It’s been a while.
I’ve been making my home in Scotland. I feel very lucky to be here.
For the last few weeks I, like many others, have been struggling to “create content” because, if you’re aware of anything going on in the world right now, it just seems asinine to do anything other than bear witness and use whatever time and/or money you have wisely.
In early October, as I was scrolling Tiktok, I saw a little kid, probably about 3 or 4, covered in dust, completely shell shocked, staring at nothing and starting to shake because he couldn’t find his father when the building he was in had been bombed in the middle of the night. The very next Tiktok was a bunch of under-4s in full, tiny protective gear learning how to play ice hockey for the first time. The contrast made me sob until I couldn’t catch my breath.
Like many others, I’ve seen things online and on television that I don’t really know how to deal with. People being shot; the effects of white phosphorus on human skin; a parent taking the body parts of their child in a plastic bag to a hospital with no electricity or water; two instances of parents holding only half of their child’s body; people of all ages being buried alive in collapsed mines; people with power say the most dehumanising things with astonishing sincerity; children in bags being sold, premature babies left to decompose in a hospital once the power had been disconnected.
For a few weeks I tried to write or create around the themes found in Hannah Arendt’s work ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil’. I think of it as one of the most significant pieces of writings of the 20th century. It might have its flaws, but its significance shouldn’t be controversial.
When I taught the book to classes I would emphasise that it is dangerous to dehumanise the perpetrators of violence. We like to think of people who do heinous things as people who are frothing at the mouth, they’re unhinged, they’re seriously mentally ill, they’re otherworldly monsters and mythical demons. But they’re not. They show us what we are capable of. People don’t have to be raging, angry psychopaths to do awful things. Sometimes they’re just a logistics manager.1
Let me go off on a tangent for a moment:
Over the last year or so I’ve been working on a few writing projects, one of them is at a stage where I’m prepping it for an editor to get it in tip-top shape and I’m looking for an agent who is willing to take it on.
I have been worried about it. Worried about the contents of it. It is quite unlike anything any other project I’ve had or got going on. While I’m not one to shy away from talking about bodies and their de/composition, this particular book is vile. It is disgusting. I even surprised myself with the scenes I came up with. I worry that I will be put on some kind of watch list because of it - though I’m sure I’m on a list already because of the research I had to do to write it. I’ve sought legal advice over its contents. I will probably need more if it’s picked up. I even consulted my therapist in case she felt that she needed take action over the contents, and she is fine with it.
The book contains some of the most grotesque and depraved things I’ve ever thought and written. It’s revolting. It’s gory. It’s definitely not for everyone. I probably won’t write another book like it. I can imagine that some pearls will be clutched, and that the meaning will go over the heads of some. I get it.
As part of my preparation for going out with it I’ve prepared for questions and challenges. Kind of part FAQ / part thesis defence kind of preparation.
One of those questions is:
Q: This is the most disgusting book I have ever read. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?
A: No. Besides, reality is far more disgusting than fiction.
And that’s how I bring this back: I know I’ve written a book that would probably end up having to be sealed in shrink wrap to be sold in my birth state. If I’m lucky enough to get it published I’m certain it will be banned somewhere in America. But I’m definitely not clever enough to write like Margaret Atwood and combine true events from around the world into a (so-called) work of dystopian fiction like ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’.
Absolutely nothing in my work of fiction will ever be as degenerate as what real people are capable of doing to other real people. The world continues to surprise me. There is nothing in that book that could even compare to the reality of human cruelty.
I’m not a fan of talking about evil because it is very much connected with religion I don’t believe in. It would seem that atheists and humanists have their own problem of evil. It’s not that I believe that evil exists because of the absence of God, as a theist would think. It’s that evil exists despite the non-existence of God. And that’s the bit I can’t get my head around at the moment. It’s been a long time since I’ve taught or engaged with this topic, but I can’t help but think about it more and more these days.
THIS WEEK:
Most listened to song: The Devil Wears a Suit and Tie by Colter Wall
Favourite thing I’ve watched: Saltburn (2023)
Favourite thing I’ve read: Kissinger is dead.
A New Ebb in the High Tide Season by Rawda El-Haj in ‘Modern Sudanese Poetry: An Anthology’.
I’m most excited by: Winter solstice, 22 Dec 2023.
It is definitely worth noting that “just following orders” has not been a legitimate legal defence since 1474 in the trial of Peter von Hagenbach.