Page 9 - Lamplight Magazine (1)

If you’re g oing t o emp loy a sty le p o w erful bec ause of its abuse; the st eady evolution in humilia tion and violenc e;
sp areness you must resp ec t its limita tions. O ne in this finally, the masochistic disapp oin tmen t of its
instanc e is tha t the lyrical and the p oe tic oft en have no disap p ear anc e. O therwise, structure and narr a tive are
p lac e. Tr ansitions t o the ly rical me tap hor ( ‘ t he s mell of my destroyed so tha t the violen t ep isodes can ambush us.
fa th er’s g roan hung in th e air of th e bed room’ ; ‘sound of a T here’s no w ay of an ticip a ting their oc currenc e or na ture.
hea rtbeat , t hen a ha mm er; t he t w o to ge t her c ombine in a n It’s disorien ta ting and brutal. I nside the chap t er s, the prose
in fernal s ymphony ’ ) have no meaning in this w orld whic h is no more obedien t. It regularly w ander s off from its line
o therwise Louis w an ts us t o ac c ep t as a str aigh tforw ard of though t on a loosely rela t ed tang en t. We migh t g e t the
rep ort of the truth. He e xp lains p eop le t o us sociolo gically fir st sen t enc e or tw o of a st ory Eddy ’s mo ther used t o t ell
and describes inciden ts p lainly. T he scien tific is mean t t o him, be fore being divert ed for tw o p ag es t o w ard the na ture
c onvinc e us of his objec tivity ; the p lainness is mean t t o give of his mo ther’s languag e, finally re turning t o finish the
the even ts believability. B o th are t ools there fore for crea ting st ory. T he imp ression is of being t old a st ory by a f riend:
a sense of ‘objective truth’. Ye t c onsider this p assag e: in tima t e and c onver sa tional. Ye t it is also chao tic, it is no t
‘By say ing it t hey inscribed it on me permanen t ly like clear tha t the st ory t eller is a p articularly good one; he is
stigm at a, th ose m arks t ha t t he G re eks w ould c a rve wit h a naïve, t elling p ain ful st ories for the fir st time, having t o
red-ho t iron or a knife in to the bodies of de vian t justify everything along the w ay, e xp laining it t o himself
individua ls…I m possible to rid my self of t his.’ and rep ea t edly g oing back t o fill in gap s. It’s no t tha t the
I n the w orld of Edd y languag e canno t p re t end t o this de tails of these discur sions are un w elc ome or unnec essary,
p ermanen t kind of po w er. T hings are w ha t they are. A g ob of as if they w ere someho w ‘distr ac ting from the real thing’. It
sp it is no t, for instanc e, a w e t yello w c annonball, but ju st a is tha t the order and manner of their deliver y has no t been
gob of spit , and is only analo gic al if it is like the (lit er ally c onsidered. Perhap s the in t en tion w as t o crea t e the chao tic,
iden tical) mucus of an old p er son’s throa t. T he g ob d rips meandering voic e of a bad and c hildish st ory t eller t o re flect
do wn the c heek, it does no t rus h o r hurtle ; it is no t the difficulty of rec onstruc ting these memories. A ny w ay, the
an throp omorp hised as an imagina tive display. Louis has oc c asional p ayoff is tha t the voic e can re turn f rom these
w onderful restr ain t. No thing is ly ricised, no thing is tang en ts and deliver a sudden, disturbing sen t enc e which
beautified, hardly any thing is alleg or ised in case it loses its gr a t es against the in timac y ac cumula t ed by the voic e along
hard po w er. T he p erf ume of roman tic ism is no t allo w ed t o the w ay: ‘He ju st fell in to the toile t. ’ He being a miscarried
se ttle for a momen t. It is very much like a f riend describing child.
some thing a wful which hap p ened t o him, and no t a t all like a It is in t eresting t o no t e tha t John B urnside, on the back
novel. T he e xp lana tions offered are some times banal t o the of the book , thinks it is ‘care fully cr a ft ed’. T he book is
p oin t of t ear s ( ‘w e are a lway s pl ay ing rol es an d t here is a clearly a revolt agains t cr a ft and c onstruction. T his is why
cert ain tru t h to m asks ’ ) and some times insigh tful ( ‘a desperate, w e g e t asides like: ‘ (I d id n’t sa y it exa ct ly like t hat , but some
con tinu al, const a n tl y renew ed e ffort to pl ace som e pe ople on a da y s …I’m too w orn out to t ry to re con st ru ct t he l ang uage t hat
level belo w you, n o t to be on t he lo w es t run g of t he social I spoke back t hen )’ . A bit of dec onstr uction; a sp lodg e of
la dd er’ ). B ut the p oin t is they do no t emp loy languag e for an ti-lit er a ture. Louis ’s p o w er is in his a tt en tive rec rea tion
much more than it is used in everyday life. T hus momen ts like of the brutal languag e whic h c omposed his youth. It’s a
the one above jar. T he p ermanen t stigma ta is p recisely the str ang e, self-de fea ting move t o then deny his book this
kind of hyp e rbole Ed dy rejects. It is art’s thea tric alisa tion of p o w er. At o ther times, the asides are t ouching and disp lay
the tr uth. B ut Eddy ’s whole e ffort is t o sho w tha t languag e is his vulner ability : ‘ a nd no w I ’m cry ing as I write t hese l ines ’.
a t emp or ary social c onstruc t w aiting t o be t orn do wn. A ng er has focused and limit ed this w or k. T here can be
Structur ally, there’s no thing t o see here. T he book is no ca thar sis, rec oncilia tion, beauty, p leasure – all these
sp lit in t o tw o p arts, and then in t o chap t er s which are things are sw allo w ed up in the Lit er a ture of Violenc e.
non-chronolo gical and arr ang ed mostly a t r andom. T here is a D e fender s will say this is his ac hievemen t; tha t this is the
vague sense tha t time has p assed as w e g e t t o w ards the la t er ‘realistic ’ p ortr ay al of violen t e xp erienc e. Ye t is it true tha t
chap t er s. B ut this is frequen tly be tr ayed by leaps back in t o in life these things are denied t o us? D oes violenc e
the p ast. T he only true str uctur al t ool is a narr a tive loop c olonise every thing? It doesn’t ma tt er. T he question the
which leads bac k rep ea t edly t o the c orri dor where Eddy is reader must answ er is should it do so within lit er a ture.
bullied by tw o o ther boy s. T hrough this rec urrenc e w e
rec eive an i ncreasing sense of horror: the reliable, e xp ec t ed

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