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: sadness
Margorie McCall: Lived Once, Buried Twice
Photo courtesy of Morbidology (2024) There are many epitaphs in the world that make one pause. Keats had his “Here lies one whose name was writ in water,” and Shakespeare, ever the property lawyer, threatened to curse anyone who moved his bones. But Margorie McCall of Lurgan, County Armagh, went one better - or worse, … Continue reading Margorie McCall: Lived Once, Buried Twice
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
Wording 