“But the picture of the Madonna went with him. Continually, even as he sat in his small hard narrow room or knelt in the cool churches, it stood before his outraged soul with its sultry, dark-rimmed eyes, with a mysterious smile on its lips, naked and beautiful. And no prayer could exorcise it.” Thomas Mann,… Continue reading On Pervy Old Men
Tag: literature
On ‘The Imaginary’
I started reading The Imaginary: A Phenomenological Psychology of the Imagination by Jean Paul Sartre (1940) on Monday 23rd March, on the train back home to Glasgow where I would be staying until this whole pandemic thing blew over. I just finished it as lockdown is slowly lifting. It's a book deconstructing the imagination: such as… Continue reading On ‘The Imaginary’
On Confessions
“The confession has spread its effects far and wide. It plays a part in justice, medicine, education, family relationships, and love relations, in the most ordinary affairs of everyday life, and in the most solemn rites; one confesses one's crimes, one's sins, one's thoughts and desires, one's illnesses and troubles; one goes about telling, with… Continue reading On Confessions
On Françoise Sagan and Sally Rooney
This is a comparative study of two novels by Françoise Sagan (b. 1935, Cajarc, France) and Sally Rooney (b. 1991, County Mayo, Ireland). Just for fun. I read Sally Rooney's Conversations with Friends (2017) straight after consuming her second book Normal People (2018) which my mum had lent me. It was when my parents were down visiting… Continue reading On Françoise Sagan and Sally Rooney
On ‘Kiss My Genders’
I just got back from an intense two weeks of travelling, or should I say intense for someone who mainly likes being in bed. The holiday was ill-advised financially but I started out in Stockholm for 5 days of real holiday which was fantastic; such a beautiful, comfortable, opulent city, I was very impressed and… Continue reading On ‘Kiss My Genders’
On ‘The Uncanny’
There is in fact a path from phantasy back to reality again - and that is art. Sigmund Freud, 'Introductory Lectures', 1922 Freud's essay on 'The Uncanny' is one of those seminal texts that was always brought up throughout my art-life, especially in my undergrad in GSA, and particularly 2nd year in which everything we made… Continue reading On ‘The Uncanny’
On The Violent Lesbian: Part 3
Sometimes after an hour of apathy, my strange and beautiful companion would take my hand and hold it with a fond pressure, renewed again and again; blushing softly, gazing in my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing so fast that her dress rose and fell with the tumultuous respiration. It was like the… Continue reading On The Violent Lesbian: Part 3
On the Violent Lesbian: Part 2
“Don’t ever fight with Lisbeth Salander. Her attitude towards the rest of the world is that if someone threatens her with a gun, she’ll get a bigger gun.” Stieg Larsson, The Girl that Played with Fire (2006) So, in the Violent Lesbian world: if Villanelle from Killing Eve represents the contemporary fictional psycho-killer and Aileen… Continue reading On the Violent Lesbian: Part 2
Sertraline Dreams 