Of composts shall the Muse disdain to sing? Never, ah! Never, be ashamed
to tread Thy dung-heaps . .
Coalbiters-Inklings-Turqoiseb, since you mentioned her in another post I
was just about sending this link you qick-silver-hand-posted. So i may
only expand that with
Camp (style) vs kitsch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_%28style%29
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_%28style%29>
http://www.math.utah.edu/~lars/Sontag::Notes%20on%20camp.pdf
<http://www.math.utah.edu/~lars/Sontag::Notes%20on%20camp.pdf >
The wisdom of repugnance, or the yuck factor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuck_factor
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuck_factor>
and my I beg you Moses of FFL with Amanda McKittrick Ros(s):
"Holy Moses! Have a look!
Flesh decayed in every nook!
Some rare bits of brain lie here,
Mortal loads of beef and beer,
Some of whom are turned to dust,
Every one bids lost to lust;
Royal flesh so tinged with 'blue'
Undergoes the same as you."
from "Poems of Puncture and Fumes of Fermentation"On Visiting
Westminster Abbey" (A Reduced Dignity invited me to muse on its merits)
Since Emily and the Doctor already added :The hours, they bring me
Pain....and Pain is a Barry Pain
And these days the review "Barry Pain's Review of Irene Iddlesleigh" is
uncommonly hard to get a hold of, but well worth posting online. Every
formidable inch of her a fighter, McKittrick Ros(s) came back at him all
guns firing in the preliminary pages of her next book, thus winning
Barny Pain a footnote in literary history as being the first reviewer to
be attacked by an author for an unfavorable review of her first novel in
the preface to her second:"auctioneering agents of Satan";
"bands of assumptionists"; "bastard donkey-headed
mites"; "clay crabs of corruption"; "denouncing
Arabs"; "evil-minded snapshots of spleen"; "genius
scathers"; "hogwashing hooligans"; "rodents of
state"; "street Arabs"; and "vicious vandals.
FEBRUARY 19, 1898
THE BOOK OF THE CENTURY
By Barry Pain
Last year, at what precise time I know not Possibly we were
wrapped in sleep, and had no notion that any great tragedy was happening
last year, then, more or less, and at the price of half-a-crown,
and printed at Belfast by W. and G. Baird, Limited, who are also of
London, not to mention Dublin, appeared Irene Iddesleigh, by Mrs. Amanda
M'Kittrick Ros.
That is a long and rocky sentence, but if you go slowly at it and worry
it, you will find that it has a meaning. That is one of the principal
respects in which it differs from Irene Iddesleigh, by Mrs. Amanda
M'Kittrick Ros. I had seen no advertisement of it, I had read no reviews
of it. It has come up at me suddenly out of the night. To speak more
correctly, it has been sent me by some friends in Ireland. They thought
that I should be amused by it, confusing me probably with the other man
of the same name who writes the so-called funny articles. The book has
not amused me. It began by doing that. Then, as its enormities went on
getting more and more enormous in every line, the book seemed something
Titanic, gigantic, awe-inspiring. The whole world was full of Irene
Iddesleigh; by Mrs. Amanda M'Kittrick Ros, and I shrank before it in
tears and in terror.
Never mind the plot; it's got a plot, but the plot is as nothing
compared to the style, and the style reaches its full beauty in the form
of reflections. I will give two reflections, and guarantee them genuine,
and return the price of Black and White to anybody who can prove that
they are not genuine.
"Our hopes, when elevated to that standard of ambition which demands
unison, may fall asunder like an ancient ruin. They are no longer fit
for construction unless on an approved principle. They smoulder away
like the ashes of burnt embers, and are cast outwardly from their
confined abode, never more to be found, where once they existed only as
smouldering serpents of scorned pride."
"The silvery touch of fortune is too often gilt with betrayal; the
meddling mouth of extravagance swallows every desire, and eats the heart
of honesty with pickled pride; the imposury of position is petty, and
ends, as it should commence, with stirring strife. But conversion of
feminine opinions tries the touchy temper of opposition and too seldom
terminates victoriously.'"
Immediately after the second of these beautiful reflections occur the
words "Great Mercy!" I rather think that, too. But I don't comment. I
can't; nobody could. This is the reason why I have seen no reviews of
this book. It is a thing which happens once in a million years. There is
no one above it, and no one beside it, and it sits alone as the
nightingale sings. The words that would attempt to give any clear idea
of it have still to be invented. The most stupendous and monumental
characteristic on it is perhaps its absence of any sense of humour. As a
rule the absence of this sense is delicious, but it is not so here. One
takes one's hat off to it and abses oneself. One thought before one read
this book taht one knew what the absence of that sense meant, but one
didn't. Mists rolled away, snowy peaks, never before scaled by human
foot, of the very existence of which never dreamed, stretched themselves
heavenwards. Never was any absence so essentially and intrinsically
absential, as the absence of the sense of humour in this book.
Once more I quote two passages:
"Yes, when the merriment was at its heigh, and the heat too oppressive
to allow much comfort to the corpulent, the espoused of Irene dropped
unexpectedly out of the midst of the aristocratic throng, and being
passionately an ardent admirer of the fairy-like fruits of the efforts
of the horticulturist directed his footsteps towards the well-filled
conservatory at the south wing of the building."
"'First of all, the lady who shared its midst was a born imbecile, the
eldest daughter of my great-great-grandfather, Sir Sydney Dunfern. She
was nursed and tenderly cared for within these walls for a period of
thirty-six years, and through the instantaneous insanity of her ward,
was marked a victim for his murderous hand. Yes, it has been related
that during midnight, when she was fast asleep, he drew from that
drawer' (here Sir Join pointed to the wardrobe) 'a weapon of warlike
design, and severed her head almost from her body, causing instant
death.'"
And after that it seems idle to quote such pretty sentences as the
following:
"Nor until he was in full possession of its contents he could not form
the faintest imagination of its worth."
"Invitations were issued numerously for the reception to be held at
Dilworth Castle after Irene's marriage, but sparingly during the
ceremony; all of which were mostly accepted."
These, as advertisement says, are good goods, and you have a hundred and
eighty-nine pages of them for half-a-crown. I hardly see how it can be
done honestly at the price, but the fact remains that it is done. No man
who possesses half-a-crown can afford to do without Irene Iddesleigh, by
Mrs. Amanda M'Kittrick Ros.
It is enormous. It makes the Eiffel Tower look short; the Alps are
molehills compared to it; it is on a scale that has never before been
attempted. But it ends sadly. Once more I quote.
"The little narrow bed at the lowest corner on the west side of Seafords
graveyard was the spot chosen for her remains. Thus were laid to rest
the orphan of Colonel Iddesleigh, the adopted daughter and imagined
heiress of Lord and Lady Dilworth, what mgith have been the proud wife
of Sir John Dunfern, the unlawful wife of Oscar Otwell, the suicidal
outcast, and the despised and rejected mother.
"She who might have swayed society's circle with the sceptre of
nobleness she who might have still shared in the greatness of her
position and defied the crooked stream of poverty in which she so long
sailed had she only been, first of all, true to self, then the
honourable name of Sir John Dunfern would have maintained its standard
of pure and noble distinction, without being spotted here and there with
heathenish remarks inflicted by a sarcastic public on the administerer
of proper punishment; then the dignified knight of proud and upright
ancestry would have been spared the pains of incessant insult, the
mockery of equals, the haunted diseases of mental trials, the erring eye
of harshness, and the throbbing twitch of constant criticism."
I have called it the book of the century, but that is understatement.
Anything that could possibly be said about the book would be
understatement. The "throbbing twitch of criticism" realises its
impotence. Before a book like this it ceases to throb; or to twitch; or
to criticise. The "erring eye of harshness" closes with a click and goes
stone blind. It is too dazzling. It is too great. It is too much. Never
since the world began has there been anything like it. Irene! I cannot
go on. Iddesleigh! I become ejaculatory. I lie still. I tremble. "
"The End of 'Pain'" (a polemicagainst Ros's most ardent critic, Barry
Pain, at the announcement of his death)
Famous some were --yet they died;
Poets -- Statesmen -- Rogues beside,
Kings -- Queens, all of them do rot,
What about them? Now -- they're not!
Amanda McKittrick Ross described herself as a writer with a gift for
'disturbing the bowels' which only leave us to "use" her bizarre word
"usage": With 'globes of glare' (eyes) we are looking at her 'southern
necessary' (pants)' with 'globules of liquid lava' (sweat):
'I will -- I will marry you, Lord Rasberry.'
She then fell fainting at his feet.
Some may not know that Amanda Ross clubs were formed and parties were
held at which everybody had to talk like an Amanda Ross character. The
following sample of Mrs Ross's dialogue will indicate how difficult it
must have been to sustain for a whole evening:
Helen, lovely but poor and vulnerable, is cornered by his lordship,
rotten to the core:
"Now Helen, my darling, my queen, my all, had I not loved you as
never woman before, I'd have allowed you to go on your way
rejoicing, but, I can never, NEVER, I say, see you the wife of
any other man save myself.' Helen still remaining laconic as he
continued:
'The illimitable love I possess for you within this heart of
mine can never suffer that blow you fain would strike it.
Truly, it would kill me outright were you to reject an offer
hundreds of society shams grieve because they cannot grasp. I
have travelled through many foreign climes, I have seen the
fairest daughters Nature can produce-or critic-crabs denounce --
but none so fair as you, my Helen.'
Still spurnfull, he went on:
'You may think it dishonourable of me trying to wreck the
happiness of him to whom you have plighted your vow but there is
nothing unfair in love and war, the mightiness of two such
strongholds banish all faintness from the human heart. I can't
live without you, Helen Huddleson. Say no. I die. Say yes. I
will live for you, love you, worship you, cherish you while this
life lasts.'
He gazed at her wan face moulded in rigidity, a face immersed
in indecision that gave him a thread of hope. He pressed her
ruby lips to his, her colour grew white and red alternately,
through force of her thoughts.
'Will you love me, my fond girl?' he panted. 'Will you?' She
remained immobile-taciturn.
'Ah, darling -- speak,' he pleaded plaintively. 'I am mad
with excitement, wild with expectancy, awaiting those sweet lips
of yours to open and act their part in conveying to me that for
which I have yearned for years.' He pressed his hot forehead
with his hand.
'Will you be my wife, Helen Huddleson?' the sweat drops
pebbling his brow as he anxiously awaited her reply.
She trembled violently until at last the answer came.
'Sir -- I cannot,' wringing her small hands as the negative
dropped from her parched lips ...
'Then, by heaven, I'll end the scene,' drawing from his
jacket pocket a pistol. 'I shall shoot you first-myself after,'
holding the weapon menacingly to sever the soul and body of her
he could never bear to see the wife of another.
Helen rose, rushed forward towards him screaming:
'Why, oh why, sir, damn your soul forever by such savage
acts?'.. .
He looked upon her where she stood gasping, her bleached lips
quivering, her hand upon the weapon she still regarded with awe.
He gave her a murderous stare, exclaiming in frenzy:
'Helen, Helen, 'tis all your fault. I'll give you another
minute to decide, another minute to aid this acheing heart of
mine you have so cruelly stabbed by your refusal to own it.'
He counted the seconds and on reaching fifty-nine she clasped
him in her trembling arms-shouting:
'I will -- I will marry you, Lord Rasberry.'
She then fell fainting at his feet."
Enjoy
snip
My! What a bubbly, vapoury box of vanity!
A litter of worms, a relic of humanity,
...
>From Fumes of Formation
What follows is the complete text of Aldous Huxley's essay on Amanda,
"Euphues Redivivus".http://oddbooks.co.uk/amanda/euphues.html
<http://oddbooks.co.uk/amanda/euphues.html>
