THE CHINA MAIL, AUGUST.21, 1940
CHINA MAIL The Cult Of Caliban
WINDSOR HOUSE
SOMALILAND CONCERNING one thing the re-
1.
cent years, more especially the recent months and weeks,
For what it is worth, have driven many people to al- the Italians have success-ter their minds: that is the real- ity of evil, the existence of a fully invaded British Som-cruelty absolute, the presence, if aliland. They may take you prefer the Biblical term, of Satanism. Before this we were pleasure thereby, but apt to rogard the wrong as no there can be little profit more than warped or twisted
phases of the right. in the achievement, for There was much, it seems; but Berbera is neither Aden, not total wisdom in those psycho nor the effective control ferred it to unhappy infancy, bad
logical analyses of sin which re
of the Red Sea.
diet, or thwarted impulse. Re cent events have shown a willing-
terrible a form that we cannot
Ingenious attempts to ness, even a passion, to shut the turn the evacuation into gates of mercy on mankind in so another victory for Bri-comprehend it without admitting ́tish arms, however, are tuned, self-glorifying brutality.
the existence of stark, "uncondi rather more amusing It would be disastrous if because than clever.
At
the same time it is difficult to be-
CHING MENAC
MUNICH
STAGE OF
"SO THIS IS ISOLATION”
(Copyright in All Countries.)
of this we should abandon all ef- forts to comprehend the criminal Events in Somaliland tendency by psychological pro- bing and revert to the old folly of are simple of explanation. taking the lash and the fetters to The Colony's defences every form of law-breaking. were based upon French lieve that all the sympathetic an- cooperation. In the break-alysis and psychological treat
ment in the world would soften down following the arm-the flinty hearts of mankind's) istice, the British troops present bullies and oppressors, were too few and inade-NTO the enormous problems of quately equipped for suc- crime and punishment this is cessful defence against remarked by the way is the man- no place to enter. What may be the forces available to the ner in which recent events of his- Italians. Reinforcements tory have fought against recent trends of psychology by restoring could have been sent, but that old bugbear of childhood the only at the expense of gre. The early myths of man-moth moron, the clumsy giant vances. Ogres who wanted to] Bad men to put it simply, have kind are full of monsters and with a brain the size of a pea grind our bones to make [their] by their 'dreadful deeds revived other regions in the Mid-giants and earth-afflicting devils, and a heart the image of a golden bread were properly floored and that simple state of mind. We dle East, in the theatre of There was rarely, if ever, in those cabbage. The Ogre has not only finished off. We were sometimes know that they exist.
myths the -suggestion operations of infinitely Ogre was a normal and a good become the hero. When D. H. was pinched by invisible fingers is evil beyond excuse and par- greater strategic impor- man run to size and seed, like, an Lawrence cursed the cool intelli-as well as set to hard labor. But don. We tried long to search the overgrown vegetable, and there-gence, praising belly and blood we knew him for a brute and re-Ogre's psyche for the wounds tance. If the Italians re-fore rather to be pitied than pui against brain and reason, he was joice when his plot to seize the which we could heal. Now that garded the gain as worth out of action. An Ogre was just only assisting the cult of such a island and Miranda too was foil-philosophy, like our patience, is
what the story called him, and Caliban and setting up a literary ed. We made no cult of Caliban, exhausted, the cost, that after all is the business of the hero was to King Kong for readers who had
their business.
THE HOPE OF UNITY
We see
that the ceased to be the villain; he has a trifle sorry for Caliban when he and mean to destroy a giant that
leading them.
slit his weasand or whatever or-not the wit to see where he was gan was most vulnerable,
There was never any supposi- tion that the various Davids of the various tribal sagas should have stopped to reason with their
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the
We Mustn't Write Like This
Of the means to inter- Goliaths or that Odysseus should THE Ogre need not be of gar- national security it is too cate some nasty complex in the certainly emerge as a pathetic or have attempted rather to eradi-
gantuan size: he may be only a fierce fighter. As such he will early to speak in any de-Cyclops instead of putting out his even sympathetic figure in tail, since we do not know the first audition of the "Odyssey" followers or in any of the numer- single eye. Those who attended works of Mr. Hemingway and his what the world outside were not, we may be sure, affect-ous gangster films in which the our own British Common-clops when he was so ruthlessly both as hard as nails. outside and ed with compassion for the Gy-chief law-breaker turns out to be wealth borders will be like reduced to impotence. He was as soft as butter within. Public when the gunfire has evil; he was monstrous; and he Enemy Number One now usually Fought in the Sky
got, as they say, what was coming appears, after. ceased. Perhaps the pri-to him. That was the primitive quarter of furious pugnacity, to soner-nations of the Euro-view.
:
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have been viewed rather as de-
an hour and
By Ivor Brown
a
Here is an extract from an article which: appeared in the American magazine "Life," on June 24, It is called: "I
Dunkirk by An Squadron Leader."
over
·RIA.F.
"An R.A.F. Base in England. "WE got a 'stand by' early in
jed around to see what was after him, before presumably he ceas- ed to know.
"I saw a burst of flome and smoke from his engine, and then he was going down in a twirling spin of black smoke."
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the morning of the first HE goes on to say that he look- day of the Dunkirk evacuation,| ed around: for his colleagues, and at 9 a.m. we got our orders. but they had gone. This fight "There were twelve of us, and had taken him fifty miles inland.
Then: climbing to 20,000ft, we headed
"Out over the North across the North Sea.
Sea on the way back to the sta- "I don't remember many per-tion, I clicked on the radio and
down his life for another. The journey out except the feeling dron one by one."
. .
poor
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pean concentration camp, so too there was no queasiness in which Hitler has con- the old nurseries when the structed, will have been Ogre of the fairy tale came to a bad and bloody end. The wick- taught by adversity the ed giant, or whoever it was, went lesson
Fe-Fo-Fumming about the world that unity .is
and slaking his thirst with blood strength, and that unity and was a Bad Thing. To destroy
him was a Good Thing, and that be as mild a specimen as ever laid sonal impressions of that first called up the pilots of my 'squa- means Union, not mere was that. His appetites and con- pacts and bargains and duct were simply horrid and on- gunman with a heart of gold, a that here was something really He says to them:
"'How are covenants.
Mr. doing at last." turally Satanic. Nobody explain-part admirably played by
Did you get any? Then [you? Perhaps the them in terms of all the George Raft, is the darling of our
one came back jubilantly he had project of Anglo-French head when young or of the folly time, a position of honour which
got one. Then the rest-all of them had got one or two. union, rejected by a de-of a nanny or of reactionary and he shares with the "goofy" giants
repressive education.
and maudlin ogres of the new AT T 4,000ft, they were looking for] "One was funny. When I ask moralised French govern-
fiction. The nineteen-twenties trouble, Of later years, however,
when suddenly à'ed him what he had got, he came ment in favour of nomin- increase
the whined the sad story of the Poor formation of Hun machines were back, growling and disgusted of compassion in the Little Rich Girl; the late thirties spotted. He cursed the height he with 'a Graf Zeppelin. Two didn't al separate existence as a man race has led to an entirely the Poor Big Tough Guy.
inore decent members of the hu- replied with a tearful salute to had lost, then: "The fighters, answer,"
mostly Messerschmidts, --heeled In these brief extracts from this Nazi puppet state, will different attitude to Ogres. They
The modern sob. for the
over and came screaming down at vividly written article, I'll bet come at length to frui-luded Esaus than as savages de misunderstood giant is therefore us, and the next second we were you know more about what an tion.
air battle is
than llaths. Huge and possibly hairy,
really like a manifestation of charity which in the thick of it."
"Most of my instruments, I re-everything you have read in your they are no longer regarded as are reminded of that by the em course of violent manoeuvring.
may be seriously overdone. Wel Certainly the way to brutish oppressors of their
member, had gone haywire in the newspapers or heard on your fel-
wireless. enlarged freedom is the lows, but as victims of their des- ogres who have reduced Europe my giro was spinning crazily and created a picture in your mind ergence in our time of -human "I remember particularly that It stirred you, didn't it? . It way of enlarged units of huge? Because they Browse to a state of chaos, cruelty, and the artificial horizon had vanish- not only of the light, but also of
huge? Because of glandular mis-barbarous anarchy unimaginable ed somewhere into the interior of the fellow in the machine. like-thinking peoples for fortune. Why were they SO
rough? Because they could the purposes of common help the inemelent co-ordination after court martial, of one Span-ing me the maker's stamp
only thirty years ago. Let it be the instrument not remembered that the execution, turning up its bottom and show-writers can't write like that.
panel, calmly Perhaps you think that British defence and foreign po-blood and mighty muscles. That
of grey cerebral matter with red Ish anarchist who claimed to be the words Air. Ministry Mark IV allowed to write like that..
and The truth is, that we are not" licy. Certainly, too, the is the psychology of the new po- the riots in Barcelohn was.consi
a pacifist and innocent. of abetting or something like that.
Why? peace after victory cannot pular story or picture, especially dered so dreadful a crime in again with me close on his tail, that if a British writer were to "Down Avent the Messerschmidt I don't know. All. I know is be a peace of disarma-hose coming from the United 1800 that the Ferrer case became
States.
With the great speed of the incorporatę in a story: half ment. The prime lesson
international issue: leading dive my controls were freezing facts and a quarter of the human- of the past twenty years A TYPICAL case in point is that sent emissaries to inquire into hard to bring the Hun up into sors would die of apoplexy.
newspapers in the United States solid and I was. Bighting the stick ity that is in the above, the cen- is that the forces of peace Mice and Men," which has been fuss being made about the judi-
"Of this abomination. Imagine any the centre of my sights.
"Gad, sir," they would pro- and order, like the forces so enormously popular in fiction cial murder of a single anarchist stick, in fact, It's hard to get that. It makes our heroes
"When you get them there. they claim. "You mustn't write like and on stage and screen: of civil government-within central figure is a kind of mam- have the Ogres triumphed.
The in the year 1939 or 1940! So for them out.
dinary blokes, you know," the state, must have su-
"Once there you. hold them for-
And 80 in your newspapers and on your wireless, you hear preme power. It may be mainder of our genera-
"I thumbed the trigger button the same old drab tripe spun out that the Royal Air Force, tion, the long strong arm WHAT they have done is to re- just once, twico. I smelt cordite night after night, day after day. establish the reality of wick-fumes blowing back from my The same old, dreary reiteration with its sister air forces of the law between na-dness. We have been driven Brownings as the 1,200 squirts of aerial cliches. from other countries of tions. We must never in which we were very grateful
back to the nursery state of mind minute from each went into him. And why, you ask, are Ameri-
"I saw little spurts of flame as cans given all this látitude? the British Common-again
throw away
our to Jack for killing the horrid he tracers, struck. For a fraction I answer: I don't know —'I wealth, will be, for the re- strength.
Giant and never stopped to pon-of a second I saw the back out- really don't know. der over the poor monster's grie-life of the pilot's head half-slew-
CONRAD. PHILLIPS. -
Q
of Mr. Steinbeck's tale
an
A
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ever.
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the
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