Anthony Burgess on race-hate castration poetry

Writing in 1988, Burgess recalls that when he was lecturing at a university in the USA, 'certain of my black students brought me poems about the desirable castration of white men. I was sincerely reviled for not approving of them. Literature does not work in this way. It cannot base itself on sectarian prejudices. A Nazi poetry is a contradiction in terms'.

[@nickwyatt9498]

I think the feminist academic from whom Burgess sublet a Manhattan apartment in the 70s was Adrienne Rich(e?) who was fairly keen on chaps having their choppers chopped.

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

Ah yes, the celebrated man-hater.

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

Confronted with Adrienne Rich, Prince Harry can kiss goodbye to his todger.

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

'Women have been driven mad, gaslighted, for centuries by the refutation of our experience and our instincts in a culture which validates only male experience. The truth of our bodies and our minds has been mystified to us. We therefore have a primary obligation to each other: not to undermine each others' sense of reality for the sake of expediency; not to gaslight each other. Women have often felt insane when cleaving to the truth of our experience. Our future depends on the sanity of each of us, and we have a profound stake, beyond the personal, in the project of describing our reality as candidly and fully as we can to each other.' I doubt your sanity, lass.

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

What dreary rot: 'Re-vision - the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction - is for woman more than a chapter in cultural history: it is an act of survival. Until we understand the assumptions in which we are drenched we cannot know ourselves. And this drive to self-knowledge, for women, is more than a search for identity: it is part of our refusal of the self-destructiveness of male-dominated society.'

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

'The connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming force on the planet.' H.W. Fowler, at least, pedantic though he may be, would have a few things to explain to this only semi-literate woman about the proper forms and structure of the English language.

[@cliffordduffy3800]

A Nazi poetry is a contradiction in terms'. Indeed. I think of that Serbian shrink and so called poet in Serbia back in the 90's whats his name? The very idea of a Nazi poet is disgusting. The other part about castration reminds me of Enderby' sojourn in New yOrk.

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

Radovan Karadžić. Convert to my new faith crowd I offer you what no one has had before I offer you inclemency and wine The one who won't have bread will be fed by the light of my sun People nothing is forbidden in my faith There is loving and drinking And looking at the Sun for as long as you want And this godhead forbids you nothing Oh obey my call brethren people crowd What to call you how to call you You deaf amorphous dough Oh I free my foolish people in vain From you harvest bitter harvest Oh obey my call brethren people crowd Convert to my new faith oh crowd while there is time Because at the final stroke I am preparing Things will call out their vague sense to me in fear And only the most wretched who hope for salvation Will be silent and seek for shades of mercy in my voice Grasses will call out to me This god will not perish shamefully For he is real and he can crush us And so believe the grasses because those who are silent Arc those only ones to know the dreadful secrets Which will blur to death the now blurred world Oh obey my call brethren people crowd What to call you how to call you You deaf amorphous dough Oh harvest bitter harvest It loses something of its essence in translation, no doubt. 🤣

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

'The bed he lay on, twenty of two, squinting down at his watch also on the floor, ten of eight of a New York February morning, was circular because of some philosophy of the regular tenant of the apartment, now on sabbatical and working on Thelma Garstang (1798-1842, bad poetess beaten to death by drunken husband, alleged anyway) in British Museum. The traditional quadrangular bed was male tyranny, or something. This regular tenant was, as well as being an academic, a woman novelist who wrote not very popular novels in which the male characters ended up being castrated. Then, it was implied, or so Enderby understood, not having read any of them, only having been told about them, they became considerate lovers eager for cunnilingus with their castratrices, but they were sneered at for being impotent. Well, he, unimpotent Enderby, temporary professor, would do nothing about cleaning that sperm stain from her circular mattress, ridiculous idea, must have cost a fortune.'

[@cliffordduffy3800]

@@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess No Doubt! its worse in the original. This line is foreboding ' People nothing is forbidden in my faith' I suppose they used it to rationalize their murderous behaviour.

[@cliffordduffy3800]

@@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess Exactly and I am so impressed how you just called that passage up? Do carry his books with you everywhere? Or did you have files on yr laptop or phone? Did you memorize them! No matter Enderby is always wonderful. I finally got an edition that contains all four books. Too bad he never lived to write more of them!

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

@@cliffordduffy3800 'Nothing is forbidden' - no depravity, no savagery - indeed. And the narrator says to the crowd, 'You deaf amorphous dough.' It makes Tito look like Little Nell.