bably more widely-known across books Collectort1958), The Magis (1966)
Ebony Tower(1975) and Dam The left has, in gener!
omewhat lax in assessan developments in literature. Whãe it is tree that the future of the novel.
the relationship of politics te TOLD HIM ACHE BEAU DICENT trade union agenda, it would be TOMICS RECST DOOR blication. Fomles describert it as mage to Lakacs. Much of th Now tripal INCITIN without his clotbes, he hi sammoned his mandaries to launc The Comelands to ecle and de men LIAT MUTIN DOCHISE MOUSE D inconclusions.
A general siasement in novels seems to de that the conrral female characters are repositories of right Jeeline. self-awareness, whilst the centrat male characters are repositories of cuirure, imaginarive artifice and elf-indigence, In en essay Notes on an Unfinished Novel pot wrote:
*My femule characiers tend to dominate the male. I see man as a kind of artifice, and womun as a kind of reality. The one is cold idea, the other is warm fact In bringing these two polarities together you show thar the former, the female characters, can have a pustave eject on me farter, the male characters, but nou do лог lespite the forr that you bring them to a point of mutua! recognition, resolve the inevizable conflict and tension that exists between them. Do you believe thar the two are irreconcilable and have you ever considered exploring beyond the impact of mutual recognition?
HE TWO perennial incompatibles the HEETALE condition sects to me the desdesire battic between the two desires is less destructive when the female principle dominates or has at least some sort of parity, as during the escape from the Dark Ages, the Renaissance and our own time Male-principle societies much more strait-jacketing. More conforming, besotted by law and order, suspicious of heresy -right-wing in short. Eve welcomes change. Adam eyen Marxist Adam fears it. Socialism has still to shake off the handicap of having been largely conceived and formulated by men and in a male-dominated age. Comte is a classic case of onesidedness, as the feminist J.S. Mill was quick to Point out at the time One thing I don't like about certain aspects, socialism the inflexible TOTE TOE preserving of traditional structure and creed at all costs, and the low value pul on the characteristic female gilt for personal judgement and feeling and for the practical as 80ainst the 10ea For instance. certain familiar uses of parroted invective and esoteric jargon seem SAYS READ to me a good deal less socialist tha Just primeval male On the other hand Lam equally suspicious of extreme liberationist attempts to prove that the onl difference between women men is psychological. I believe tha it is vital that women retain their ability to think, differently from men. much they may share intellectually the same social beliefs. This has to be recognised.
The 'enion and conflict" that must result is inherently fertile -not of course when it springs from e attempt to in outmoded roles. give-and-take democracy of the good male-female relationship i he basis for all other democracie This is one reason why more women are urgently needed in government and parliament - no the sort who ape male attitudes but the odes who can modify and see through their always incipien! conservatism. I have absolutely no belief in a time when the two sexes will live in amending barmony What concerns me as a novelist is achieving the point of recognitics both of the difference and of thi mutual need. a right subject for ordinary novels established, Til then, alas, it stays in the domain of science fiction. You have implard that you do nor WIGEESEUNETE incorponate as central characters they are an essential device in your hooks, and act as the conveyors of "radical" ideas. Why do you feel unable so anoise and express their development and their motiva Vator they are not to be under HAT I REALLY meant i traditional male standards. Like most male arts. I have a strong female component in my character, just as most This may belp us in creating characters of the opposite sex, but more than sympathetic visitors in a mly wainer characters seem short 0n molvation and analvsis suppose most notoriously in The French Liestenent's Womer Is because I am wricing from the standpoint or tus male 'visitor" The art of the novel is also very much bound up with the art of leaving the reader to fill the gaps 1 could have Woodruff more than I did. But not to do so was a conscious decision.
REPKODUCING CAPITAL One strong reason was that I think women are far less amenable to analysis than men — for a number of historical reasons, but primarily bocause the and has brought one pood: a kind of common exile that permits them to feel and act Sand outside the ritual games and however role-mania of the average male.
Sarah Woodruff was deliberately crealed to suggest this 'beneficial' mutually NOC DIEDC DISCONSE CANE WAICh is closely linked to the presently needed gifts' I mentioned just nOW.
critics rever said te felt that the rities Daniel Martin concealed ghest was dent/aly sastained. the relationship seemed sivisticoly to break down: the first was the decision of concluding paragraphs of the crucial points dilemma does the asthor need to stand berween Daniel Martin and happens his [Da's] own inentions?
can't really answer this. They at character converge. didn't mean to stand between Daniel and his future, but beside him or with him. Fraternally women you In a recent television interview, YOu socialist on several occasions denied being a polirical being.
radical ecologist movement] exist relationship between these state menes?
The nation of sociologists being the only peopie obie to take cornect decisions in a complex industrial society is something eise How does this ider square with the lore serious question do controls the levers of society been torn into politics, I would count myself a socialst or a radical because E would much country chan one of the right harab stomach the belief the left sbares with the right: that ever-increasing industrialisation is the only - ATPRECATION STRATEGIC MISIGHTS.
'READING THE CLASSICS
AND The PResS. boredom production.
INTERVENING IN the removal of MASS MEETINGS, will marry CHANTING SUDG/INS political.
West, cation. and biological It wind of their pest exploitation Viable supreme others.
Feeding we felt that th Trequently They fisctinction in the novel bermes and his there were DR we Dices where the between them spending.
ТАТАТ. of enlightened politicians alone I certainly Rousseau on, described yourself as u ToresCenoverpopulation. ond Said that showid the egarvalent of the French "Les Verts" paro la didactic CERTEN the Howerer "scientists und you mentioned. done to this which HAVE ALL my adult life perween biological and political view • society, L am not a politica rather doctrinal But the orber side of me cannot however great the worker control, * enduring alienation. The worker can own the micans of production But he will never bappily own the repetitive and life-stultifyioe daily much actual This in certinly far worse in n capitalist society, bur I don't think capitalism alone man to his full The prise problem of bur world is biological rather than The chase. East and after higher wages. OLELIALCORSEHMSS opium to dull the basic horror of concomitant gross under-eduI loathe the Labour Govern menr's current indoctrinate schoolchildren with the notion of production as the supreme good, i.c., to turn them into brainwashed work-donkeys who call be led synthetic carrots. This fits in perfecily with their philistine contempt for the arts in general. They don't want ordinary TOOUCTOHVCCUNUAE COUSCE mure thinking lives The only healthy form of those two basic jocompatible desires in each of us: sell-knowledge and concern for Increased access to money will never break the begeniony. Any socialism that devotes almost all its time and energy to solely conomic pain is cutting its own throat:
more of the same old poison. In every class, richer men seldom discover an incrensed desire for social equality. Far more turn embryo Party in South Wales.
A true socialism has to find new ends and ambitions for mankind. ever increasing manufacture and consumption, all pleasure in existence reduced to buying and Only disintoxication will get us through the straits ahead. I don't believe will ever dare institute it, since they keep power Who shout theoretically control continuing the intoxication society is less important to me than what actually controls it: money, That can be countered only yant intelligent socialism intelligent cough to take account of conditions its founders, from could not have joker in the biological pack, You have said before that you see yourself, in part, as a writer with a Tole to pic standably, you are keen for pour work to speak for isel Fi would be helpful if you could comment on your attinade to the relation berween Party in the light of the damage polities and literature — particu Jogpiano Stalinist school of or DOUBT profoundly whether navel is the place for political propaganda, except perhaps 10 1 090000 forn. or 10 serious political analysis. Othe modes and modia are now far more apt for dinect effect. 1 am intensels apposed to all externally imposed interference in the arts. This was the most damaging of all th blunders the Stalinises. All serious artists are born contrasuggestibles, add persons out. But no society cun stay healths withoul -their less critical of Samuel Becker's vision and James Joyce's form than of those wrisers ond critics who have sought to trans/orm these into a rude of thunh for whe modern writer? and all three have had ES. All three are grear writers disastrous effects on count Jess lesser ones. I think there is a close parallel with the Romantic period, Chateaubriand, Byron and their brood: there too we see the retreat of genius into convolution, self and ongst followed by an endless swirm o inauthentic scribbles trading on a fad...and the first dose of modern fascisin in the butside worle!
Farthermore, would this explain with George Luides, who cogenity organd tha the tragody of modern urt was its away from its rea! social basis?
ES, VERY MUCH so. The interesting question is to what extent real social basis implies stylistic and thematic realism. I have very little time for the Tastionable theory that you can't criticise a society unless you first smash traditional Unfortunately that only too often also smashes the common sign-sestem between artist and general audience. Which CAPES preaching to a converted elite.
T believe that it is wrong to merpret the works a a major urder on the hares of their w thories, If these works are importent it becase they con achieve a form which can render the conflices of their times of the fliest range wizhin the given historical reading Does Lakes' corment concur POWERHE •dirinste the media?
HE KEY WORD here b In the strict contest (to interprer the works for theit social value') then obviously Lukacs is right. On the other hand there is a place for examining bow the artist thinks that he (sic) achieves his (sic) socially valid form. 1 know the engine for my own books in ar unresolved psychological dilemma — almost a dialectie, It has little influence on the gencral tenor witere a book goes butil can affect narrative sbapeand confrontations of character quite deeply. It is wig the book goes, if il does, 1 don't see a conflict here Lukacs was talking of external value. I speal of interna. mechanism. The first is clearl more important than the second -Spot its construction plan, But if the design "warks", there must be some value in knowing the designer's owat view of itsgenesis —andby no means, in he insended, It may be very useful to find ou why it worksas he didn t intend, as Lukacs himself showed in his examination of Walter Soon. J suspect a very interesting case 10g some facure Lukes is Evelyn Waugh, where overt beliefs and actual effects seem to me highly contradictory. 1 am not quite sure why the left's favourite literary devil is also very arguably the one wha dil the mod damage 10 his own side
items such as posters and printed T-shirts.
The licence granted Factors Etc. "an esclusive licence to use and скріок штридпоці тос WorG EDC commercial Elvis Presley rights* in return for live per cent of all net sales of Presley Items. The crass comacroansa wich dogged Presley from the day he met Tom Parker continues unabated by the singer's death.
T-shirts designated 'memorial" were sold for five dollars to mourners at Presley's funeral and over 1,700 copies of the Memphis Commercial Appeal were stolen from news stands and sold for five dollars each Book publishers Pocket Books had orders for 250,000 copies of The Private Elvis within 24 hours of his death, and Ballentine Books, publishers of Elvis, Wher Happened?, a lacky memoir by two of Presley's ex-bodyguards, rushed through a five million copy reprint, two million LUSI which were ordered by one retail chain alone. This book - its title a grim Collidence since it published before Presley's death - was bought outright from its two authors for E250,000 one year ago. Thus the ex-bodyguards receive no royalties on these massive sales nor on the film rights which are being nepotiated right RCA Records, who oripinally stuned Presiey 332,000 estimate that the total gross of Presley's 22 year career with chem was 543 billion. He has sold 600 million singles worldwide, which 100 million were sold since 1975. "Hound Dog/ Don't Be over mihim copies sold the over 8 million copies soundtrack to the film Bine Hawai was his biggest album with ww s muon sold, He nad 3s million-selling singles and 24 gold albums. toe 3a taims ne made grossed over S150 million and when his career was in full right be made three films a sear with a million dollars advance on each Disk Sales in Phenom Spurt, Post Presley" ran the front pape N DEATH as in life... Just two days after Elvis Variety for pressing ans nave been working flat out for 24 hours a day since Presley's death on 16 August. Th Nashville plant alone estimated that its profits will be up 35 per cent this year because demand created by Presley's death.
Even in Britain the record industry was shaken. Records found itself with a union dispute at its Washington, Co. Ducham, quickly went out of stock of all 25 albums it had on Pressing requirements had been so low through the summer period that RCA had served redundancy notices on about 90 of its staff wantucynow motocanceiana to request its staff to work overtime.
The umons concerncd accentd the cancellation of the redundancy notices but didn't want to work overtime. Bur an agreement was quickly made by the desperate was record company and by September there were 12 Presiey albunis in the Top 40 and several more on their way up.
HEN ASKED for his reaction to Presley's death at a recent • press conference John Lennon replied. 'Elvis died when he entered the army. It's a TICH Shared By many poopie Presley's lasting concribution to 'n" Roll was made between July 1954 when he did his first session for Sun Records and June 1958 when he cut his last tracks for RCA Records before entering the US ArmyDuring changed the face of popular For ycars Sam Phillips, owner of Sun Records Tennessee, had been looking for a WE MUSEWINGE TEEATH country music blues. Such a formala he regarded as a million selling idea. Presley Togetber with Scotty Moore on guitar and Bill Black on bass (there the REA pressing plant in and catalogue.
La white setting.
in -apan, white background Tupeia, Mississippi. childhood atlending the Church black gospel music. lescence was spent hanging around on Beale Street, cultaneous pink inckets and black shirls of the black pimps brief time Elvis the outspoken sexuality and the swageer and sneer which make bim a spokesman for Memphis, whole gencration of alienated middle class American south.
the black while "pop"
race records. With the advent o Kock a Roll these two audiencs were married comine from Khyllin and Blues and Doo Wop. In fact the first ... died when he were no drums ou Presley's early ecordings) be created a total generally ew original sound: black songs Something Tha Presley was uniquely qualified to da, coming as he did from a poor in South was spent In Tact a Christ where he and singing absorbed the sound of Southern His ado There was buying the chese same street corners he found fron the record.
Prior to Presley there had been records and blac undoing The black WELD TELL. Rock 'n" Roll record as such is recognised be Sh-Boom' by The Chords. On thi white side, Rock came from the Rock-i-Billy tradition. At the same time as Presley, Sun Records also had on its roster Johnny Cash Jerry lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.
tape exists December 1956 of all four playing so-called Milion Dollar Quater the ло was in which smail local label like Sun could break someone like Presley and it wasn't until RCA came in, waving unprecedented amounts of cash that he was able to reach hs audience. At hit first RCA session berecorded "Heartbreak Hotel' it was to be his first US Number 1 Unfortunately the same commer- bee cial Factors which enahled Elvis to reach Number I were to be his Colonel Tom Parker Presey he had a million dollars million dollars, Some people SOCIALIST CHALLENGE, 15-31 December 1977. page 18 would liketo know what happened THERE PHON Seemingly uncomplainingly, El vis made over thirty formula films each more ahsurd and meaningless than the last and designed te produce a million selling sound track albuns. Il is a sad fact that Presley never made a decent albur his best albums are all compilations of singles bur again he nese complained He cook out his frustrations b shooting out television screens in at raceland mansior aod, shortly before he died, he $200,000 recordine studio at Graceland by accacking it with a sub-machine gun because he we unable to ger the sound he wante there fairly safe to say that if Tom Parker had allowed his boy into the hig warld, rather thar surrounding him with a net честесу and silence, then Previes better records. Tour Parker was a southere huckster and good couch at his job to launch Elvis and maintain bim on that commercial show-business level But if Elvis had been allowed to work with top line Rock 'n' Roll producers such as Phil Spector. who knows what be might bave come up with The sad thing is that Presley was rumoured Ic front To Parker and also to be dissatisfied with the wa Its records were selling. He had sacked most of his Mempitis Mafia that usually surrounded him. and was apparently trying te recreate his carly "Mempbis sound' over again, We'll never know if he could have shaken off 19 ycars of mediocrity but even it he had been unahle to his contrihution remains and it's by his carly singles he is Keatucky! Blue Moon", "That's 'Cood Rockin' Tonight" A Hombreak Migh Mystery Train' "Tomerrow Hearthreak Hotel, •Blue Suede Stroes *Lawdy Miss Claudy, 'Shake Rattle and Roll Hound Dop go You, Ted Up "Party', Me Nice Jailhouse Rock', "King Croole Wear My Ring Around Your Neck',, and. inomically, the last track he cut before entering the army. 'E Got Stung MILES
----- pull-quotes -----
desire for social equay. the social equality.
Presley's death — on the day of his funeral in fact Vernon Presley, Presley's father and the executor of his estate, and Colonel Tom Parker, Presley's long-term manager and mentor, signed a marketing agreement with Factors Etc. Inc., probably the world's largest mass merchandisers of novelty
Joined army"