The Rape of the Cosmos: IV

Artificial Wombs

Nothing in the Gray novel is as funny as Gene Wilder hushing his audience of scientists who wish to intervene to help the flailing monster played by Peter Boyle, and saying, ‘he wants to do it himself.’

So why am I telling you about Poor Things? I won’t be able to complete the explanation until I’ve told you about two other novels, the English translation of one of which takes its name from this exhilirating old master work:

Explosion in a Church, Francois de Nomé

Explosion in a Cathedral, I mean, by Alejo Carpentier. The other is Freedom and Death, by Nikos Kazantzakis.

Poor Things shares many of the themes and engages many of the same problems as these too-little-known masterpieces, though it is not in a class with them by any means. Yet it is in its way as sincere, and an important intervention (recognized, award-winning, and popular) in the cultural response to the post Soviet phase of the counterrevolution. But it doesn’t support a real literary criticism alone. It’s really rather a kind of sotie, a fruity fizzy drink of a novel with a splash of cheap syrupy liqueur at the bottom of the high ball glass where the straw hits as it ends. But such things may be greatly appreciated in certain settings, when one is thirsty and in need of a sugar hit and buzz. What brought it up, for me, at all, was the feeling of sheer horror at the trailer for the Lanthimos film — an indignity which had to wait for the author’s death to be inflicted — and the responses across mass media to it.

Long long ago I had a blog and posted this sequence of videos:

There should have been a warning above. I’m sorry if you leapt right in, I’m deeply sorry for what I just did to your soul with this stuff.

But you get it.

Anyway this story, this degeneration, is old already.

Lanthimos has processed Gray’s book into a digital entertainment commodity of the usual form and length at a point in culture production far past this nadir, after it has settled as landscape, and ceased to surprise and appall. Decades after the Harry Potterization of the Tim Burtonization of the Edward Gorey trend of Victoriana on Broadway.

Yes this is the story of the rehabilitation of capital, its final conquest, and apotheosis. Just before it vanishes. By becoming the Cosmos.

Franco Moretti’s celebrated essay Dialectic of Fear paired Dracula and Frankenstein in an almost perfectly exhaustive reading of the fantastic imagination of capitalist modernity. In Dracula are the ruling classes wedded, the overthrown ancient regime and the vampiric force that the bourgeoisie deployed to overthrow them, so that their mortmain and caste power has been sublated into something deathless that doesn’t need their superstructure of glamour, history, superstition. In Frankenstein’s monster are wedded the mutilated masses to the force alienated by that mutilation. At the dawn of the so- called neoliberal era, with revisionism maturing into counterrevolution, the pathos and sexiness of Dracula made its appearance, and then flourished as an enormous genre (enabled by the brief indie boom of the video rental age, and by pay cable), and eventually produces vampires-becoming-frankensteins (the so called fast zombies, combined parodies and gravediggers of the booj, and the vampires of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, not aristos but proles and proletarianized petty booj). And now to mark the post-capitalist, post-Dracula, post-Humanist age, the transhumanist transcapitalist age, Lanthimos belatedly delivers in facsimile, J. Peterman catalogue black and white and steampunk dollhouse hues, the Pathos, Romance and Vindication of Adam (Eve), Frankenstein’s Monster, with a Happily Ever After, not coincidentally — and widely remarked on — also offered in bubblegum pink plastic by Barbie.

Bride not of Frankenstein but of Dracula, really.

“It is with considerable difficulty that I remember the original era of my being; all the events of that period appear confused and indistinct. A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt at the same time; and it was, indeed, a long time before I learned to distinguish between the operations of my various senses. By degrees, I remember, a stronger light pressed upon my nerves, so that I was obliged to shut my eyes. Darkness then came over me and troubled me, but hardly had I felt this when, by opening my eyes, as I now suppose, the light poured in upon me again. I walked and, I believe, descended, but I presently found a great alteration in my sensations. Before, dark and opaque bodies had surrounded me, impervious to my touch or sight; but I now found that I could wander on at liberty, with no obstacles which I could not either surmount or avoid. The light became more and more oppressive to me, and the heat wearying me as I walked, I sought a place where I could receive shade. This was the forest near Ingolstadt; and here I lay by the side of a brook resting from my fatigue, until I felt tormented by hunger and thirst. This roused me from my nearly dormant state, and I ate some berries which I found hanging on the trees or lying on the ground. I slaked my thirst at the brook, and then lying down, was overcome by sleep.

“It was dark when I awoke; I felt cold also, and half frightened, as it were, instinctively, finding myself so desolate. Before I had quitted your apartment, on a sensation of cold, I had covered myself with some clothes, but these were insufficient to secure me from the dews of night. I was a poor, helpless, miserable wretch; I knew, and could distinguish, nothing; but feeling pain invade me on all sides, I sat down and wept.

“Soon a gentle light stole over the heavens and gave me a sensation of pleasure. I started up and beheld a radiant form rise from among the trees. [The moon] I gazed with a kind of wonder. It moved slowly, but it enlightened my path, and I again went out in search of berries. I was still cold when under one of the trees I found a huge cloak, with which I covered myself, and sat down upon the ground. No distinct ideas occupied my mind; all was confused. I felt light, and hunger, and thirst, and darkness; innumerable sounds rang in my ears, and on all sides various scents saluted me; the only object that I could distinguish was the bright moon, and I fixed my eyes on that with pleasure.

“Several changes of day and night passed, and the orb of night had greatly lessened, when I began to distinguish my sensations from each other. I gradually saw plainly the clear stream that supplied me with drink and the trees that shaded me with their foliage. I was delighted when I first discovered that a pleasant sound, which often saluted my ears, proceeded from the throats of the little winged animals who had often intercepted the light from my eyes. I began also to observe, with greater accuracy, the forms that surrounded me and to perceive the boundaries of the radiant roof of light which canopied me. Sometimes I tried to imitate the pleasant songs of the birds but was unable. Sometimes I wished to express my sensations in my own mode, but the uncouth and inarticulate sounds which broke from me frightened me into silence again.

“The moon had disappeared from the night, and again, with a lessened form, showed itself, while I still remained in the forest. My sensations had by this time become distinct, and my mind received every day additional ideas. My eyes became accustomed to the light and to perceive objects in their right forms; I distinguished the insect from the herb, and by degrees, one herb from another. I found that the sparrow uttered none but harsh notes, whilst those of the blackbird and thrush were sweet and enticing.

“One day, when I was oppressed by cold, I found a fire which had been left by some wandering beggars, and was overcome with delight at the warmth I experienced from it. In my joy I thrust my hand into the live embers, but quickly drew it out again with a cry of pain. How strange, I thought, that the same cause should produce such opposite effects! I examined the materials of the fire, and to my joy found it to be composed of wood. I quickly collected some branches, but they were wet and would not burn. I was pained at this and sat still watching the operation of the fire. The wet wood which I had placed near the heat dried and itself became inflamed. I reflected on this, and by touching the various branches, I discovered the cause and busied myself in collecting a great quantity of wood, that I might dry it and have a plentiful supply of fire. When night came on and brought sleep with it, I was in the greatest fear lest my fire should be extinguished. I covered it carefully with dry wood and leaves and placed wet branches upon it; and then, spreading my cloak, I lay on the ground and sank into sleep….

Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. A wonderful book.