The Decadent Handbook

by Rowan Pelling

  The Decadent Handbook

  The ultimate lifestyle guide for those who want to transform the spirit of the age, or failing that, ignore it altogether.

  Wayward and debauched advice from the free spirits of our age, including Hari Kunzru, Salena Godden, Maria Alvarez, Michael Bywater, Louise Welsh, Tom Holland, Helen Walsh, Lisa Hilton, Belle de Jour, Joe Boyd, Nicholas Royle and Robert Irwin.

  The contributors (those still living by the time of publication) have chosen to be remunerated with La Fée Absinthe, the true spirit of decadence.

  Contents

  Title

  The Decadent Handbook

  The Anti-Contribution Sebastian Horsley

  Introduction Rowan Pelling

  Decadent Theory

  A Brief History Alan Jenkins

  My Decadent Career Anne Billson

  The Flaming Heart Becomes a Fount of Tears Philip Langeskov

  Foucault’s Smile Professor Nicholas Royle

  Decadent Outcasts Nick Groom

  Memories of the Decadence Hari Kunzru

  Scotland and Decadence Stuart Kelly

  Snowball Maria Alvarez

  Decadent Lifestyle

  The Decadent Household Lisa Hilton

  The Decadent Mother Rowan Pelling

  The Fashionable Side Xavior Roide

  Hearts of Darkness Vanora Bennett

  Pissing in Space Medlar Lucan & Durian Gray

  Mad Monday Helen Walsh

  The Wheeled Dance of Death Robert Irwin

  Decadent Girl About Town Catherine Townsend

  The Players’ Lounge Mark Mason

  Vermin Jacob Polley

  Decadent Drinking

  The Last Big Drinky Salena Godden

  Absinthe Phil Baker

  The Lost Art of the Bender Erich Kuersten

  Decadent Anti-heroes

  The Debauchee Earl of Rochester

  Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young Oscar Wilde

  Against Nature J.K. Huysmans

  Cuttings from Torture Garden Octave Mirbeau

  Decadent Culture

  UFO Club Joe Boyd

  Performance Mick Brown

  Decadent Cinema Isabelle McNeill

  The Child Nicholas Royle

  Hooked on Classics Michael Bywater

  Bonnington Square John Moore

  Dead or Alive in Leeds Stevie Boyd

  The Decadent Set-list Dickon Edwards

  Decadent Travel

  The Decadent Traveller Medlar Lucan & Durian Gray

  Fast-Food and Fellatio Christopher Moore

  El Hombre Indelible Dickon Edwards

  Part of the Process Karina Mellinger

  Decadent Sex

  Forbidden Fruit Elizabeth Speller

  The Cow Shed André Pieyre de Mandiargues

  Pony Girls Tom Holland

  The Story of B Belle de Jour

  Househusband Brock Norman Brock

  The Art of Roman Decadence William Napier

  Prayer-Cushions of the Flesh Robert Irwin

  Lobster Guillaume Lecasble

  Carrion Jeremy Bourdon

  Confessions of a Flesh-Eater David Madsen

  In the Gallery Hélène Lavelle

  Decadent Gastronomy

  The Decadent Sausage Medlar Lucan & Durian Gray

  Brekadence Malcolm Eggs

  Eats Andrew Crumey

  Portrait of an Englishman in His Chateau André Pieyre de Mandiargues

  St Agatha Medlar Lucan & Durian Gray

  A Renaissance Dessert David Madsen

  The Art of Cooking a Murder Victim Guillaume Lecasble

  Decadent Death Styles

  Death Styles Jad Adams

  Primordial Soup Christine Leunens

  Alice, the Sausage Sophie Jabès

  My Funeral Louise Welsh

  The Last Word Sebastian Horsley

  Dear Reader Sebastian Horsley

  Appendix

  Contributors

  Moments in Decadent History

  Further Decadent Reading

  The Decadent Handbook Survey: The 20 Most Decadent People Alive

  Copyright

  Rowan Pelling ably assisted by James Doyle and Amelia Hodsdon at an editorial meeting. Photo: Sean Gibson.

  The Anti-Contribution

  Here is my piece (unpaid) for Rowan Pelling’s and Dedalus’ book on decadence. Perhaps you could use it as a Z-list celebrity endorsement?

  What the fuck does a mummy from Cambridge know about decadence? Doesn’t Rowan realise that not believing in the future is the essential mark of the decadent? That the worst of children is that they give you the greatest disadvantage of them all; hope?

  Choking hope and being a nappy slave is not decadent. Smoking dope on Jim Morrison’s grave is not decadent. Exploiting writers and their petty vanities is also, by the way, not decadent.

  Decadence is for heavyweights. You need to possess the resources of character, the resilience of mind and the physical stamina to make of decadence a kind of moral virtue and spiritual strength. It is not for silly lightweight school girls.

  HRL. His Royal Lowness. Sebastian Horsley

  Introduction

  Rowan Pelling

  Sebastian Horsley poses a good question in the letters that preface and finish this book, or what we term the anti-contribution: ‘What the fuck does a mummy from Cambridge know about decadence?’ While I would like to pretend that life in the ancient university town where I reside is a riot of orgiastic, drug-fuelled nihilism, the procession of buggies and Sainsbury’s bags outside my window suggests otherwise. I have never seen a velvet-cloaked dandy on the cobbled streets, let alone an aesthete leading a lobster on a string. And despite the proximity to Norfolk, reports of goat sodomy and incest are surprisingly rare.

  The truth is what I know about decadence is much the same as your average armchair sybarite. I would doubtless fail the practical examination but might score a few points in the appreciation and theory papers. What would-be hedonist doesn’t enjoy the vicarious pleasures and perversions of the decadent movement in the arts? For those readers unfamiliar with the guiding tenets, the decadents were a diverse body of writers, artists and philosophers whose work and ideas flourished in the second half of the 19th century. They were less a formal entity than a loose-linked grouping of collaborators and individuals, whose guiding mantra was ‘Art for art’s sake.’ Their philosophy was typified by pessimism, mysticism, idealism, elitism and, for many of the movement, a certain elaborate artifice in the wardrobe department. Since they had no faith in the future, rationalism or the relentless onward grind of industrialism, the decadents sought extreme sensation or sentiments to save them from the atrophying perils of social convention. The decadent movement was a major force in the evolution of Symbolism and thereby, ultimately, Surrealism.

  The guiding lights of the decadent movement are generally held to be the French poet Charles Baudelaire and the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (bards of pessimism, disease and the grave), and amongst the most infamous prophets were the writers Oscar Wilde and Joris-Karl Husymans (both of whose work is represented in this book) and our cover artist, the extraordinary Aubrey Beardsley. Whenever you see a young man with lacquered hair clad in a purple shot-silk suit stroll past you in the street, clutching a bottle of whisky in one hand and a copy of Les Fleurs du Mal in the other, you have the decadents to blame. Just look at Pete Doherty and Russell Brand.

  The Decadent Handbook is therefore envisaged as an anti-lifestyle guide for people who wish to transform the spirit of the age, or, failing that, ignore it altogether. It’s for all those who seek respite from the worst banalities of modern existence: property ladders, yummy mummies, footi
e daddies, loyalty cards, friendly bacteria, Glade air freshener, decking, Coldplay, The Da Vinci Code and Natasha Kaplinsky. The Handbook seeks not to instruct, but to offer diverse inspirations – from Tom Holland on the joy of pony girls to Louise Welsh on the hedonistic funeral. And while the spirit of the book is firmly rooted in the decadent movement of the 19th century, its tendrils spread back and forwards in time. We can hardly consider decadence without a glance at the Romans or a word from the Earl of Rochester. Nor can we omit that modern-day heir to the libertine tradition, the rock star. Joe Boyd takes us back to the UFO club in the 1960s, while John Moore remembers the class-A dividends of chart success. If it’s sex you’re looking for (and who isn’t?), one-time call girl Belle de Jour takes a whipping. And I challenge you to find a better piece of writing on the lost days of a bender than Salena Godden’s ‘The Last Big Drinky’: a story so vividly rendered you can taste the whisky. On a more lateral plane of decadence lurks Jake Polley’s sinister tale ‘Vermin’, a reminder that no force is more callous and amoral than animal instinct. These are just a random selection of the vices on offer.

  It seems to me that The Decadent Handbook is an apposite book. It’s a good time to consider what we mean by ‘decadence’ in an age where there’s much loose talk about ‘the decadent West’. Do the inanities of Big Brother, binge drinkers and celebrity hair extensions really signal a new age of Sodom and Gomorrah? Do you see Bacchanalias in Hyde Park? Aren’t lazy tags sullying the good reputation of decadence, which requires talent, aptitude and dedication to perfect? Because there’s an inbuilt irony in most decadent pursuits (as Maria Alvarez points out in her essay ‘Snowball’), which means you cannot become debauched without considerable effort. It takes application to become a drunk, a serial seducer or a drug addict, and more outré excesses take great feats of imagination. Look at the artist Sebastian Horsley, the very model of the modern decadent, whose letters sandwich this volume: he paints, he writes, he broadcasts, he swims with sharks and flies to the Philippines to have himself crucified; all this frenzied activity alongside the drugs, the whores and the pink velvet suit. Truly he is tireless in his pursuit of decadence. I feel exhausted just to think of him. (But it was ever thus; when Byron lived in Venice he spent the hours up to midnight engaged in conspicuous displays of pleasure-seeking, then retired and wrote until dawn.) Occasionally I wonder if it’s not a little more decadent to lie here on my Cambridge sofa scoffing Hobnobs and cheerleading Sebastian on his way, than to scale the depths of depravity myself. In our opening chapter ‘Decadent Theory’ Anne Billson, Hari Kunzru and Nick Groom explore such arguments, while Alan Jenkins’ poem ‘A Brief History’ is a magnificent evocation of art and immorality over two centuries.

  No publisher has done more to keep the decadent tradition alive than Dedalus, the originators of this volume. I first encountered Dedalus when I was editing The Erotic Review magazine and a friend told me that if I was ‘looking for sex, perversion and depravity’, I should get hold of their catalogue. I did and was duly captivated by their mix of classic decadent literatures and contemporary fiction that wilfully trampled the boundaries of normality. I was also impressed by the rare and excessively non-commercial devotion to translating Continental writing. As the publisher’s manifesto stated: ‘Dedalus has invented its own distinctive genre, which we term distorted reality, where the bizarre, the unusual and the grotesque and the surreal meld in a kind of intellectual fiction which is very European.’ I swiftly ordered Torture Garden by Octave Mirbeau, Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf by David Madsen and Prayer-Cushions of the Flesh by Robert Irwin. It was the beginnings of a decadent library. Some months after that I met two of the founders of Dedalus on a train en route to a literary festival. We bonded over a shared fondness for strong liquor and forceful debate and I accepted an invitation to become one of the company’s many honorary directors. This book comes out of that collaboration – and several cases of red wine.

  I would like to thank everyone who contributed to this book (spurred on only by the promise of absinthe and a party), but particular praise must go to those who helped in the commissioning and editing of this book: James Doyle, Amelia Hobson and Susanna Forrest. Although the biggest debt of gratitude is reserved for the extraordinary Eric Lane, who has been the engine-room of Dedalus since its inception and is my absolute number one hero (or is that anti-hero?) in publishing.

  Dedalus and I hope The Decadent Handbook will be a useful companion for anyone hoping to embark on a life of debauchery, aesthetic refinement and their constant shadow companion, terminal ennui; that it will amuse wicked uncles, teenaged Goths, latterday flâneurs and Cambridge mummies. Or, failing that, The Handbook aims to further enervate the reader on his or her chaise longue, who is too fatigued for decadence themselves, but nonetheless likes to think that someone, somewhere is still lying in the gutter looking at the stars.

  Decadent Theory

  A Brief History

  Alan Jenkins

  1886

  Bring me the hypodermics, nurse, that I

  Might feel again the riotous joy of youth

  Although I may not stir from this divan,

  Sequestered from the world by gorgeous drapes

  Of organdie and velvet; bring me, from

  Their attic prison, two of the youngest boys

  That they might entertain me here a while

  With re-enactments of old Zeus’s rapes

  In various guises, bringing to their aid

  Such gentle toys as I have furnished them with,

  Then have them offer themselves up to me

  For the grateful tribute of my sacrifice.

  Their visible song, made of perfect sound

  And exceeding passion, clothed with the wind’s

  Fair wings, will soothe me to my needful sleep

  Borne on the swansdown billows of that dream

  Vouchsafed by thee, divine poppy! O thou

  Alone who can bring comfort to my soul

  Which else would linger in the world of shades

  And everlasting darkness! Summon forth

  Such visions as I never hoped to see

  On earth, not though I swooned here in the arms

  Of pale ambrosia – exquisite embrace:

  Rose-petals scattered by the slender nymphs

  Who glide in veils diaphanous through glades

  On little moonlit feet will be my bed,

  Their silken breasts a pillow for my head

  As with heavy-lidded eyes they drink the dew

  From off each other’s maiden lips, and strain

  To cool their burning veins. You! Girl, come here …

  1976

  ‘The clubs are closed now. Most of the old set

  Did themselves in, or hopped it – Kenya, Jo’burg,

  Brazil, that sort of thing. Not a single debt

  Got paid, of course. Then there was that fiasco

  With Lucky and the nanny … They’ll never get him though –

  Not the newshounds or the police johnnies, oh no.

  Christ, that lot are far too thick. I have my own ideas

  But what’s the point of dredging up old muck?

  I still like to play the odd hand now and then

  If I can find somewhere … congenial. You know, civilized.’

  ‘At one time we’d all drive down to someone’s place

  In Surrey. Everyone’d be there. In those days

  It didn’t matter what you did – the chicks’ brains

  Were in their boxes anyway … I had one once

  On a lawn somewhere, she was, like, so far gone

  She never even knew … Then Brian went in the pool,

  The deep six, and the heavies moved in, raids,

  Busts, the whole bit. Just think, it could’ve gone on

  And on – that would have been really cool.

  Now it’s all, like, chains and razor-blades.’

  ‘There were seven of us down at Strangeways

 
And Diana filmed the whole thing – just turned up

  With a camera, little hand-held job’ – ‘Hand-job? Sorry!’ –

  ‘And started shooting. What a hoot! After dinner,

  Things got pretty hot, and, well, they wanted her

  To pack it in at first, but then, well, we all got

  Into it. We’re all there, anyway, for posterity,

  What you can see of us – completely tonto. I can tell

  You, if it got into the wrong hands … I mean,

  It’d be no joke. Jamie’s putting it on video.’

  ‘If all the girls here – oh, come off it, dears –

  Were laid end to end , I wouldn’t be at all surprised! …’

  ‘He was brilliant at first but now he’s not so keen …’

  ‘Wasn’t her aunt the duchess of something, Saxe-Coburg …’

  ‘Problem is, the money’s getting burned up …’

  ‘Wonderful Miranda’s got the most amazing stuff …’

  ‘I’m not sure there’s anybody here I’d trust …’

  ‘It was more a boff de politesse than a fuck …’

  ‘No good when things began to get a little rough …’

  ‘That’s good – fear in a handful of happy dust …’

  1856–2006

  My life is killing me. It’s making me thin,

  To sit in this room translating Baudelaire,

  My spiritual room, in which the stagnant air

  Is faintly tinged with blue and rose, in which I’m lapped

  By idleness – the soul’s long bath, blueish, roseate,

  Scented by regret and desire; where even the furniture

  Is prostrate with languor and the draperies speak

  A silent language, the language of flowers, of skies,

  Of the setting sun. But it’s making me thin, not as thin

  As the woman who looks eighty – she’s eighteen – on the street

  Begging loose change for some dope, a bar of soap

  Or her bag of whippet-bones on a rope; not as thin