'Listen
to the fool's reproach! it is a kingly
title!' — W.Blake.
Standing
at the wine table at a local book launch
where Bill Direen and Jack Ross were both
launching their novellas, a large well-imbibed
woman leaned confidentially over to me
and pointing at Jack said 'he's a pervert
you know, his writing's pretty good, but
he's a deviant' she then straightened
up and took another slug of wine. Later
a white-haired professor who had also
been putting a few away got quite enthusiastic
about just how weird Bill Direen's
writing is, he was struggling through
a haze of alcohol and inspiration to find
different words, then finally giving up
he splayed out both arms like a fisherman
and said 'HE'S JUST SO WEIRD'.
Though
I can sympathize with what inspired these
responses to the two authors, neither
of them is a very deep analysis of their
work. Jack Ross does enjoy using graphic
sexual imagery, however his direct usage
of it is not so much a sign of sexual
deviancy as perversity of a wholly different
order.
It
is that of a writer who forthrightly claims
that all material is the stuff
of writing and no subject is taboo.
If a particular button is considered
taboo, then that is the button he will
push. 'Push on the sore point' as he says
in his latest poetry book.
I
recall reading an introduction to Bill
Direen on the inside of one of his album
covers that said 'perversity is not only
Bill's middle name, it is his first and
last name too', which seemed to capture
an important quality of Bill's art, a
perverse determination to produce what
he considered good despite what
popular perception of it would be.
Perverse
— deliberately deviating from what
is regarded as normal, good or proper
(Collins 1990).
Perversion
is not a goal. If it were it would generate
reactive art. The artistic output of both
Jack Ross and Bill Direen (as with Frank
Zappa, Dylan Thomas, Robert Wyatt etc)
could only (by this author at least) be
described as the natural form that artistic
impulse takes. They do not set out to
be weird or abnormal, and in fact do not
(I would say) even consider themselves
as being so, these are merely labels hung
upon them by their neighbours as their
work does not fall within familiar categories.
As
William Direen put it, 'An artist is an
interpreter of reality according to his
own terms.'
Depending
on exactly what these terms are, this
kind of artist is heavily dependent on
an audience who is both interested and
informed enough to try to comprehend reality
as they portray it. A degree of effort
is required on the part of the audience,
judgment must be suspended for a time
until the artistic intentions of a work
grow clear, and it is whether or not these
intentions speak to the audience
that their final judgment of the work
will rest.
Though
it make the unskilful laugh, it cannot
but make the judicious grieve; the censure
of which one must in your allowance o'erweigh
a whole theatre of others. - Hamlet
III, i..
