4. 4
OPENING
WINDOWS
by Cillian Dunn
are closed to you forever.But it’s even
worse here,because,even though you are
surrounded by people,you can’t hear them.
It’s a big crowd,hundreds of people,maybe
thousands,maybe millions,a forest of bodies.
You remember watching The Lord of the Rings
when you were younger,in which the trees,
which are actually these totally weird things
called ents,come to life.It’s like that,you’re
in a forest,but the trees aren’t ents,they’re
people.And they’re walking,and talking,
and laughing,and you should be one of
them,except you can’t hear them.There is
noise,like the buzz of the crowd you get at a
concert,in a queue,at a football match.But
individual voices are lost,jumbledtogether
and senseless,so even though you’re
surrounded by people,you may as well be
alone,because you can’t open any windows.
You’re frightened,so you attempt to explain
to someone.(I know this sounds,like,
seriously weird,but I suddenly can’t hear
anything?).They ignore you.You try again,
and again,andagainandagainandagain.You’re
ignored every time,by different faces,that
become,very quickly,all the same.A face
smiles,and you think it’s meant for you,
but it’s not,and that’s when you realise.You
thought you were part of the crowd,but
you’re not.They cannot see you,and they
cannot hear you.You are alone.
It’s like when you’re on the bus,and you’re
surrounded by strangers,who see only the
people who inhabit their world,not you,
the boy in the back seat.They’re talking,and
every word is a window into their life,and
even though you know you’re not part of
that place,you can let yourself in,if you listen
carefully.But the windows are very small,and
they don’t stay open for very long,so you only
ever get to glimpse through them before they
slam shut.In front of you,the pint-sized little
blond kid (you definitely weren’t that small
when you were twelve) got the new iPhone
yesterday,and his equally miniature mate is
jealous,because he only has the old version,
and that came out,like,a whole year ago.The
obese man to your left,chins wobbling as he
talks,thinks the public transport is actually
getting worse,and“George”agrees,and so,
privately,do you,because you had to wait half
an hour for the bus today,which is a complete
joke.And then there’s the gorgeous brunette
sitting opposite you,who you know is way
out of your league,but still can’t help staring
at,because there’s no law against that,is there?
It’s hard for you to catch even the briefest
glimpse of the far-away place that is her life,
because she’s on her mobile,telling someone,
somewhere,she loves them.(Damn!)
It’s hard to open windows on the bus and,
when people get off,you know their windows
6. 6
their arms their hands to force them to look
at you and then your worst fear comes true
because your arm just passes right through
them like youre a ghost a shade a nothing.
your friends your family your teachers the
people from the bus you see them all but they
dont see you and all you can hear is that buzz
buzz buzz like a screen a barrier blocking you
from their lives
But then something changes.
You can’t escape the buzz,it’s a part of the
forest,just like the trees-that-are-people,
but then,for the first time,you hear a voice.
And you’re excited,because even though
the barrier is still there,you know that if you
can understand this person,you can tunnel
through the barrier,and open some windows
into that person’s life.The voice is too quiet
to hear over the buzz,but it’s getting louder,
and the louder it becomes,the more your
tunnel grows,until it’s a big tunnel,big
enough to see through,to realise that the
person is your mother,and she is telling you
to wake up,because it’s tomorrow,a place
where you can open windows for yourself.
You walk on through the forest,(because after
all,these people may as well be trees),trying
to find a way out (because no forest goes on
forever).You’re moving quickly,but somehow
managing to avoid colliding with anyone.At
first,you think this is instinctive,but then you
realise you’re doing it consciously,because if
no-one can see you and no-one can hear you,
then you’re nothing,and if you’re nothing,
what’s to stop you hitting someone and going
right on through them?You keep on walking,
but every step seems more pointless (because
this isn’t like a normal forest,so why should
it have an end?),but then you see them - the
people from your world.
its like when youre on the bus and youre
surrounded by strangers but this time
someone from your world gets on but they
don’t see you and they go upstairs leaving you
alone again in the back seat
its even worse though because at least on the
bus you can follow them upstairs and force
them to see you but in the forest you cant
because the trees wont talk to you.you shout
you cry you scream you grab their shoulders
7. Allen
Ginsberg
Jack
Kerouac
missed shot in his introduction to his book
Queer that“the death of Joan brought me into
contact with the invader,the Ugly Spirit,and
maneuvered me into a lifelong struggle,in
which I had no choice except to write my way
out.”
The teenagers’who do like On the Road tend
to be attracted to the stereotype of teenage
rebellion that the book seems to champion.
It’s romantic,hedonistic,seems hopeful and
enables people who read it to rebel by proxy in
their free time.Allen Ginsberg’s poem ‘Howl’
also describes drugs,drink,travel and an
outcast,rebellious youth.(By the way,all these
writers I’ve mentioned so far were friends with
each other and all these rebellious experiences
were had together.) However,all their works
seem haunted by some void,something that
their wild experiences perhaps sought to heal,
though these struggles generally ended up
being one great“lifelong struggle.”
Somebody else in the Upper Sixth tried
to read On the Road by Jack Kerouac
and couldn’t finish it because nothing
seemed to happen – they found it
boring.It’s a surprising criticism for
a novel that’s all about young people
moving fast over America drinking,
getting high and having sex.Kerouac
supposedly wrote it in six weeks non-
stop,high on Benzedrine,on one long
scroll of paper so that he didn’t need
to waste time by changing sheets in his
typewriter.The creation of the book,
the Beats,Kerouac himself – a lot of
apocrypha has risen in their wake.
Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg,amongst
others,became counter-culture gods,of
sorts,and still are,though
to a lesser extent than back
then.One of their fellow
Beat writers –William
S.Burroughs – shot his
wife – JoanVollmer - in
Mexico while performing
aWilliamTell stunt,in
which he tried to shoot
a glass of water off her
head.He wrote of that
7
by Max Smith
8. Hunter S.
Thompson
‘Howl’opens with“I saw the best minds of
my generation destroyed by madness,starving
hysterical naked”. This sets the scene and
tone well for a tragic poem that tells of self-
destruction,madness and tragedy.
Burroughs wrote to exorcise“the Ugly Spirit”
that invaded him when he shot his wife;
Ginsberg wrote of a generation“destroyed
by madness”;what happened to Kerouac?
He threw a large amount of blood up into
his toilet bowl after too much drink,again,
and he called for his wife as he did so,crying
out“Stella,I’m bleeding.”He died the next
morning of an internal haemorrhage,caused by
cirrhosis.Dali said that Kerouac was the most
beautiful person he’d ever seen;Kerouac had
received a scholarship to university because of
his skill as a football player;he had sold millions
of copies of books that have gone on to be
extremely influential;he inspired Allen Ginsberg
to write and was a crucial figure of the Beat
Generation,which acted as the foundation for
the Sixties counter-culture movement;he died
of alcoholism at 47 while living with his mother
and wife.In 2005,Hunter S.Thompson shot
himself.
Hunter S.Thompson inhabited the same
realm of craziness as Burroughs.His most
famous book is Fear and Loathing in LasVegas,
in which he describes,usually while high on
several varieties of drugs,his travels around
LasVegas with his attorney Raoul Duke.He
invented‘Gonzo Journalism’, which was based
onWilliam Faulkner’s statement that:“the
best fiction is far more true than any kind of
journalism.”Thompson later wrote of the book:
“I found myself imposing an essentially fictional
framework on what began as a piece of straight/
crazy journalism.”Like the Beats,Thompson’s
literary method and way of life revolved around
excess.He took huge amounts of drugs,drank
and ate tons,often while driving fast all over
America and writing about the twisted,hellish
land he saw,feared and loathed.
Why did these writers’lives end so tragically?
It’s often said that creative types are disturbed
in some way.It seems,however,that there is
something more to their decline than simply‘it
was in their nature’.In interviews,Thompson
spoke of his irritation at the media’s expectation
that he would act as the characters did in his
books.Similarly,Kerouac was often visited by
admirers wanting to drink with him;he writes
of this in the opening sections of Big Sur, a
book that chronicles his failed attempts to get
off drink,alone,in a hut in the hills of Big Sur.
In some ways,they all focused on the problems
of the American Dream;as they approached the
life that the Dream preaches,the problems they
chronicled rose up and,arguably,destroyed them,
despite their insight into its,arguably,dominant
state of cancerous delusion.
8
9. “What was it?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Come on.Just think.”
“I don’t know.I’ve tried.”
She sighed.“I can’t help you if you don’t
remember.”
“Then why are you even trying?”
“Why are you?”
This time it was me that sighed.“Because I
want to know.”
She looked at me with eyes wide open,
wrinkled,with bags pulling them down.She
wasn’t old,but the stress must have got to her.
The stereotype suited her,in a horrific way.
“It’s just a dream.You can do it another way.”
“That’s new.”
“It’s been two months.If there were to be a
breakthrough,it should have happened by
now.We shouldn’t be averse to new things.”
“That’s what Harriet used to say.”
There was a long pause.Her eyes were
watching me intently,willing me to make eye
contact.I suppose that’s what you’re supposed
to do.I looked up at the ceiling.
“George?”
“Mm-hm?”
“Harriet?”
“Yes,Harriet.”
“You’ve never mentioned a Harriet before.”
“Harriet was my superior officer.”
She looked down at her file,checking her
notes.She came across something,raised an
eyebrow,and then covered the thing quickly
with her arm.
“Tell me about her.”
“She was taller than most women.She
had auburn hair.Her eyes were grey.Her
complexion was fair,though she wore a little
too much make-up.She had a skin condition
she was covering up,made worse by the make-
up.”
“That seems a pretty clear image of her.”
“I dreamt it.”
“When?”
“Every night for the past week.”
“Why haven’t you told me?”
“Wasn’t relevant.”
“Why not,George?”
“She’s dead.”
“That’s why we’re here,George.It’s important.”
“It’s not important.She died,and it was my
fault.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Yes,it was.I saw the petrol slick.I didn’t say
anything.I should have evacuated the crime
scene as soon as I saw danger.”
There was a long pause.She looked down at
her notes,and rippled through them with her
finger.She got a papercut,but she ignored
it.Or didn’t feel it.She fiddled with her pen
between her index and middle fingers and
leant forward.
“Tell me about the dreams you’ve had,
George.”
* * *
I am on a train.The carriage is 16.25 metres in
length,2.87 metres in height and 2.62 metres
in width.
If one were to draw a cross section of the
carriage it would resemble a rectangle with
9
The Therapist
by Ben Farrand
10. 10
a curved top,because it needs to fit into a
circular tunnel running deep underground,
giving rise to the name“tube”.When one
occupies a profession like mine,details such as
this could become useful at any point.
At first it seems I am alone on the train.I am
sitting down,in the middle of the carriage,
watching my reflection in the darkness of the
tunnel.I stand up,though I know not why.
It winds its way up and down in the dark
for what seems like an eternity,and I have to
hold on tight.The train accelerates ahead,and
suddenly there is blinding light all around,and
the train is slowing down,the familiar two-
by-two thump of the wheels turning slower
and slower.
Eventually the train stops,the jolt backwards
sets me a little off balance.The doors slide
open,and the art deco brickwork glows in the
bright sunlight.The train is stopped now.The
doors are open.No-one gets on,and no-one
gets off.It is deathly silent.That’s when I hear
the sound of creaking hinges.A gate swinging
in the wind,I think.
The repetitive high-pitched beeping begins to
sound,it takes longer than usual.Then I hear
the sound of footsteps,hurried,coming down
the stairs,and then from around the corner
hurries a woman.Her hair is auburn and her
eyes are grey.I recognise her,though I know
not where from.But as she reaches the train,
the doors have closed and the train is moving
out of the station.
As I look back at her,she stares into my eyes,
as if she knows me,and I know her.
Then the train accelerates until the whole
world becomes a blur.I am forced to sit,but
as soon as I am stable again,the train slows
down,and comes to a halt.The station appears
not dissimilar from the last one,but more
familiar.The station is empty again,and there
is a thick liquid running down the walls.I hear
the swing of the ticket barrier,and hurried
feet down the steps.“Please stand clear of the
doors.”The beeping starts and she has turned
the corner,and is running towards me,and
suddenly I remember a name.She calls mine,
but I can no longer hear her.The doors have
closed.
But then,suddenly,they open again.She
doesn’t get on,but stands there,staring at me,
less than a metre away.Whiteness,a rush of
noise,beeping,then the four-beat rhythm,and
then nothing.
12. 10 FILMS
WITH GREAT
DREAM
SEQUENCES
Stalker
Vertigo Blade Runner
The Seventh
Seal
La Jetée
12
by Max
Smith 1979
Andrei Tarkovsky
1982
Alfred Hitchcock
1982
Ridley Scott
1952
Ingmar Bergman
1962
Chris Marker
13. 2001: A Space
Odyssey
The Big
Lebowski
American
Beauty
Mulholland
Drive
The Tree
of Life
13
1968
Stanley Kubrick
2011
Terrence Malick
2001
David Lynch
1998
The Coen Brothers
1999
Sam Mendes
14. 14
It is said that we dream in order to make sense
of what has happened in our lives.
This is why dreams have such uniquely per-
sonal relevance.Every face in our dreams is
based on one we’ve seen before,every event
an amalgamation of our experiences.
Dante’s Divine Comedy can be read as a
dreamlike narrative,a retelling of an epic
journey through the afterlife.Although su-
perficially the text encapsulates nightmarish
and fantastic imagery there are more complex
interpretations.
Dante’s motivation in writing his poem is a
matter of huge debate.Suggested reasons in-
clude politics,revenge,the church,a desire for
recognition,religion,and love.I believe that
the poem is an attempt by Dante to set out
his life’s beliefs,from the humorously trivial
character profiles of his petty enemies to the
profound questions of existence.The scope of
his work portrays him as somewhat predat-
ing Renaissance man in his opinions on love,
redemption,art,religion,astrology and litera-
ture.Dante wants to have the leading opinion
on everything.
The Divine Comedy is a text that is difficult to
classify.Although it covers epic,autobiogra-
phy and romance there is no clear dominant
genre.Some describe the work as encyclo-
paedic,as it covers all the disciplines of liberal
arts.The matters are covered with the lucidity
and freedom of an unrestricted dream,tran-
scending our modern consciousness.
Although the Comedy can be thought of
as being like a dream or a vision,Dante
was keen to stress the reality of his journey
through the afterlife,insisting throughout
the poem that his journey was a genuine
experience.He even lists the moments when
he was commissioned by various spirits to
chronicle his voyage.These guiding spirits
include his love,Beatrice,who urges him to
“Take note:and as my words are carried from
me/ Make sure that they are delivered to the
living/Whose life is nothing but a race to
death”(Purgatorio XXXIII 52) and one of
his ancestors Cacciaguida,whom he places in
heaven,who is compelled to ask for Dante to
“Make clear to everyone the whole vision”
(Paradiso XVII 128).
Dante wanted to portray the power of his
personal vision through the allegory of the
poem,even by speaking directly to his audi-
ence:“O you whose intellects are sane and
well,/ Look at the teaching which is here
concealed/ Under the unfamiliar veil of
verses”(Inferno IX 61).The most honour-
able of all Dante’s characters is St Peter,who,
with great virtue and compassion,speaks to
Dante saying“And you,my son,who,heavy
with mortality,/ Must go below again,open
your mouth/ And do not hide what I have
not hidden”
(Paradiso XXVII).
Keen for his vision to influence his audience,
he presents the afterlife as having the ideal,
dreamlike,qualities he wanted to be echoed
in the society in which he lived.In many
Dante’s Divine
Dreams by Edward
Wheatley
15. 15
abstract yet forced into pertinence by the
discipline of the the poem’s three line rhyme
scheme,terza rima.
The opening lines of the poem set the tone
for this dreamlike style of writing,creating
a visualisation of the metaphysical world
through the use of earthly references:
“Half way along the road we have to go,/I
found myself obscured in a great forest,/Be-
wildered,and I knew I had lost the way.”
Dante was well aware of
his refreshingly modern
and accessible style of
writing,even making
reference to it by having
a damned spirit relin-
quish a secret to him because of it;
“He said to me:‘I say it unwillingly/ But I am
forced to do so by your clear speech,/Which
makes me recollect my former world.”
Whilst his style is memorable in expressing
the dreamlike qualities of Hell,the descrip-
tion of the nightmarish Inferno,portraying
his strong,personal conviction of the atroci-
ties of Hell is created through the use of ref-
erences to historical battles and bloodshed
as well as powerful epic storytelling.The
visualisation of beasts like the“filthy harpies”,
the“scowling and terrible”Minos,the“two
tentacles,hairy to the arm-pits”of Geryon,
and most strikingly“The emperor of the
kingdom of pain”,Satan,who is portrayed as
“a grotesque mechanical monster”(Higgins)
rather than a more sinister and subtle devil,is
in keeping with the ferocity of Dante’s Hell.
The Divine Comedy can be seen as a dream
or a nightmare,capturing Dante’s fears and
hopes for an uncertain future in a time of
great turmoil.
ways,Dante’s poem was an escape from what
he felt was the corruption of his native Flor-
ence and the Church.Dante lamented the
passing of order in Florence,something that
he could restore in his images of Heaven,
juxtaposed with the visceral representation
of Hell,perhaps inspired by the bloodshed
in Italy.Notwithstanding this obsession with
Florence,Dante is also happy to pass judge-
ment on the rest of society as he does in In-
ferno XXIX,asking“Now was there ever/ A
people so frivolous s the Sienese?/ Certainly
not the French,by a long way!”(line 121).
With the backing of his
prophetic conviction,
he is not afraid to of-
fend people from any
region,havingVenedico
Caccianemico say:“[He
is] not the only one from Bologna/Who is
weeping here;the place is so full of them”
(Inferno XVIII 58).This confidence to place
the population of a major city in a certain re-
gion of Hell reflects the vengeful qualities of
Dante’s dreamlike poem.The courageousness
of Dante’s writing is seen in his condemna-
tion of Pope BonifaceVIII,predicting his
destiny in Hell through having a damned soul
mistake the poet for the pope:
“And he cried:‘Are you standing there al-
ready?
Boniface,are you already standing there?”
Perhaps the most convincing aspect of The
Divine Comedy which can be seen as dream-
like in style is simply his writing style.The
very weight of the Epic poem provides a
sense of scale as well as beauty and poetry that
characterises many ineffable dreams.Added
to this is Dante’s own style,called the Dolces-
tilnovisti which,as commentator David.H.
Higgins states,provides a“high-mindedness
and clear sense of moral priorities”.Dante
was concerned with the immediacy of his
writing,creating a very personal narrative,
‘the most apt thing
to liken the work to
is a dream.’
16. NO
The 2011 riots began with a peaceful protest
against the shooting of Mark Duggan by
the police which degenerated into violence,
opportunistic looting,and thuggery.These
despicable acts secured the attention of the
whole nation.Many who felt threatened
and angered by these events demanded the
immediate use of whatever means necessary
to ensure suppression of the riots and the
rapid and robust punishment of the offenders.
The police were issued with plastic bullets
but,thankfully,none were fired.Why then
do so many people feel that they should have
been given the right to deal with the rioters
even more severely?
Before exploring the wider ramifications
of a more severe response,the safety
of the method requires examination.
Used in Northern Ireland under similar
circumstances,plastic bullets resulted in
the deaths of fourteen people,including
nine children.If the police are given these
methods of suppression how do they
distinguish between those whom many felt
deserved the punishment,and those who
meant no harm at all? In the Ohio Kent State
massacre of 1970,passersby and observers
were shot dead by the authorities putting
down the revolt.Such events would have
increased the destructiveness of the riots
of 2011 to an unprecedented level as well
as leaving a dark stain on the history of the
nation.
Consider also the effects on already tense
relations between different communities
had the outcomes of a heightened response
been grave.Race relations deteriorated
in Birmingham when three Asian men
were killed by a black car drive during the
riots.The situation was only saved by the
intervention of the father of one of the men.
Imagine the disastrous response had the police
been responsible for the death.
We must remember that it was a police
shooting which began the violence in an area
with poor relations between the police and
the community.How would it have been
logical to suggest more shooting to solve the
situation? Irreparable harm would have been
done to relationships between communities.
It has been suggested that the riots had no
political or morale message but it cannot
be denied that they raised awareness of the
feelings of a disaffected segment of society
and even brought people together (as with the
‘heroine of Hackney’).This is no justification
for the riots,and although not expressed
in these terms,they occurred during an
extended period of almostVictorian levels
of inequality,with the effects of a ruined
economy felt most keenly by those rioting.
To have used brutal methods of suppression
on such disillusioned and alienated people
would have turned an unacceptable riot into
an irredeemable infamy.
Should the London R
with more
Ed Wheatley
16
17. YES
Collective indecisiveness is as defining a
feature of this country as scones,Stephen
Fry and kebabs.As the 2011 riots escalated
we witnessed this hesitant bewilderment in
the feeble attempts of our police‘force’to
contain the rioters.Our screens filled with
scenes of upstart thugs,united only by their
general disregard for the law and the safety
of others,a ragtag mass of ne’er-do-wells
mocking the apparently powerless“feds”.
Some have suggested that the police’s failure
to keep order can be attributed to the sheer
volume of rioters - both in London, and
throughout England. It might have been a
logistical crisis of nightmarish proportions,
but it is important to remember exactly what
kind of rioters the police were dealing with.
These were not determined Syrian freedom
fighters or the crazed fanatics of the 2005
Alexandria riots;neither were they the
hardened criminals of the LA riots;these
were merely young malcontents.
The suggestion that these rioters were
actually fighting for some sort of greater
cause is also preposterous.In interviews,
many appeared to be unaware of which
party was in government. Wanting a new
pair of Nike’s is simply not a moral high
ground.Theresa May,the Home Secretary
commented:“there is no excuse for
thuggery”.The real motivation behind the
looting and violence was opportunistic
criminality.So why the descent into chaos?
Whether through inattentive obstinacy,a
misplaced antipathy to the use of greater
force or a naive belief in the adequacy of the
response, May rejected calls to authorise the
use of the rubber bullets and water cannon.
Footage of the disorder demonstrates that
there is little that small numbers of police
can do to disperse large crowds armed with
little more than glorified sticks. Without
fear of physical prevention or arrest,looters
did not even bother to conceal their faces as
they made off with all manner of electronics
and overpriced footwear,before burning the
shops in their wake.
Interestingly,vigilantes appeared to be far
more successful in deterring looters.Rioters
appeared to respond well to threats of
violence,be it federal or vigilante.It is only
when Prime Minister Cameron returned
from holiday,and authorised the use of more
robust crowd control tactics that the rioting
ceased.How little persuasion was needed -
the threat of use alone was enough to deter
the rioters.
If more robust measures had been
introduced earlier the riots would not
have escalated to the extent that they did.
Criminals should not be mildly persuaded to
do good,they should actively fear our police
force.The law should be a deterrent,not just
a punishment.
Tom Tyler
17
Riots have been dealt
e severely?
18. Lightless beacons flutter behind the porous corners
Of my mind – I clutch and clasp at the flitting embers.
Heavy shelves of water burst;the full blast of a new thought,an image
Like a surfacing wave,sinking again,drowning another,
The thought is strangled beneath the earthy blankness,
Compounding the heart-ache of lost avenues,
Of contemplation,closing the gates,forgetting the way,
No recognition rewards the crumbling mind,
To imagine it scientifically is least destroying,
But what could it be?To pin it down and see,
The library of ideas,lonely and unused,
Derelict,as the ink merges between the pages,
Unfinished,unformed,wasted and lost,
Through the incalculable spewings of whimsy,
Does it change me? A glint in the eye perhaps,
From years of forgetting and feeling the cost.
Dreaming I
by Ed Wheatley
18
19. Scenes emerge,people made,
Tall thin houses of cerebral mortar rise
Reason is created;conviction,a motive,
Things are done and lives are lived – and crash.
Shifting lines make the eye see what the mind
Cannot understand.Looping thoughts and rushing
Pictures merging from one another
Into a loose frame – they die.
Have they gone?They have not,
But they are not here.
The dreams don’t concentrate,
They are in a world of their own.
It is the warm ringing of familiarity,
The memory returns,the dream is here,
In another world,not theirs.
Ours.
And minutes have passed,stolen
By the lingering pictures,snatched from a safe place.
It is confusing.No promises can be kept.
There is no security in dreams.
Dreaming II
by Ed Wheatley
19
20. EDVARD MUNCH
Edvard Munch is best known for his iconic
painting‘The Scream’,sold in May 2012 for
a world record $120 million.It is no wonder
that this particular work retains a special place
in the public’s perception.Munch captured the
intense significance of the image in a poem
developed from a personal diary entry:
I was walking along the road with two friends – the
sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood
red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the
fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the
blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked
on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I
sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.
He painted this poem onto the frame of the
version that went under the hammer in May,a
testament to its power to unmask its meaning.
Munch became a primary influence on Ex-
pressionism,as he developed his themes from
the haunted life he lived. The influence of
his early life is clear.He was instructed in
literature by his father,Christian Munch,who
would often entertain the children with the
ghost stories of Edgar Allan Poe contributing
to those experiences that would lead to him
becoming‘master of the morbid’.
His childhood was riddled with death and
sickness;tuberculosis took his mother in 1868
and his favourite sister Johanne Sophie in
1877. Munch’s father used these events to
impose a‘dark pietism’upon the family,tell-
ing the children that their mother in heaven
was watching and grieving over their misbe-
haviour.The burden of the distress caused by
these experiences and‘the seeds of madness’
they helped induce is expressed in throughout
his work.His paintings bear witness to the ex-
tent of his trauma.
His painting‘Self-Portrait in Hell’features
Munch,unclothed in a burning hellish scene.
A wall becomes dancing fire,his shadow a
demon.The figure,with its searching eyes and
dark glow from within,expresses Munch’s
anxiety and fear. It does not thrash,flail or
cry out - what is recorded here is simply the
sudden realisation of a personal hell.Munch
offers an explanation of how he reached this
state:
From the moment of my birth, the angels of anxiety,
worry, and death stood at my side, followed me out
when I played, followed me in the sun of springtime
and in the glories of summer.They stood at my side
in the evening when I closed my eyes, and intimi-
dated me with death, hell, and eternal damnation.
And I would often wake up at night and stare
widely into the room:Am I in Hell?
In‘Workers onTheirWay Home’,painted
at some time in 1913-14,hordes of figures
push through the street,hostile and lifeless.
The canvas itself is huge,leading the viewer to
20
by Simon Hamlyn
Self-Portrait in Hell
21. feel they have themselves become a worker,
trapped in the hustle and bustle of the poverty
stricken scene.The central figure is particular-
ly confrontational,a hollow eyed man lunging
into the viewer’s personal space.
Stepping out onto these alien roads,Munch
feared the common man and was estranged by
the great power and pain he saw in this crowd
of workers.The violent brushstrokes in the
bottom left hand corner invoke the sense of
panic as chaos takes over.The development of
this ability to express his feelings in his paint-
ings owed much to Munch’s acceptance of his
state.
“My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness.
Without anxiety and illness, I am a ship without a
rudder. My art is grounded in reflections over being
different from others. My sufferings are part of my-
self and my art.They are indistinguishable from me,
and their destruction would destroy my art. I want
to keep those sufferings.”
Munch’s changing state of mind is expressed
in his self portraits. The fresher earlier pieces
present a shadow of his character.
In‘The NightWanderer’,how-
ever,Munch has transformed
into one of the very figures
he fears,finally resembling the
labourer in the work above,
his hollow eyes and ragged
appearance symptomatic of
his despair,his stare that of
a stranger.The painting is a
conversation with himself,an
act of pure loneliness.Edvard
Munch’s life was riddled with
anxiety but his art seems to
have helped him express and
submit to his misery.
A final threat to his life’s work
emerged when Adolf Hitler
invaded Norway.The Nazis
declared Munch’s Art‘degen-
erate’and confiscated of all
his known works,though many found their
way back to Norway,having been hidden in
Munch’s house.As a final twist,his funeral
was orchestrated by the Nazis,suggesting that
Munch sympathised with Hitler.Munch’s
nightmare was endless as,fortunately,is his
legacy.His genius remains,as master of the
darkness of the human condition.
21
Workers on Their Way Home
The Night Wanderer
22. oscillation between the constituents of
countless dualities that creates an atmosphere
in which the viewer must constantly take
leaps of faith in order to gain some sense of
certainty.These levels of oscillation range
from the relatively mundane – hair colours
of the characters – to broader oscillations:
two-thirds of the film seem to be reality until
it is suggested that that was Diane’s personal
exploration of her deepest desires as a dream
(though this is again (perhaps) altered by the
final 90-second montage of mind-blowing
density),and not a representation of Betty and
Rita’s relationship in reality.
In his preface to an interview with Lynch
about the film,Chris Rodley describes it as
such:“Either section of the movie could,in
fact,be read as a version of the other’s reality.
They constantly speak to each other as equal
partners,while simultaneously threatening to
expose each other for what they are.”Here,
Rodley is referring to the contradictory
nature of the sections of the film:the first
part,which seems to be a dream,is presented
as a clear,relatively coherent narrative (well,
as coherent as anything gets in this film),
whereas the final section of the film,which
is apparently based in reality,is far more
fractured and conventionally dream-like than
Mulholland Drive,David Lynch’s 2001
film,returns to many of his most prevalent
themes and succeeds in aligning his style and
ambitions as successfully as the likes of Blue
Velvet and Eraserhead.
It begins with a car crash on the road that
winds above Los Angeles – Mulholland
Drive. A dazed woman flees the scene.We
find out that she is suffering from amnesia
when,while hiding in a house in Hollywood,
she chooses Rita as her name,having seen
a poster for a Rita Hayworth film.She then
meets Betty,an aspiring actress,and they
work together to establish Rita’s real identity.
The apparently conventional nature of
this mystery is undermined by the clichéd,
unrealistic behaviour of the characters.When
Betty arrives in Hollywood,she is naively
optimistic,smiling,happy and hopeful.This
unusual optimism is also undermined,in this
case by Rita’s desperate situation.By using
this method of constantly undermining
presented realities with others,Lynch creates
an atmosphere of uncertainty and,therefore,
of fear.
Lynch also does not distinguish between
these realities,or choose one over the other
as preferable or dominant.It is this constant
22
by Max Smith
23. the part of the film that is more obviously
a representation of a dream.Essentially,the
method used by Lynch to create such a
confusing atmosphere,that seems to mimic
the way in which we dream,entails creating
several possible truths and realities that
are always competing for dominance.This
could be deemed an inadequate justification
for a narrative that simply does not work,
or the film may well provide answers and
firm realities.This seems unlikely.Lynch
doesn’t want to break the film down and
reveal whatever answers it may hold,as he
explains in the interview with Rodley when
questioned on the obscurity of the film:“I
think people know what Mulholland Drive is
to them but they don’t trust it.They want to
have someone else tell them.I love people
analysing it but they don’t need me to help
them out....Telling them robs them of
the joy of thinking it through and feeling it
through and coming to a conclusion....The
experience in the room changes depending
on the audience.That’s another reason why
people shouldn’t be told too much,because
‘knowing’putrefies that experience.”
23
This acknowledgement of the obscurity
of the film and Lynch’s desire for it to be
interpreted individually by each viewer hints
at what is perhaps the fundamental truth of
the film:its obscurity mimics the difficulty
of living and the countless hurdles we all
encounter in the pursuit of the fulfilment of
our dreams and the ways in which we can
retreat from those difficulties.Mulholland Drive
offers no definite answers,and it seems foolish
to claim that there are any.As is the case with
all of the greatest art,it is complete enough
to withstand attempts at simple breakdown
and explanation.However,this justification
for the ambiguity of the film should not be
taken as Lynch stepping back and creating a
banal work lacking in substance and meaning
and beauty.The film is incredibly beautiful,
incredibly complex and incredibly original.It
is a true work of art that does not hide behind
a facade of shallow,clichéd justification and
pretension.The most effective comparison
seems to be to a mirror:it reflects you,your
conscious and subconscious,your dreams and
nightmares,and,in doing so,alters as you do,
and is therefore rendered timeless - at least
until every copy is destroyed.
24. by Adam Beckwith
They were coming.She sensed it,but she
didn’t know why.The sky turned purple,
tinting the sparse scrubland below an ethereal
haze.Nymeria turned and started wearily off
into the endless expanse of monotonous vista.
This was the third day she had found herself
in this wasteland,but inexplicably she wasn’t
the least bit troubled.The fluorescent green
orb dipped below the horizon,glowering at
her with its unnatural glare.She pulled her
tattered jacket more tightly around her,a chill
wind howling relentlessly across the barren
plain.
Eventually,she could stumble no further
and collapsed,exhausted,to the cracked dirt.
The wind screamed unsettlingly meaningless
sounds,whipping through her hair,trying to
rip her jacket away from her.She could not
lose that jacket,whatever happened.That was
when the ground disappeared.She fell,down
and down,faster and faster,until she could
no longer discern in which direction she
was falling.All was black around her.Blacker
than anything she thought possible,so that
the darkness seemed to leech off what little
glimmer of light there was until it no longer
existed.Perhaps more disconcerting was the
complete absence of sound.Nymeria snapped
her fingers,but they made no sound.Nothing.
When she woke,she was still in darkness.At
first she thought she couldn’t see or hear,but,
as her mind became less disorientated from
sleep,she remembered her predicament.Once
she was alert,she began to hope that her life
was back to normal.Then the cackling began.
It emanated from all around,piercing the
darkness like a stiletto blade through clothes.
It seemed to worm its way into her skull,
writhing and wriggling as it induced a mental
scream of anguish from her.She desperately
clamped her hands over her ears in the
futile hope that it would at least disperse the
otherworldly cry.She might have screamed,
but the only sound was the all-encompassing
cackle.She was aware that she was sobbing,
her body convulsing,the tears running down
her contorted face in an attempt to flee the
terrible sound.
Light.Nymeria could not tell whether it
was above,below,or next to her,nor did she
care.Light meant escape from this torture.
She blocked out the noise as best she could,
and struggled towards the light,but the
darkness seeming to physically pull her back,
wispy tendrils wrapping around her legs and
arms.She did not give in.She could not.
The cackling stopped as abruptly as it had
started and changed to a haunting melody,the
words barely discernible.Images of happiness,
peace and tranquillity rose unbidden in
her tormented mind,and she knew that if
she stopped struggling against this sentient
darkness,it would be hers.Inexplicably,her
will to reach the light waned,until it was as
small as the pinprick of salvation itself.Then
something jogged in her memory.The faint
memory of pure terror,not a strong feeling,
24
THE TERROR
26. but enough to make her shudder both inside and
out.Then it came back.She could not stay here.
They were coming.
She tore away from the tendrils and made towards
the light,the sentient darkness making a far more
concerted effort than before to keep her there.
However,for all the honeyed words and images of
paradise,Nymeria could not be swayed,still making
for the rapidly glowing window of light with
increased urgency.They were close.As she drew ever
closer,she faltered;the warm and radiant light of her
salvation had transformed into a malevolent dark
orange light.She could not turn back,They would
get her.She pelted headlong towards the light,until
an impossibly strong force knocked her through it
with more power than she thought possible.She
experienced an acute burning sensation,as if white-
hot needles were simultaneously piercing her entire
body,along with an unbearable white light that was
somehow even more frightening than the darkness.
She came to with a jolt.Looking around,she saw
nothing but white walls.And a door.She fervently
hoped that her ordeal was finally at an end,and
moved to wipe her eyes from the tears of relief
rolling down her cheeks.But she could not move –
straitjackets are not designed for ease of movement.
Then the door opened andThey came in,one
by one,deathly silent.Nymeria looked up to the
unbroken white ceiling:would this nightmare never
end?
26
27. 27
Boredom.
“Life,friends,is boring.We must not say so.”
- Line 1,Dream Song 14,John
Berryman
Why shouldn’t we say so?We all know
of boredom and we experience it often.
There are the weekly cycles of timetables
and designated classrooms,a calendar that
maps out further obligations for the rest
of the term.Before we see the calendar
to follow our current edition,we’ll be
granted a holiday that,though precious,
can feel as though it is still controlled by
less overt schedules and fallout-obligations
from the temporal nuke that’s term-time.
Our experiences every month,week,day
and minute,tend to be of things that we’ve
endured before.Eventually,this apparently
endless repetition at all levels of life feels as
though it changes us.Something,finally,feels
flattened,but not removed.It can be felt,but
isn’t that feeling just of what’s not there?
That may be quite a pessimistic view,but
it feels accurate.Feeling,however,is hardly
an accurate method of measurement.What,
then,can we resort to? Despite our regular
experience of boredom,it is difficult to
speak of it in clearer terms than ambiguities
like‘feeling’.So,let’s attempt to break down
boredom.
One of the major difficulties that arises from
this is that boredom seems to be a state of
mind (though it sometimes feels as though
it is a state of your whole being) that is
predicated on a lack.What,then,can we
latch onto as a foundation for any attempt
to understand it?The dictionary may offer
some assistance here.
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED)
defines‘boredom’as:
“weary and impatient because one is
unoccupied or lacks interest in something.”
Now we need to define some of the terms
used in that definition.‘Weary’relates to
‘tired’and‘tired’is defined as“in need of
sleep or rest.”Sleep and rest are basically a
lack of movement.‘Impatient’is based on
‘patience’and‘patience’is defined as:
“the capacity to tolerate delay,trouble or
suffering without becoming angry or upset.”
Finally,‘interest’is defined as (these are only
the relevant definitions):
“n.1.- the feeling of wanting to know about
something or someone – a quality exciting
curiosity or holding the attention – a subject
which one enjoys doing or studying.
4.a share or involvement in an undertaking
5.a group having a common concern,
especially in politics or business
v.1.– excite the curiosity or attention of –
persuade someone to undertake or acquire”
Now we can slot those definitions back
into the original definition,resulting in this
confusing thing:
“boredom – a state in which we become
angry or upset over delay,trouble or suffering
and/or need to stop doing whatever is taking
up our time because we’re either not doing
anything or we’re not doing something that
we enjoy or want to know more about or
have an involvement or concern in.”
by Max Smith
28. John Berryman
Essentially,what we are doing feels to us that
it amounts to nothing.That feeling makes us
“angry or upset”because of this action that
can produce“delay,trouble or suffering”.
This is echoed in Dream Song 14,a poem by
John Berryman.The narrator,Henry,explores
his boredom:“I conclude now I have no /
inner resources,because I am heavy bored.”
He then lists what bores him:“Peoples bore
me,/ literature bores me,especially great
literature...”In the end,even“tranquil hills,
& gin,look like a drag”and,finally,the poem
retreats into a nihilistic emptiness in which
Henry has become nothing but the legacy of a
wag of a dog’s tail:
“and somehow a dog / has taken itself & its
tail considerably away / into mountains or sea
or sky,leaving / behind:me,wag.”
It is presumably his boredom that has caused
Henry to descend into this state.The lack of
anything substantive and meaningful in his
existence has produced in him a boredom
and,therefore,an anger or upset so great
that he’s been swallowed up by it and thinks
of himself as so insignificant that he is no
longer anything more than the memory of a
movement of a banal part of an animal that
has disappeared.The poem does not offer
anything approaching hope or a chance of
brief respite.
David FosterWallace,however,delved into
boredom in his posthumous novel The Pale
King,released last year,and found something
else.The book explores the prevalence of
boredom in today’s world and in life overall.
In doing so,it tackles the pain of boredom,
like Berryman,though he finds something
more positive.
In Section 44,narrated by an unnamed
character,we find some statements that are
crucial to the book:
“I learned that the world of men as it exists
today is a bureaucracy.This is an obvious truth,
of course,though it is also one the ignorance
of which causes great suffering....
The underlying bureaucratic key is the ability
to deal with boredom.To function effectively
in an environment that precludes everything
vital and human.To breathe,so to speak,
without air.
The key is the ability,whether innate or
conditioned,to find the other side of the rote,
the picayune,the meaningless,the repetitive,
the pointlessly complex.To be,in a word,
unborable....
It is the key to modern life.If you are immune
to boredom,there is literally nothing you
cannot accomplish.”
This character offers us hope.We could
retreat into a“wag”,but that is painful and
inadequate.Instead,his character suggests that
embracing that boredom,however painful
at first,does,in the end,offer us something
better.Crucially,it’s something that helps us
to tolerate the boredom that we often cannot
escape.
28
29. David Foster Wallace
Wallace expands on this in a note included at
the back of the book:
“Ability to pay attention.It turns out that bliss
– a second-by-second joy + gratitude at the
gift of being alive,conscious – lies on the other
side of crushing,crushing boredom.Pay close
attention to the most tedious things you can
find (tax returns,televised golf),and,in waves,
a boredom like you’ve never known will wash
over you and just about kill you.Ride these
out,and it’s like stepping from black and white
into color.Like water after days in the desert.
Constant bliss in every atom.”
This echoes certain
Buddhist beliefs:the
transcendent state,
without suffering
or desire,of perfect
happiness that is nirvana,
and the concept of
rebirth in which all
of us are streams of
consciousness that are
reborn every moment
into a state that is
determined by our
actions in the previous
moment.These,amongst
others,emphasise
the transience and
consequent importance
of the present and a
happiness that can be
derived,partly,from an
awareness of the present.
AndreiTarkovsky’s 1979
film Stalker also involves this struggle with
the unattainable and the purity of the present.
In the film,there is an area called the‘Zone’.
It began to demonstrate certain supernatural
powers after an unexplained event,powers
that centred themselves on a house lying at the
heart of the Zone.When you enter a specific
room of that house,your deepest desire will
be fulfilled.However,everyone who has had
that desire fulfilled has killed themselves after a
week.Is it worth it?
In order to get there,you must be taken by
a Stalker who understands the power of the
Zone – inexplicable forces will contrive to
prevent you from walking straight to the
house.The longest route is the safest,and the
traps of the Zone are always changing.
One of the characters wanting to visit the
house – theWriter – talks at the start of the
film about boredom:
“My dear,our world is hopelessly boring.
Therefore,there can be no telepathy,or
apparitions,or flying saucers,nothing like that.
The world is ruled by
cast-iron laws,and it’s
insufferably boring.
Alas,those laws are
never violated.They
don’t know how to be
violated.So we don’t
ever hope for a UFO,
that would have been
too interesting.”
However,by the
end of the film,he
has lost some of this
sardonic attitude to
the boredom that he
perceives as being
inherent in the world.
TheWriter would
probably agree with
“Life,friends,is
boring.”
The Stalker’s daughter
is a‘child of the Zone’
who was born without the ability to walk.
We know almost nothing about her until the
end of the film,when the Stalker,theWriter
and the second person seeking the power
of the Zone,the Professor,have all returned
from the Zone.Now in the real,normal,
“insufferably boring”world that is governed
by the“cast-iron laws”theWriter spoke of,we
find out more of the Stalker’s daughter during
two scenes.Both of them are in colour,yet
colour is only ever used when the characters
29
30. Andrei Tarkovsky
are in the Zone;the normal world is always
in sepia.Despite,or perhaps because of,the
child’s disability and rejection from society
due to her abnormal nature as a child of the
Zone (though the Stalker and his wife are also
social outcasts),the child’s presence brings
colour to a world that’s otherwise dull and
almost monochrome.The first of these scenes
shows the daughter being carried on the
Stalker’s shoulders as they return home.The
second shows her sitting at a table,reading a
book.After a while,she rests her head on the
table and looks almost directly at the camera.
Dandelion seeds drift over the scene and we
hear birdsong.After more time in which she
does nothing but sit still in silence,staring,
one of the glasses on the table begins to move
towards the edge of the table and the viewer.
All of the glasses move over the table,without
being touched.Throughout this,the girl has
been staring at them,dull-eyed.Finally,the
second glass moves further,faster,and falls off
the table.We hear it roll away,intact.After a
while,the sound of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy
accompanies the sound of a military train
passing just outside the house;both of these
sounds are extremely loud.As the train passes
by,the scene becomes quiet again,but still
shakes.The camera zooms in on the girl’s face.
The film ends.
This slow,long scene is not boring.This
disabled,outcast young girl demonstrates,
quietly and slowly,her supernatural powers.
Despite her bleak situation that would
not maintain our interest for too long,the
girl manages to vindicate all the pain of
the characters who sought respite in the
tremendous and fatal power of the Zone.The
scene seems to parallel the processWallace
talks of.As the girl topples the glass and
demonstrates an innate greatness that overrides
all the pain and the slow pace of the rest of
the film,the addition of Beethoven’s Ode to
Joy helps to elevate the moment to something
wholly redemptive and hopeful.She shows us
and enables us to feel,despite or because of
her situation,“a constant bliss in every atom,”
an innate greatness that is beyond pain and
boredom.She shows us hope.
30
31. The Team
Contributors
Cillian Dunn
EdWheatley
Ben Farrand
TomTylerMax SmithSimon Hamlyn
Adam Beckwith
Fiction Editor
Ben Farrand
Non-Fiction Editor
EdWheatley
Art Editor and Illustrator
Simon Hamlyn
Editor and Designer
Max Smith
Thank you
Thank you for reading Issue 10 of Literary Lions.I hope you have enjoyed this
collection of articles,fiction,poetry and artwork on the theme of dreams and
nightmares.Keep an eye out for the launch of the Literary Lions website,where
you will be able to view everything from this issue and much more.Many thanks
to all who have contributed for their great work and for their commitment over
the past year.I would also like to thank Mrs O’Hanlon for her tireless support and
patience.
Note from the Editor
Special Thanks to
Mrs O’Hanlon
