negotiated the twilight zone between consciousness and oblivion. After Alan came he struggled up through tangled sheets. I could feel Alan’s residue dripping between my legs. Alan left the door open and I heard him pissing. The sound of water being splashed on his face. When I heard the kettle boil I got up. I washed, dressed, made my way through to the kitchen. Alan threw a copy of Intellectuals by Paul Johnson onto the table and poured me a cup of tea from the pot. He made some cryptic comments about Johnson’s career resembling that of a hack called J. C. Squire.
Alan didn’t like Johnson’s Intellectuals. He read out a passage from Marx that Johnson claimed was meaningless and then provided an exegesis. Alan didn’t like writers who treated their readers as if they were morons. Johnson was providing an ultra-low-grade introduction to the works of everyone from Rousseau to Sartre, before proceeding to concentrate on what he perceived to be the sexual failings of his subjects. The chapter on Marx was typical. Johnson claimed the author of Capital was unable to sustain himself over the entire length of a book, but Intellectuals was simply a series of poorly drawn prose sketches that could be detached from each other without any alteration to their meaning. Rather than developing an argument, Johnson simply reiterated his irrational prejudice against critical thinking in a series of poorly schematised chapters. Johnson claimed that Marx was essentially Talmudic in his writings, that he ‘merely’ provided a critique of the work of others. The same argument could have been deployed against Johnson had he risen to the level of critical discourse. As for Johnson’s sex life, the less said about that the better.
Alan got up and left the room. When he returned he handed me a copy of Karl Marx: His Life and Work by Otto Rühle. This tome, Alan explained as he fried some mushrooms, may have been marred by cheap psychologising but it had the merit of moving beyond the sterile arguments usually found in the prose of those who wanted to defend the work of Marx. Rühle was an influential left-communist who as far back as the 20s happily admitted Marx had personal faults galore. This, alongside texts such as The Struggle against Fascism Begins with the Struggle against Bolshevism , had made Rühle unpopular with right-wing reactionaries such as Lenin and Trotsky. Rather than attempting to defend Marx’s personal failings, Rühle ingeniously claimed that these character flaws were what enabled the communist theoretician to carry out his important work on behalf of the proletariat.
Alan placed a plate in front of me. Spread across it were two slices of toast, one covered with beans, the other with fried mushrooms. Alan sat down at the other end of the table and we tucked into this fare. Once we’d cleaned our plates, Alan asked me whether I’d rather go to Dundee or Bennachie. At that point I didn’t know that Bennachie was a mountain. Since Alan insisted I make a choice I decided to flip a coin. Once fate had directed us south to Dundee, Alan told me to examine the coin I’d grabbed from the kitchen window sill. I turned it over in my hands, both sides bore a head. Fate was pushing me in the direction of one of the least attractive towns in Scotland, which had been rebranded ‘City of Discovery’ by a local council desperate to attract tourists.
Once I’d belted up and we were heading out of Aberdeen over the Brig o’ Dee, I found myself fiddling with the Fiesta’s glove compartment. I opened it up and pulled out a stack of books, Head Injuries by Conrad Williams, Cocaine Nights by J. G. Ballard, Perfumed Head by Steve Beard, Come by Mark Waugh (‘CD limited edition’ with the CD detached from the package) and Been Down so Long It Looks Like up to Me , ‘the classic novel of the 1960s’, by Richard Farina. We were speeding down the A90 with Portlethen flashing by on the left. I didn’t know it then, but there
Alan didn’t like Johnson’s Intellectuals. He read out a passage from Marx that Johnson claimed was meaningless and then provided an exegesis. Alan didn’t like writers who treated their readers as if they were morons. Johnson was providing an ultra-low-grade introduction to the works of everyone from Rousseau to Sartre, before proceeding to concentrate on what he perceived to be the sexual failings of his subjects. The chapter on Marx was typical. Johnson claimed the author of Capital was unable to sustain himself over the entire length of a book, but Intellectuals was simply a series of poorly drawn prose sketches that could be detached from each other without any alteration to their meaning. Rather than developing an argument, Johnson simply reiterated his irrational prejudice against critical thinking in a series of poorly schematised chapters. Johnson claimed that Marx was essentially Talmudic in his writings, that he ‘merely’ provided a critique of the work of others. The same argument could have been deployed against Johnson had he risen to the level of critical discourse. As for Johnson’s sex life, the less said about that the better.
Alan got up and left the room. When he returned he handed me a copy of Karl Marx: His Life and Work by Otto Rühle. This tome, Alan explained as he fried some mushrooms, may have been marred by cheap psychologising but it had the merit of moving beyond the sterile arguments usually found in the prose of those who wanted to defend the work of Marx. Rühle was an influential left-communist who as far back as the 20s happily admitted Marx had personal faults galore. This, alongside texts such as The Struggle against Fascism Begins with the Struggle against Bolshevism , had made Rühle unpopular with right-wing reactionaries such as Lenin and Trotsky. Rather than attempting to defend Marx’s personal failings, Rühle ingeniously claimed that these character flaws were what enabled the communist theoretician to carry out his important work on behalf of the proletariat.
Alan placed a plate in front of me. Spread across it were two slices of toast, one covered with beans, the other with fried mushrooms. Alan sat down at the other end of the table and we tucked into this fare. Once we’d cleaned our plates, Alan asked me whether I’d rather go to Dundee or Bennachie. At that point I didn’t know that Bennachie was a mountain. Since Alan insisted I make a choice I decided to flip a coin. Once fate had directed us south to Dundee, Alan told me to examine the coin I’d grabbed from the kitchen window sill. I turned it over in my hands, both sides bore a head. Fate was pushing me in the direction of one of the least attractive towns in Scotland, which had been rebranded ‘City of Discovery’ by a local council desperate to attract tourists.
Once I’d belted up and we were heading out of Aberdeen over the Brig o’ Dee, I found myself fiddling with the Fiesta’s glove compartment. I opened it up and pulled out a stack of books, Head Injuries by Conrad Williams, Cocaine Nights by J. G. Ballard, Perfumed Head by Steve Beard, Come by Mark Waugh (‘CD limited edition’ with the CD detached from the package) and Been Down so Long It Looks Like up to Me , ‘the classic novel of the 1960s’, by Richard Farina. We were speeding down the A90 with Portlethen flashing by on the left. I didn’t know it then, but there
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