Reading today's Independent, I find an article with the headline "Nuclear 'renaissance' will be put on hold around the world". It ends with this paragraph:
In the Blair government, Sir David [King] was one of the loudest voices warning of climate change – and one of the principal proponents of nuclear as a solution. He was due to give the briefing himself in Westminster this morning but it has been postponed, his spokesman conceded yesterday, "due to events in Japan."
I haven't had much time for leisure reading of late, but while I eat breakfast and lunch, I am enjoying Wolf Solent by John Cowper Powys. I believe he has been called – presumably quite loosely – an existentialist. His work is introspective and not without its anxieties. But reading it I have felt at odd moments that Wolf Solent is a work from another world, one recognisable, but with some distinct difference to that in which we now live. It is pastoral, for one thing, and there is a sense that the good earth, from which the sweet grass grows, is solid beneath the feet, impervious to the deaths of individuals, and seems to say, "There'll always be…" What? An England? Cream teas? Old ladies reading books alone by candle-light?
At one point, for no apparent reason, it came to me – this was written in the pre-atomic age. I checked. Sure enough, it was published in 1929, nine years before the discovery of nuclear fission. This was some weeks back, early in my reading of the book. There are some musings in it, too, about the dark side of technological progress, but I suppose even after the First World War, no one really knew what was coming.
I thought about this again when I read some more of the book at breakfast today. I try to imagine myself living in a pre-atomic age, when lines like these were written:
By the elimination of any lunch he would be all the hungrier to enjoy the homemade bread and flaky Scotch scones and honey in the honeycomb which always made Mrs Otter's teas such solid and delicious repasts.
By contrast, here is something that, to me, sums up the anxiety of our atomic age, from the pen of William Burroughs:
Scientists always said there is no such thing as a soul. Now they are in a position to prove it. Total Death. Soul Death. It's what the Egyptians called the Second and Final Death. This awesome power to destroy souls forever is now vested in farsighted and responsible men in the State Department, the CIA, and the Pentagon.
Mike told me that you had mentioned Powys in your blog. I haven’t read ‘Wolf Solent, but I did read his ‘A Philosophy of Solitude’. Mike has read a lot more of Powys.I think I understand what you say about Powys view of the earth. I recall a description that he gave of the loam of a forest floor. He explained how closely are life and death, how this can be viscerally experienced in the mixture of life emerging out of the decaying matter. I don’t remember his exact point, but it seemed there was a sense of hope or optimism, some fundamental goodness, a knowledge that life is persistant.But it is indeed a different world today.I like that you ended with Burroughs. I’ve heard that quote before. He had an interesting gnostic vision… which was quite opposite of Powys in some fundamental ways. Burroughs had no faith in earthly life. To him, this world was a place of corruption and destruction… where order can only temporarily defy entropy, where only the smallest acts of kindness might slip through the cracks.
I’m finding that I have mixed feelings about Powys, which is interesting. He’s an excellent writer, and to some extent I find his ethos sympathetic, too. But there’s also something about him that rubs me up the wrong way. There’s a scene I’ve read recently in the book where Wolf Solent, the title character, almost seduces a girl (Christie Malakite), but changes his mind because of some scruple or other at the last moment. Christie is furious and gives an analysis of his character that is very piercing, and perfectly true. Since Powys is writing both Christie and Wolf, it is, in some way, a mistake to think of him only as represented by Wolf, and there must be some ‘self-knowledge’, too, that allows him to write so well Christie’s criticism of Wolf, but we know that Powys really sides with Wolf because he tells us in his author’s introduction, written many years after the book’s first publication. I think we could have guessed, anyway. There is something about Wolf and about Powys’ writing that infuriates me in the same way that Wolf obviously infuriated Christie.Burroughs is similar to Huysmans – it strikes me – in his view of nature, although Burroughs does at least have traces of a mystical respect that are not as apparent in the writing of Huysmans. Burroughs talks of a Creator, whose creation was stolen by the Christian god… as you say, a kind of gnosticism.Here’s one illustration of the difference between the two. In Wolf Solent, Wolf sees a “Hindoo idol” (called Mukalog) in the room of a poet called Jason Otter, and he finds it ugly and baleful. He actually buys it off the poet in order to get rid of it. I think Burroughs might have bought it instead to give it pride of place in his bedroom, perhaps making sacrifices to it now and then in weird yage rituals.
gveranon writes:It’s been over a decade since I read Wolf Solent. I remember the scene with Christie Malakite, but I don’t remember what she said to Wolf; your comments make me want to look at the novel again. If I could hazard a guess about what you find infuriating . . . There is, it seems to me, an odd contradiction in Powys between his broad and deep imaginative sympathy for — not everything and everybody, to be sure, but for such a wide variety of entities in the world he depicts; and his careful rationing of his own (or Wolf’s) actual engagement with that world. There isn’t a full hermit-like withdrawal, but there’s a stinginess with *shared* experience that fits oddly with one who is seemingly so generous, imaginative, effusive in his sympathies. And Powys’s depiction of characters often slides quickly from the sympathetic to the grotesque — not comically but demonically grotesque. Maybe he isn’t so sympathetic after all. His sympathy is voracious, it introjects so many things, but it quickly balks and becomes self-protective; it has to keep involvement at arm’s length, and it’s always ready to escape. I don’t know if this is what you find off-putting; just a guess. And I hate to be so glib and generalizing and judgmental about Powys, who is one of my favorite writers. I suspect I like him so much because my own temperament is similar, for better or worse; i. e., without his character defects (?) I wouldn’t find him nearly so compelling or relevant to my own experience.
What you say about Powys makes me curious. Ever since reading Powys, I’ve intended to read more of him. I’d probably have a similar response as you to Wolf Solent. Mike and I have discussed Powys on a number of occasions. It seems Powys had a side of his personality that was a bit egocentric combined with a desire to influence and a capability of manipulation. Mike has read some of Powys’ personal writings. He mentioned Powys describing his speaking career in which he described drawing energy from the crowd… in a way that Mike thought sounded like an energy vampire or something. Mike also said something about Powys relation to cats that was less than sympathetic and compassionate. I can’t recall exactly what it was. It might have been that he killed a cat that was being problematic (I think the problematic behavior was something like peeing in the house). As a lifelong devotee of cats, that detail bothers me more than anything else. I wouldn’t have any cats left if I killed every cat that peed in the house.I’m not familiar with the writings of Huysmans. I assume you mean the French novelist Joris-Karl Huysmans, correct? A particular line stood out to me on his Wikipedia page:”Huysmans’ work expresses a disgust with modern life and a deep pessimism, which led the author first to the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer[1] then to the teachings of the Catholic Church.”That caught my attention because I was raised in the hyper-optimistic Protestant tradition of New Thought Christianity. I could see a certain kind of pessimist being drawn to Catholicism with its fatalistic bent about original sin and about the inevitable failure of the individual’s willpower.By the way, Burroughs connected his own worldview to that of Manichaeism. In case your interested, there is an article in The Gnostic journal about this: Burroughsian Gnosticism In His Own Words by Sven Davisson. That kind of Gnosticism is the absolute extreme of dualism. Burroughs’ own pessimism was far beyond the pessimism of the Catholic Church. Here is a quote from Burrough’s The Johnson Family (as quoted in the article):”The Johnson family formulates a Manachaean position where good and evil are in conflict and the outcome is at this point uncertain. It is not an eternal conflict since one or the other must win a final victory.”And here is his opinion about monotheism from The Western Lands:”Consider the One God Universe: OGU. The spirit recoils in horror from such a deadly impasse. He is all-powerful and all-knosing. Because He can do everything, He can do nothing, since the act of doing demands opposition. He knows everything, so there is nothing for him to learn. He can’t go anywhere, since He is already fucking everywhere, like cowhshit in Calcutta.”The OGU is a pre-recorded universe of which He is the recorder. It’s a flat thermodynamic universe since it has no friction by definition. So He invents friction and conflict, pain, fear, sickness, famine, war, old age and Death.”As for your last point, your comparison is probably right. Even if Burroughs thought something ugly and baleful, he wouldn’t have seen that as a necessary reason to get rid of it. If anything, Burroughs had great respect for anything despised according to the norms of our society. He’d most likely take that as a hint there might be some truth in it.
Originally posted by anonymous:It’s been over a decade since I read Wolf Solent. I remember the scene with Christie Malakite, but I don’t remember what she said to Wolf; your comments make me want to look at the novel again. If I could hazard a guess about what you find infuriating . . . There is, it seems to me, an odd contradiction in Powys between his broad and deep imaginative sympathy for — not everything and everybody, to be sure, but for such a wide variety of entities in the world he depicts; and his careful rationing of his own (or Wolf’s) actual engagement with that world. There isn’t a full hermit-like withdrawal, but there’s a stinginess with *shared* experience that fits oddly with one who is seemingly so generous, imaginative, effusive in his sympathies.You could be right. It is something like this. In any case, it’s the kind of novel that leaves a mark of some kind on you, I think, and that’s not a bad thing. It’s another reminder that one is alive, and that one will not always be alive.Originally posted by anonymous:And Powys’s depiction of characters often slides quickly from the sympathetic to the grotesque — not comically but demonically grotesque. I can’t help reading Mr Urquhart as being played by Richard Griffiths:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yDeH7Ykzrw
Originally posted by MarmaladeINFP:Mike also said something about Powys relation to cats that was less than sympathetic and compassionate. I can’t recall exactly what it was. It might have been that he killed a cat that was being problematic (I think the problematic behavior was something like peeing in the house). As a lifelong devotee of cats, that detail bothers me more than anything else. I wouldn’t have any cats left if I killed every cat that peed in the house.Reading Wolf Solent I had the peculiar feeling that JCP was a cat person rather than a dog person, but I don’t mean by this that he would necessarily like cats and dislike dogs. I have my own particular conception of what this means which might mean little to other people.Originally posted by MarmaladeINFP:I’m not familiar with the writings of Huysmans. I assume you mean the French novelist Joris-Karl Huysmans, correct? A particular line stood out to me on his Wikipedia page:”Huysmans’ work expresses a disgust with modern life and a deep pessimism, which led the author first to the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer[1] then to the teachings of the Catholic Church.”That caught my attention because I was raised in the hyper-optimistic Protestant tradition of New Thought Christianity. I could see a certain kind of pessimist being drawn to Catholicism with its fatalistic bent about original sin and about the inevitable failure of the individual’s willpower.I recommend Huysmans. I have only read three of his books, but one particular aspect of his work that is interesting is that you can trace, over the course of a number of books, his path from apostasy to Catholicism. I have a particular interest, recently, in Catholic writers, including Endo Shuusaku, Huysmans and Joseph de Maistre. Originally posted by MarmaladeINFP:By the way, Burroughs connected his own worldview to that of Manichaeism. In case your interested, there is an article in The Gnostic journal about this: Burroughsian Gnosticism In His Own Words by Sven Davisson. That kind of Gnosticism is the absolute extreme of dualism. Burroughs’ own pessimism was far beyond the pessimism of the Catholic Church. Here is a quote from Burrough’s The Johnson Family (as quoted in the article):Yes, dualism is a peculiary pessimistic mode of thought. Another example of this – which came up in coversation the other day – is A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay.I suppose I find it pessimistic because, if there really is a battle between good and evil, I don’t really believe that one side is good and the other is evil. They’re just black and white, or brown and yellow, big-endians and little-endians, or whatever. If it’s a battle to the death, that means extinction for the losing side. I’m not sure that the victory of good, in either case (since both sides will believe they are good) will really be very noble. Having said that, we certainly experience conflict in our existence, but… I’m personally not convinced it’s as simple as good versus evil. I’m not sure that Burroughs was entirely convinced on that score, either. I believe he once wrote, “I don’t take sides; I create conflict”, talking about what he does as a writer. I took this to mean that he throws a lot of ideas into the mix just to see what happens.EG. He talks about the Magical Universe as an alternative to the One God Universe, but this is not dualistic, it is polytheistic. I suppose you could say that the MU versus the OGU is Burroughs’ pattern of good versus evil, the former being good.
Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if Burroughs wrote about not taking sides. I’ve read enough of his writings to know he played around with a lot of ideas. Still, there is a general worldview that can be discerned. He definitely wasn’t a believer in the typical way of religious types, but neither did he seem to be overly attracted to atheism. As far as I can tell, he didn’t believe in any ultimate ‘Truth’ that humans could grasp and whatever kind of potential truth he perceived wasn’t singular and unchanging.I appreciate Burroughs for the very reason of his not being prone to simple answers and self-enclosed ideologies. It’s the same reason I enjoy the intellectual playfulness of Philip K. Dick and Robert Anton Wilson. And the reason I’m fascinated by the roving curiosity of someone like Charles Fort. I don’t know if Powys had this kind of cognitive openness. My sense of Powys is that he had a different kind of mind. The example you gave about the “Hindoo idol” implies, as you point out, a possibly different attitude than that of Burroughs. But I’m not familiar enough with his writings to have much opinion about his overall mentality.