Having got
started on DH LawrenceThe Plumed Serpent, the tone of rampant
individualism in a fluid racial societal mix has something in common with
Chaykin’s American Flagg! There are various similarities. Lawrence has
been accused of proto-fascism ( from the 20s) with the charismatic “cult” of
Quetzalcoatl under Don Ramon gradually taking over Mexico.
The cult is a
belief-system that imbues Ramon and his general Cipriano with god-like stature.
Kate, the Irish aristocratic adventuress, is drawn into their mythical world;
its savagery, its fascination and even
Why should I
judge him? He is of the gods. And when he comes to me he lays his pure, quick
flame to mine, and every time I’m a young girl again.. it leaves me
insouciante.. What do I care if he kills people? His flame is young and clean.
He is Huitzilpochtli, and I am Malantzi.
Cipriano is a “full-blooded
Indian” whom Kate eventually marries, as the third of the deities. His dark
Eros holds her in savage sway while, on a higher plateau, he a Ramon indulge in
intimate yet mystical acts of unification.
Both this book
and American Flagg! Posit extreme positions against the democratic capitalism
run amock, and in both cases it is difficult to escape the label of fascist
apologizer. The closeness of Ranger Flagg to the untouchable arm of a police
state is somewhat uncomfortable.
American Flagg! #7
Both books can
probably be criticised on similar grounds, and both are radical alternatives to
global hegemony of one single authority: the unbroken advance of straight-line
progress, represented by the dollar which symbolises the perspective of straight
lines (sun, reflection). Other symbols, of the land, of blood, then become denigrated
by fascistic slurs.
Both are
racially frank, abusive and insulting
American Flagg! #8
The freedom to
come out with racial invective is a basic human freedom because it is
describing a physical reality. In The Plumed Serpent, the physical
reality of Mexico is described with picturesque pathos – which is the other
side of the coin.
Humans in their
primitive, savage state cannot become alike, because when different things
become alike they lose their vital flame. This vital fire of human society is
the subject of both books. The physical reality of blood we are born into (on
the battlefield), rather than a liberal abstraction (of the dollar) we are not.
This is a quote
from the intro by Cedric Watts
One of the
most credible passages appears at the end of Chaper 22, when common sense seeme
to find its voice:
..‘Oh!’ she
cried to herself. ‘For heaven’s sake let me get out of this, and back to simple
human people. .. Horrible, really, both Ramon and Cipriano. And they want to
put it over me, with their high-flown bunk, and their Malitzi..'
If only Kate
could have maintained such scepticism about the cult and the principle of the
charismatic leader, the novel would have been relatively balanced and credible.
(page XVIII)
“Common sense”. The common sense of the head divorced from the vital and
instinctive lusts for love and power of the physical body, in all its grandeur
and honesty.
