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On “The Waste Land”

“The Waste Land” has often been interpreted in a framework of spiritual angst, a view based in part on the many religious references, and perhaps also Eliot’s own uneasy embrace of High Anglicanism five years after the poem’s publication. But when you examine it more closely, this is not really supported by the text. The religious allusions are mostly from the Vedas or Buddhism, fueled no doubt by Eliot’s studies at Harvard, and are not so much in the form of religious faith as moral philosophy. To this author, “The Waste Land” is not at all concerned with religion but instead with what could be characterized as the Nothingness part of Being and Nothingness (not yet written, of course)—that is, it is not spiritual, it is existentialist. Existentialism is not religious; it is anti-religious—Sartre was militantly atheistic. In this context, religion could be characterized as something of a plug that people employ to shut out Nothingness, that is, to paper over a sense of purposelessness vaguely perceived but too difficult to dwell upon. This helps account for the strange anomaly of the universal agreement that “The Waste Land” is a great work, despite the fact that no one seems quite able to explain why. The key, I think, is in the Quixotic grandeur of the quest: “The Waste Land” seeks to look Nothingness full in the face, and this gloves-off determination to do so is the real source of the poem’s power. It also explains the notorious obscurity: the text is operating at the extreme limits of understanding, a place where language, shaped by the quotidian cares of everyday life, necessarily flounders. Hence poetry; in prose form, “The Waste Land” would be ridiculous.

One can’t trust Eliot on the matter. Consider his odd note to line 199, “I do not know the origin of the ballad from which these lines were taken; it was reported to me from Sydney, Australia.” This sounds unlikely and, moreover, deliberately worded to sound unlikely. In his analysis, scholar Lawrence Rainey concludes, “this note may not be serious.” I agree: Eliot was prone to scattering a little sand in the eyes: for example, in the note to line 46 he delicately admits to having “departed to suit my own convenience” in making up [Tarot] connections; and line 356’s pseudo-academic note—“factitious,” according to Rainey—referring readers to Chapman’s Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America, where they will find a misattributed quotation supposedly elucidating the line “Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop.” I think these oddities can be attributed to Eliot’s wry sense of humor—one mustn’t forget that beneath the buttoned-down Establishment Englishman there always lurked the genial Midwesterner, not opposed to a gentle prank or two, even in the greatest of all modern poems.

In Floreat Lux, “The Waste Land” is introduced when Sabrina reads it in the forest while leaning back against the dragon plinth—it is not an accident that the really weird stuff begins at that point. The aim was that “The Waste Land”’s sense of uneasiness and menace should be present throughout the remainder of the narrative, and occasionally this is explicitly emphasized through episode titles taken directly from the poem (“A Game of Chess,” “The Fire Sermon”) or alluding to it (“The Unreal City,” “Unburying the Dead”).

These notes on the poem are being penned at the beginning of April, appropriate given the famous first line, but actually the timing is coincidental. “The Waste Land” is a constant thing, a little nugget that lies just beneath the surface of consciousness, subtly shaping thought when thought runs in those directions. This author has three copies of it, which sounds obsessive but isn’t: the first is part of a collected edition purchased decades ago; the second is Rainey’s excellent 2005 study and annotation; and the third was a gift, a limited edition printed on handmade paper and signed by Eliot himself (signature pictured, and in that simple autograph we perceive again the plain Midwesterner, no?)

“The Waste Land” is frequently characterized as the greatest poem in Modernism, but in fact it might not even be the greatest of Eliot’s. Try watching the film of Ralph Fiennes reading Four Quartets, something done during COVID when there wasn’t much else for an actor to do, and see if that’s not the most engaging thing you’ve seen on a television screen in a long time.

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What was the inspiration for the “star journey”? (update)

The artwork “Creation (Megaplex),” installed in the elevators at the Standard Highline in New York’s Meatpacking District, has previously been cited here as an inspiration for Floreat Lux‘s star journey episode. That work has now been replaced by another Marco Brambilla video collage, “Heaven’s Gate,” still seductive, although more linear than the swirling vortex that fit so well with Sabrina’s hallucinogenic voyage into deep inner/outer space. In addition to the Standard’s elevators, the new artwork has been installed in more monumental form at various galleries in London, Las Vegas, Montreal, and Miami. A video of the installation at the last of these, including commentary from the artist, can be seen here.

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Is the Cato Club based on a real London club?

Externally, the Cato Club is modeled on London’s Institute of Directors (pictured)—part traditional club, part professional association—located on Pall Mall across from Waterloo Place and the Crimean War Memorial where Evans waited for the florist to appear. The interior is based loosely on the East India Club.

As for the Cato Club’s male-only membership policies, several of the traditional London clubs, including the East India Club, still do not accept female members. As far as is known, none of their Rules Committees has ever used the Cato Club’s subterfuge of designating a woman as an “honorary man” to admit her to membership.

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Is there an Abbey of Thelema in Sicily?

The ruins of Aleister Crowley’s abbey at Cefalù are as described in Chapter Twenty-Eight, right down to “somebody’s Basquiat-like graffito rendition of Crowley’s big bald head”(pictured) that stares down menacingly behind Adelina in the photo shoot.

The abbey’s dissolution under Mussolini is historically accurate.

An unauthorized walk-through, whose trespassing guides are quite as interesting as the abbey, can be seen here.

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Is the real “Ripelli” Chinese-owned?

Yes, since 2015, Pirelli has been Chinese-owned or, more accurately, Chinese-controlled, but all has not gone well for the Italy-based tiremaker under its new masters. The issue is that modern tires contain chips, meant for monitoring the tires but which could equally well be used for monitoring other things, like the car’s location. Given the history of Chinese companies secretly embedding spyware into their products, this is a cause for concern.

The Italian government responded by ordering the Chinese owners to lower their holding to less than that of the second-largest shareholder, thereby no longer officially controlling the company. But a glance at the list of names on the board of directors quickly reveals that the result was just window dressing, something done in an attempt to mollify regulators. It didn’t work.

Nevertheless, Pirelli tires remain popular, especially on high-performance vehicles. All Formula 1 race cars use them. Aston Martins come equipped with Pirellis, as do Bentleys, and even some American cars, the Mustang GT being an example. But most people will likely picture them in their natural habitat: fitted to a Ferrari, preferably parked by some fine Italian villa, as in the 12½ inch-wide, 200 mph-capable PZeros on the 812 GTS in the accompanying photo.

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Is the MULVANE a real motor yacht?

MY Mulvane is fictional. She is based on two notable motor yachts from the prewar era, both of which remain in service following exemplary refits.

The first of these is Blue Bird (pictured; photo credit: David Stearne). Blue Bird was built for Malcolm Campbell, a famed British speed record setter during the interwar years, both on land and water. He named everything Blue Bird—whether car or boat, and whether built to break records or simply meant for pleasure—and so there is a profusion of Blue Birds. Sometimes the words were separate, as in the Blue Bird, but often they were concatenated: “Bluebird.” Adding to the confusion, his son, Donald, also bitten by the speed bug, continued the tradition. There were three MY Blue Birds alone, and so at some stage this one was rechristened Blue Bird of 1938, presumably to distinguish it.

The author first came across her anchored off Positano in 2013, and among the many superyachts vying for attention she was a real standout, far smaller than the others, no pool or water toys or helicopter pad, just restrained elegance rather than overweening extravagance, and—like the Mulvane in Monaco harbor—“the only one with a proper buff funnel.” For her service during the Dunkirk evacuation she was granted the rare privilege of flying a white ensign instead of a red one—inspiration for the same honor given to the fictional Mulvane. As can be seen from the photo, she attracts crowds of well-wishers wherever she goes, in this case Ramsgate harbor. Her history as a Dunkirk little ship, and many interior photos showing how well she has been restored, can be seen here.

The other vessel, also a Dunkirk veteran, is the MY Malahne, built by Camper & Nicholsons in 1937 and restored to her original glory at the Pendennis shipyard seventy-eight years later. She is substantially larger (164 ft/440 tons versus 107 ft/175 tons forBlue Bird) and her physical characteristics are a closer match to the fictional yacht. Readers might recognize from the Malahne‘s photographs the inspiration for some of the Mulvane‘s furnishings and fittings, such as the Frank Lloyd Wright-like mirrored screen behind which Evans is suprised to find a Bébé and a Bechstein, or the little bench seat installed into the curve of the elegant counter stern favored by the Marchesa, or the ovoid dining table that “is a much chummier shape for a large dinner party than the usual rectilinear.” These days the Malahne does duty as a charter yacht; pictures and details are available here.

A last note: Malcom Campbell broke the world land speed record nine times and the water speed record four times. Often the record he broke was his own. In all but the first two land attempts, the car or boat involved was named “Bluebird.” Donald Campbell broke the land speed record once and the water speed record seven times, always in a “Bluebird.” He, Donald, was killed when his Bluebird K7 crashed during an eighth water speed record attempt. His land speed record of 403.10 mph, set in 1964 in a Bluebird-Proteus CN7, remains to this day the fastest ever by a vehicle powered through its wheels.

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There’s a Golden Age mystery sensibility, but does JOURNAL OF THE SUPERNOVA conform to the Golden Age mystery rules?

Yes, with one exception. The rules of Golden Age mysteries were formulated by Englishman Ronald Knox in 1929 and, perhaps because he was a Catholic priest, they became known as Knox’s Commandments. These rules were adopted as guidelines by the Detection Club, an association of mystery writers of the day, including those three greats of the Golden Age: Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and G.K. Chesterton. Their aim was to be fair to the reader, eliminating unexplained revelations, deus ex machinas, and all strained contrivances—the solution had to be derivable from clues presented clearly and unequivocally during the story, enabling the reader, if alert and clever enough, to solve the mystery before the whodunnit, howdunnit, and whydunnit are revealed.

JOURNAL OF THE SUPERNOVA complies with all these precepts except Number Five: ”No Chinamen”—a tongue-in-cheek rule, presumably really meant to reject mysterious and unaccounted-for figures suddenly happening on the scene. But the Hong-Kong-born and human-rights-advocating Dr. Wu in JOURNAL OF THE SUPERNOVA is a major character not just in the story, but also in helping to elucidate a larger theme of the book, that is, the rising threat of authoritarianism.

(As an aside, some delicate souls cringe at the word ”Chinamen” and feel the need to apologize for its presence in Knox’s Commandments. Did the term “Englishman,” used above, evoke a similar response? Would “Frenchmen” have been found objectionable? The answer is of course no, and so perhaps it is not ”Chinamen” that should be apologized for but unthinking and ahistorical political correctness.)

The larger theme of rising authoritarianism is also behind the 1930s motif adopted aboard the Mulvane, used not just to invoke a Golden Age milieu but also as a mechanism to ruminate on the last hundred years of history and wonder how, after having successfully risen to the two great challenges of fascism and communism, we find ourselves in such a sorry state today: culturally moribund, mired in debt, ineptly led no matter the party in power, and once again threatened by authoritarian regimes relentlessly working to destroy the democracies, socially, economically, industrially and militarily. In other words, how is it that Western civilization lost its mojo?

But JOURNAL OF THE SUPERNOVA is a murder mystery, not a political tract, and fully complies with the spirit of Knox’s Commandments, indeed not just slipping in clues but explicitly emphasizing and often repeating them to make sure they’re not missed or forgotten. Nevertheless, the author is confident that no one will ever successfully get the whodunnit, howdunnit, and whydunnit by the end of Chapter XLVIII—that is, before the solution is revealed.

There, reader: you have been challenged.

By the author, ago

Who is the target audience for JOURNAL OF THE SUPERNOVA?

This is often asked in the contemporary book world but, when you stop and consider, the question is a strange one. For a start, it assumes that you had a target audience in mind—that is, you were writing not to gratify yourself or perhaps an inner compulsion but instead to appeal to some imagined group of other people. One wonders how Cervantes would have answered such a question, or the gloomy Jonathan Swift. How would Joyce have responded? Perhaps “Displaced Irishmen, exiled by disposition, paying back the English by dismembering their language” (which would have comprised a target audience of two: himself and Samuel Beckett). Maybe Nabokov would have found the answer easier: “Pedophiles.”

Nevertheless, that’s how it goes now—authors are expected to write for a target audience. I suppose that books might be produced this way, but not literature. This helps explain the desert that is the contemporary book world, at least in fiction. Here’s a practical demonstration: quick, name a current author. Don’t dwell, just note down the first one you think of.

A generation ago, some great writers would have instantly sprung to mind: Don DeLillo, Donna Tartt, Brett Easton Ellis, Jay McInerney. A generation before that, even better: Norman Mailer, Truman Capote, Joseph Heller, J.D. Salinger. And before that, better still: Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner. And these are just Americans, and just novelists, but even with those twin limitations the line goes back unbroken to colonial times: Sinclair Lewis, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Mark Twain, Edgar Alan Poe, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and many others.

Now, be honest: is whoever you thought of in the same league? Hard to think of any contemporary fiction writers at all, other than producers of formulaic pulp—books whose only purpose is to serve as predigested pap for the intellectually toothless, and whose authors no doubt do have a target audience.

When I was a kid I once walked into a bookstore and discovered a new (to me) novel by John Fowles. I was delighted by this find and soon had the volume at home, reading it from cover to cover straight through. That book was DANIEL MARTIN and I reread it multiple times over the years, enough to break the spine. What author of today would engender such excitement? Their spines would certainly be safe; hard enough to get through them even once. In fact, these days it would be difficult to find a bookstore in the first place.

How to account for this current dearth of readable books? I think the “Who is the target audience?” question is an important clue. It implies more than just the assumption that authors write not in consequence of some inner desire or need. It also implies that the proper purpose of authorship is not to write at all; it is simply to sell—in other words, we’re not really talking about books anymore; we’re talking about commerce. That commerce happens to be in books, but it could be any product: clothing, cars, cosmetics, whatever.

This wasn’t always the case. When publishing companies in America were privately or narrowly held, and there were dozens of them, the book world was a vibrant hothouse of talent and ideas, but the days when a Max Perkins would take a chance on Fitzgerald or a Sylvia Beach would publish the unpublishable Joyce are long gone; neither GATSBY nor ULYSSES would ever reach print today. The business aim then was to sell books—preferably but not always profitably; it was the books that mattered. Now, just a small handful of very large corporations control American publishing. And—as with any publicly-listed corporation—there is a single overriding business imperative: to maximize return on equity. A book’s merit in this context is reduced solely to its marketability; beyond that, whatever’s between the covers is irrelevant. So it is that genuinely good books—the ones you were actually excited to find—disappeared when the publishers were consolidated into a few corporate behemoths. In other words, the current economic forces that shape the industry are the reason why there are no longer towering literary figures whose names are household.

The people who run these companies don’t read books themselves; they have books pitched to them. The only things they read are spreadsheets. If quizzed about the questionable quality of their product, they would no doubt claim to be just catering to the public. This assertion—a common defense used by corporate-controlled media companies to paper over the deterioration under their ownership; think of the fate of the Times under Murdoch, or CNN under Time Warner, or Twitter under Musk—was best answered long ago by perhaps the greatest of modern English-language writers, T.S. Eliot (incidentally, like the protagonist in JOURNAL OF THE SUPERNOVA, both an American and Englishman): “Those who claim to give the public what they want,” he stated, “begin by underestimating the public taste; they end by debauching it” (T.S. Eliot,1961, verbal testimony investigating BBC broadcasting, as quoted in ELIOT AFTER THE WASTE LAND by Robert Crawford, p. 473).

Take that, Murdoch and Musk!

By the author, ago