. 

 

But, on the other hand, Lawrence likes to base his philosophical understanding of the body in biology where possible. So when he talks about the bowels, he is also referring us to the digestive system and those sausage-like organs known as the intestines or entrails. 

 

And, rather like Kenneth Williams, who described his daily bowel movements obsessively in his diaries, Lawrence seems to be plagued by a fear of things not working properly in this region, as we can see in the novel Kangaroo (1923), for example, when the marsupial-like fascist Ben Cooley is shot several times in his "'bloomin' Kangaroo guts'" [2], as one of his followers says.

 

Richard Somers - the book's Lawrentian avatar - visits Cooley in the hospital and can barely disguise his horror and disgust at the thought of ruptured bowels:

 

"Somers found Kangaroo in bed, very yellow, and thin [...] with haunted, frightened eyes. The room had many flowers, and was perfumed with eau de cologne, but through the perfume came an unpleasant, discernible stench. [...]

      Somers could not detach his mind from the slight, yet pervading sickening smell.

      "'My sewers leak,' said Kangaroo bitterly, as if divining the other's thought." [3]

 

Bruce Steele's explanatory note on this is spot-on:

 

"Jack's angry reaction to his leader's having been shot in the stomach and not killed outright probably reflects the First World War soldier's fear of abdominal wounds. In a pre-biotic age, peritonitis was a common and deadly complication of such wounds. While a ruptured bowel could be stitched, contamination of the abdominal cavity was frequently fatal; it would account for  the 'unpleasant, discernible stench' and Kangaroo's diagnosis 'My sewers leak'. If the sniper had deliberately aimed at his stomach rather than his head - which would probably have killed him instantly - it would have been in the knowledge that the victim would almost certainly die a slow and painful death." [4]

 

Of course, whilst being shot in the stomach can lead to a slow and painful death for a man, being disemboweled by the horns of an angry bull can be an equally horrific (and, arguably, even more obscene) way for an elderly horse to die.

 

And so to Mexico City ...   

 

 

III.

 

There are several disturbing scenes in Lawrence's novel The Plumed Serpent (1926), including the opening one set at the plaza de toros [5] - and I'm not referring to the fact that someone in the crowd thought it funny to throw an orange at the bald spot on Owen's sunburnt head.

 

Rather, I'm referring to the following incident involving a blindfolded horse ...

 

"The picador pulled his feeble horse round slowly, to face the bull, and slowly he leaned forward and shoved his lance-point into the bull's shoulder. The bull, as if the horse were a great wasp that had stung him deep, suddenly lowered his head in a jerk of surprise and lifted his horns straight up into the horse's abdomen. And without more ado, over went horse and rider, like a tottering monument upset.

      The rider scrambled from under the horse and went running away with his lance. The old horse, in complete dazed amusement, struggled to rise, as if overcome with dumb incomprehension. And the bull, with a red place on his shoulder welling a trickle of dark blood, stood looking round in equally hopeless amazement.

      But the wound was hurting. He saw the queer sight of the horse half reared from the ground, trying to get to its feet. And he smelled blood and bowels.

      So, rather vaguely, as if not quite knowing what he ought to do, the bull once more lowered his head and pushed his sharp, florishing horns in the horse's belly, working them up and down inside there with a vague sort of satisfaction." [6] 

      

As the novel's protagonist Kate Leslie rightly recognises, this shocking spectacle reveals nothing so much as human cowardice and indecency. She turns her face away in disgust. And when she looks again, "it was to see the horse feebly and dazedly walking out of the ring, with a great ball of its own entrails hanging out of its abdomen and swinging reddish against its own legs as it automatically moved". [7] 

 

But the sordid show isn't over: another horse is brought into the bullring so that it may be publicly disemboweled for the amusement of the crowd:

 

"Kate knew what was coming. Before she could look away, the bull had charged on the limping horse from behind [...] the horse was up-ended absurdly, one of the bull's horns between his hind legs and deep in his inside. Down went the horse, collapsing in front, but his rear was still heaved up, with the bull's horn working vigorously up and down inside him, while he lay on his neck all twisted. And a huge heap of bowels coming out. And a nauseous stench." [8] 

 

 

IV. 

 

I've never been (and wouldn't go) to a bullfight, and so would find it difficult (and disturbing) to visually imagine this scene were it not for the fact that Picasso - a lifelong bullfighting enthusiast - produced the image at the top of this post, after attending a bullfight in Barcelona during his stay in the city in 1917.

 

As the anonymous author of a piece describing this work on the Picasso Museum's website rightly notes:    

 

"In contrast to what he had mostly done on previous occasions, here the artist leaves aside the colourful and festive representation of the spectacle of bullfighting to focus his attention [...] on the solitary agony of the disemboweled horse, which collapses until it falls on its knees in a fetal position or prayer posture that has been compared to that of a fossilised crustacean or bird. Picasso manages to transcribe the animal's stabbing pain by means of its outstretched neck and raised head, looking upwards with a fixed gaze, as if asking for mercy to put an end to its cruel agony, once and for all." [9]

 

The author concludes: 

 

"The drama and cruelty of the scene reaches its zenith with the horn that sprouts from the ground and stands threateningly, waiting for the horse to finish collapsing to then finish it off." [10] 

 

I suppose, to end on a slightly more positive note, it might be mentioned that bullfighting was banned in Catalonia several years ago and the the last bullfight in the region took place in September 2011. [11]

 

However, there are still eight countries in the world where this ancient festival of gore still takes place - Spain, France, Portugal, Mexico, Columbia, Venezuela, Peru, and Ecuador - and every year around 180,000 bulls (and 200 horses) are slaughtered in the ring.

 

 

V. 

 

In sum, I might not get what D. H. Lawrence is driving at when he writes of bursten bowels, but I do know: 

 

(i) I wouldn't want to be shot in the stomach ...

 

(ii) I don't like cruelty to animals ...

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See Frank O'Hara, 'I don't know as I get what D. H. Lawrence is driving at', Selected Poems, ed. Mark Ford, (Alfred A. Knopf, 2009), p. 167. The poem can be read online at allpoetry.com: click here. 

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, Kangaroo, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge Unversity Press, 1994), p. 317.

 

[3] Ibid., pp. 322-323.    

[4] Bruce Steele's explanatory note to 317:12 of D. H. Lawrence's Kangaroo ... p. 406.

[5] In Lawrence's day, the main bullring in Mexico City was the Toreo de la Condesa. This ancient bullring was replaced in 1946 by the monumental Plaza de toros México, an arena that seats over 41,000 people.

[6] D. H. Lawrence, The Plumed Serpent, ed. L. D. Clark, pp. 15-16.

[7] Ibid., p. 16. 

[8] Ibid. 

[9-10] See the text that accompanies Picasso's Gored Horse (1917) on the Museu Picasso de Barcelona website: click here. 

[11] The ban was officially annulled for being unconstitutional by Spain's highest court in October 2016. However, despite the overturning of the ban, no further bullfight has taken place in Catalonia. 

 

 

The Covid Nightmare (After D. H. Lawrence)

The Scream of Covid-19 

by Dee Tyndall (after Edvard Munch)

redbubble.com

 

  

I. 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

II.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

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

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

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

 

 

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

 

Garry Shead: Flaming Kangaroo (1992) 

From the D. H. Lawrence Series  

etchinghouse.com.au

 

 

I. 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

II.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

 

Notes

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

 

 

Surprise musical bonus: click here. 

Richard Lovatt Somers: Notes Towards a Character Study (Part 1)

Detail from 'The Struggle' (1992) 

Garry Shead: D. H. Lawrence Series

etchinghouse.com.au

 

I. 

 

In his Introduction to the Cambridge Edition of Kangaroo, Bruce Steele argues that whilst the novel is "in many respects thinly disguised autobiography", uncritical emphasis on this pervasive element has led to the mistaken assumption that the character Richard Lovatt Somers is identical with Lawrence as narrator, even though "Lawrence as narrator [...] is often sharply distinct from his character Somers and frequently critical of him and his views" [a].  

And that's true - but doesn't go far enough. For I would not only challenge the ridiculous idea that Somers is identical with the narrator, but interrogate also the belief that the narrator can be identified with an Author who resides outside (and above) the text and in whose person is found the very origin of the work and its ultimate truth.       

      

In this post, therefore, I'm concerned only with Richard Somers and not interested in making any attempt to tie Kangaroo as a work of fiction to Lawrence's own memories, foreign travels, political views, or sexual fantasies. As Deleuze says, creative writing that is overly reliant upon autobiography is not only often bad writing, but dead writing; for literature dies from an excess of authorial input just as it does from an overdose of reality.

 

 

II.

 

Richard Somers is a queer fish: a small, foreign-looking, slightly comical figure, with a pale face, dark beard, and an absent air of self-possession that spoke not only of his (in)difference, but innate superiority and sensitivity (as indicated by his Italian suit and brown shoes).

 

His middle name, Lovatt, suggests either something wolfish about his nature, or something rotten; either way, he doesn't like to be cheated by taxi drivers - but then, who does? Nor does he find humorous house names very amusing - but then ...

 

To be fair, Somers could be charming - when he wanted - but mostly he liked to keep himself to himself and not to "speak one single word to any single body" [19] - except Harriett, his wife, "whom he snapped at hard enough" [19]. The thing he hates most of all is "promiscuous mixing in" [36] and informality. 

 

Unfortunately, Somers can't help feeling himself in touch with (and responsive to) others due to the fact he possessed "the power of intuitive communication" [37]. However, despite this, Somers "would never be pals with any man" [38].    

 

Somers was a writer of poems and essays, with an income of £400 a year (i.e., about twice the average wage in 1922). So, whilst not rich, he was able to globe-trot, admiring the local flora whilst despising the natives and forever asking himsef why he had ever bothered to leave England: Somers "wandered disconsolate through the streets of Sydney" [20], longing to be back in London.

 

Still, if the city disappoints, the Australian bush makes a tremendous impression upon him: "Richard L. had never quite got over that glimpse of terror in the Westralian bush" [15]. He was sure a menacing spirit of place had been watching him as he walked amongst the ghostly pale trees. Watching - and waiting to grab him. For as a poet, Somers felt himself "entitled to all kinds of emotions and sensations which an ordinary man would have repudiated" [14].

 

But of course, as the narrator of Kangaroo notes: "It is always a question, whether there is any sense in taking notice of a poet's fine feelings." [15] Or indeed, his prejudices - of which Somers has many; mostly rooted in his snobbishness, such as his dismissal of Australians "with their aggressive familiarity" [21] as barbarians, lacking in class and culture. For Somers, there has to be rule - otherwise there's just a form of irresponsible anarchy and bullying.    

 

"Poor Richard Lovatt wearied himself to death struggling with the problem of himself, and calling it Australia." [28] That's an interesting remark. But what is Somers's problem? I'm not sure - perhaps we'll find out by the end of this character study ... And maybe we'll find out too what lesson it is that Somers thinks the world has got to learn [31] - or why it is he seems so fascinated by the legs of young men in bathing suits on the beach [27]. 

 

But maybe not: maybe Somers will always remain something of an enigma: for it was "difficult to locate any definite Somers, any one individual [...] The man himself seemed lost in the bright aura of his rapid consciousness" [38]. Somers, we might say, is mercurial and light-footed. He's also a reckless chess player; "very careless of his defence" [39], which is odd for someone so guarded in other respects.

 

For a man who, by his own admission, never takes any part in politics, Somers does seem to hold a number of very definite political views; as might be expected of a writer of essays on social and political topics, such as the future of democracy or the fate of capitalism. And his views might best be described as national socialist in character (all that talk of blood and soil), or as a kind of demonic radicalism (all that talk of dark everlasting gods).    

 

Somers also fancies that it's his "own high destiny" [92] to be a leader of men one day and to make some kind of opening in the world. Though, push comes to shove, he can't commit to any cause, party, or movement. Nor even to Benjamin ('Kangaroo') Cooley. Something always stops him; "as if an invisible hand were upon him" [106]. 

 

Thus, whilst Somers might crave living fellowship with others, he does not want affection, love, nor comradeship. For living fellowship, it turns out, is a synonym for the mystery of lordship. That is to say, the thing which the dark races still know:

 

"The mystery of innate, natural, sacred priority [...] which democracy and equality try to deny and obliterate [...] the mystic recognition of difference and innate priority, the joy of obedience and the sacred responsibility of authority" [107] [b].

 

At other times, however, Somers rejects the human world entirely - and I think I like him best at such moments; when he is filled with cold fury and contempt for mankind and cares only for the dark cold sea, dreaming (in what is perhaps my favourite section of the novel) of becoming-fish: 

 

"To have oneself exultingly ice-cold, not one spark of this wretched warm flesh left, and to have all the terrific, ice energy of a fish. To surge with that cold exultance and passion of a sea thing! [...] No more cloying warmth. No more of this horrible stuffy heat of human beings. To be an isolated swift fish in the big seas, that are bigger than the earth; fierce with cold, cold life, in the watery twilight before sympathy was created to clog us.

      They were his feelings now. Mankind? Ha, he turned his face to the centre of the seas, away from any land. The noise of waters, and dumbness like a fish. The cold, lovely silence, before crying and calling were invented. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, as if it had relapsed away from speech altogether.

      He did not care a straw what [...] anybody said or felt, even himself. He had no feelings, and speech had gone out of him. He wanted to be cold, cold, and alone like a single fish, with no feeling in his heart at all except a certain icy exultance and wild, fish-like rapacity. [...] Who sets a limit to what a man is. Man is also a fierce and fish-cold devil, in his hour, filled with cold fury of desire to get away from the cloy of human life altogether, not into death, but into that icily self-sufficient vigour of a fish." [125]  

 

As Zarathustra might say: Man needs what is most piscean in him for what is best in him ... [c]  

 

 

This series of notes for a character study of R. L. Somers is continued in part two of this post: click here.  

 

 

Notes

 

[a] Bruce Steele, Introduction to D. H. Lawrence's Kangaroo, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. xxiii. All future page references to this work will be given directly in the post.  

[b] This is, of course, a fantasy of the reactionary imagination and one which I have discussed recently on Torpedo the Ark in terms of natural aristocracy: click here. I also discuss the politics of this passage in chapter 5 of Outside the Gate, (Blind Cupid Press, 2010), see pp. 100-126, and will comment further on Somers's politico-theological speculations in part two of this post. 

[c] I'm paraphrasing a famous line written by Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra - see the section entitled 'The Convalescent'. 

Advance Australia (into Darkness)

The original 1912 drawing for the Australian coat of arms

 

 

Covid mania has sent the entire world crazy in the last two years and many governments have reacted in a senseless and shameful manner. But nowhere is this fascist hysteria in the face of a virus that has killed less than 2,500 of its citizens - the average age of whom is 83 - more astonishing than in Australia ... [a]

 

Astonishing - and depressing - but not surprising to readers familiar with D. H. Lawrence's novel Kangaroo (1923) [b], which offers a brilliant meditation not only on the queer spirit of place Down Under, but the political psychology of the typical Aussie in times of crisis (be it post-War or mid-pandemic).

 

According to Lawrence, whilst the Australian bush is beautiful and endlessly fascinating, so too does it possess something threatening about it [c]. Likewise, whilst Australians seem to be some of the friendliest, most easy-going people on earth - free from much of the formality and uptightness that is said to characterise the British - there's a unique mix of resentment and aggressive familiarity behind their superficial charm.

 

Their fraternal idealism or mateyness is, therefore, something about which one should remain profoundly cautious and in Kangaroo Lawrence "creates and magnifies a sense of subterranean violence ready to burst through the carefree surface of Australian life" [d] that still resonates today as we watch the authorities in God's own country indulge in draconian stupidity with excessive enthusiasm (and popular support).     

 

Who would have thought that a coat of arms bearing a red kangaroo and an emu would one day seem as menacing as one with a lion and a unicorn, or an imperial eagle? 

 

Welcome to 2022 ...  

 

 

Notes

 

[a] Readers who are interested in the official Coronavirus case numbers and statistics for Australia can visit their Department of Health website for daily information: click here.

 

[b] D. H. Lawrence, Kangaroo, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 1994). All page references are to this edition of the work that Lawrence wrote (in six weeks) during his hundred day stay in Australia (4 May - 11 August 1922). 

      Interestingly, when Lawrence arrived Down Under: "It was a period when Sydney was again suffering from a bubonic plague scare: a very mild scare, some fifteen cases to a million people, according to the newspapers.* But the town was placarded with notices 'Keep your town clean', and there was a stall in Martin Place where you could write your name down and become a member of a cleaning league, or something to that effect." [48] 

      *The May 3rd edition of the Daily Telegraph, for example, reported twenty-seven cases of plague; seven of which were fatal. 

 

[c] Lawrence tells us that the "vast, uninhabited land" [13] frightened the book's protagonist Richard Somers: 

      "It seemed so hoary and lost, so unapproachable. The sky was pure, crystal pure and blue, of a lovely pale blue colour: the air was wonderful, new and unbreathed: and there were great distances. But the bush, the grey, charred bush. It scared him. As a poet, he felt himself entitled to all kinds of emotions and sensations which an ordinary man would have repudiated. Therefore he let himself feel all sorts of things about the bush. It was so phantom-like, so ghostly, with its tall pale trees and many dead trees, like corpses, partly charred by bush fires: and then the foliage so dark, like grey-green iron. And then it was so deathly still. Even the few birds seemed to be swamped in silence. Waiting, waiting - the bush seemed to be hoarily waiting. And he could not penetrate into its secret. He couldn't get at it. Nobody could get at it. What was it waiting for? 

      And then one night at the time of the full moon he walked alone into the bush. A huge electric moon, huge, and the tree-trunks like naked pale aborigines among the dark-soaked foliage, in the moonlight. And not a sign of life - not a vestige. 

      Yet something. Something big and aware and hidden! He walked on, had walked a mile or so into the bush, and had just come to a clump of tall, nude dead trees, shining almost phosphorescent with the moon, when the terror of the bush overcame him. He had looked so long at the vivid moon, without thinking. And now, there was something among the trees, and his began to stir with terror, on his head. There was a presence. He looked at the weird, white dead trees, and into the hollow distances of the bush. Nothing! Nothing at all. He turned to go home. And then immediately the hair on his scalp stirred and went icy cold with terror. What of? He knew quite well it was nothing. [...]

      But the horrid thing in the bush! He laboured as to what it could be. It must be the spirit of place. Something fully evoked tonight, perhaps provoked, by that unnatural West-Australian moon. Provoked by the moon, the roused spirit of the bush. He felt it was watching, and waiting. Following with certainty, just behind his back." [14]

      I quote this from chapter one at length as a treat for readers unfamiliar with Lawrence's work. Here, he writes in a manner that some might call Lovecraftian. In the final chapter of his novel (XVIII), Lawrence provides another beautiful description of the Australian bush, this time without the sense of horror underneath: see pp. 342 and 353-355.  

 

[d] Bruce Steele, Introduction to Kangaroo, p. xxxii. 

      This becomes clear when, for example, we witness the pleasure that Jack Callcott gets from breaking the heads of his political opponents with an iron bar and boasting of it afterwards to Somers, with "the strangest grin in the world" on his face and "indescribable gloating joy in his tones" [319]. 

 

 

This post is for Novak Djokovic.     

 

  

Let's Go Outside: Notes on The Horla

Cover of the 1908 edition 

of Guy de Maupassant's Le Horla 

I.

The concept of the Outside is as important to me now as it was twenty-five years ago when I decided to entitle my doctoral project on the work of Nietzsche and Lawrence Outside the Gate, referencing not only one of the little rhyming preludes to The Gay Science, but also the Killing Joke album of that title from 1988. [1]  

I suppose my understanding of the concept has remained fairly consistent over the years; mostly shaped by the occult musings of Richard Somers in Kangaroo (1923) about dark gods and invisible strangers in the night, tapping at the doors of human perception in order to gain admission into our world which we have illuminated with electric light in order to banish the darkness and create the illusion of safety, even though we remain standing on the edge of an invisible abyss. [2] 

That's Foucault I'm paraphrasing and his attempt to think the thought from outside has also been an important influence on my work; a type of thought that stands in contrast to the interiority of most philosophical reflection and the positivity of our scientific knowledge; a type of thought that we find not in mysticism, but in literature - such as in the work of Sade and Hölderlin:

"Can it be said without stretching things that Sade and Hölderlin simultaneously introduced into our thinking, for the coming century, but in some way cryptically, the experience of the outside - the former by laying desire bare in the infinite murmur of discourse, the latter by discovering that the gods had wandered off through a rift in language as it was in the process of losing its bearings?" [3]

I think it probably can - and I think we can say also that Guy de Maupassant is another writer who gives us an experience of the outside in his unsettling short story Le Horla (1886/87) ...

II.

The word Horla is, of course, a neologism coined by Maupassant; an amalgam of the French words hors and là.

Thus, the Horla is literally the one who is out there - always waiting for a chance to enter so that it can steal your milk and water and drive you out of your fucking mind; an alien entity that threatens to overwhelm (and possibly supersede) humanity. Who said the Übermensch couldn't have an extra-terrestrial origin - or come, like a virus, from out of the jungle or Brazilian rainforest?

The 42-year-old victim of the tale has not only been mentally unhinged by his experiences, which started with a strange malaise and a kind of nervous anxiety, but reduced to a pitiful physical state:

"He was extremely thin, cadaverous even, as some madmen look when they are consumed by an obsession. Their bodies seem ravaged by one sick thought which devours them faster than any disease or consumption." [4]

His doctor prescribed cold showers and sedatives and the latter at least helped the man to sleep; unfortunately, sleep turned out to be even more intolerable than the insomnia. He explains why:

"'As soon as my head hit the pillow, my eyes closed and I was out. I mean out completely. I fell into absolute nothingness, a void, a total blank. My self became completely dead until I was suddenly, horribly awoken by the most appalling sensation. An unbearable weight was lying on my chest and another mouth was sucking the life out of me through my own.'" [237]

Obviously, that's not very pleasant and no one would want to experience such a thing. Nor, I suppose, would most people - there are doubtless exceptions - want to see their roses plucked by an invisible hand and sniffed by an invisible nose belonging to an invisible being. I mean, greenfly can be a problem enough as it is.

And to have anyone reading over your shoulder - or absorb your own reflection - is always profoundly irritating, is it not?

The poor man eventually admits himself into the care of an eminent psychiatrist, Dr. Marrande, who overcomes his own professional scepticism and concludes that his patient's experiences with the Horla may well have been all-too-real. He informs his colleagues: "'I cannot tell if this man is mad or whether we both are ... or whether ... man's successor is already in our midst ...'" [244]    

This last idea is one that the man has already developed very eloquently:

"'What is this being, gentlemen?  I believe it is what the earth is waiting for, to supersede humanity, to usurp our throne, to overwhelm and perhaps feed on us as we feed now on cattle and wild boar. We have sensed and dreaded it for centuries. We have heard its approach with terror. Our forefathers have been haunted by the Invisible.
      It has come.'" [243]

Notes

[1] See Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 'Joke, Cunning, and Revenge: A Prelude in Rhymes', number 57. The original German verse, entitled Wählerischer Geschmack, [Fastidious Taste] reads:   

Wenn man frei mich wählen liesse,
Wählt' ich gern ein Plätzchen mir
Mitten drin im Paradiese:
Gerner noch - vor seiner Tür!

Which we might translate as: When given a free choice, / I'd choose myself a place / in the centre of paradise: / Better still - outside the gates!

To play the title track from the Killing Joke album - digitally remastered in 2007 and provided to YouTube by Universal Music Group in 2015 - click here. 

[2] See D. H. Lawrence, Kangaroo, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 285:

"The Lord thy God is the invisible stranger at the gate in the night, knocking. He is the mysterious life-suggestion, tapping for admission. And the wondrous Victorian Age managed to fasten the door so tight, and light up the compound so brilliantly with electric light, there was no outside, it was all in. The Unknown became a joke: is still a joke.
      Yet there it is, outside the gate, getting angry."

[3] Michel Foucault, Maurice Blanchot: The Thought from Outside, trans. Brian Massumi, (Zone Books, 1987), p. 17.

[4] Guy de Maupassant, 'The Horla', in A Parisian Affair and Other Stories, trans. Siân Miles, (Penguin Books, 2004), p. 236. Following page references are given directly in the text. Note that this is the first version of the tale, published in 1886, and not the longer, more developed version of 1887. 

D. H. Lawrence: The Hammer of Love

19th-century wooden poacher's priest

Image: Country Home Antiques

In a letter written to Sallie Hopkin on Christmas Day, 1912, Lawrence declared: I shall always be a priest of love.  

This self-description has proved very popular with his devotees and has served as the title for a critically acclaimed biography of the author by Harry T. Moore and a film of his life, based on Moore's biography, produced and directed by Christopher Miles. Personally, however, I have always rather regretted the phrase and the way in which it's been interpreted by those who insist on viewing Lawrence's work as a type of moral idealism - which, let's be clear, it isn't.       

For whilst Lawrence may have had a beard and been steeped in the language of the Bible, he wasn't a Christian and his understanding of love is radically different from the Love of Christ founded upon self-denial and self-sacrifice and invariably leading us to the Cross.

For Lawrence, this ideal model of love should be regarded as a disease that turns a healthy process of the human soul into something malignant. Altruistic values of pity and equality, which lie at the heart of Christian teaching - and the secular humanism that has grown out of such - are anathema to Lawrence; he believes that such ideals have to be abandoned, allowing us to know one another, as Richard Somers tells Kangaroo, at a deeper level than love.

When the latter lies dying in a hospital bed and insists that there is nothing more essential or greater than love, Somers silently refuses to agree. Not because love isn't an important part of life, but because it is only a part and can never become an "exclusive force or mystery of living inspiration". There is always something else. And this something else is power: that which love hates.   

To argue for love as an absolute - something universal and unbroken, binding all things into Oneness - results ultimately (and ironically) with a recoil into hate and war. Thus, whereas for Freud all that doesn't conform with Eros is permeated with a death instinct, for Lawrence - as for Nietzsche - it is Love with a capital 'L' that expresses a nihilistic will to negate life's difference and becoming.

Those who think that love is all you need fail to understand that you can, in fact, have too much of a good thing. It's because love cannot recognise limits that it ends in tears if allowed to progress too far; men cause or accept death not because they love too little, but too much, says Lawrence. It's important to always remember that above the gates of Hell - and every concentration camp - is a sign that reads: Built in the name of Love.

In sum: Lawrence didn't love Love or posit even his own rather queer model of Eros as his highest ideal, even if he declared himself to be a priest of such.

Indeed, we might even interrogate this term: for is it not possible that Lawrence - who had a penchant for gamekeepers and a familiarity with the tools of their trade - was punning on the word priest and thinking of himself not as a religious figure, but as a blunt instrument who would hammer home his own philosophy and knock the great lie of Love on the head once and for all ...?   

See:

D. H. Lawrence, Letters, Vol. I, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 492-3.

D. H. Lawrence, Kangaroo, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 134.

D. H. Lawrence: The Reluctant Londoner

Unused design for the 14th International 

D. H. Lawrence Conference (London, 3-8 July 2017) 

by Stephen Alexander 

(Based on a 1929 film poster by the Stenberg Brothers)

Asked to name places associated with D. H. Lawrence and his fiction, many readers will say Italy, whilst others immediately mention Mexico. Those familiar with the novel Kangaroo often fondly recall his descriptions of the Australian bush. Mostly, however, they think back to the dreary coal mining district in the East Midlands from out of which Lawrence rather miraculously extracted himself. 

One thing's for sure: not many readers will say London - even though he and a surprising number of his characters have interesting connections to the capital. In fact, according to Lawrence scholar Catherine Brown, Lawrence visited the city around fifty times between October 1908 and September 1926 and not only did he live and work there at certain periods, he even married Frieda at a registry office in Kensington. 

Of course, given his aggressive anti-urbanism, it's not surprising to discover that Lawrence didn't much like being in the Smoke and that many of his comments and fictional portrayals of the city tend to be negative - although he does admit in a newspaper article written in 1928 to having found it exhilarating upon arrival as a young man:

"Twenty years ago, London was to me thrilling, thrilling, thrilling, the vast and roaring heart of all adventure. It was not only the heart of the world, it was the heart of the world’s living adventure. How wonderful the Strand, the Bank, Charing Cross at night, Hyde Park in the morning!"

But today, says Lawrence in the same article, all the excitement seems crushed out of the city - not least by the sheer weight of traffic, massively rolling nowhere.

Thus, I suppose Lawrence might at best be described as a reluctant Londoner; one who quickly grew tired of its charms - including the West End girls who had at one time fascinated the Eastwood boy as they paraded along Piccadilly, displaying their non-provincial beauty. Not because he was tired of life, as Samuel Johnson would have it, but, on the contrary, because he found it lacking in vitality and full of deathly dullness and the noise of endless chatter ...

And speaking of endless chatter - though hopefully it won't be deathly dull in character - the 14th International D. H. Lawrence Conference will be held in London this summer (3-8 July). Readers interested in finding out more can click here.

Notes

See: D. H. Lawrence, 'Why I Don't Like Living in London', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 119-22. 

See also Catherine Brown, 'London in D. H. Lawrence's Words', which can be found as an article on her website - catherinebrown.org - or accessed directly by clicking here. 

Readers interested in a related post to this one might like to click here.

On Non-Referential Aesthetics and the Politics of Silence

Lawrence writes that, as a novelist, it's his primary task to conduct a molecular exploration of the feelings and not comment on molar politics and the great social issues of the day. Besides, other people understand these things much better than him. 

In other words, like Richard Somers, the apolitical protagonist of his novel Kangaroo, Lawrence wants to fight out something with mankind in order to make an opening into the future, but he doesn't want to become hopelessly entangled in history and great events.

Thus Lawrence comes to an understanding that - as a man of letters - his alienation from public life is something he has no choice but to actively sustain; particularly if he wishes to secure a degree of intellectual freedom and transmit in his thinking something that does not and will not allow itself to be codified within conventional political discourse.

Of course, Lawrence is not the only author to display ironic indifference (or insouciance as he calls it) to the world at large. Jane Austen is another novelist whom I admire precisely because she chose to write about the micropolitics of daily life and affairs of the heart whilst staying wonderfully silent on the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, or the massive upheaval caused by industrialization. 

Push comes to shove, I'd rather re-read Pride and Prejudice than War and Peace. And hopefully this explains why I've not written a post on the EU referendum being held in the UK today ...       

'A' Level Greek (with Reference to the Case of Lady Chatterley)

Constance Chatterley (2012) 

An image created by the digital artist Brian J. Davis 

using commercially available composite sketch software 

based on Lawrence's descriptions of the character. 

For this and other images by Davis go to thecomposites.tumblr.com

In order to reach what is termed her ultimate nakedness - a state of innocence and becoming - Connie is willing to be stripped of her clothes, her social status, and her personal self. She is also willing to be sodomised by her lover in order to free herself of all bad conscience concerning the body.

For it’s not enough within the Lawrentian universe for a woman to be vaginally penetrated by the phallus of the male in order to enter the realm of bliss. She might even be the best bit o' cunt left on earth, but if she wants to learn how to make “weird, wordless cries, like the animals”, then, apparently, she’s going to have to take it up the arse.

This might not quite be Lawrence’s answer to everything, but he certainly privileges it as an act within his sexual metaphysics and for Connie anal penetration serves much like a prince’s kiss, awakening her back into life and out of the semi-conscious, dreamlike state in which she drifted through the days without meaning, without substance, and with no gleam or sparkle in the flesh.

Not that she’s entirely comfortable with the act. Indeed, Lawrence writes that Connie is a little startled, and almost unwilling as Mellor’s enters her with no small degree of force, like a devil. But, with what Germaine Greer describes as a rapist’s mindset, Lawrence assures his readers that as the sharp, searing mixture of pain and pleasure forces its way through her bowels and burns her soul to tinder, it’s this phallic hunting out she really desired and needed after all – not love and the lies of poets and philosophers.

Indeed, as she tells Clifford one evening, intellectual pleasures and the life of the spirit mean nothing to a woman in love who has shamelessly experienced the greater reality of the body and discovered that she is not merely a creature of light and virtue, but also alive in corruption. Why read Plato or pray to Jesus when you can quiver like plasm and dance naked in the rain?

The only sin - suggests Lawrence - lies not in the knowledge of evil, or the experience of carnal delight, but in “turning away from the world, from chance, from the truth of bodies”.


See: D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1983). 

Note, however, that the line quoted on the ‘weird, wordless cries’ of animals is from Lawrence’s Kangaroo, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 333, and the line quoted about the ‘truth of bodies’ is from Georges Bataille, On Nietzsche, trans. Bruce Boone, (The Athlone Press, 1992), p. 73.

D. H. Lawrence's Kangaroo and Some Transpolitical Musings

Garry Shead, Lawrence and Kangaroo, (1992)

Although I'm interested in politics and regard my work as politically informed, I am not one of those individuals who could ever belong to a political party or follow a party line.

I suppose, primarily, this has something to do with wishing to safeguard my reputation as a nomadic thinker; i.e. one who cares for those ideas that don't allow themselves to easily be codified or coordinated by an ideology, or made subject to authority. For this reason, I'm very sympathetic to Richard Somers, protagonist of Lawrence's novel Kangaroo (1923).

For Somers too is something of a Nietzschean free spirit, struggling to rid himself from all forms of dogma and doxa, desperately trying to reinvent each gesture and finally find a way in which to say something in his own name without asking permission (albeit a name which designates no ego whatsoever).

Thus, although he writes essays on social questions - and although he flirts with parties on both the far-left and far-right of the political spectrum, fantasizing about being a revolutionary man of action - Somers ultimately chooses to stand aside and stand alone, remaining loyal to his own demon (no matter how wilfully perverse this makes him look in the eyes of others) and exercising what Foucault describes as a decisive will not to be governed.

He very early on in the novel makes his transpositional position clear when he states that politics isn't his real concern and that he'd rather wander in a homeless fashion without a friend in the world than belong to any nation, church, or cause. Somers knows and comes to accept that he is fated to be one of those who must remain silent, lonely, and resolute - individuals content to engage in invisible activities outside the gate.

Heidegger talks about the need for such people engaged in reverent contemplativeness which might keep open the slim hope of a new revealing for man; a form of transcendence that has been purged not only of its conventional ties to morality and metaphysics, but also to the very possibility of direct action.

Ultimately, despite what militant political fanatics and religious terrorists believe, the greatest events are not our loudest or bloodiest but our stillest hours and "The world revolves not around the inventors of new noises, but around the inventors of new values; it revolves inaudibly."

Like Zarathustra, Richard Somers knows in his heart that change takes time and begins with a new feeling. Thus whilst the commentator Mac Daly is right to suggest that Kangaroo unfolds within a nihilistic universe, he is mistaken to argue that Somers's problem is that he cannot summon up sufficient faith in any cause that might give his life meaning. This, in fact, is Somers's strength and saving grace; it is what prevents him from deteriorating into something dreary and political like a communist or a fascist. It is his lack of faith and his inability to believe in anything or anyone that, paradoxically, is a sign of his spiritual superiority.

For Somers knows that whilst life can be made to march in step with the limited movements of the body politic and mouth empty slogans, it at the same time exceeds these and goes far beyond them: for life makes no absolute statement and sensitive, intelligent men and women don't need metanarratives and remain incredulous before them. If they do think their way into a political party or a faith, so too do they think their way through and out the other side, back into the open, like worms through a rotten apple. 

Kangaroo is a great novel precisely because it encourages us not to belong; to keep moving and abandon all attachments; to understand that it's merely Christian to love your enemies, whilst the really crucial but difficult thing is learning how to hate your friends and betray your masters.      


Notes:

D. H. Lawrence, Kangaroo, edited by Bruce Steele with an Introduction and Notes by Macdonald Daly, (Penguin Books, 1997).  

Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, (Penguin Books, 1969). The line quoted is from the section in part two entitled 'Of Great Events', pp. 153-54.  

See also Stephen Alexander, Outside the Gate, (Blind Cupid Press, 2010), II. 6, pp. 127-45, for a further discussion of this topic with reference to Kangaroo and Aaron's Rod.