Thesis Cult Fiction (Final Version) PDF

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Cult Fiction A Definition, a Concise History and an Analysis of its Place in Literature

MA Thesis English Language and Culture, Utrecht University Programme Western Literature and Culture Marije Takens Student number 0038210 Supervisor Dr. Onno Kosters Co-reader Dr. Monica Jansen May 2007

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O Cult “And as for you, we wanted only to spare you the ridicule of those who would use the word ‘occult’ to mean ‘evil cult’. It means not ‘cult’ at all but ‘occluded’ -‘invisible to the eye’ -- what of it? Even ‘cult’ means only ‘adoration’.” “To spare you”, one went on, “accusations of evil or insanity or sham.” And then the pen rolled softly on the page. “Sham is the pretense that you speak for us. Sham is a fake way to a truer truth. Evil is a notion nonexistent in the realm of thought, for thought my love is never evil, despite its ugliness. Thought is idea, evil is the act.” And insanity? “Lie down on your back And count and bless the stars that you can keep the count: there is no more terrible fate than a mind whose several elements will not combine, will no coordinate.” “So like the vast of space”, one said, “beyond the cosmic confines far away out there in the realm of chaos where planets roll at wild will and often smash where some stars rise and others fall at random and some implode. No, hidden as we are we cling, as you do, to a sense of hope, a hope of hope, a hope of sensible order.” “And adoration is an attitude of general adoring, objectless, or angled toward an object out of sight, more of adorer than of thing adored.” Sarah Arvio

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Contents General Introduction Cult Fiction

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Chapter 1 Etymology and the Critics 1.1 Etymology 1.2 The Anthologies and Thomas Reed Whissen 1.3 Clive Bloom 1.4 Reed Whissen versus Bloom

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Chapter 2 Three Centuries of Cult Fiction Introduction 2.1 The 18th Century and The Sorrows of Young Werther 2.1.1 The 18th Century 2.1.2 The Sorrows of Young Werther 2.2 The 19th Century and The Call of Cthulhu 2.2.1 The 19th Century 2.2.2 The Call of Cthulhu 2.3 The 20th Century and Pulp 2.3.1 The 20th Century 2.3.2 Pulp

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Chapter 3 Bourdieu’s Dynamic Model

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Conclusion The Finale

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Bibliography References

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The front page features a photograph of H.P. Lovecraft

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General Introduction Cult Fiction This is an analysis of cult fiction and its place in literature. Analysing cult fiction is a difficult thing to do, since what is meant by it is highly evasive and sensitive to many different interpretations. After all, what exactly is cult fiction? On hearing the term, most people will be able to come up with a certain idea or definition or to sum up a few titles, but ideas and definitions always remain quite vague and why exactly the works mentioned are categorised as cult largely remains a mystery. A clear definition is seldom given. Nevertheless, many have a feeling about what it is. This is important, since, as we will see, feelings for and attitudes towards literature are what characterises cult fiction to a large extent. It also means, however, that interpretations vary enormously, since feeling is something very personal and subjective. In this way, the riddle is not quite solved. It is very likely that complexity of the cult fiction phenomenon is the reason why so little has been written on the topic, and vice versa. The term cult is used very often nowadays, but usually not in an analytical context. Literary works are simply labelled cult every day and everywhere, without any explanation of why they are – probably because this is not clear, or because people assume that everybody knows the reason. Admittedly, attempts to define cult fiction are increasingly made nowadays, for example in anthologies, newspaper articles and, of course, in these pages.1 However, on the whole these attempts are of relatively low frequency when compared to straightforward labelling. Especially in academic discourse the amount of literature on cult fiction is extremely small; the total score is only two specialist books written by Thomas Reed Whissen and Clive Bloom.2 This poses an additional challenge for the determined investigator, as small amounts of informational material are less likely to offer an insight than extensive libraries. Nevertheless, it should be held in mind that quality counts, not quantity. When dealing with such a complex topic as cult fiction it is always good not only to look at specialist material – i.e. critical writings on and surveys of the topic itself –, but also at related fields of study. Therefore, certain areas of historical and cultural studies – e.g. popular culture theory – have additionally been looked into here when considered to be of importance. This 1

One example is an article in the NRC, a leading Dutch newspaper, dated Friday 15 September 2006 (Veilbrief, Arnoud. “Kom maar op, zombies!” EN: “Come on, zombies!”). 2 The various non-specialist anthologies published on the topic are left out of consideration here, as they do not provide a solid definition. It should be noted that the exact nature of Bloom’s work is somewhat dubious as well. The anthologies and Bloom are dealt with in chapter 1.

5 broadens the perspective and is indispensable when investigating a literary concept gearing into many cultural aspects of society. Reed Whissen states that “[…] an examination of cult literature is much more than an exercise in literary analysis. In fact, the literary insights it provides, probing as they may be, are often incidental to the cultural ones” (xii). Moreover, even when investigating topics that are, at first sight, not directly relevant to an understanding of cult fiction, the identity of the latter becomes clearer through difference and contrast. Reed Whissen correctly observes: “Separately [cult books] might have no assured place in literary history. Only time will tell. But together they constitute a genre as distinct as the gothic novel or trench poetry or the theater of the absurd. To label this genre ‘cult fiction’ is to risk confusion with the seamier connotation of ‘cult’ (as well as ‘occult’), but properly understood, it comes about as close to identifying this rogue species as any label can” (xi). According to Reed Whissen, it is possible to investigate cult fiction like any other literary or cultural phenomenon. Such possibility of “identification” has given rise to this thesis. It has also strongly been motivated by the conviction that the topic dealt with here has been underrated and – consequently – ignored too often on an academic level.3 The phenomenon cult fiction exists and is of importance for (contemporary) literature and culture. When its identity is more thoroughly revealed, this does not only provide a better understanding of cult fiction, but also of literature and culture as a whole. More specifically: an investigation into a genre often associated with pulp, popular and lowbrow art and literature does more than saying something about the character of the genre itself. It inevitably also offers an insight into the nature of highbrow art and the literary canon as well as the way cult function functions in it. Therefore, this is more than a search for a definition; it is also an attempt to show what the place of cult fiction is in literature. At the same time, a concise history is given. Chapter one defines the concept cult fiction. It opens with an investigation of the origin of the word cult, and after this an overview of the work of the two most important critics who have written about cult fiction follows. These theorists are compared and contrasted, and their theories are subsequently linked to the etymology of the term. Before introducing the theorists, a brief overview is given of the various anthologies that exist on cult fiction. Chapter two investigates three centuries of cult fiction, the 18th, the 19th and the 20th century, and deals with the place of 3

An acknowledgement of the growing importance of deviant literature in the academe is in place here. For example, in 2006 I followed a course on contemporary Italian pulp writers and the Italian ‘noir’ (i.e. the Giovani Cannibali) at my university (Utrecht University, The Netherlands). Still, this was first and foremost a course on Italian postmodernism (Tutorial Postmodernismo) in which the writers and their novels were used as illustrations.

6 cult fiction in literature. Three novels – Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu and Bukowski’s Pulp – are used as illustrations of the cult fiction genre and the definition from chapter one comes back. Chapter three applies the philosophy of Pierre Bourdieu to the concept cult fiction. At the end of this thesis a conclusion is provided.

Chapter 1 Etymology and the Critics 1.1 Etymology and Usage

7 The meaning of the term cult that is most important here is “very popular with a particular group of people; treating sb/sth as a cult figure, etc.” (Hornby, 306). This description is essential for our understanding of cult fiction. Something ought to be said about the original meaning of the word in order to be able to fully grasp this later, ‘modern’ meaning. Cult is derived from the Latin word cultus meaning ‘adoration’ or ‘care’, usually linked to a context of religious practice (Pinkster, 249). The Romans also linked it to ‘cultivation’, and the word originally meant ‘tended’ or ‘cultivated’, evoking an agricultural atmosphere (Pinkster, 249).4 Subsequently connecting the term to religious adoration or worship, which apparently happened in Latin semantics, is not so strange, as this practice can be seen as a way of cultivating a certain belief. In this literal, traditional sense of the term the context of religious practice more concretely takes shape in “[an exclusive] system of religious beliefs and rituals” (“Definition: Cult”, 1). The adherents of this system, in their turn, can also be considered a cult (“Definition: Cult”, 1). All this sounds rather general and neutral, and it is. That is, in the first stage of their existence cults were first and foremost religious groups simply practising their beliefs. There were no negative connotations accompanying the term back then. There was, for example, the ancient cult of Dyonisus, which existed in Greece since 1250 B.C. (“Dyonisus/Bacchus”, 2 ).5 About his character we can read: “Dyonisus was the Greek god of wine and ecstatic experience, as well as vegetation, death and rebirth. As a nature god, he slept through the winter and awoke with the spring. Thus he was identified with the springtime, and his emblems were the vine and the phallus” (“Dyonisus/Bacchus”, 1). There were elaborate ceremonies in the cult and rituals included wine drinking and a communal meal of a bull during which the adherents attempted to break free from the fixed rules of society. The initiation ceremony involved a ritual of symbolical death and rebirth (“Dyonisus/Bacchus”, 2). The cult became popular in the 7-6th centuries B.C. and due to Alexander the Great’s conquests Dyonisus’ worship spread outside Greece and eventually reached Rome. The Romans came to identify Dyonisus with Bakchos or Bacchus, who is originally thought to have been a Lydian historical figure, as well as with the old Italian god Liber (Moormann & Uitterhoeve, 195). It seems that some time after the Romans encountered the Dyonisus cult the trouble began. The Romans did not always accept the cult because of its ecstatic rituals and restrictions 4

This is also the root meaning of the word culture, which is, however, of no specific importance here (Pinkster, 249 and “Culture”, 1). 5 This, of course, was long before the Roman Empire took shape, and the Greeks will have called their ‘cult’ differently. The Romans only used the name later on, for the same phenomenon.

8 were imposed in 186 A.D. (“Dyonisus/Bacchus”, 2). This only increased when the Romans came to embrace Christianity, essentially another, but newer cult. Constantine the Great was the first emperor to dramatically christianise the Empire around 312 A.D. and became openly hostile to the pagan cults. Some which were deemed sexually immoral were forbidden and repressed (“Roman Religion”, 27). The orgiastic nature of the Bacchus cult must have caused it to be among the first to have undergone this fate (Moorman & Uitterhoeve, 196). Since this time, the negative connotation clinging to the word cult has been in existence in common and popular language usage. A cult is formally “a system of religious beliefs and practices” (Hornby, 306), but is generally thought to be “a small group of people who have extreme religious beliefs and who are not part of any established religion” (Hornby, 306). Most people see cults as closed religious groups usually lead by a charismatic leader whose members collectively commit suicide at times. Another term for cult is sect, which can be described as “a small group of people who belong to a particular religion but who have some beliefs or practices which separate them from the rest of the group” (Hornby, 1154). Again, this definition is not negative in itself, but in popular usage sect evokes as much repugnance as does cult. It appears that at a certain moment in history the term cult also came to be used in a more secular way rather than only in the sense of ‘religious practice’. In certain cases the explicitly religious context went, but what remained was its essence of ‘worship’ and ‘devotion’, transferred onto other, more ‘worldly’ topics. This has caused the ‘modern’ meaning of the word. It has become common to refer to non-religious groups as displaying cult-like characteristics. When, for example, people show great devotion to a famous singer, e.g. Madonna, it is possible to speak of the ‘Madonna cult’. To summarise, when religious-like devotion towards someone or something is exhibited by a group of people this can be called a cult, and the object of their devotion receives the same adjective. Cult fiction is therefore fiction which is admired almost religiously. Who first applied the term to fiction remains unclear, however.6 1.2 The Anthologies and Thomas Reed Whissen Many guides and anthologies have been written on cult fiction. For this reason, one would think that much information exists on the nature of the topic. However, in reality this is not the case. The authors of these guides usually give long lists of works – mostly novels – which 6

The emphasis is on literature here, to be more precise novels. It should be noted that fiction is a broad concept, which also includes comic books, films, etc. In fact, as the word implies, it includes everything that is thought up or imagined in storytelling.

9 according to them can be considered cult fiction, without providing the reader with much explanation of why exactly these are included. This is why it is easy for a reader to get lost among all the titles in most guides, eventually drowning in their abundance while still not really grasping it. The reader gets an idea of what cult fiction is, but this idea remains rather vague. One of these works is The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction, the back cover of which promises it to be “[…] an eclectic and essential guide to the literary world’s greatest cult authors and the facts behind their fiction” (370). At the beginning of the guide an attempt is made to define “what makes an author and a book cult” (3), which largely captures the essence of the concept: “[it] implies lengthy and irrational devotion probably, though not necessarily, by an ardent minority, to an author or book” (5). The hesitant ‘probably’, however, weakens this statement, and it is unclear whether the word qualifies ‘lengthy’, ‘irrational’ or both. It is the only explicit information given on the nature of cult fiction; no additional explanation or elaboration follows. Moreover, the focus in its pages is mostly on the extravagant and rebellious behaviour of many writers, which seems to imply that this makes their works ‘cult’ automatically. Although authors can achieve a cult status because of their work or their behaviour (or both), this still seems a rather superficial way of describing cult fiction. After all, as the term explicitly states, cult fiction revolves in the first place around fiction, not around the person who has written it. As a whole, this guide mainly gives short biographies of writers, with a condensed overview of what they have written. This can be useful, but not when searching for a definition of cult fiction. Another example is Cult Fiction: A Reader’s Guide, which is somewhat more elaborate with respect to a definition of cult fiction. Cult fiction is connected to ‘popular culture’, ‘sacred texts’, ‘highbrow and lowbrow’, ‘avant-gardism’, ‘great cities’, ‘pulp’, ‘loners’, ‘anti-heroes’, ‘outsiders’ and many other things (ix-xvi). This may all be true to a certain extent, but it does not make things any clearer. What follows after the introduction to this volume is a summing up of authors, which is very similar to the list offered by The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction. Again, a clear definition is not provided. There are other literary anthologies, which do not mention the term cult fiction explicitly, but which do include work of many writers which can also be found in the two guides mentioned above. Examples are William S. Burroughs, Alexander Trocchi, Samuel Beckett, Kathy Acker, Poppy Z. Brite, Henry Miller, Chuck Palahniuk, Iceberg Slim, Hubert Selby Jr., Philip K. Dick, Richard Brautigan – represented with poetry as well as prose – and countless others. The focus in

10 these anthologies is on rebellion and adversity in writers and their fiction – just like in The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction. Consequently, these anthologies can be seen as dealing with cult fiction. However, they are not very useful since what is sought here is a definition. Anthologies of this kind are The Outlaw Bible of American Literature, The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry and The Evergreen Reader 1957-1966. It is interesting to note that the editor of The Evergreen Reader, Barney Rosset, has also co-edited The Outlaw Bible of American Literature. Moreover, he features in the latter as well, with his short story Tin Pan Alley. Some work of Rosset’s co-editors of The Outlaw Bible of American Literature, Alan Kaufman and Neil Ortenberg, is also included in it ( Jew Boy and On Dee Dee Ramone respectively). Kaufman, in his turn, has co-edited The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, in which he himself features many times (for example with “Bus”, “House of Strangers”, “Who Are We?”, “The Slam” and “On Marvin Malone and ‘The Wormwood Review’”). Additionally, Rosset and Ortenberg are also included in The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Rosset with “Ernest Hemingway” and “The Little Sons of Fidel”; Ortenberg with “An Aging Radical Muses on his Conjugal Visits”). It appears that these anthologies have been put together by a small group of closely connected people who are experts in the field and outlaws at the same time. Accordingly, little descriptive information about the topic exists and it seems that other sources are needed to learn more. Reed Whissen has written an overview of cult fiction works which have become classics of the literary canon entitled Classic Cult Fiction: A Companion to Popular Cult Literature. He defines the concept in a preface and long introduction. His main argument in the preface is that a cult book speaks to and for its readers, meaning that readers need to feel directly addressed and represented by it (ix). Reed Whissen states that “when a book has this kind of effect on a sizable number of readers, then we can say it deserves to be called a cult book” (ix). In the section on Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye he states that “[…] a true cult book is one that seems to address the reader directly and to say things in a way the reader would wish to say them” (47). According to Reed Whissen, a reader has to fall under the spell of a cult book (x), more specifically, the book has to be so influentia...