A Cruel Man Delighting in Flowers
...the mildness to which men ... had yielded was only half of the intoxication of beauty, while the other half ... was of such surpassing and terrible cruelty—the most cruel of men delights himself with a flower—that beauty ... failed quickly of its effect...
Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil
Jeremy Davies is made of ink, but don’t dip a feather in him. It tickles. He once painted a fingernail black and no one really noticed. He was disappointed. He’s also an editor, a religious atheist, a liker of strong coffees, a Shakespeare-lover, a political anarchist and someone who rarely has a pen when he needs one. He has been a PhD candidate, a personal trainer, a life model, a bouncer, an infantry soldier and someone who rarely had a pen when he needed one. He has had words published in a variety of places, in a variety of publications, in a variety of forms, in a variety of moments: Canada, Wet Ink, SMS and twelve minutes past three in the afternoon being some of these. His first novel, 'Missing Presumed Undead', will be re-published by Satalyte Publishing in February 2014. A second is on its way.
On my son's year 12 English list for next year, so thought I'd read it: fascinating in terms of structure, dramatics, character and theme. It is obvious why this makes the syllabus in our contemporary period of left-ist fed liberalism triumphant in the intellectual world, since Miller was in the midst of his own right-fed Macarthyist 'witchhunt', but it is even more interesting to take from his act one introduction his comments (echoing Camus' 'The Rebel') regarding the paradox of all successful rebellions against autocracy ending in it's own autocracy (he uses theocracy, but theo is easy enough to replace with any old atheist ideology). To be accused of an '...ism', for an example, is a new 'crying out' to '...prevent any kind of disunity that might open it to destruction by material or ideological enemies.' For even a left-fed liberal organization preaching inclusion and exhibtionism is still an organization, and then '...must be grounded on the idea of exclusion and prohibition, just as two objects cannot occupy the same space.'
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