MODERN PERIODICALS THAT PRINT TRASH

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 14, 9 October 1937, Page 15

MODERN PERIODICALS THAT PRINT TRASH

UTERARY SAD1SM Cheapening of Pulp

F was fn a considerable, piort and seasida resort of nortbern Florida that 1 ftrst seriqusly.explored the mpdern pulp eituation, writes Aldoas Huxley ia •'Tiiqa aad Ttda.'? 1 was lopk;-. ing for a bwk on American geography, buti eearch as I oiight, I could fiud uo book-shop. Pulp between boards, unperiodical pulp, was evidently not uonsumed in, thxs particular city. But when it came to. pulp in coloured paper, pul^ in, monthly instalment.s of 123 pages, the. oase was diiferent. In the inaln atreet alone 1 found no less than six ehops devoted to the sale of- nothing e)se but periodical pulp. In one window I counted upwards pf 8Q seperate puhUcatibns, 4 enterad, beught a few specimens in order to have ihe right to' look round and then, flitting like a bee from flower to flower,..or perhaps it would be mere accnrate to say, like a blowfly from garb&ge-can to garbage-can...proceeded to esplore the shelves. The pulp magazines, l discover ed, may be divided into three main plasses? firat, periodicals that purvey what is conventionaly called film fun, that is tQ say, mjldly pornographic jokes and drawing in some way connec1 ted with Hollywood (a uame that in r Bontemporary American Baems to carry . some of the connotations borne In Vic- ; todan times by Paris); second, perip1 diqals that print what are true i oqnfessicms and true romances, that is to say, stories in the first person d ealing

with normal eexua! experienqes; and finally, periodicals containing stories in which sensuality is made more interestihg by being associated with terror and cruelty. To me the periodicals of tflis last category were the most fasqinatingly revolting. There must have been a round dqzen of them with names like Spicy Detective, Hot? Western, Spicy Adventure, Flaming Crime, Peppy Myatery. I bought oue or two and read them #ith somo care. From internal stylistic evidence, it is clear that in each magazine most of the stories, though attributed to a vajiety of authors, were written, or at least corrected and edited by the same pen. In all of them the element of spice, heat, pep or what you will, toob exaotly the same form. Three or fopr times in each story thp heroine appearecl in toru or transparent garments apd this was made the oceasion tor a description of her charms. These passages alternated with others in wflich the heroine, still gauzily cpstumed, still gloripus, columnar and qnrved. would be subjected to flagcllattion and even niild wouhding at the hands of ghosts or monsters ii the

story was a myatery, of gangsters ii the pep v?as meant to spiqe detective fiction^ of maglignaut cQwboys pr M§xicans if the magazine was a Western and dealt with adventure. In due time, of course, ^he was resoued,,.but not belore appreciable quantities of blood had been drawn and thp whip applied pretty gmartly to "the ourve of the back," These stories are like episodes from the novels of the Marquis de $ade with all the I8th-century intelleotual's philosophizings omitted aud at the same time sufficiently howdlerfzpd to be aoeeptabie to a vast and pimpie,miadofl audience. How large that audience is I have not found anyone' who could tell me. All I know for certain is that fhis sort of pulp was for sale practicaily in every Amerioan fowq and vih lage 1 hftvp visHed, tt has Qverj "papliod Ihe Tndian pnoblos of tho South-west. Honse weeks after leaving Florida 1 was taking a meal with aa ludiau coupie in their adobe cabin op the Tap§ reservatiou. The only piece qf literature in the house was a oqpy oi Spjcy Detective. On the wall the white

man'p art was represented by au oleo of the Gqod Shepherd and a very large coloured photograph of the late Jean Qarlow, dressed mainly in silk stockings and reclising upqn a sofa, Jean Marlow aud Spicy Petective were symptoms of the higher state of culture ittained by the Bed Mau iu the United States. Nothing, not even Lndian conservatism can reaist the aarch of civilisation. Ours is the first cultural dispeusation, sp far as I am aware| under' whioh large -numbers of men, women and children have contracted the habit of l taking regular doses of diluted literaiy mligm- It is impossible tq guess what the results of this particular form oi imaginative drug taking are likely tc be. Quite possibly, of course, there may be no results— at any ratt none so striking as to be observable by the aociqlogiet. It is equally possible, ou the other hand, that addiction to a literature whioh links viQlence with sensuality and consiatently associatei ideas pf cruelty with images of pleasure may be no results— at any rate uouo sc may lead to a perceptibl.e decline in tiu strength pf .those humanitarian septitnents which have been buiL intq the 'st'rncture Qf our rpiuds in the course ot the last two centuries, Indeed, it may be that the receut rise tq popul* arity of this sadistio literature ia itself a symptoin of that decline.