joe@emacs.uucp (Joe Chapman) (09/06/85)
A short essay entitled ``Beware of Pure Love'' by Alain Robbe-Grillet appears in this month's [September] Harper's. It may be of interest to readers of this newsgroup. Robbe-Grillet discusses perversion, which I think is a concern separate from that of the sex of one's partner or beloved, but under which general rubric the dim are often pleased to group every offense from the wearing of earrings by males to orgies involving rattlesnakes and the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. My favorite example of puritanical excess has always been the Victorian practice of placing skirts around the legs of chairs---as if they were objects of irresistable passion. Robbe-Grillet's example is similar: ``Everyone remembers the censor who, in the golden age of Hollywood, declared war on the navel. So intransigent was he in expurgating the navel from movies that his severity stunned the studios. After his death they found in his home the most bewildering collection of photographs depicting female navels---his only passion. But maybe he thought of these images as hunting trophies: rather than masturbating while he contemplated them, he reassured his puritan soul with the thought that he had thus cleansed the world of a hideous evil. He didn't realize that the evil was in himself.'' I would have said ``perception of evil'' and have a few other disagreements, but nevertheless I think the essay is valuable. [ Disclaimer: I have have to confess that, as an intellectual with a frighteningly short attention span, I am exactly the reader that Harper's targets. Nevertheless, I don't contribute to the magazine, nor do I make any money off of it. ] -- -- Joseph Chapman decvax!cca!emacs!joe CCA Uniworks, Inc. emacs!joe@cca-unix.ARPA 20 William St. Wellesley, MA 02181 (617) 235-2600