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Báthory
Báthory, is a ''metempsychotic journal'' that dismantles language just as much as it constructs it. Words as virgins to be sacrificed and drained of their life substance, until Language is put on trial, and the Pure Word is reborn in a different form.
144 pages, Paperback
Published May 1, 2016
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About the author
A.G. Davis
4 books1 followerA.G. Davis is a writer and Desmond “Deetz” Mac Innes’s official biographer. The two met at an Aikido dojo in Chicago during Deetz’s wanderings away from himself. Davis has a doctorate degree in clinical psychology and has worked in social services as a therapist and a program administrator for over 30 years, helping people with wide-ranging backgrounds but who had one thing in common - they were trauma survivors looking for love. "The Roswell Discrepancy" is the start of a series of books focused on how longing and romance are experienced and lived differently by men. Davis currently lives just outside of Detroit, Michigan.
The Roswell Discrepancy was inspired by the lives of males, gay, bisexual, and straight, who were survivors of childhood sexual abuse and sought therapy from me in hopes of becoming open to real love despite what was done to them. They were not only victims groomed by trusted adults but also of a society that has, until very recently, ignored them or refused to label their experiences as trauma. May this book and the ones forthcoming in the series offer some hope for those I tried to help and the hundreds of thousands who I was never blessed to know.
This book is dedicated to my life partner, Mr. Grumpy, my amazing daughter, L.G., and to my Dad - the publication of a book is something he never got a chance to do; maybe this makes up for it).
The Roswell Discrepancy was inspired by the lives of males, gay, bisexual, and straight, who were survivors of childhood sexual abuse and sought therapy from me in hopes of becoming open to real love despite what was done to them. They were not only victims groomed by trusted adults but also of a society that has, until very recently, ignored them or refused to label their experiences as trauma. May this book and the ones forthcoming in the series offer some hope for those I tried to help and the hundreds of thousands who I was never blessed to know.
This book is dedicated to my life partner, Mr. Grumpy, my amazing daughter, L.G., and to my Dad - the publication of a book is something he never got a chance to do; maybe this makes up for it).
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December 7, 2016review of
AG Davis's Báthory
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 5, 2016
My full review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... . This version is cut off in the prime of its life.
"As I recall, my attention was 1st called to the work of AG Davis by Monty Cantsin in Belarus, probably in 2015, who told me that Davis was one of his favorite sound artists or some such. Not long thereafter, an offer was made to publish a split 7" lathecut record with a piece by me on one side & one by Davis on the other.
"We got in touch with each other online & traded by snail-mail. Davis sent me his "Bionicism" CD & a tape done in collaboration with {AN}-Eel possibly entitled "airporting roseate with crude basement xenakis" (nicely wrapped in fake fur), & a book of his entitled "Báthory" published by Abstract Editions. The proposed split 7" didn't happen & AG proposed that we collaborate. I counter-proposed that we each interview each other for my "Interviewee" & "Interviewer" websites. My interview by AG is here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/Intervi... .
The above is quoted from the introduction to an online interview I conducted by email w/ Davis. The simultaneous interview he conducted w/ me is also online here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/Intervi... . Both are worth consulting for more on the author under discussion here.
I started off interviewing Davis in a fairly straightforward way by asking him: "Do you consider yourself to be an outlaw?” to wch he replied:
“AG: I consider myself to be an outlaw, yes; laws, order, structure mean very little to me”
To wch he quickly amended:
AG: “Pitched maledictions are stuck within the borders of foul cards, a private read that spells ''INTENT'', these cards portray noumenal meat; Christ was possible, this condition remaining a bleeding jugular objecting to the reproving of the magnetism of self-espionage; because where does the desire derive, and what is desiring to excavate?
for wch he provided an addenda:
“i have to warn you, that altho i am very introspective, i have great difficulty putting my conclusions in regards to myself into words. i write better in a poetic form. straightforward answers are very difficult for me.”
& THAT's a pretty good beginning to trying to review Báthory wch is certainly NOT 'straightforward'. The "Báthory" referred to by the title is Elizabeth Báthory who "has been nicknamed The Blood Countess and Countess Dracula" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabe... ) b/c "Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed (" [..] "7 August 1560 - 21 August 1614) was a serial killer from the Báthory family of nobility in the Kingdom of Hungary. She has been labelled by Guinness World Records as the most prolific female murderer, though the precise number of her victims is debated. Báthory and four collaborators were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of young women between 1585 and 1609. The highest number of victims cited during Báthory's trial was 650." (ibid)
"According to all testimony, Báthory's initial victims were the adolescent daughters of local peasants, many of whom were lured to Csejte by offers of well paid work as maidservants in the castle. Later, she is said to have begun to kill daughters of the lesser gentry, who were sent to her gynaeceum by their parents to learn courtly etiquette. Abductions were said to have occurred as well. The atrocities described most consistently included severe beatings, burning or mutilation of hands, biting the flesh off the faces, arms and other body parts, freezing or starving to death." - ibid
Do you ever wonder why anti-aristocratic revolutions happened? Compare Báthory's abuse of her powerful position to the Marquis de Sade's similar buses. In Gilbert Lély's "definitive biography" of de Sade he carefully gets into the case of Rose Keller & her case against de Sade in wch she accused him of luring her to a place w/ false promises & of then physically abusing her. Keller claimed that she was lured w/ an offer of payment for 'doing out his room'. The Marquis claimed that he "made it clear to her that it was for a bout of libertinage." Keller accused de Sade of beating her w/ sticks. The Marquis said he "whipped her with a car-o'-nine-tails with knotted cords but used neither birch nor stick."
Lély observes that "Sade risked nothing by being cynically frank, while at the slightest hint of admission that Sade's was the true story, the woman risked incarceration." (all quotes & paraphrasings from Lély are from page 78 of the 1970 First Evergreen Black Cat paperback Edition) In other words, Keller, whose husband had died & who's out of cotton-spinning work, can be imprisoned for resorting to prostitution in an attempt to survive while Sade, secure in his inherited wealth, risks little by quibbling over whether he beat her w/ a cat-o'-nine-tails or a birch.
As it turned out, Sade was punished but Lély makes the case that this was for political reasons rather than necessarily out of any concern for the abuse of the poor by the rich. Lély quotes Maurice Heine as saying that:
""Then why so much fuss about a beating? The reason was that public opinion, with which a weakened central authority was to have to reckon more and more, had for a long time been made indignant by the impunity granted to misdeeds, or even crimes of libertinage, provided they were committed by somebody bearing one of the big names. The indulgence or at least the lenience shown in a high place to certain guilt persons, especially a prince of the Royal blood, Count de Carolais, notorious for his bloodthirsty fancies, demanded some compensation, a sort of sacrificial goat. . . .["]" - p 83, The Marquis de Sade - Gilbert Lély
Why "so much fuss about a beating?" How much fuss would there've been if Rose Keller, an unemployed cotton-spinner, had lured the Marquis de Sade to somewhere & beaten him? I'm sure the "fuss" wd've been considerably more.
I think of Philippe Biesmans's opera La Passion de Gilles about Gilles de Rais, born in 1404 in France. According to the bklt notes written by Philippe Reliquet accompanying the boxset of the opera that I have:
"Rais is foremost a very rich man" [..] "Good fortune has bequeathed him considerable land and wealth"
[..]
"More and more, Gilles de Rais ceases to fight and, instead, organizes fantastic, extravagant feasts, the most famous of these given in Orleans to commemorate the liberation of this city in 1435. Surrounded by a sumptuous court of parasites and leeches of all kinds, Rais goes bankrupt within a few years, sells his land and possessions, falls into debt and thus loses many of his privileges in France and Main."
[..]
"The Marshall, lost, turns to alchemy and witchcraft in the naive hope of finding gold and regaining his wealth."
[..]
"Meanwhile, the chaotic disorder in his life leads him to commit outrageous crimes over a period of eight years (1432-1440). He kidnaps young children who pass his way, rapes them, and tortures and kills them."
What seems left out in Reliquet's acct is that Rais, by having vast inherited wealth, has little practical knowledge about how to accumulate more wealth thru any methods other than criminal ones. Furthermore, having been born into power, it comes naturally to him to take it for granted that it's ok to abuse it & destroys the lives of children as part of this. It's part of his aristocratic 'natural order'.
My point in all this is that when I think of Báthory, I think of just another person born into power who uses this power to increase the sufferings of those less in power b/c her power enables her to get away w/ it much more than someone less empowered. Of course, other people might relish Báthory's sadism as the actions of a person 'free' to indulge in whatever fancies her irrespective of the harm it does others. Davis's reference to Báthory, however, seems to have little to do w/ either position or, perhaps, a tad to do w/ both. In my interview w/ him I asked him about this:
tENT: "09. Why did you name your book Bathory?"
"AG: 9. Bathory, as an historical character, was for me a perfect analogy for what i attempt to do with words in my work; the book had next to nothing to do, obviously, with the historical character as you pointed out; she was only a point of reference, a way to branch off into different territory -:here is the description from the 'Bathory' webpage: "Báthory, is a ''metempsychotic journal'' that dismantles language just as much as it constructs it. Words as virgins to be sacrificed and drained of their life substance, until Language is put on trial, and the Pure Word is reborn in a different form.''
"tENT: 10. Are you saying that you're kidnapping, torturing, & murdering the language you use?
"AG: . in my mind, yes - in other people's eyes (possibly nearly everyone): NO. which means the book might be a failure from other people's standpoint and with my intention in mind. oh well, i put it out there. that is good enough for me.
If I understand the above correctly, the bk, Báthory, itself is the 'sadist'. My question is: Is the bk also putting itself on trial or is that the reader's, the critic's, job? A religious undercurrent runs throughout the bk & the idea of the "Pure Word" being "reborn" seems consistent w/ that to me. Again, a comparison to Gilles de Rais seems appropriate given that he fought along w/ Joan of Arc & after her sacrifice as a heretic he switched from Christianity to witchcraft. The Marquis de Sade, too, was a heretic whose blasphemy I wholeheartedly support but not the form it took.
Davis's interview w/ me took a somewhat religious turn that I find illuminating in the light of the above analysis:
"AG: ? - what do you think, if anything, about the idea that if there is no god as of yet, that a god could be potentially created as an actual ''entity''? i know this question can only be answered with a somewhat inflexible definition of what ''god'' is, so i will define this potential god as an entity having all of the attributes of the christian conception of god: god as all-powerful, all knowing, etc., etc..--- as even though god would be created, it would have the ability to be anywhere/everywhere in space/time; therefor being a created god, but one which would, at its inception, grasp the entirety of space/time and be able to manipulate/control every aspect of space/time. it would become god retroactively; a god created by us, but paradoxically, its extension as god would retroactively encompass ALL, therefor making it able to know everything, past, present, and future. .
Such a notion of God might make Davis heretical in relation to dominant church ideologies in wch God creates Man & not the other way around. Báthory is full of the language of sadism & Biblical language intertwined in a way that might strike some as blasphemy:
"Farther hell, it's virtually symbolic safe thanks to God in a public spilled listener, because this is vigorously cognate and unlocked interwoven cantankerously. She
manumitted greedily on this sordid and fulsome nova. Likewise, Báthory as superb sadist pulled away and redid whereto deleted, but because fecal is a curious kind of moth ideas the greeting—headless."
"Thus, Lot exeunt sodomized depressing more of. Lark summer shingles chortles sums upper dash. Share Báthory stark start the plaster animation. On the nature of killjoy turmoil sinks horizontal statuettes. Divorced crisp refractory wrinkle from salvage tosses overt limp rain, said swipe ... Oh, Mary!"
"Seedless when plant first has, and the jester zips topless hound, seven hierophant letting lettering bursting, Amen."
Amen to WHAT, exactly? & the next paragraph yields: "Lycanthrope equation wasted portal crone folly, and mustard pastures are rotting." The religious, "Amen", mixed w/ the 'monstrous', "lycanthrope".
Davis falls back on the trope of being a "conduit" & ends my interview w/ him by saying:
"AG: yeah, the interview process is NOT for me. i simply can't give detailed explanations, or rather, any explanations for what i do. if someone wants a detailed explanation they can run a brain scan on me and get the data. what i do comes naturally. i dont think or dwell on it, i act. no theory. no thought. anything that i've said about any of my work has been formulated (often poorly so) after the fact, but only because i was ASKED by other ppl (publisher, etc.) to do so. don't try and find anything HERE in terms of explanations. i'm also NOT interested in others' work processes. so yeah, throw the interview in the trash and sorry for wasting your time. i do admire your work, and i'm sorry if i annoyed you - not my intentions - but it is what it is. THIS TAUGHT ME A LESSON THOUGH, and that is that I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY BEYOND MY WORKS THEMSELVES, as they stand as products of my actions, without thought, or very little thought - i am a conduit. i am not here to theorize on my work or offer any explanations. thank you."
I think it's quite possible for people to use stream-of-consciousness to bring to the surface what goes on in their sub- or un- conscious & I can accept that as being the case here. Perhaps Davis is letting a force flow thru him but I don't think the force 'originates' w/ a 'God', constructed or otherwise, as much as I think that it's a life-force that 'we' all have as an aspect of being alive. If I'm to put the language on trial it's fro me, as the reader/critic, to 'put the 'conduit' on trial' along w/ it. In other words, to criticize whether the 'conduit' is spurting out a lively automatic writing or a deadened example of language subjected to too many irrelevant expectations - irrelevant b/c they reflect more notions about the force than the force itself. I think of William S. Burroughs's cut-ups being channeled into novelistic narrative form & I think of Bob Cobbing's contrastingly more 'pure' atomization of language. I think Davis does a pretty good job of avoiding entrapment in the obvious. That sd, Davis's very lack of theory & control might be what I'd consider to be Báthory's ultimate weak spot. Consider this exchange from Davis's interview w/ me:
"AG: question: you obviously are antipathetic toward words which have become stock, or, rather are generally perceived as being words that relate to things in a strict given manner, such as the word 'god' - or rather - words whose connotations have almost become denotations. why is this? i mean, beyond the obvious of 'this necessarily' necessarily means this, and nothing more...to be honest, i like playing with these strict words, as they usually don't mean the same to me as other people might imagine them meaning, or believe them to mean; they might be buzzwords for most ppl, but it depends on the take, my take being the marginal, the understated, the ignored, the UN-canonical. is it the word 'god' which bothers you bc of what it represents to the majority, or, is it because of something else - maybe the idea that you might not be in control?
"tENT: Actually, I use stock words all the time. Starting in the 1970s I often framed my texts w/ quotation marks meant to signify that the language I was using wasn't mine, I was simply arranging it. SO, I'm not necessarily "antipathetic toward words which have become stock" given that I use common articles, prepositions, etc.. Therefore, I'm not "antipathetic" toward a word that begins w/ the 7th letter of the alphabet I use, has as its middle letter the 15th one, & ends w/ the 4th. God god god god; god god god god god, god god.
"However, I was raised in a Christian family. My mom was a Sunday School teacher, my sister was a missionary, the woman who introduced my mom & stepdad was a missionary, one of my stepdad's brothers was an army chaplain. The man who lived at the end of my small dead end street was a street preacher. His legs had been blown off in Vietnam. He walked on his hands, wch he wrapped in rags. Since he knew that I was both an atheist & opposed to the Vietnam War & to war in general he followed me around on his hands screaming that I was going to go to hell. He had discussions about this w/ my mom. She agreed w/ him.
"The point is it's not the signifier that I am "antipathetic" toward it's what's signified. People use the idea of a supreme being to pass the responsibility buck: 'It's God's will' & that sort of thing. Given that I'm an anarchist & a person who prefers to take responsibility for my own actions I choose to, therefore, have as much control over those actions as I can manage. As w/ almost, or all, of the questions you ask me, you phrase the following question in an either/or way that leaves no room for my actual opinion unless I sidestep your provided answers (as I'm about to do): "is it the word 'god' which bothers you bc of what it represents to the majority, or, is it because of something else - maybe the idea that you might not be in control?":
"As already explained, the word is irrelevant. The "idea that you might not be in control" is closer to what might bother me. Imagine this: I'm driving on a street where children are playing, you grab the wheel of the car & try to force me to run over the children. I struggle w/ you to regain control of the car while pushing the brake firmly down to prevent any further motion toward the endangered. You say: "What's the matter? Are you bothered "that you might not be in control?"" I park the car as safely as I can, remove the keys & try to get you to leave the car or get a safe distance away from you. I'm not going to run over the kids b/c 'God told me to'. No thanks. I prefer to be responsible.
My initial impression of Báthory is that it's like a cross between Comte de Lautréamont's Les Chants de Maldoror & Language Poetry. I don't truthfully think that Báthory is a great as either but I still think that's an interesting combination. The "Prologue"'s single paragraph is a good introduction to the overall style & content:
"A single bloody finger beyond a bloody hand approaches negative antithesis in which mental anesthesia imploded its inner shell, purging its being. I mounted this leftover shell out of curiosity, and I peered inside ..."
Compare that to this section of Les Chants de Maldoror chosen (somewhat) 'at random':
"When I set upon my heart this mute and delirious interrogation it is less for the majesty of form, for the picture of reality, than that the sobriety of style conducts itself in such a manner. Whoever you are, defend yourself, for I am about tom fling in your teeth a terrible accusation: those eyes do not belong to you . . . where did you steal them? One day I saw a fair woman passing before me; she had eyes like yours: you tore them from her." - pp 184-185, New Directions paperback edition, translated by Guy Wernham
"Being not herself, Mary bristled in reverse typing facsimile introductions ... flowed my screening of screens behind mirrors; she bathed in hot cells. RNA my collapsed modern pornographic minds sequestered dimes apoplexy. Dead room bombardment iron this sadist pool hopping away, away, away. The flash mobile bomb upchuck finances, all for pecuniary attitude; coming is not frugal in wanting lights."
AG Davis's Báthory
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 5, 2016
My full review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... . This version is cut off in the prime of its life.
"As I recall, my attention was 1st called to the work of AG Davis by Monty Cantsin in Belarus, probably in 2015, who told me that Davis was one of his favorite sound artists or some such. Not long thereafter, an offer was made to publish a split 7" lathecut record with a piece by me on one side & one by Davis on the other.
"We got in touch with each other online & traded by snail-mail. Davis sent me his "Bionicism" CD & a tape done in collaboration with {AN}-Eel possibly entitled "airporting roseate with crude basement xenakis" (nicely wrapped in fake fur), & a book of his entitled "Báthory" published by Abstract Editions. The proposed split 7" didn't happen & AG proposed that we collaborate. I counter-proposed that we each interview each other for my "Interviewee" & "Interviewer" websites. My interview by AG is here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/Intervi... .
The above is quoted from the introduction to an online interview I conducted by email w/ Davis. The simultaneous interview he conducted w/ me is also online here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/Intervi... . Both are worth consulting for more on the author under discussion here.
I started off interviewing Davis in a fairly straightforward way by asking him: "Do you consider yourself to be an outlaw?” to wch he replied:
“AG: I consider myself to be an outlaw, yes; laws, order, structure mean very little to me”
To wch he quickly amended:
AG: “Pitched maledictions are stuck within the borders of foul cards, a private read that spells ''INTENT'', these cards portray noumenal meat; Christ was possible, this condition remaining a bleeding jugular objecting to the reproving of the magnetism of self-espionage; because where does the desire derive, and what is desiring to excavate?
for wch he provided an addenda:
“i have to warn you, that altho i am very introspective, i have great difficulty putting my conclusions in regards to myself into words. i write better in a poetic form. straightforward answers are very difficult for me.”
& THAT's a pretty good beginning to trying to review Báthory wch is certainly NOT 'straightforward'. The "Báthory" referred to by the title is Elizabeth Báthory who "has been nicknamed The Blood Countess and Countess Dracula" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabe... ) b/c "Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed (" [..] "7 August 1560 - 21 August 1614) was a serial killer from the Báthory family of nobility in the Kingdom of Hungary. She has been labelled by Guinness World Records as the most prolific female murderer, though the precise number of her victims is debated. Báthory and four collaborators were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of young women between 1585 and 1609. The highest number of victims cited during Báthory's trial was 650." (ibid)
"According to all testimony, Báthory's initial victims were the adolescent daughters of local peasants, many of whom were lured to Csejte by offers of well paid work as maidservants in the castle. Later, she is said to have begun to kill daughters of the lesser gentry, who were sent to her gynaeceum by their parents to learn courtly etiquette. Abductions were said to have occurred as well. The atrocities described most consistently included severe beatings, burning or mutilation of hands, biting the flesh off the faces, arms and other body parts, freezing or starving to death." - ibid
Do you ever wonder why anti-aristocratic revolutions happened? Compare Báthory's abuse of her powerful position to the Marquis de Sade's similar buses. In Gilbert Lély's "definitive biography" of de Sade he carefully gets into the case of Rose Keller & her case against de Sade in wch she accused him of luring her to a place w/ false promises & of then physically abusing her. Keller claimed that she was lured w/ an offer of payment for 'doing out his room'. The Marquis claimed that he "made it clear to her that it was for a bout of libertinage." Keller accused de Sade of beating her w/ sticks. The Marquis said he "whipped her with a car-o'-nine-tails with knotted cords but used neither birch nor stick."
Lély observes that "Sade risked nothing by being cynically frank, while at the slightest hint of admission that Sade's was the true story, the woman risked incarceration." (all quotes & paraphrasings from Lély are from page 78 of the 1970 First Evergreen Black Cat paperback Edition) In other words, Keller, whose husband had died & who's out of cotton-spinning work, can be imprisoned for resorting to prostitution in an attempt to survive while Sade, secure in his inherited wealth, risks little by quibbling over whether he beat her w/ a cat-o'-nine-tails or a birch.
As it turned out, Sade was punished but Lély makes the case that this was for political reasons rather than necessarily out of any concern for the abuse of the poor by the rich. Lély quotes Maurice Heine as saying that:
""Then why so much fuss about a beating? The reason was that public opinion, with which a weakened central authority was to have to reckon more and more, had for a long time been made indignant by the impunity granted to misdeeds, or even crimes of libertinage, provided they were committed by somebody bearing one of the big names. The indulgence or at least the lenience shown in a high place to certain guilt persons, especially a prince of the Royal blood, Count de Carolais, notorious for his bloodthirsty fancies, demanded some compensation, a sort of sacrificial goat. . . .["]" - p 83, The Marquis de Sade - Gilbert Lély
Why "so much fuss about a beating?" How much fuss would there've been if Rose Keller, an unemployed cotton-spinner, had lured the Marquis de Sade to somewhere & beaten him? I'm sure the "fuss" wd've been considerably more.
I think of Philippe Biesmans's opera La Passion de Gilles about Gilles de Rais, born in 1404 in France. According to the bklt notes written by Philippe Reliquet accompanying the boxset of the opera that I have:
"Rais is foremost a very rich man" [..] "Good fortune has bequeathed him considerable land and wealth"
[..]
"More and more, Gilles de Rais ceases to fight and, instead, organizes fantastic, extravagant feasts, the most famous of these given in Orleans to commemorate the liberation of this city in 1435. Surrounded by a sumptuous court of parasites and leeches of all kinds, Rais goes bankrupt within a few years, sells his land and possessions, falls into debt and thus loses many of his privileges in France and Main."
[..]
"The Marshall, lost, turns to alchemy and witchcraft in the naive hope of finding gold and regaining his wealth."
[..]
"Meanwhile, the chaotic disorder in his life leads him to commit outrageous crimes over a period of eight years (1432-1440). He kidnaps young children who pass his way, rapes them, and tortures and kills them."
What seems left out in Reliquet's acct is that Rais, by having vast inherited wealth, has little practical knowledge about how to accumulate more wealth thru any methods other than criminal ones. Furthermore, having been born into power, it comes naturally to him to take it for granted that it's ok to abuse it & destroys the lives of children as part of this. It's part of his aristocratic 'natural order'.
My point in all this is that when I think of Báthory, I think of just another person born into power who uses this power to increase the sufferings of those less in power b/c her power enables her to get away w/ it much more than someone less empowered. Of course, other people might relish Báthory's sadism as the actions of a person 'free' to indulge in whatever fancies her irrespective of the harm it does others. Davis's reference to Báthory, however, seems to have little to do w/ either position or, perhaps, a tad to do w/ both. In my interview w/ him I asked him about this:
tENT: "09. Why did you name your book Bathory?"
"AG: 9. Bathory, as an historical character, was for me a perfect analogy for what i attempt to do with words in my work; the book had next to nothing to do, obviously, with the historical character as you pointed out; she was only a point of reference, a way to branch off into different territory -:here is the description from the 'Bathory' webpage: "Báthory, is a ''metempsychotic journal'' that dismantles language just as much as it constructs it. Words as virgins to be sacrificed and drained of their life substance, until Language is put on trial, and the Pure Word is reborn in a different form.''
"tENT: 10. Are you saying that you're kidnapping, torturing, & murdering the language you use?
"AG: . in my mind, yes - in other people's eyes (possibly nearly everyone): NO. which means the book might be a failure from other people's standpoint and with my intention in mind. oh well, i put it out there. that is good enough for me.
If I understand the above correctly, the bk, Báthory, itself is the 'sadist'. My question is: Is the bk also putting itself on trial or is that the reader's, the critic's, job? A religious undercurrent runs throughout the bk & the idea of the "Pure Word" being "reborn" seems consistent w/ that to me. Again, a comparison to Gilles de Rais seems appropriate given that he fought along w/ Joan of Arc & after her sacrifice as a heretic he switched from Christianity to witchcraft. The Marquis de Sade, too, was a heretic whose blasphemy I wholeheartedly support but not the form it took.
Davis's interview w/ me took a somewhat religious turn that I find illuminating in the light of the above analysis:
"AG: ? - what do you think, if anything, about the idea that if there is no god as of yet, that a god could be potentially created as an actual ''entity''? i know this question can only be answered with a somewhat inflexible definition of what ''god'' is, so i will define this potential god as an entity having all of the attributes of the christian conception of god: god as all-powerful, all knowing, etc., etc..--- as even though god would be created, it would have the ability to be anywhere/everywhere in space/time; therefor being a created god, but one which would, at its inception, grasp the entirety of space/time and be able to manipulate/control every aspect of space/time. it would become god retroactively; a god created by us, but paradoxically, its extension as god would retroactively encompass ALL, therefor making it able to know everything, past, present, and future. .
Such a notion of God might make Davis heretical in relation to dominant church ideologies in wch God creates Man & not the other way around. Báthory is full of the language of sadism & Biblical language intertwined in a way that might strike some as blasphemy:
"Farther hell, it's virtually symbolic safe thanks to God in a public spilled listener, because this is vigorously cognate and unlocked interwoven cantankerously. She
manumitted greedily on this sordid and fulsome nova. Likewise, Báthory as superb sadist pulled away and redid whereto deleted, but because fecal is a curious kind of moth ideas the greeting—headless."
"Thus, Lot exeunt sodomized depressing more of. Lark summer shingles chortles sums upper dash. Share Báthory stark start the plaster animation. On the nature of killjoy turmoil sinks horizontal statuettes. Divorced crisp refractory wrinkle from salvage tosses overt limp rain, said swipe ... Oh, Mary!"
"Seedless when plant first has, and the jester zips topless hound, seven hierophant letting lettering bursting, Amen."
Amen to WHAT, exactly? & the next paragraph yields: "Lycanthrope equation wasted portal crone folly, and mustard pastures are rotting." The religious, "Amen", mixed w/ the 'monstrous', "lycanthrope".
Davis falls back on the trope of being a "conduit" & ends my interview w/ him by saying:
"AG: yeah, the interview process is NOT for me. i simply can't give detailed explanations, or rather, any explanations for what i do. if someone wants a detailed explanation they can run a brain scan on me and get the data. what i do comes naturally. i dont think or dwell on it, i act. no theory. no thought. anything that i've said about any of my work has been formulated (often poorly so) after the fact, but only because i was ASKED by other ppl (publisher, etc.) to do so. don't try and find anything HERE in terms of explanations. i'm also NOT interested in others' work processes. so yeah, throw the interview in the trash and sorry for wasting your time. i do admire your work, and i'm sorry if i annoyed you - not my intentions - but it is what it is. THIS TAUGHT ME A LESSON THOUGH, and that is that I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY BEYOND MY WORKS THEMSELVES, as they stand as products of my actions, without thought, or very little thought - i am a conduit. i am not here to theorize on my work or offer any explanations. thank you."
I think it's quite possible for people to use stream-of-consciousness to bring to the surface what goes on in their sub- or un- conscious & I can accept that as being the case here. Perhaps Davis is letting a force flow thru him but I don't think the force 'originates' w/ a 'God', constructed or otherwise, as much as I think that it's a life-force that 'we' all have as an aspect of being alive. If I'm to put the language on trial it's fro me, as the reader/critic, to 'put the 'conduit' on trial' along w/ it. In other words, to criticize whether the 'conduit' is spurting out a lively automatic writing or a deadened example of language subjected to too many irrelevant expectations - irrelevant b/c they reflect more notions about the force than the force itself. I think of William S. Burroughs's cut-ups being channeled into novelistic narrative form & I think of Bob Cobbing's contrastingly more 'pure' atomization of language. I think Davis does a pretty good job of avoiding entrapment in the obvious. That sd, Davis's very lack of theory & control might be what I'd consider to be Báthory's ultimate weak spot. Consider this exchange from Davis's interview w/ me:
"AG: question: you obviously are antipathetic toward words which have become stock, or, rather are generally perceived as being words that relate to things in a strict given manner, such as the word 'god' - or rather - words whose connotations have almost become denotations. why is this? i mean, beyond the obvious of 'this necessarily' necessarily means this, and nothing more...to be honest, i like playing with these strict words, as they usually don't mean the same to me as other people might imagine them meaning, or believe them to mean; they might be buzzwords for most ppl, but it depends on the take, my take being the marginal, the understated, the ignored, the UN-canonical. is it the word 'god' which bothers you bc of what it represents to the majority, or, is it because of something else - maybe the idea that you might not be in control?
"tENT: Actually, I use stock words all the time. Starting in the 1970s I often framed my texts w/ quotation marks meant to signify that the language I was using wasn't mine, I was simply arranging it. SO, I'm not necessarily "antipathetic toward words which have become stock" given that I use common articles, prepositions, etc.. Therefore, I'm not "antipathetic" toward a word that begins w/ the 7th letter of the alphabet I use, has as its middle letter the 15th one, & ends w/ the 4th. God god god god; god god god god god, god god.
"However, I was raised in a Christian family. My mom was a Sunday School teacher, my sister was a missionary, the woman who introduced my mom & stepdad was a missionary, one of my stepdad's brothers was an army chaplain. The man who lived at the end of my small dead end street was a street preacher. His legs had been blown off in Vietnam. He walked on his hands, wch he wrapped in rags. Since he knew that I was both an atheist & opposed to the Vietnam War & to war in general he followed me around on his hands screaming that I was going to go to hell. He had discussions about this w/ my mom. She agreed w/ him.
"The point is it's not the signifier that I am "antipathetic" toward it's what's signified. People use the idea of a supreme being to pass the responsibility buck: 'It's God's will' & that sort of thing. Given that I'm an anarchist & a person who prefers to take responsibility for my own actions I choose to, therefore, have as much control over those actions as I can manage. As w/ almost, or all, of the questions you ask me, you phrase the following question in an either/or way that leaves no room for my actual opinion unless I sidestep your provided answers (as I'm about to do): "is it the word 'god' which bothers you bc of what it represents to the majority, or, is it because of something else - maybe the idea that you might not be in control?":
"As already explained, the word is irrelevant. The "idea that you might not be in control" is closer to what might bother me. Imagine this: I'm driving on a street where children are playing, you grab the wheel of the car & try to force me to run over the children. I struggle w/ you to regain control of the car while pushing the brake firmly down to prevent any further motion toward the endangered. You say: "What's the matter? Are you bothered "that you might not be in control?"" I park the car as safely as I can, remove the keys & try to get you to leave the car or get a safe distance away from you. I'm not going to run over the kids b/c 'God told me to'. No thanks. I prefer to be responsible.
My initial impression of Báthory is that it's like a cross between Comte de Lautréamont's Les Chants de Maldoror & Language Poetry. I don't truthfully think that Báthory is a great as either but I still think that's an interesting combination. The "Prologue"'s single paragraph is a good introduction to the overall style & content:
"A single bloody finger beyond a bloody hand approaches negative antithesis in which mental anesthesia imploded its inner shell, purging its being. I mounted this leftover shell out of curiosity, and I peered inside ..."
Compare that to this section of Les Chants de Maldoror chosen (somewhat) 'at random':
"When I set upon my heart this mute and delirious interrogation it is less for the majesty of form, for the picture of reality, than that the sobriety of style conducts itself in such a manner. Whoever you are, defend yourself, for I am about tom fling in your teeth a terrible accusation: those eyes do not belong to you . . . where did you steal them? One day I saw a fair woman passing before me; she had eyes like yours: you tore them from her." - pp 184-185, New Directions paperback edition, translated by Guy Wernham
"Being not herself, Mary bristled in reverse typing facsimile introductions ... flowed my screening of screens behind mirrors; she bathed in hot cells. RNA my collapsed modern pornographic minds sequestered dimes apoplexy. Dead room bombardment iron this sadist pool hopping away, away, away. The flash mobile bomb upchuck finances, all for pecuniary attitude; coming is not frugal in wanting lights."
March 4, 2017
"Báthory: A nudity to explosions, themselves repose bleeding wounds, particles of a journey without a head."
Davis' Bathory follows a literary tradition of breaking away from simple narrative in order to linguistically capture the vivid soundscape uttered by our multi-dimensional reality.
The reader is encouraged to relive the confusion suffered by Elizabeth Bathory's victims. The apparent heartlessness of the author is shrouded in a divine poetic capable of mapping unexplored consciousness.
Similar writers:
James Joyce
Derek Beaulieu
William S. Burroughs
Aldous Huxley
William Blake
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