Lecture 10

[Hubert Selby: Inscription for Gilbert Sorrentino]

Hubert Selby, Jr.:
Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964)

Style

Anthology Texts:

• Hubert Selby, Jr.: from Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964)
• Allen Ginsberg: from Howl (1956)

History of the Ban:

Last Exit to Brooklyn has been censored on both sides of the Atlantic. Several of the chapters had appeared separately in Black Mountain Review, New Directions #17, Provincetown Review and Swank. The section entitled "Tralala" first appeared as a play that was banned from off-Broadway production in 1957. In 1965, in Boston, Massachusetts, a local city attorney sought an injunction against the book, but the complaint was dismissed. The following year, a circuit court in Connecticut issued a temporary injunction against sale of the book, now published by both Grove Press and Dell Publishing, charging that it was "obscene and pornographic." The injunction was overturned and sales were again permitted. The novel has also been banned in Italy and Ireland, and placed on a restricted list in Russia.

The most extensive censorship case occurred in England, where the novel was published by Calder and Boyars. In late 1966, Conservative Member of Parliament Sir Charles Taylor received a copy of the novel, sent to him by Sir Basil Blackwell, member of an Oxford bookselling family and a man in his seventies who claimed that his few remaining years had been "defiled" by reading Last Exit. Disgusted by the book, Taylor alerted the attorney general in June 1967 to register a complaint with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). That office replied that Taylor was too late to make an effective complaint because over 11,000 copies of the book had already been sold, and sales were slowing. Attorney General Sir Elwyn Jones stated further that "Literary Criticism was almost unanimous that it had literary merit." The publisher taunted Taylor by including his name in their advertisement in The Sunday Times, stating: "Sir Charles Taylor, MP has described Last Exit as filthy, disgusting, degrading. It is one of the most important novels to come out of America .... "

The audacity of the publisher angered another member of parliament. Sir Cyril Black (Conservative), who used the private prosecutions feature of Section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act of 1959 to challenge the publishers. He brought a formal complaint against the book in July 1966, calling upon the publisher to prove that the book had value and to establish why it should not be banned. The magistrate who granted the application was Sir Robert Blundell, a chief opponent of Fanny Hill, who issued a search warrant for members of law enforcement to seize all copies from area bookshops. The trial was held at Marlborough Street Magistrates Court in November 1966, and the numerous prosecution witnesses were consistent in expressing their disgust with the scenes depicted in the novel, especially with the brutal rape and humiliation of Tralala. This section has drawn the greatest objection in proceedings against the book because of the horrifying picture that Selby creates of the humiliation and death of Tralala and the cold indifference of onlookers. The presiding magistrate rejected the book, observing that "this book in its descriptions goes beyond any book of a merely pornographic kind that we have seen in this court [and] ... is more likely to deprave and corrupt than any of those cyclostyled horrors. "

Buoyed by the published opinion of several critics that Britain "had made herself the laughing stock of the civilized world," Calder and Boyars announced that they would continue publication. In response, the DPP announced that it would prosecute, using section 2 of the 1959 act that prohibited "possessing an obscene article for gain." The trial was set for November 1967, and an all-male jury was selected to spare women the embarrassment of reading the material. The trial lasted nine days and brought together numerous prominent witnesses. The prosecution spotlighted David Shepherd, a former cricket star who had taken religious orders and would later become a bishop, who claimed that he had emerged "not unscathed" by reading the novel, although as a social worker in the East End of London he could identify many of the character types among his clients. To counter this testimony, Calder and Boyars assembled a list of nearly 30 writers, critics, professors and members of the media who praised Selby's work and his expression of theme. The effort was fruitless for, after deliberating five and a half hours, the jury declared the book guilty of being obscene and that "the effect of reading the book was to horrify. shock, disgust, and nauseate." Although the judge determined that the book had been published in good faith by a respectable publishing house, he fined Calder and Boyars £100 and ordered them to pay £500 in court costs.

The publishers once again appealed the decision, represented this time by John Mortimer, who convinced the appeal judges that the judge in the earlier trial had not sufficiently explained the complexities of the 1959 act to the jury and had left too much to "commonsense" and not enough to law. As a result, the conviction was overturned and Last Exit was free to appear in a complete and unexpurgated edition. To avoid further embarrassing litigation based on private prosecution, Section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act of 1959 was changed. Last Exit holds the distinction of being the last serious novel, poem or play prosecuted under the 1959 act.

– Nicholas J. Karolides, Margaret Bald & Dawn B. Sova, 100 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature. Introduction by Ken Wachsberger (Checkmark Books, New York, 1999): 382-86.

Style (or Tone of Voice):

Last Exit to Brooklyn was written in an unusual style that ignores most conventions of grammar. Selby wrote most of the prose as if it were a story told from one friend to another at a bar rather than a novel, using coarse and casual language. He used slang-like conjunctions of words, such as tahell for "to hell" and yago for "you go." The paragraphs were often written in a stream of consciousness style with many parentheses and fragments. Selby often indented new paragraphs to the middle or end of the line.

Also, Selby did not use quotation marks to distinguish dialogue but instead merely blended it into the text. He used a slash instead of an apostrophe mark for contractions and did not use an apostrophe at all for possessives.

- Wikipedia

[Allen Ginsburg: Howl (1956)]

Workshop 10:
Howl

We'll begin with the book report on Last Exit to Brooklyn, then move on to do the class exercise in pairs or small groups.

Exercise 10:
Spot the Similarities

The 1957 obscenity trial

Howl contains many references to illicit drugs and sexual practices, both heterosexual and homosexual. On the basis of one line in particular

who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy

customs officials seized 520 copies of the poem on March 25, 1957, being imported from the printer in London.

A subsequent obscenity trial was brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who ran City Lights Bookstore, the poem's new domestic publisher. Nine literary experts testified on the poem's behalf. Supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, Ferlinghetti won the case when Judge Clayton Horn decided that the poem was of "redeeming social importance". The case was widely publicized (articles appeared in both Time and Life magazines). The trial was published by Ferlinghetti's lead defense attorney Jake Ehrlich in a book called Howl of the Censor.

- Wikipedia

Next week:

Group 5: Book report on The Satanic Verses due.

[Salman the ladies' man: with Padma Lakshmi & Olivia Wilde]

Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964)

[Last Exit to Brooklyn]

Hubert Selby, Jr.
Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964)

Extract:

... She didn't need any goddamn skell to buy her a drink. She could get anything she wanted in Willies. She had her kicks. Shed go back to Willies where what she said goes. That was the joint. There was always somebody in there with money. No bums like these cruds. Did they think shed let any goddamn bum in her pants and play with her tits for a few bucks. Shit! She could get a seamans whole payoff just sittin in Willies. ...

•

... Afterwards the kids who were watching and waiting to take a turn took out their disappointment on Tralala and tore her clothes to small scraps put out a few cigarettes on her nipples pissed on her jerked off on her jammed a broomstick up her snatch then bored they left her lying amongst the broken bottles rusty cans and rubble of the lot and Jack and Fred and Ruthy and Annie stumbled into a cab still laughing and they leaned toward the window as they passed the lot and got a good look at Tralala lying naked covered with blood urine and semen and a small blot forming on the seat between her legs as blood seeped from her crotch and Ruth and Annie happy and completely relaxed now that they were on their way downtown. ...

– Hubert Selby, Jr. Last Exit to Brooklyn. 1964 (London: Abacus, 1989): 111 & 122.

Critical Responses:

"What Moby Dick was to Melville's century, Last Exit to Brooklyn is to ours, and between the two, Selby's is the better book. If that be called heresy, know that it be called so only by those of the same dead mind as they who allowed Melville to die unknown." - Nick Tosches.

"Being an artist doesn't take much, just everything you got. Which means, of course, that as the process is giving you life, it is also bringing you closer to death. But it's no big deal. They are one and the same and cannot be avoided or denied. So when I totally embrace this process, this life/death, and abandon myself to it, I transcend all this meaningless gibberish and hang out with the gods. It seems to me that that is worth the price of admission" - Hubert Selby, Jr.

Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989)
directed by Uli Edel
screenplay by Desmond Nakano
starring starred Stephen Lang, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Burt Young & Peter Dobson

Critical Responses:

"It's funny how things get twisted around in very small yet meaningful ways. One certainly has to question all history books. After I had written and directed Heavy Traffic, I had gotten together with Selby and producer Steve Krantz to do a live action version of Last Exit because Traffic made it clear to everyone that I could do it. Hubert Selby and I became very good friends. Bobby DeNiro had accepted a major roll in the film (Strike) but the whole thing fell apart when Krantz and I had a falling out over past business. It was a disappointment to me and Selby. Selby and I tried a few other screenplays after that on other subjects, but I could not shake Last Exit from my mind. Years later, It was done horribly.

If you live in Brooklyn, people could be outrageous, but also very wonderful, colorful, unique. The picture turned out to be like a hot dog without mustard." - Ralph Bakshi.

[Last Exit Brooklyn]

Selby, Hubert

[Hubert Selby, Jr.]

Hubert Selby, Jr.
(1928-2004)

Select Bibliography:

novels:

Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964)
The Room (1971)
The Demon (1976)
Requiem for a Dream (1978)
The Willow Tree (1998)
Waiting Period (2002)

short stories:

Song of the Silent Snow(1986)

spoken word:

[with Henry Rollins] Our Fathers Who Aren't in Heaven (1990)
[with Henry Rollins] Live in Europe 1989 (1995)
[with Nick Tosches] Blue Eyes And Exit Wounds (1998)

Biography & Secondary Literature:

Giles, James R. Understanding Hubert Selby, Jr. Charleston: University of South Carolina Press, 1998.

Kermode, Frank. "'Obscenity' and the 'Public Interest'." New American Review 3 (April 1968): 229-44.

Lane, James B. "Violence and Sex in the Post-War Popular Urban Novel; With a Consideration of Harold Robbins’ A Stone for Danny Fisher and Hubert Selby Jr.'s Last Exit to Brooklyn.” Journal of Popular Culture (Fall 1974): 295-308.

Homepages & Online Information:

Exit Wounds: Author's Homepage

Wikipedia entry

[Lydia Lam: Hubert Selby, Jr. (December, 2003)]

Lecture 12

[Gagged]

Conclusion:
Pornotopia

Anthology Texts:

• Rick Poynor: from Designing Pornotopia: Travels in Visual Culture (2006)
• Donna Haraway: A Cyborg Manifesto (1985)

[Chris D. Lugosz: Pinball Cyborg]

At the centre of my ironic faith, my blasphemy, is the image of the cyborg.

A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. Social reality is lived social relations, our most important political construction, a world-changing fiction. The international women's movements have constructed 'women's experience', as well as uncovered or discovered this crucial collective object. This experience is a fiction and fact of the most crucial, political kind. Liberation rests on the construction of the consciousness, the imaginative apprehension, of oppression, and so of possibility. The cyborg is a matter of fiction and lived experience that changes what counts as women's experience in the late twentieth century. This is a struggle over life and death, but the boundary between science fiction and social reality is an optical illusion.

Contemporary science fiction is full of cyborgs - creatures simultaneously animal and machine, who populate worlds ambiguously natural and crafted. Modern medicine is also full of cyborgs, of couplings between organism and machine, each conceived as coded devices, in an intimacy and with a power that was not generated in the history of sexuality. Cyborg 'sex' restores some of the lovely replicative baroque of ferns and invertebrates (such nice organic prophylactics against heterosexism). Cyborg replication is uncoupled from organic reproduction. Modern production seems like a dream of cyborg colonization work, a dream that makes the nightmare of Taylorism seem idyllic. And modern war is a cyborg orgy, coded by C3I, command-control-communication-intelligence, an $84 billion item in 1984'sUS defence budget. I am making an argument for the cyborg as a fiction mapping our social and bodily reality and as an imaginative resource suggesting some very fruitful couplings. Michael Foucault's biopolitics is a flaccid premonition of cyborg politics, a very open field.

By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs. Ths cyborg is our ontology; it gives us our politics. The cyborg is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality, the two joined centres structuring any possibility of historical transformation. In the traditions of 'Western' science and politics - the tradition of racist, male-dominant capitalism; the tradition of progress; the tradition of the appropriation of nature as resource for the productions of culture; the tradition of reproduction of the self from the reflections of the other - the relation between organism and machine has been a border war. The stakes in the border war have been the territories of production, reproduction, and imagination. This chapter is an argument for pleasure in the confusion of boundaries and for responsibility in their construction. It is also an effort to contribute to socialist-feminist culture and theory in a postmodernist, non-naturalist mode and in the utopian tradition of imagining a world without gender, which is perhaps a world without genesis, but maybe also a world without end. The cyborg incarnation is outside salvation history. Nor does it mark time on an oedipal calendar, attempting to heal the terrible cleavages of gender in an oral symbiotic utopia or post-oedipal apocalypse. As Zoe Sofoulis argues in her unpublished manuscript on Jacques Lacan, Melanie Klein, and nuclear culture, Lacklein, the most terrible and perhaps the most promising monsters in cyborg worlds are embodied in non-oedipal narratives with a different logic of repression, which we need to understand for our survival.

The cyborg is a creature in a post-gender world; it has no truck with bisexuality, pre-oedipal symbiosis, unalienated labour, or other seductions to organic wholeness through a final appropriation of all the powers of the parts into a higher unity. In a sense, the cyborg has no origin story in the Western sense - a 'final' irony since the cyborg is also the awful apocalyptic telos of the 'West's' escalating dominations of abstract individuation, an ultimate self untied at last from all dependency, a man in space. An origin story in the 'Western', humanist sense depends on the myth of original unity, fullness, bliss and terror, represented by the phallic mother from whom all humans must separate, the task of individual development and of history, the twin potent myths inscribed most powerfully for us in psychoanalysis and Marxism. Hilary Klein has argued that both Marxism and psychoanalysis, in their concepts of labour and of individuation and gender formation, depend on the plot of original unity out of which difference must be produced and enlisted in a drama of escalating domination of woman/nature. The cyborg skips the step of original unity, of identification with nature in the Western sense. This is its illegitimate promise that might lead to subversion of its teleology as star wars.

The cyborg is resolutely committed to partiality, irony, intimacy, and perversity. It is oppositional, utopian, and completely without innocence. No longer structured by the polarity of public and private, the cyborg defines a technological polls based partly on a revolution of social relations in the oikos, the household. Nature and culture are reworked; the one can no longer be the resource for appropriation or incorporation by the other. The relationships for forming wholes from parts, including those of polarity and hierarchical domination, are at issue in the cyborg world. Unlike the hopes of Frankenstein's monster, the cyborg does not expect its father to save it through a restoration of the garden; that is, through the fabrication of a heterosexual mate, through its completion in a finished whole, a city and cosmos. The cyborg does not dream of community on the model of the organic family, this time without the oedipal project. The cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust. Perhaps that is why I want to see if cyborgs can subvert the apocalypse of returning to nuclear dust in the manic compulsion to name the Enemy. Cyborgs are not reverent; they do not re-member the cosmos. They are wary of holism, but needy for connection- they seem to have a natural feel for united front politics, but without the vanguard party. The main trouble with cyborgs, of course, is that they are the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism, not to mention state socialism. But illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins. Their fathers, after all, are inessential.

- Donna Haraway: "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century." 1985. In Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991), pp.149-181 (149-51).

[Designing Pornotopia]

Let me submit the following practical suggestion. Literature, real literature, must not be gulped down like some potion which may be good for the heart or good for the brain - the brain, that stomach of the soul. Literature must be taken and broken to bits, pulled apart, squashed - then its lovely reek will be smelt in the hollow of the palm, it will be munched and rolled upon the tongue with relish; then, and only then, its rare flavour will be appreciated at its true worth and the broken and crushed parts will again come together in your mind and disclose the beauty of a unity to which you have contributed something of your own blood.

- Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Russian Literature, ed. Fredson Bowers, 1982 (London: Picador, 1983) p. 105.

How should one read a novel, specifically?

If the novel was the dominant genre of the nineteenth century, and film of the twentieth century, what precisely do we have to learn by focussing specifically on a set of novels written since 1900?

Maybe we have to go back even further before we ask that question. What is the purpose of writing fiction? More to the point, why do we read it?

Nabokov has some interesting reflections on that subject, also:

The case of count Beust is an excellent example to bring into any discussion about so-called real life and so-called fiction. There on the one hand is a historical fact, a certain Beust, a statesman, a diplomat, who not only has existed but has left a book of memoirs in two volumes, wherein he carefully recalls all the witty repartees, and political puns, which he had made in the course of his long political career on this or that occasion. And here, on the other hand, is Steve Oblonksi whom Tolstoy [in Anna Karenin] created from top to toe, and the question is which of the two, the "real-life" Count Beust, or the "fictitious" Prince Oblonksi is more alive, is more real, is more believable, Despite his memoirs - long-winded memoirs full of dead clichés - the good Beust remains a vague and conventional figure, whereas Oblonski, who never existed, is immortally vivid. And furthermore, Beust himself acquires a little sparkle by his participating in a Tolstoyan paragraph, in a fictitious world.

- Nabokov, Lectures on Russian Literature, p. 213.

This mention of the "fictitious world" of a novel - in this case, of Anna Karenina - brings us to the main theme of this lecture: the different worlds we have to understand before we can really penetrate what is going on any piece of fiction.

First of all, there's the world of the author: her or his biography, intellectual context, set of worldly concerns ...

Secondly, there's the setting (contemporary or consciously "historical") of the novel. Even if it is supposed to take place roughly around the same time at which it was composed, that may require some elucidation for later readers.

Thirdly, there's the fictive universe of the novel itself. How does this world operate? What are its fundamental laws of nature? The same as ours in the "real world" - or significantly different? What aspects of existence, in other words, are foregrounded in this particular author's version of the texture of experience?

No two commentators will come up with exactly the same descriptions of even these basic features of any "fictitious world" - nevertheless, it would be foolish to pretend that the process of definition is entirely arbitrary.

Stanley Fish, way back in 1980, asked Is There a Text in this Class? I think that we have to allow that there is in order to have a discussion at all, but we can also permit a huge amount of variation when it comes to our sense of the features of any particular text.

We can also employ our basic evidence for its nature - the letter of the text - more or less adroitly.

Is it true that the twentieth-century novels we've been examining, one by one, constitute an attempt to subvert the moral and cultural standards of their respective communities? Such a claim has been made about each of them.

Is the conclusion of the course that complete license should reign in the domain of free speech? Or are there lines of more-or-less universal applicability that can be drawn - at any rate in this community.

It's unlikely we'll all be able to find agreement on such contentious points. In any case, the intention of the course was never to enforce consensus.

At the very least we've clarified, I hope, the terms of an ongoing debate which began when the very first bards and shamans chose to submit to scrutiny the mores of their own societies.

[Cyborg]

Workshop 12:
A Cyborg Manifesto

We'll begin by discussing the nature of the exam, then move on to do the class exercise together.

Exercise 12:
Design Your Own Utopia

Bring a picture with you to class – perhaps a photograph out of a magazine, or any image which intrigues you in some way.

How does it represent your image of Utopia? What would that include?

We;ll go round the class and get reactions from each of you.

Next week:

Exam preparation.

[Banned]

Lecture 11

[Hanging Rushdie in effigy at Kenyon University]

Salman Rushdie:
The Satanic Verses (1988)

Theme

Anthology Texts:

• Salman Rushdie: from The Satanic Verses (1988)
• Salman Rushdie: from Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990)
• Paul Scott: from The Jewel in the Crown (1966 / 1984)

[Daniel Pipes: The Rushdie Affair (1990)]

History of the Ban:

Many leaders sought to avoid the whole Rushdie issue. They did not refer to it in public and instructed their media either to report the controversy without comment, or to ignore it. Even when asked point-blank about the matter, they skipped around it. "I don't care to comment about the action of the Government of Iran myself," was King Husayn of Jordan's reply to such a question.' Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan used almost the same words: "I do not want to start a controversy with Iran. " "Turkey is not a party to the arguments concerning the book," came the word from Ankara. In Egypt, the media downplayed the international fracas; for its part, the parliament debated The Last Temptation of Christ at much greater length than The Satanic Verses. Political allies of Tehran also refused public support. President Hafiz al-Asad of Syria begged off when asked about the edict: "I am not an authority on religion. " Syria's chief authority on religion, the mufti, did no more than request Rushdie (like the Muslims in Britain) "to admit his mistake, withdraw the book, and prevent its further circulation."

From the vantage point of those wishing to stay clear of trouble, the obvious step was to ban the book and say no more. The Muslim states as a totality chose this path when their foreign ministers met in mid-March 1989 for a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Notwithstanding intense Iranian efforts to find support for Khomeini's fatwa, the OIC over­whelmingly voted to do no more than call on member governments to ban the book.

Virtually every government with a Muslim majority or plu­rality did just this, as did a number of governments with substantial Muslim minorities, including those of Papua New Guinea, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Tanzania, Liberia, Sierra Leone and South Africa. Most remarkably, two Western states with negligible Muslim populations banned the book. In Venezuela, the authorities imposed a fine of 15 months imprisonment for owning the book, and even reading it was made an offense. In Japan, sale of the English-language edition was banned. Fines were imposed. The Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar threatened that anyone found with the offending book would be sentenced to three years in prison, a fine of 20,000 shillings ($2,500), or both. The Malaysian government imposed almost the identical penalty, three years in prison, 20,000 ringgit (about $7,400), or both.
Some governments went further. Iran and several other states banned all books published by Viking, including its very popular Penguin series. Rushdie himself was barred from several coun­tries. Secondary bannings of issues of magazines (such as Time, Newsweek, Asiaweek and Far Eastern Economic Review) cover­ing the controversy were fairly common.

These regulations were occasionally taken seriously; when a Christian citizen of the Sudan was spotted at the Khartoum airport returning from London with two copies of The Satanic Verses, the books were taken away and he was subjected to unspecified legal measures. In the Comores, a small island country off East Africa, all foreign magazines were impounded out of fear that they might carry extracts of the satanic book. The authorities in Mali went to almost comic lengths to protect their citizens from the book. According to a report on the weekly cabinet meeting, as covered by Radio Bamako,

The president informed the Cabinet of the decision by the party to ban the importation, distribution, and propagation of the book, The Satanic Verses. The president has charged the ministers of defence, information, territorial administration, and basic development, as well as the minister of agriculture with carrying out this decision.

In other countries, application was much more lax. Foreign magazines with extracts of the book were allowed into Senegal. In Indonesia, possession of the book was punishable by a month in prison or a fine. Yet, at the same time, local magazines ran lengthy synopses of the book.

- Daniel Pipes, The Rushdie Affair: The Novel, the Ayatollah, and the West (New York: Birch Lane Press, 1990): 142-44.

Theme & Symbolism:

A Timeline of British India

1757 – Robert Clive wins the Battle of Plassey, the real beginning of the East India Company’s rule in India (present since the late 17th century).
1769–70 – Great Bengal Famine: 10 million dead (disputed as excessive)
1773 – Warren Hastings created the first British Governor General of India.
1783–84 – Chalisa famine: Severe famine. Large areas were depopulated. Up to 11 million people may have died during the years 1782–84.
1791–92 – Doji bara famine or Skull famine. One of the most severe famines known. People died in such numbers that they could not be cremated or buried. It is thought that 11 million people may have died during the years 1788–94.
1837–38 – Agra famine of 1837–38: 800,000 dead (disputed as inadequate)
1843 – Annexation of Sindh.
1849 – Anglo-Sikh wars result in the annexation of Kashmir, Punjab and the North-West Frontier.
1857 – The Indian Mutiny.
1858 – British India created.
1865–66 – Orissa famine of 1866: 1 million dead.
1868–70 – Rajputana famine of 1869: 1.5 million dead (mostly in the princely states of Rajputana)
1873–74 – Bihar famine of 1873–74: A large and generous relief effort was organized by the Bengal government. There were no mortalities during the famine.
1876 – Queen Victoria becomes Empress of India.
1876–78 – Great Famine of 1876–78: 5.25 million in British territory. Mortality unknown for princely states.
1896–97 Indian famine of 1896–97: 1,000,000 dead (in British territories). Mortality unknown for princely states.
1899–1901 Indian famine of 1899-1900: 1 million dead (in British territories). Mortality unknown for princely states.
1919 – Amritsar massacre kills at least 379 (official figures). Unofficial estimates are over 1,000.
1943–44 Bengal famine of 1943: 1–1.5 million dead from starvation; 3 million including deaths from epidemics.
1947 – British withdraw from India. Partition massacres kill an estimated half million people.

The Amritsar Massacre

'Dyer is infamous for the orders which he gave on April 13, 1919 in Amritsar. It was under his command that 90 troops, comprising of 25 Gurkhas of 1st/9th Gurkha Rifles, 25 Pathans and Baluch of 54th Sikhs and 59th Sindh Rifles, all armed with .303 Lee-Enfield rifles and the Gurkhas additionally armed with khukris opened fire on a gathering of unarmed civilians, including women and children gathered at the Jallianwalla Bagh in what came to be later known as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

The civilians had assembled at Jallianwala Bagh to participate in the annual Baisakhi celebrations which are both a religious as well as a cultural festival of the Punjabis. The Bagh-space comprised 6–7 acres and was walled on all sides except for five entrances, four of them being very narrow and admitting only a few people at a time. The fifth entrance was blocked by the armed soldiers and by two armoured cars armed with machine guns, although these vehicles were unable to pass through the entrance. Upon entering the park, the General immediately ordered troops to fire directly upon the assembled gathering; firing continued till his troops' ammunition of 1650 rounds was fully exhausted. The firing continued unabated for about 10 minutes. From time to time, Dyer "checked his fire and directed it upon places where the crowd was thickest"; he did this not because the crowd was slow to disperse, but because he (the General) "had made up his mind to punish them for having assembled there." Some of the soldiers initially fired in the air, at which General Dyer shouted: "Fire low. What have you been brought here for?." Later, Dyer's own testimony revealed that the crowd was not given any warning to disperse and he felt no remorse for having ordered his troops to fire.

'The worst part of the whole thing was that the firing was directed towards the exit gates through which the people were running out. There were small 3 or 4 outlets in all and bullets were actually rained over the people at all these gates... and many got trampled under the feet of the rushing crowds and thus lost their lives... even those who lay flat on the ground were fired upon.'

The official reports quote 379 dead and over 1,000 injured. However, public enquiry estimates, figures from Government Civil Servants in the city as well as counts from the Home Political cite numbers well over a thousand dead. According to a Home Political Deposit report, the number was over 1,000, with more than 1,200 wounded. Dr. Smith, a British civil surgeon at Amritsar, indicated over 1800 casualties. These massive casualties earned general Dyer the infamous epitaph of "The Butcher of Amritsar" in India. It has been repeatedly pointed out that the actual figures were deliberately suppressed by the government for political reasons.

On the day following the massacre, Mr. Kitchin, the Commissioner of Lahore as well as General Dyer, both used threatening language. The following is the English translation of Dyer's Urdu Statement directed at the local residents of Amritsar on the afternoon of April 14, 1919, a day after the Amritsar massacre:

"You people know well that I am a Sepoy and soldier. Do you want war or peace? If you wish for a war, the Government is prepared for it, and if you want peace, then obey my orders and open all your shops; else I will shoot. For me the battle-field of France or Amritsar is the same. I am a military man and I will go straight. Neither shall I move to the right nor to the left. Speak up, if you want war? In case there is to be peace, my order is to open all shops at once. You people talk against the Government and persons educated in Germany and Bengal talk sedition. I shall report all these. Obey my orders. I do not wish to have anything else. I have served in the military for over 30 years. I understand the Indian Sepoy and Sikh people very well. You will have to obey my orders and observe peace. Otherwise the shops will be opened by force and Rifles. You will have to report to me of the Badmash. I will shoot them. Obey my orders and open shops. Speak up if you want war? You have committed a bad act in killing the English. The revenge will be taken upon you and upon your children."

Brigadier Dyer designated the spot where Miss Marcella Sherwood was assaulted sacred and daytime pickets were placed at either end of the street. Anyone wishing to proceed in the street between 6am and 8pm was made to crawl the 150 yards (140 m) on all fours, lying flat on their bellies. The order was not required at night due to a curfew. The humiliation of the order struck the Indians deeply. Most importantly, the order effectively closed the street. The houses had no back doors and the inhabitants could not go out without climbing down from their roofs. This order was in effect from April 19 until April 25, 1919. No doctor or supplier was allowed in, resulting in the sick being untended.

On his return to Britain, General Dyer was presented with a purse of 26,000 pounds sterling, a huge sum in those days, which emerged from a collection on his behalf by the Morning Post, a conservative, pro-Imperialistic newspaper, which later merged with the Daily Telegraph. A Thirteen Women Committee was constituted to present "the Saviour of the Punjab with sword of honour and a purse." This single incident incensed the Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore so much that he renounced his knighthood in protest. The Morning Post had supported Dyer’s action on grounds stating that the massacre was necessary to "Protect the honor of European Women."
...
General Dyer was oblivious of the events that he was responsible for. He wrote an article in the Globe of 21 January 1921, titled, "The Peril to the Empire". It commenced with, "India does not want self-government. She does not understand it." He went on to write:

• It is only to an enlightened people that free speech and a free press can be extended. The Indian people want no such enlightenment ...
• There should be an eleventh commandment in India, "Thou shalt not agitate" ...
• Gandhi will not lead India to capable self-government. The British Raj must continue, firm and unshaken in its administration of justice to all men.'

- Wikipedia

[The Jewel in the Crown (1984)]

Workshop 11:
The Jewel in the Crown

We'll begin with the book report on The Satanic Verses, then move on to do the class exercise in pairs or small groups.

Exercise 11:
How many people can you offend in one lifetime?

• In Midnight's Children (1981) he offended Mrs. Gandhi and the whle post-independence political establishment of India.
• In Shame (1983) he insulted Benazir Bhutto and the political elite of Pakistan.
• In The Satanic Verses (1988) Salman Rushdie deliberately chose to take on the Ayatollah, Mrs. Thatcher, and the USA.
• The question is, why? And did he intend to offend the whole of Islam in the process? Or just the fundamentalists and fanatics?

Next week:

Final assignment due.

[Cyborg Kate Moss]

Lecture 10

Kathy Acker: The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec,
by Henri Toulouse Lautrec (1975)]

Kathy Acker:
The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec (1975)

Style

[Cover Image: Sue Coe]

Anthology Texts:

• Kathy Acker: from The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec (1975)
• Kathy Acker: from Blood and Guts in High School (1978)
• Harold Robbins: from The Pirate (1974)

[Picador Books Blurb for Blood and Guts in High School, plus two (1984)]

History of the Ban:
Dead Doll

IN ANY SOCIETY BASED ON CLASS, HUMILIATION IS A POLITICAL REALITY. HUMILIATION IS ONE METHOD BY WHICH POLITICAL POWER IS TRANSFORMED INTO SOCIAL OR PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS. THE PERSONAL INTERIORIZATION OF THE PRACTICE OF HUMILIATION IS CALLED HUMILITY.

CAPITOL IS AN ARTIST WHO MAKES DOLLS. MAKES, DAMAGES, TRANSFORMS, SMASHES. ONE OF HER DOLLS IS A WRITER DOLL. THE WRITER DOLL ISN'T VERY LARGE AND IS ALL HAIR, HORSE MANE HAIR, RAT FUR, DIRTY HUMAN HAIR, PUSSY.

ONE NIGHT CAPITOL GAVE THE FOLLOWING SCENARIO TO HER WRITER DOLL:

As a child in sixth grade in a North American school, won first prize in a poetry contest.

In late teens and early twenties, entered New York City poetry world. Prominent Black Mountain poets, mainly male, taught or attempted to teach her that a writer becomes a writer when and only when he finds his own voice.

CAPITOL DIDN'T MAKE ANY AVANT-GARDE POET DOLLS.

Since wanted to be a writer, tried hard to find her own voice. Couldn't. But still loved to write. Loved to play with language. Language was material like clay or paint. Loved to play with verbal material, build up slums and mansions, demolish banks and half-rotten buildings, even buildings which she herself had constructed, into never-before-seen, even unseeable jewels.

To her, every word wasn't only material in itself, but also sent out like beacons, other words. Blue sent out heaven and The Virgin. Material is rich. I didn't create language, writer thought. Later she would think about ownership and copyright. I'm constantly being given language. Since this language- world is rich and always changing, flowing, when I write, I enter a world which has complex relations and is, perhaps, illimitable. This world both represents and is human history, public memories and private memories turned public, the records and actualizations of human intentions. This world is more than life and death, for here life and death conjoin. I can't make language, but in this world, I can play and be played.

So where is 'my voice'?

Wanted to be a writer.

Since couldn't find 'her voice', decided she'd first have to learn what a Black Mountain poet meant by 'his voice'.

What did he do when he wrote? A writer who had found his own voice presented a viewpoint. Created meaning. The writer took a certain amount of language, verbal material, forced that language to stop radiating in multiple, even unnumerable directions, to radiate in only one direction so there could be his meaning.

The writer's voice wasn't exactly this meaning. The writer's voice was a process, how he had forced the language to obey him, his will. The writer's voice is the voice of the writer-as-God.

Writer thought, Don't want to be God; have never wanted to be God. All these male poets want to be the top poet, as if, since they can't be a dictator in the political realm, can be dictator of this world.

Want to play. Be left alone to play. Want to be a sailor who journeys at every edge and even into the unknown. See strange sights, see. If I can't keep on seeing wonders, I'm in prison. Claustrophobia's sister to my worst nightmare: lobotomy, the total loss of perceptual power, of seeing new. If had to force language to be uni-directional, I'd be helping my own prison to be constructed.

There are enough prisons outside, outside language.

Decided, no. Decided that to find her own voice would be negotiating against her joy. That's what the culture seemed to be trying to tell her to do.

Wanted only to write. Was writing. Would keep on writing without finding 'her own voice'. To hell with the Black Mountain poets even though they had taught her a lot.

Decided that since what she wanted to do was just to write, not to find her own voice, could and would write by using anyone's voice, anyone's text, whatever materials she wanted to use.

Had a dream while waking that was running with animals. Wild horses, leopards, red fox, kangaroos, mountain lions, wild dogs. Running over rolling hills. Was able to keep up with the animals and they accepted her.

Wildness was writing and writing was wildness.

Decision not to find this own voice but to use and be other, multiple, even innumerable, voices led to two other decisions.

There were two kinds of writing in her culture: good literature and schlock. Novels which won literary prizes were good literature; science fiction and horror novels, pornography were schlock. Good literature concerned important issues, had a high moral content, and, most important, was written according to well- established rules of taste, elegance, and conservatism. Schlock's content was sex horror violence and other aspects of human existence abhorrent to all but the lowest of the low, the socially and morally unacceptable. This trash was made as quickly as possible, either with no regard for the regulations of politeness or else with regard to the crudest, most vulgar techniques possible. Well-educated, intelligent, and concerned people read good literature. Perhaps because the masses were gaining political therefore economic and social control, not only of literary production, good literature was read by an elite diminishing in size and cultural strength.

Decided to use or to write both good literature and schlock. To mix them up in terms of content and formally, offended everyone.

Writing in which all kinds of writing mingled seemed, not immoral, but amoral, even to the masses. Played in every playground she found; no one can do that in a class or hierarchical society.

(In literature classes in university, had learned that anyone can say or write anything about anything if he or she does so cleverly enough. That cleverness, one of the formal rules of good literature, can be a method of social and political manipulation. Decided to use language stupidly.) In order to use and be other voices as stupidly as possible, decided to copy down simply other texts.

Copy them down while, maybe, mashing them up because wasn't going to stop playing in any playground. Because loved wildness.

Having fun with texts is having fun with everything and everyone. Since didn't have one point of view or centralized perspective, was free to find out how texts she used and was worked. In their contexts which were (parts of) culture.

Liked best of all mushing up texts. Began constructing her first story by placing mashed-up texts by and about Henry Kissinger next to True Romance texts. What was the true romance of America? Changed these True Romance texts only by heightening the sexual crudity of their style. Into this mush, placed four pages out of Harold Robbins', one of her heroes', newest hottest bestsellers. Had first made Jacqueline Onassis the star of Robbins' text.

Twenty years later, a feminist publishing house republished the last third of the novel in which this mash occurred.

CAPITOL MADE A FEMINIST PUBLISHER DOLL EVEN THOUGH, BECAUSE SHE WASN'T STUPID, SHE KNEW THAT THE FEMINIST PUBLISHING HOUSE WAS ACTUALLY A LOT OF DOLLS. THE FEMINIST PUBLISHER DOLL WAS A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN A ST. LAURENT DRESS. CAPITOL, PERHAPS OUT OF PERVERSITY, REFRAINED FROM USING HER USUAL CHEWED UP CHEWING GUM, HALF-DRIED FLECKS OF NAIL POLISH, AND BITS OF HER OWN BODY THAT HAD SOMEHOW FALLEN AWAY.

Republished the text containing the Harold Robbins' mush next to a text she had written only seventeen years ago. In this second text, the only one had ever written without glopping up hacking into and rewriting other texts (appropriating), had tried to destroy literature or what she as a writer was supposed to write by making characters and a story that were so stupid as to be almost non-existent. Ostensibly, the second text was a porn book. The pornography was almost as stupid as the story. The female character had her own name.

Thought just after had finished writing this, here is a conventional novel. Perhaps, here is 'my voice'. Now I'll never again have to make up a bourgeois novel.

Didn't.

The feminist publisher informed her that this second text was her most important because here she had written a treatise on female sexuality.

Since didn't believe in arguing with people, wrote an introduction to both books in which stated that her only interest in writing was in copying down other people's texts. Didn't say liked messing them up because was trying to be polite. Like the English. Did say had no interest in sexuality or in any other content.

CAPITOL MADE A DOLL WHO WAS A JOURNALIST. CAPITOL LOVED MAKING DOLLS WHO WERE JOURNALISTS. SOMETIMES SHE MADE THEM OUT OF THE NEWSPAPERS FOUND IN TRASHCANS ON THE STREETS. SHE KNEW THAT LOTS OF CATS INHABITED TRASH CANS. THE PAPERS SAID RATS CARRY DISEASES. SHE MADE THIS JOURNALIST OUT OF THE FINGERNAILS SHE OBTAINED BY HANGING AROUND THE TRASHCANS IN THE BACK LOTS OF LONDON HOSPITALS. HAD PENETRATED THESE BACK LOTS WITH THE HOPE OF MEETING MEAN OLDER MEN BIKERS. FOUND LOTS OF OTHER THINGS THERE. SINCE, TO MAKE THE JOURNALIST, SHE MOLDED THE FINGERNAILS TOGETHER WITH SUPER GLUE AND, BEING A SLOB, LOTS OF OTHER THINGS STUCK TO THIS SUPER GLUE, THE JOURNALIST DIDN'T LOOK ANYTHING LIKE A HUMAN BEING.

A journalist who worked on a trade publishing magazine, so the story went, no one could remember whose story, was informed by another woman in her office that there was a resemblance between a section of the writer's book and Harold Robbins' work. Most of the literati of the country in which the writer was currently living were upper-middle class and detested the writer and her writing.

CAPITOL THOUGHT ABOUT MAKING A DOLL OF THIS COUNTRY, BUT DECIDED NOT TO.

Journalist decided she had found a scoop. Phoned up the feminist publisher to enquire about plagiarism; perhaps feminist publisher said something wrong because then phoned up Harold Robbins' publisher.

"Surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further. The further one goes, the more private, the more personal, the more singular an experience becomes, and the thing one is making is finally, the necessary, irrepressible, and, as nearly as possible, definitive utterance of this singularity ... Therein lies the enormous aid the work of art brings to the life of the one who must make it ...

"So we are most definitely called upon to test and try ourselves against the utmost, but probably we are also bound to keep silence regarding this utmost, to beware of sharing it, of parting with it in communication so long as we have not entered the work of art: for the utmost represents nothing other than that singularity in us which no one would or even should understand, and which must enter into the work as such . . . " Rilke to Cezanne.

CAPITOL MADE A PUBLISHER LOOK LIKE SAM PECKINPAH. THOUGH SHE HAD NO IDEA WHAT SAM PECKINPAH LOOKED LIKE. HAD LOOKED LIKE? SHE TOOK A HOWDY DOODY DOLL AND AN ALFRED E. NEUMAN DOLL AND MASHED THEM TOGETHER, THEN MADE THIS CONGLOMERATE INTO AN AMERICAN OFFICER IN THE MEXICAN-AMERICAN WAR. ACTUALLY SEWED, SHE HATED SEWING, OR WHEN SHE BECAME TIRED OF SEWING, GLUED TOGETHER WITH HER OWN TWO HANDS, JUST AS THE EARLY AMERICAN PATRIOT WIVES USED TO DO FOR THEIR PATRIOT HUSBANDS, A FROGGED AND BRAIDED CAVALRY JACKET, STAINED WITH THE BLOOD FROM SOME FORMER OWNERS. THEN FASHIONED A STOVEPIPE HAT OUT OF ONE SHE HAD STOLEN FROM A BUM IN AN ECSTASY OF ART. THE HAT WAS A BIT BIG. FOR THE PUBLISHER. INSIDE A GOLD HEART, THERE SHOULD BE A PICTURE OF A WOMAN. SINCE CAPITOL DIDN'T HAVE A PICTURE OF A WOMAN, SHE PUT IN ONE OF HER MOTHER. SINCE SAM PECKINPAH OR HER PUBLISHER HAD SEEN TRAGEDY, AN ARROW HANGING OUT OF THE WHITE BREAST OF A SOLDIER NO OLDER THAN A CHILD, HORSES GONE MAD WALLEYED MOUTHS FROTHING AMID DUST THICKER THAN THE SMOKE OF GUNS. SHE MADE HIS FACE FULL OF FOLDS, AN EYEPATCH OVER ONE EYE.

Harold Robbins' publisher phoned up the man who ran the company who owned the feminist publishing company. From now on, known as 'The Boss'. The Boss told Harold Robbins' publisher that they have a plagiarist in their midst.

CAPITOL NO LONGER WANTED TO MAKE DOLLS. IN THE UNITED STATES, UPON SEEING THE WORK OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE, SENATOR JESSE HELMS PROPOSED AN AMENDMENT TO THE FISCAL YEAR 1990 INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES BILL FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROHIBITING "THE USE OF APPROPRIATED FUNDS FOR THE DISSEMINATION, PROMOTION, OR PRODUCTION OF OBSCENE OR INDECENT MATERIALS OR MATERIALS DENIGRATING A PARTICULAR RELIGION." THREE SPECIFIC CATEGORIES OF UNACCEPTABLE MATERIAL FOLLOWED: "(1) OBSCENE OR INDECENT MATERIALS, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO DEPICTIONS OF SADOMASOCHISM [ALWAYS GET THAT ONE IN FIRST], HOMO-EROTICISM, THE EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN, OR INDIVIDUALS ENGAGED IN SEX ACTS; OR (2) MATERIAL WHICH DENIGRATES THE OBJECTS OR BELIEFS OF THE ADHERENTS OF A PARTICULAR RELIGION OR NON-RELIGION; OR (3) MATERIAL WHICH DENIGRATES, DEBASES, OR REVILES A PERSON, GROUP, OR CLASS OF CITIZENS ON THE BASIS OF RACE, CREED, SEX, HANDICAP, AGE, OR NATIONAL ORIGIN." IN HONOR OF JESSE HELMS, CAPITOL MADE, AS PILLOWS, A CROSS AND A VAGINA. SO THE POOR COULD HAVE SOMEWHERE TO SLEEP. SINCE SHE NO LONGER HAD TO MAKE DOLLS OR ART, BECAUSE ART IS DEAD IN THIS CULTURE, SHE SLOPPED THE PILLOWS TOGETHER WITH DEAD FLIES, WHITE FLOUR MOISTENED BY THE BLOOD SHE DREW OUT OF HER SMALLEST FINGER WITH A PIN, AND OTHER TYPES OF GARBAGE.

Disintegration.

Feminist publisher then informed writer that the Boss and Harold Robbins' publisher had decided, due to her plagiarism, to withdraw the book from publication and to have her sign an apology to Harold Robbins which they had written. This apology would then be published in two major publishing magazines.

Ordinarily polite, told feminist publisher they could do what they wanted with their edition of her books but she wasn't going to apologize to anyone for anything, much less for twenty years of work.

Didn't have to think to herself because every square inch of her knew. For freedom. Writing must be for and must be freedom.

Feminist publisher replied that she knew writer was actually a nice sweet girl.

Asked if should tell her agent or try talking directly to Harold Robbins.

Feminist publisher replied she'd take care of everything. Writer shouldn't contact Harold Robbins because that would make everything worse.

Would, the feminist publisher asked, the writer please compose a statement for the Boss why the writer used other texts when she wrote so that the Boss wouldn't believe that she was a plagiarist.

CAPITOL MADE A DOLL WHO LOOKED EXACTLY LIKE HERSELF. IF YOU PRESSED A BUTTON ON ONE OF THE DOLL'S CUNT LIPS THE DOLL SAID, "I AM A GOOD GIRL AND DO EXACTLY AS I AM TOLD TO DO."

Wrote:

Nobody save buzzards. Lots of buzzards here. In the distance, lay flies and piles of shit. Herds of animals move against the skyline like black caravans in an unknown east. Sheeps and goats. Another place, a horse is lapping the water of a pool. Lavendar and grey trees behind this black water are leafless and spineless. As the day ends, the sun in the east flushes out pale lavendars and pinks, then turns blood red as it turns on itself, becoming a more definitive shape, the more definitive, the bloodier. Until it sits, totally unaware of the rest of the universe, waiting at the edge of a sky that doesn't yet know what colors it wants to be, a hawk waiting for the inevitable onset of human slaughter. The light is fleeing.

Instead, sent a letter to feminist publisher in which said that she composed her texts out of 'real' conversations, anything written down, other texts, somewhat in the ways the Cubists had worked. (Not quite true. But thought this statement understandable.) Cited, as example, her use of 'True Confessions' stories. Such stories whose content seemed purely and narrowly sexual, composed simply for purposes of sexual titillation and economic profit, if deconstructed, viewed in terms of context and genre, became signs of political and social realities. So if the writer or critic (deconstructionist) didn't work with the actual language of these texts, the writer or critic wouldn't be able to uncover the political and social realities involved. For instance, both genre and the habitual nature of perception hide the violence of the content of many newspaper stories.

To uncover this violence is to run the risk of being accused of loving violence or all kinds of pornography. (As if the writer gives a damn about what anyone considers risks.)

Wrote, living art rather than dead art has some connection with passion. Deconstructions of newspaper stories become the living art in a culture that demands that any artistic representation of life be non-violent and non-sexual, misrepresent.

To copy down, to appropriate, to deconstruct other texts is to break down those perceptual habits the culture doesn't want to be broken.

Deconstruction demands not so much plagiarism as breaking into the copyright law.

In the Harold Robbins' text which had used, a rich white woman walks into a disco, picks up a black boy, has sex with him. In the Robbins' text, this scene is soft-core porn, has as its purpose mild sexual titillation and pleasure.

[When Robbins' book had been published years ago, the writer's mother had said that Robbins had used Jacqueline Onassis as the model for the rich white woman.] Wrote, had made apparent that bit of politics while amplifying the pulp quality of the style in order to see what would happen when the underlying presuppositions or meanings of Robbins' writing became clear. Robbins as emblematic of a certain part of American culture. What happened was that the sterility of that part of American culture revealed itself. The real pornography. Cliches, especially sexual cliches, are always signs of power or political relationships.

BECAUSE SHE HAD JUST GOTTEN HER PERIOD, CAPITOL MADE A HUGE RED SATIN PILLOW CROSS THEN SMEARED HER BLOOD ALL OVER IT.

Her editor at the feminist publisher said that the Boss had found her explanation "literary." Later would be informed that this was a legal, not a literary, matter.

"HERE IT ALL STINKS," CAPITOL THOUGHT. "ART IS MAKING ACCORDING TO THE IMAGINATION. BUT HERE, BUYING AND SELLING ARE THE RULES; THE RULES OF COMMODITY HAVE DESTROYED THE IMAGINATION. HERE, THE ONLY ART ALLOWED IS MADE BY POST-CAPITALIST RULES; ART ISN'T MADE ACCORDING TO RULES." ANGER MAKES YOU WANT TO SUICIDE.

Journalist who broke the 'Harold Robbins story' had been phoning and leaving messages on writer's answering machine for days. Had stopped answering her phone. By chance picked it up; journalist asked her if anything to say.

"You mean about Harold Robbins?"

Silence.

"I've just given my publisher a statement. Perhaps you could read that."

"Do you have anything to add to it?" As if she was a criminal.

A few days later writer's agent over the phone informed writer what was happening was simply horrible.

CAPITOL DIDN'T WANT TO MAKE ANY DOLLS.

How could the writer be plagiarizing Harold Robbins?

Writer didn't know.

Agent told writer if writer had phoned her immediately, agent could have straightened out everything because she was good friends with Harold Robbins' publisher. But now it was too late.

Writer asked agent if she could do anything.

Agent answered that she'd phone Harold Robbins' publisher and that the worst that could happen is that she'd have to pay a nominal quotation rights fee.

So a few days later was surprised when feminist publisher informed her that if she didn't sign the apology to Harold Robbins which they had written for her, feminist publishing company would go down a drain because Harold Robins or harold Robbins' publisher would slap a half-a-million [dollar? pound?] lawsuit on the feminist publishing house.

Decided she had to take notice of this stupid affair, though her whole life wanted to notice only writing and sex.

"WHAT IS IT" CAPITOL WROTE, "TO BE AN ARTIST? WHERE IS THE VALUE THAT WILL KEEP THIS LIFE IN HELL GOING?"

For one of the first times in her life, was deeply scared. Was usually as wild as they come. Doing anything if it felt good. So when succumbed to fear, succumbed to reasonless, almost bottomless fear.

Panicked only because she might be forced to apologize, not to Harold Robbins, that didn't matter, but to anyone for her writing, for what seemed to be her life. Book had already been withdrawn from print. Wasn't that enough? Panicked, phoned her agent without waiting for her agent to phone her.

Agent asked writer if she knew how she stood legally.

Writer replied that as far as knew Harold Robbins had made no written charge. Feminist publisher sometime in beginning had told her they had spoken to a solicitor who had said neither she nor they "had a leg to stand on." Since didn't know with what she was being charged, she didn't know what that meant.

Agent replied, "Perhaps we should talk to a solicitor. Do you know a solicitor?"

Knew the name of a tax solicitor.

Since had no money, asked her American publisher what to do, if he knew a lawyer.

WOULD MAKE NO MORE DOLLS.

American publisher informed her couldn't ask anyone's advice until she knew the charges against her, saw them in writing.

Asked the feminist publisher to send the charges against her and whatever else was in writing to her.

Received two copies of the 'Harold Robbins' text she had written twenty years ago, one copy of the apology she was supposed to sign, and a letter from Harold Robbins' publisher to the head of the feminist publishing company. Letter said they were not seeking damages beyond withdrawal of the book from publication [which had already taken place] and the apology.

Didn't know of what she was guilty.

Later would receive a copy of the letter sent to her feminist publisher from the solicitor whom the feminist publisher and then her agent had consulted. Letter stated: According to the various documents and texts which the feminist publisher had supplied, the writer should apologize to Mr. Harold Robbins. First, because in her text she has used a substantial number of Mr. Robbins' words. Second, because she did not use any texts other than Mr. Robbins' so there could be no literary theory or praxis responsible for her plagiarism. Third, because the contract between the writer and the feminist publisher states that the writer had not infringed upon any existing copyright.

When the writer wrote, not wrote back, to the solicitor that most of the novel in question had been appropriated from other texts, that most of these texts had been in the public domain, that the writers of texts not in the public domain were either writers of 'True Confessions' stories (anonymous) or writers who knew she had reworked their texts and felt honored, except for Mr. Robbins, that she had never misrepresented nor hidden her usages of other texts, her methods of composition, that there was already a body of literary criticism on her and others' methods of appropriation, and furthermore [this was to become the major point of contention], that she would not sign the apology because she could not since there was no assurance that all possible litigation and harassment would end with the signature of guilt, guilt which anyway she didn't feel: the solicitor did not reply.

Not knowing of what she was guilty, feeling isolated, and pressured to finish her new novel, writer became paranoid. Would do anything to stop the pressure from the feminist publisher and simultaneously would never apologize for her work.

Considered her American publisher her father. Told her that the 'Harold Robbins affair' was a joke, she should take the phone off the hook, go to Paris for a few days.

Finish your book. That's what's important.

WOULD MAKE NO MORE DOLLS.

Paris is a beautiful city.

In Paris decided that it's stupid to live in fear. Didn't yet know what to do about isolation. All that matters is work and work must be created in and can't be created in isolation. Remembered a conversation she had had with her feminist publisher. Still trying to explain, writer said, in order to deconstruct, the deconstructionist needs to use the actual other texts. Editor had said she understood. For instance, she was sure, Peter Carey in Oscar and Lucinda had used other people's writings in his dialogue, but he would never admit it. This writer did what every other writer did, but she is the only one who admits it. "It's not a matter of not being able to write," the writer replied. It's a matter of a certain theory which is also a literary theory. Theory and belief." Then shut up because knew that when you have to explain and explain, nothing is understood. Language is dead.

SINCE THERE WERE NO MORE DOLLS, CAPITOL STARTED WRITING LANGUAGE.

Decided that it's stupid living in fear of being forced to be guilty without knowing why you're guilty and, more important, it's stupid caring about what has nothing to do with art. It doesn't really matter whether or not you sign the fucking apology.

Over the phone asked the American publisher whether or not it mattered to her past work whether or not signed the apology.

Answered that the sole matter was her work.

Thought alike.

Wanted to ensure that there was no more sloppiness in her work or life, that from now on all her actions served only her writing. Upon returning to England, consulted a friend who consulted a solicitor who was his friend about her case. This solicitor advised that since she wasn't guilty of plagiarism and since the law was unclear, grey, about whether or not she had breached Harold Robbins' copyright, it could be a legal precedent, he couldn't advise whether or not she should sign the apology. But must not sign unless, upon signing, received full and final settlement.

Informed her agent that would sign if and only if received full and final settlement upon signing.

Over the phone, feminist publisher asked her who had told her about full and final settlement.

A literary solicitor.

Could they, the feminist publishing house, have his name and his statement in writing?

"This is my decision," writer said. "That's all you need to know."

WROTE DOWN "PRAY FOR US THE DEAD," THE FIRST LINE IN THE FIRST POEM BY CHARLES OLSON SHE HAD EVER READ WHEN SHE WAS A TEENAGER. ALL THE DOLLS WERE DEAD. DEAD HAIR. WHEN SHE LOOKED UP THIS POEM, ITS FIRST LINE WAS, "WHAT DOES NOT CHANGE/ IS THE WILL TO CHANGE."

WENT TO A NEARBY CEMETERY AND WITH STICK DOWN IN SAND WROTE THE WORDS "PRAY FOR US THE DEAD." THOUGHT, WHO IS DEAD? THE DEAD TREES? WHO IS DEAD? WE LIVE IN SERVICE OF THE SPIRIT. MADE MASS WITH TREES DEAD AND DIRT AND UNDERNEATH HUMANS AS DEAD OR LIVING AS ANY STONE OR WOOD.

I WON'T BURY MY DEAD DOLLS, THOUGHT. I'LL STEP ON THEM AND MASH THEM UP.

For two weeks didn't hear from either her agent or feminist publisher. Could return to finishing her novel.

Thought that threats had died.

In two weeks received a letter from her agent which read something like:

On your express instructions that your publisher communicate to you through me, your publisher has informed me that they have communicated to Harold Robbins your decision that you will sign the apology which his publisher drew up only if you have his assurance that there will be no further harassment or litigation. Because you have requested such assurance, predictably, Harold Robbins is now requiring damages to be paid.

Your publisher now intends to sign and publish the apology to Harold Robbins as soon as possible whether or not you sign it.

In view of what I have discovered about the nature of your various telephone communications to me, please contact me only in writing from now on.

Signature.

Understood that she had lost. Lost more than a struggle about the appropriation of four pages, about the definition of appropriation. Lost her belief that there can be art in this culture. Lost spirit. All humans have to die, but they don't have to fail. Fail in all that matters.

It turned out that the whole affair was nothing.

CAPITOL REALIZED THAT SHE HAD FORGOTTEN TO BURY THE WRITER DOLL. SINCE THE SMELL OF DEATH STUNK, RETURNED TO THE CEMETERY TO BURY HER. SHE KICKED OVER A ROCK AND THREW THE DOLL INTO THE HOLE WHICH THE ROCK HAD MADE. CHANTED, "YOU'RE NOT SELLING ENOUGH BOOKS IN CALIFORNIA. YOU'D BETTER GO THERE IMMEDIATELY. TRY TO GET INTO READING IN ANY BENEFIT YOU CAN SO FIVE MORE BOOKS WILL BE SOLD. YOU HAVE BAGS UNDER YOUR EYES."

CAPITOL THOUGHT, DEAD DOLL.

SINCE CAPITOL WAS A ROMANTIC, SHE BELIEVED DEATH IS PREFERABLE TO A DEAD LIFE, A LIFE NOT LIVED ACCORDING TO THE DICTATES OF THE SPIRIT.

SINCE SHE WAS THE ONE WHO HAD POWER IN THE DOLL-HUMAN RELATIONSHIP, HER DOLLS WERE ROMANTICS TOO.

Toward the end of paranoia, had told her story to a friend who was secretary to a famous writer.

Informed her that famous writer's first lawyer used to work with Harold Robbins' present lawyer. First lawyer was friends with her American publisher.

Her American publisher asked the lawyer who was his friend to speak privately to Harold Robbins' lawyer.

Later the lawyer told the American publisher that Harold Robbins' lawyer advised to let the matter die quietly. This lawyer himself advised that under no circumstances should the writer sign anything.

It turned out that the whole affair was nothing.

Despite these lawyer's advice, Harold Robbins' publisher and the feminist publisher kept pressing the writer to sign the apology and eventually, as everything becomes nothing, she had to.

Knew that none of the above has anything to do with what matters, writing. Except for the failure of the spirit.

THEY'RE ALL DEAD, CAPITOL THOUGHT. THEIR DOLLS' FLESH IS NOW BECOMING PART OF THE DIRT.

CAPITOL THOUGHT, IS MATTER MOVING THROUGH FORMS DEAD OR ALIVE?

CAPITOL THOUGHT, THEY CAN'T KILL THE SPIRIT.

- Kathy Acker, HUMILITY, from The Seven Cardinal Virtues, ed. Alison Fell (London: Serpent's Tail, 1990): 113-31.

Style (or Tone of Voice):

"I still don't have a clear idea of what my voice is ... I found my voice was a reaction to all that voice stuff."

I might be writing what people expect me to write, writing from that place where I might be ruled by economic considerations. To overcome that, I started working with my dreams, because I'm not so censored when I use dream material."

"The literary culture, if you examine it, the high literary culture is that which preserves the government and you know it's really the talk for those who have."

"Well, I think writing is basically about time and rhythm. Like with jazz. You have your basic melody and then you just riff off of it. And the riffs are about timing."

Kathy Acker Quotes

[Harold Robbins: The Pirate (1974)]

Workshop 10:
The Pirate

We'll begin with the book report on The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec, then move on to do the class exercise in pairs or small groups.

Exercise 10:
Spot the Piracy

Who's the pirate here? List the types of changes made to Robbins' text by Kathy Acker (tense, person, vocabulary), and try and come up with reasons for her choices.

[The Pirate (London: NEL, 1975)]

Key =

• [material added by Kathy Acker]
• original material by Harold Robbins
• material used by both Acker and Robbins

from
"1973: The End of Summer"

Jordana opened her eyes the moment the heavy roar of the engines died down to idling speed. She glanced at her watch. It was forty minutes since she had left Cannes. By road, with all the traffic, it could have taken an hour and a half. This was not only faster but the sea had been smooth and she had slept all the way.

[“The true story of a rich woman:
I WANT TO BE RAPED EVERY NIGHT!”

I was walking along the street. I wasn't doing anything. I was looking for some action.]

She sat up, reaching for her bikini top and shirt. She looked down at herself as she fastened the brassiere. Her breasts were as tanned as the rest of her body, a golden nut brown, and her nipples were a purple plum color instead of their normal red rose. She was pleased with herself. Her breasts were still firm. She hadn't yet begun to sag like so many women her age.

[It was night, late at night, Times Square. The blue yellow green red white and violet neon lights were still blinking. They wouldn't stop blinking for another two hours. And it would still be dark. It's always dark on Times Square: only rats live there, rats and some of those creepy insects that only come out at night.

My name is Jacqueline Onassis.]

Instinctively she glanced over her shoulder to see if the two sailors at the helm of the speedboat had been looking at her. Their eyes were studiously turned away but she knew that they had been watching in the rear-view mirror mounted on the windscreen in front of them. She smiled to herself. To tease them, she cupped her breasts with her hands suggestively so that her nipples hardened. Then she fastened the bra.

A paddle boat came by with two topless girls. They looked at the seventy-thousand-dollar San Marco with undisguised hope and curiosity. Again she smiled to herself as the look of disappointment crossed their faces when they saw that she was the only passenger. They were so obvious. The pedalo turned away slowly.

[I kept walking down the slightly wet shining street. The neon lights were blinking at me, winking, inviting hot desires I had never known existed. In one dark alleyway, seven naked women are waiting to slowly peel off my clothes. One has her tongue under my left arm. One has her hand buried in the soft flesh of my thigh. Hot. There's a woman waiting for me who's madly in love with me. In fact she can't live without me. Every waking minute of the day she sees my face, my face twice its normal size hovering in front of her eyes, my hands tangled in, pressing, messing her wet cunt hairs. She dreams that I'm wet: my thighs are pillars. Joined at the top. Water streaks down their insides. I'm so wet and anxious that sweat's pouring out of me. "Come get me," I whisper to her. "Come get me and handle me."]

"Allo!' The call came from the other side of the boat.

She turned. Jacques had come out in a small dinghy with an outboard motor. His blond hair had completely whitened in the summer sun, making his tan even darker by contrast. She waved without speaking.

'I've come to take you ashore: he shouted. 'I know how you hate to get your feet wet.'

[The street was still wet and shiny. I felt a hand lightly touch my shoulder.

I quickly turned around.]

'I'll be right with you,' she called. She turned to the sailors. 'Wait out here,' she told them in French. 'I'll call you when I'm ready to 1eave.'

'Oui, Madame,' the sailor at the helm replied. The other sailor started back to help her over the side. She gave him the large beach bag she always took with her. Inside were her shoes, a change of wardrobe for the evening, the walkie-talkie for communication with the speedboat, as well as cosmetics, cigarettes, money and credit cards.

The sailor reached over the side and pulled the dinghy close to the speedboat. He dropped the bag into Jacques' hands, then held Jordana's arm as she stepped over. He cast the dinghy free as soon as she sat down.

She sat facing the rear of the dinghy. Jacques sat at the tiller of the outboard motor. 'Sorry to be late,' she said. 'That's all right,' he smiled. 'You sleep well?' 'Very well. And you?'

He made a moue. 'Not too well. I was too – how you say? – frustrated.'

She looked at him. She couldn't quite figure him out. Mara had said he was a gigolo but the several times she had given him money he had returned it with a hurt look. This was not business, he had said. He was in love with her. But it still didn't make sense. He bad taken an expensive apartment in the Miramar, right on the Croisette in Cannes, and a brand-new Citroen 8M and never seemed short of money. He never let her pick up a check as so many others did, gigolo or no. Several times she bad seen him eye­ing some boys but he had never made any overt moves while she was around. At one point, she was fairly sure that he was bi and that perhaps his real lover was a man who had sent him down to the Côte d'Azur for the summer, but that didn't disturb her. She had long ago come to the conclusion that bisexual men made the best lovers.

'With all the talent available in that discotheque!” she laughed. 'I wouldn’t have thought you would have any problems.'

'I didn't,' he said to himself, thinking of his night with Gerard.

He felt himself growing hard as he thought of the black towering over him, and peeling the foreskin back on his giant black shaft to expose the reddish purple swollen head. He remembered going down on his back like a woman and raising his legs, and then the exquisite agony of the big penis forcing its way roughly into his anus. He had whimpered like a woman and then yelled as his orgasm overtook him and his semen squirted up on their bellies that were pressed tightly together.

"Look," he [= a young dark-haired man] said aloud [= to me], releasing his erect penis from his bikini [= cock from his pants]. "See what you do to me? The [= Every] moment I see you. [Three nights I've been following you.] Three times last night I had to relieve myself."

She [= I] laughed. 'Didn't anyone ever tell you that was bad for you? You could stunt your growth doing it so much.'

He didn't laugh. 'When are you going to spend a whole night with me? Just one time so that we could make love without my feeling that you always have one eye on the clock, so that we can fully take our pleasures of each other.'

She [= I] laughed again. 'You're too greedy. You forget that I am [= I’m] a married woman with responsibilities. I must be home every night so that I see my children when I wake up in the morning.'

'What would be so terrible if you did not?' He pouted.

'Then I would [= I’d] be remiss in the one duty that my husband demands of me,' she said. 'And that I would not do.'

'Your husband does not care. Otherwise he would have come to see you and the children at least once during these past three months,' he said.

Her [= My] voice went cold. '[How do you know that?] What my husband does or does not do is none of your business.'

He sensed instantly he had gone too far [= said too much]. 'But I love you. I am going crazy for wanting you.'

She [= I] nodded slowly, relaxing [=. Relaxing]. 'Then keep things in their proper perspective,' she [= I] said. 'And if you're going to keep playing with your cock, you'd better turn the boat back out to sea before we crash on the beach [= get to the nearest bar before a cop arrests you].'

'If I do, will you suck me?'

'No; she said sharply. 'I'm more in the mood for a cold glass of white wine.'

She [= I] was high. Papagayo [= The private section of the Metropole] was packed. The strobe lights were like a stop-motion camera on her [= my] eyes, the [=. The] heavy pounding of the rock group tortured the [= my] ears. She [= I] took another sip of the white wine and looked down the table [= at the crowd].

There were fourteen people, all shouting at one another to be heard over the din in the discotheque.

Jacques was talking to the English woman on his right. She was an actress who had just finished a picture with Peter Sellers, and had been with a group of people who had come down from Paris for the weekend. Jordana had begun collecting them on the beach that afternoon. She'd completed the group at L'Escale, where they'd had cocktails and dinner. About midnight they had gone to the discotheque.

The reason for gathering the people was that she had been [= I was] annoyed with Jacques [= the black-haired man]. He seemed to take too much for granted. In some ways he was like a woman, only in his case he seemed to think that the world revolved around his cock. She [= I] was beginning to be bored with him, but apart from an occasional visiting male there was nothing really dependable around [= but I didn't see any other possibilities]. It was the boredom that had led her [= led me] to smoke a joint. Usually she never smoked [= I never smoke] in public. But when the English woman had offered her [= Englishwoman offered me] a toke in the ladies' room, she had [= I] stayed until they finished the cigarettes between them.

After that, she [= I] didn't mind the evening at all. It seemed that she [= I] had never laughed so much in her [= my] life. Everyone was excruciatingly bright and witty. Now she [= I] wanted to dance [,] but everyone was too busy talking.

She [= I] got out of her [= my] chair and went to the dance floor alone. Pushing her [= my] way into the crowd she [= I] began to dance. She [= I] gave herself [= myself] to the music, happy that she [= I] was in the south of France [= middle of New York City] where no one thought it strange that a woman or a man wanted to dance alone. She [= I] closed her [= my] eyes.

When she [= I] opened them, the tall good-looking black man was dancing in front of her [= me]. He caught her [= my] eye but they [= we] didn't speak.

She had noticed him earlier that day on the beach; later at cocktail time he had been at the bar in L'Escale; now he was here. She had seen him sitting at a table not far from her own.

He moved fantastically well, his body fluid under the shirt, which was open to his waist and tied in a [tight] knot just over the seemingly glued-on black jeans. She [= I] began to move with him.

After a moment she [= I] spoke. 'You're American [= from the South], aren't you?'

His voice was Southern. 'How did you know?'

'You don't dance like a Frenchman – they [= the men up here. They] jerk up and down[.] – the English hop and dip.'

He laughed. 'I never thought of that.'

'Where are you from?'

'Cracker country,' he said. 'Georgia.'

'I've never been there,' she said.

'You're not missing anything,’ he replied [=.’ He looked at me]. 'I like it better here. We could never do this back [= down] there.'

'Still?' she [= I] asked.

‘Still.' he said. 'They never change.'

She was silent.

'Je m'appelle Gerard,' he said.

She was surprised. His French was Parisian without a trace of accent. 'Your French is good.'

'It should be,' he said.

'My folks sent me over [= up] here to [a private] school when I was eight. I went back when my father was killed – I was sixteen then but I couldn't take it. I headed right back to Paris [= New York] the minute I got enough bread together.'

She [= I] knew what French [= New York City private] schools cost and they weren't cheap.

His family had to have money. 'What did your father do?'

His voice was even. 'He was a pimp. But he had a finger in every pie. But he was black and the honkies didn't like that, so they cut him up in an alley an' blamed it on a passing nigger. Then they hung the nigger an' everything was cool.'

'I'm sorry.'

He shrugged. 'My father said that was the way they would do it someday. He had no complaints. He had a good life.'

The music crashed to a stop and the group came down from the stage as the [=. The] record player came on with [= began] a slow number. 'Nice talking to [= with] you,' she [= I] said, starting back to the table.

His hand on her [= my] arm stopped her [= me]. 'You don't have to go back there.'

She [= I] didn't speak.

'You look like a fast-track lady and there's nothin' but mudders back there,' he said.

'What've you got in mind?' she [= I] asked.

'Action. That's something I got from my father. I'm a fast-track man. Why don't you meet me outside?'

Again she [= I] didn't speak.

'I saw the way you looked,' he said. 'You gotta be turned off on that crowd [= that black-haired man] over there.' He smiled suddenly. 'You ever make it with a black man before?'

'No,' she [= I] answered. She [= I] never had.

'I'm better than they say they [= we] are,' he said.

She glanced at the table. Jacques was still busy talking to the English woman. He probably didn't even notice that she had left the table. She turned back to Gerard.

'Okay,' she [= I] said. 'But we'll only have about an hour. I have to leave then.'

'An hour's enough,' he laughed. 'In one hour I'll have you on a trip to the moon and back.'

CHAPTER TWO

When she [= I] came out he was on the quai [= street] opposite the discotheque, watching the last of the sidewalk artists pack up their wares [= stores close up] for the night. He turned when he heard the sound of her [= my] high-stacked shoes on the sidewalk. 'Any trouble getting [= gettin’] out?' he asked.

'No,' she [= I] answered. 'I told them [= him] I was going to the ladies'."

He grinned. 'Mind walking? My place is just up the street past Le Gorille [= the Paradise].'

'It's the only way to fly,' she [= get to the moon,” I] said, falling into step beside him. Despite the hour there were still crowds [= hookers] walking back and forth.

They were engaged in their principal form of amusement, looking at each other and the beautiful yachts tied up right alongside the street [= trying to dodge the cops who cruised by]. For many, it was the only thing they could afford [= had] to do, after paying the exorbitant seasonal prices for their rooms and food [= for they were fourteen years old or older and too old for the streetwalker trade]. The French had no mercy for tourists of any nationality, even their own [= When most of the people in a city have no money and no source of money, they live without mercy].

They [= We] turned up the street past Le Gorille [= the Paradise] with its smell of fried eggs and pommes frites [= dried cunt juice and piss stains] and began to climb the narrow [= see the cold, now deserted,] sidewalk. Halfway up the block he stopped in front of the door of one of the old houses [= the dirtiest apartment building.] which had a boutique on the ground floor. He opened it [= the door] with a heavy old-fashioned iron [= huge] key and pressed the button just inside to turn on the hall lights. 'We're two [= six] flights up.'

She [= I] nodded and followed him up the old wooden staircase. His apartment was at the head of the second [= seventh] flight. [There were no lights in the hall.] This door had a more modern lock. He opened and held it for her.

She [= I] stepped inside [the apartment]. The room was dark. The door closed behind her and at the same time she heard the click of the light switch [= I heard a click]. The room [was] filled with [a] soft red light [which came] from two lamps, one on either side of the bed against the far wall. She [= I] looked at the room curiously.

The furniture was cheap and worn, the kind with which the French supply the summer vacationer [= There was no other furniture besides an armless metal chair]. In the corner of the room was a sink and under it was a bidet on a swivel. The WC was behind a narrow door that looked like a closet [= A bathtub covered by a wooden board served as a table. I didn't see a toilet, only a sink]. There was no tub, shower or kitchen, only a hot plate on the top of a bureau next to an armoire.

He caught her look. 'It's not much,' he said, 'but it's home.' She laughed. 'I've seen worse. You're lucky the toilet's not in the hall.'

He went over to the bureau and opened a drawer [= bed and reached under a pillow]. He took out a joint and lit [=. Lit] it. The sweet acrid smell of the marijuana reached her [= my] nostrils as he held it toward her [= me]. 'I don't have anything to drink.'

'That's okay,' she [= OK,’ I] said, taking a toke from the reefer. 'This is good grass.'

He smiled. 'A friend of mine just in from Istanbul dropped it off. He also laid some righteous good coke on me. Ever use it?'

'Sometimes,' she [= I] said, passing the joint back to him. She [= I] looked at him as he dragged on it. She [= I] put down her beach [= my] bag and moved toward[s] him. She [= I] felt the buzzing in her [= my] head and the wetness between her [= my] legs. It was really good grass if one toke could do that. She [= I] pulled at the knot of his shirt. ‘Are we going to talk or fuck?' she asked. 'I only have an hour.'

Deliberately, he placed the joint in an ashtray and then pushed the see-through blouse down from her [= my] shoulders exposing her [= my] naked breasts. He cupped one in each hand, squeezing the nipples between a thumb and forefinger until the pain suddenly flashed through her [= me]. 'White bitch,' he said, smiling.

Her [= My] smile was as taunting as his own. 'Nigger!'

His hands pressed her [= me] to her [= my] knees in front of him. 'You better learn to beg a little if you want some [black] cock in your hot little pussy.'

She [= I] had the shirt untied, now she [=. I] pulled at the zipper on his jeans. He wore nothing underneath and his phallus leapt free as she [= I] pulled the pants down around his knees. She [= I] put a hand on his shaft and pulled it toward her [= my] mouth.

His hand held her [= my] face away from him. 'Beg!' he said sharply. She [= I] looked up at him. 'Please,' she [= I] whispered.

He smiled and relaxed his hands, letting her [= me] take him in her [= my] mouth while he reached into the open bureau drawer and took out [= to the bed and lifted up] a small vial filled with coke. The tiny [gold] spoon was attached to the cap with a small bead chain. Expertly, he took a spoonful and snorted it up each nostril. Then he looked down at her [= me]. 'Your turn,' he said.

'I'm happy,' she said, [=. I was] kissing him and licking at his testicles. 'I don’t need any.'

He pulled at her [= my] hair, snapping her [= my] head back. 'White bitch!' He lifted her [= me] to her [= my] feet and filled a spoon[,] and held it under a nostril. 'You do as I say. Snort!'

She [= I] sniffed and the powder lifted from the spoon into her [= my] nose.

Almost in the same second he had the filled [= filled the] spoon under the other nostril. This time she [= I] snorted without his saying a word. She [= I] felt the faint numbness in her [= my] nose almost immediately, then the powder exploded in her [= my brain and I felt the strength pouring right into my] genitals. 'God!' she [= I] exclaimed. 'That's wild. I came just sniffing it.'

He laughed. 'You ain't seen nothin' [= nothing] yet, baby. I'm goin' to show you some tricks that my pappy taught me with that stuff.'

A moment later they [= we] were naked on the bed and she [= I] was laughing. She [= I] had never felt so good. He took another spoonful and rubbed it on his gums, making her [= me] do the same. Then he licked her [= my] nipples until they were wet from his tongue and sprinkled a little of the white powder on them and began to work them over with his mouth and fingers.

She [= I] had never felt them grow so large [= long] and hard. After a few moments, she [= I] thought they were going to burst with the agonizing pleasure. She [= I] began to moan and writhe. 'Fuck me,' she [= I] said. 'Fuck me!'

'Not yet,' he laughed. 'We only beginning.' He jackknifed her legs back and sprinkled the coke over her clitoris, then put his head between her legs.

[The next moment the lights were extinguished, and this wild cannibal sprang into bed with me. I sang out, I could not help it now; and giving a grunt of astonishment he began feeling me.]

After a moment she [= I] was screaming as she never had [= I had never] screamed before. Each orgasm seemed to take her [= me] higher than she [= I] had ever been. She [= I] reached down for his phallus and finding it, pulled herself [= myself] around so that she [= I] was able to take him into her [= in to my] mouth. Greedily she [= I] sucked at him. She [= I] wanted to swallow him alive, to choke herself [= myself] to death on that giant beautiful tool.”

- Kathy Acker, The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec, by Henri Toulouse Lautrec. 1975 (London: Pandora, 1989): 221-25.

Suddenly he held her away. She stared up at him, almost unable to breathe. He was on his knees between her legs, his phallus reaching out over her. He took the vial and sprinkled the powder until the glistening wet head looked as if it were coated with sugar. Then he held her legs wide apart as he eased into her slowly.

She felt her lungs congest. He felt so large. She was afraid for a moment she could not take him. Then he was all the way inside her and for a moment was still. She felt the tingling reach up into her belly. Slowly he began to move, gently at first, with long smooth strokes, then picking up the tempo until he was slamming into her like a trip hammer.

Somewhere in the distance she could hear herself screaming as orgasm after orgasm ripped her apart. She had never come like this before. Never. She, who had always thought that this kind of sexual excitement was only something that people talked or read about. A kind of game they played on themselves to hide their feelings. And if it were true, she felt that it was something beyond her capacity to feel. For her, sex was her triumph over the male; any satisfaction in it for her was purely accidental. But this was different. Now she was being used, she was being pleasured, she was giving, she was taking, she was being completed.

Finally she could take it no more. 'Stop,' she cried. 'Please stop!'

His body came to a rest against her; he was still hard inside her.

She looked up at him. In the dim red light the fine patina of sweat covering his face and chest glowed copper. His teeth shone white as he smiled. 'You all right, white lady?'

She nodded her head slowly. 'Did you come?'

'No,' he said. 'That's the only thing my pappy didn't tell me. Use enough to make a lady happy an' that's just enough to keep you from makin' it.'

She stared at him for a long moment, then, suddenly and unaccountably, she began to cry.

He watched her for a moment, then without speaking, got out of the bed and walked over to the sink. Bending over he swung the bidet out into the room and turned on the water. He straightened up and looked at her. 'You have to let it run for a few minutes if you want to get hot water,' he explained.

- Harold Robbins, The Pirate. 1974 (London: NEL, 1975): 116-24.

[Blurb (London: NEL, 1975)]

Next week:

Group 5: Book report on The Satanic Verses due.

[Rushdie & his soon-to-be-ex-wife, Padma Lakshmi ]