The literature of the Revolution will be a new, rigorous literature. It
will not be like the old, flabby literature of past days, no. The sizzling
fat of obese literatures will be cast into the fires of the Revolution,
and tough, sinewy literature will arise like papery phoenixes from the
flames. The new literature will down its pint, smack its wife in the face,
spit on its children and fart in the face of any resistance.
How, we ask, will the new literature be created? Who will read it? Who
will write it?
The first of these questions is easily answered. since the old, corpulent
literature must be attacked and destroyed to prevent the suffocation of
the Workers, upon whose eyes, ears and noses it imposes its blubbery
stench, the new literature will hack at the old, and from the old
literature take every tenth sentence, or every tenth verb, to create a
faster, meaner, more revolutionary literature. This literary revolution
will happen so fast, that there will be no room for what is now foolishly
and subversively termed 'writers' of such literature. The impulses of the
new literature will spread like electricity in a toaster from which will
spring the new libraries, the new books, the new, truly revolutionary art.
and who will read this literature?
This question exposes the antirevolutionary status of the questioner; whoever asks it is filthy, subversive, stinking of old literature, rotting and rolling in bourgeois notions. For the workers of the revolution have no need for literature; the leaders of the Revolution have higher purposes, bigger fish to fry, better teats to suck at than those of the relics of bourgeois art. The
names of some authors of the pre-revolutionary era may be retained in
histories as their names toll the bell of the Revolution, such as Danielle
Steele, who reminds us of the value of construction workers and the power
of weapons of metal over the seedy, diseased opposers of the state, or
Catherine Cookson, whose name calls to our attention the importance of the
agricultural labourers in the revolution. But all others will be erased,
eradicated, destroyed in our new revolutionary fervour. Above all, the new
literature of the Revolution will stand up, kick over the benches and
picnic tables of frowsy old literatures, smelling as they do of
disinfectant and talcum powder, and shout out to the world:
Bugger off! Find somewhere else to park your wheelchair!!
Booker Judges march on Penguin
L-R: Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Sue Townsend, The Dalia Lama
Booker Judges march on Penguin