It’s almost too neat that Salomé should have been written in French. The language of Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and decadence itself lent Wilde the perfect tongue for blasphemy dressed in silks. The Victorians expected their theatre to teach morality, to improve the soul, to extol duty. Wilde offered them instead a necrophilic waltz in candlelight, where … Continue reading Wilde’s Salomé: A Decadent Dance with Death
Tag: misery
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
I remember the first time I read Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. It wasn’t just a story; it was an assault. A literary thunderclap. Most science fiction of the Cold War era promised us rockets, aliens, perhaps a better tomorrow wrapped in chrome optimism. Ellison, instead, offered us a world … Continue reading I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
In Which the Revolutionary Forgets His Own House Is a Revolution in Miniature
I must confess, I’ve always found Marx’s personal contradictions far more instructive than the reams of dense German prose in Das Kapital. Anyone can theorise about the inevitable triumph of the proletariat; it takes a truly remarkable mind to call for the abolition of the bourgeois family while quietly impregnating the maid and letting your … Continue reading In Which the Revolutionary Forgets His Own House Is a Revolution in Miniature
Dialectics, or How Karl Marx Ruined My Shandy
There are few things more dangerous to a peaceful evening than a Marxist in full flow. One minute you’re happily contemplating the head on your shandy, the next you’re being lectured about 'historical inevitability' by someone who’s never held a job long enough to be sacked. The conversation usually begins with the inevitable: “Dialectics is … Continue reading Dialectics, or How Karl Marx Ruined My Shandy
The Scent of Empire: On the Case of Princess Margaret Teresa
Velázquez paints her as an angel of empire; the nose might have told a different story. “For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ… and to the other the savour of death unto death.” – 2 Corinthians 2:15–16 Few things are so deceptive in art as cleanliness. And few things so tragic in … Continue reading The Scent of Empire: On the Case of Princess Margaret Teresa
Wording 