Counter-Currents
  • Private Events
  • T&C
  • Contact
  • Webzine
  • About
  • Books
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Donate
  • Paywall
  • Crypto
  • RSS
    • Main feed
    • Podcast feed
    • Videos feed
    • Comments feed
  • Advertise

LEVEL2

Donate Now Mailing list
  • Webzine
  • About
  • Books
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Donate
  • Paywall
  • Crypto
  • RSS
    • Main feed
    • Podcast feed
    • Videos feed
    • Comments feed
  • Advertise
  • Recent posts

    • The Great Debate

      Cyan Quinn

      2

    • Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      Beau Albrecht

      14

    • June is the Gayest Month

      Jim Goad

      10

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 535 Ask Me Anything

      Counter-Currents Radio

      1

    • Úryvky z Finis Germania Rolfa Petera Sieferleho, část 3: Nové státní náboženství

      Rolf Peter Sieferle

    • Football’s Race War

      Pox Populi

      6

    • VDARE Facing Mortal Threat

      Peter Brimelow

      5

    • Collin Cleary Interviewed on Richard Wagner

      Collin Cleary

      1

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 534 Interview with Alexander Adams

      Counter-Currents Radio

      1

    • The Union Jackal, May 2023

      Mark Gullick

      17

    • Biden and Bibi

      James J. O'Meara

      11

    • Forward with a Vengeance

      Tom Zaja

      2

    • Notes on Strauss & Husserl

      Greg Johnson

      1

    • The Worst Week Yet: May 21-27, 2023

      Jim Goad

      24

    • The Honorable Cause: A Review

      Spencer J. Quinn

      8

    • George Friedman’s The Next 100 Years

      Thomas Steuben

      4

    • Remembering Oswald Spengler (May 29, 1880-May 8, 1936)

      Greg Johnson

      2

    • Euthanizing the Homeless? It’s a Start

      Jim Goad

      8

    • Remembering Louis-Ferdinand Céline (May 27, 1894–July 1, 1961)

      Greg Johnson

      12

    • Blood, Soil, Paint

      Greg Johnson

      1

    • Céline’s Guerre

      Margot Metroland

      7

    • The Trial of Socrates

      Greg Johnson

    • Fields of Asphodel

      Tito Perdue

    • George Floyd and the “Color” of Revolution

      Stephen Paul Foster

      11

    • The Dakota Territory’s Indian Wars During the Civil War, Part 2

      Morris van de Camp

      1

    • No, Really, Everything’s Fine!

      Gunnar Alfredsson

      18

    • Euthanizing the Homeless? It’s a Start

      Jim Goad

      25

    • The Dakota Territory’s Indian Wars During the Civil War, Part 1

      Morris van de Camp

      1

    • How Much Would Slavery Reparations Actually Cost?

      Beau Albrecht

      35

    • No Brexit This Way

      Mark Gullick

      8

    • Martinez Contra Fascism

      Thomas Steuben

      25

    • Úryvky z Finis Germania Rolfa Petera Sieferleho, část 2: „Věčný nacista“

      Rolf Peter Sieferle

    • A 5D Plan in 3D: Hitchcock’s Dial M For Murder

      James J. O'Meara

      16

    • After Waco

      Morris van de Camp

      18

    • Munchhausen: The Third Reich’s Wizard of Oz

      Steven Clark

      13

    • Nueva Derecha vs. Vieja Derecha Capítulo 1: Política y Metapolítica

      Greg Johnson

    • The Worst Week Yet: May 14-20, 2023

      Jim Goad

      15

    • The (So-Called) New York “Thought Criminals” & the “Intellectual Dark Web”

      Alex Graham

      9

    • Documenting the Decline

      Spencer J. Quinn

      7

    • Remembering Richard Wagner (May 22, 1813-February 13, 1883)

      Greg Johnson

      3

    • Remembering Dominique Venner (April 16, 1935–May 21, 2013)

      Greg Johnson

      3

    • Clash of the Billionaire Comic-Book Supervillains

      Jim Goad

      2

    • The Psychology of the Politically Correct

      Richard Knight

      65

    • Springtime in Tallinn

      Veiko Hessler

      13

    • Liberal Anti-Democracy, Chapter 6, Part 2: Conclusion

      Kenneth Vinther

      11

    • Remembering Julius Evola (May 19, 1898–June 11, 1974)

      Greg Johnson

      5

    • Clash of the Billionaire Comic-Book Supervillains

      Jim Goad

      22

    • On White Normie “Brainwashing”: A Reply to Kevin MacDonald, Paul Craig Roberts, & Other Dissidents, Part 2

      D. H. Corax

      11

    • Liberal Anti-Democracy, Chapter 6, Part 1: Conclusion

      Kenneth Vinther

      1

    • Úryvky z Finis Germania Rolfa Petera Sieferleho, část 1

      Rolf Peter Sieferle

  • Classics Corner

    • Cù Chulainn in the GPO:
      The Mythic Imagination of Patrick Pearse

      Michael O'Meara

      5

    • Remembering Dominique Venner
      (April 16, 1935 – May 21, 2013)

      Greg Johnson

      11

    • A Robertson Roundup: 
      Remembering Wilmot Robertson
      (April 16, 1915 – July 8, 2005)

      Margot Metroland

      13

    • Metapolitics and Occult Warfare

      Greg Johnson

      2

    • Remembering Maurice Bardèche:
      October 1, 1907–July 30, 1998

      Greg Johnson

      2

    • The Power of Myth:
      Remembering Joseph Campbell
      (March 26, 1904–October 30, 1987)

      John Morgan

      11

    • The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

      Trevor Lynch

      24

    • The Searchers

      Trevor Lynch

      29

    • Gabriele D’Annunzio

      Jonathan Bowden

      2

    • Remembering A. R. D. “Rex” Fairburn (February 2, 1904–March 25, 1957)

      Greg Johnson

      1

    • Denis Kearney & the Struggle for a White America

      Theodore J. O'Keefe

      1

    • Posthuman Prospects:
      Artificial Intelligence, Fifth Generation Warfare, & Archeofuturism

      Christopher Pankhurst

      5

    • Earnest Sevier Cox:
      Advocate for the White Ethnostate

      Morris van de Camp

      15

    • Remembering Jack London
      (January 12, 1876–November 22, 1916)

      Greg Johnson

      2

    • Remembering Robinson Jeffers:
      January 10, 1887–January 20, 1962

      John Morgan

      3

    • Remembering Pierre Drieu La Rochelle:
      January 3, 1893–March 15, 1945

      Greg Johnson

    • Remembering Rudyard Kipling (December 30, 1865-January 18, 1936)

      Greg Johnson

      10

    • Restoring White Homelands

      Greg Johnson

      34

    • Remembering Hinton Rowan Helper

      Spencer J. Quinn

      11

    • What’s Wrong with Diversity?

      Greg Johnson

      10

    • Redefining the Mainstream

      Greg Johnson

      3

    • Edward Alsworth Ross:
      American Metapolitical Hero

      Morris van de Camp

      8

    • The Talented Mr. Ripley & Purple Noon

      Trevor Lynch

      19

    • Christmas & the Yuletide:
      Light in the Darkness

      William de Vere

      3

    • Thanksgiving Special 
      White Men Meet Indians:
      Jamestown & the Clash of Civilizations

      Thomas Jackson

    • Colin Wilson’s The Outsider

      Sir Oswald Mosley

      4

    • Dostoyevsky on the Jews

      William Pierce

      4

    • Jefferson &/or Mussolini, Part 1

      Ezra Pound

      5

    • I Listened to Chapo Trap House So You Don’t Have To

      Doug Huntington

      98

    • The Homeric Gods

      Mark Dyal

      13

  • Paroled from the Paywall

    • Politicizing Luz Long, Part II

      Clarissa Schnabel

      2

    • Politicizing Luz Long, Part I

      Clarissa Schnabel

      2

    • Breaking Beat: Reflections on The Rebel Set, a Masterpiece That Never Was

      James J. O'Meara

      1

    • If Hillary Had Won

      Stephen Paul Foster

      1

    • Nice Racism, Part 3

      Beau Albrecht

      1

    • Nice Racism, Part 2

      Beau Albrecht

      7

    • Nice Racism, Part 1

      Beau Albrecht

      5

    • Aristophanes’ Clouds, Part II

      Greg Johnson

      1

    • Aristophanes’ Clouds, Part I

      Greg Johnson

      1

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 530 The Genealogy of Wokeism

      Counter-Currents Radio

      5

    • Patrick Bateman: “Literally Me” or a Warning?

      Anthony Bavaria

      9

    • British Sculpture, Part II

      Jonathan Bowden

      1

    • British Sculpture, Part I

      Jonathan Bowden

      2

    • The New Story

      Jocelynn Cordes

      21

    • Why Does Cthulhu Always Swim Left? Part 2

      Beau Albrecht

      1

    • Why Does Cthulhu Always Swim Left? Part 1

      Beau Albrecht

      11

    • Robert Rutherford McCormick, Midwestern Man of the Right: Part 2

      Morris van de Camp

      1

    • Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: Prophet of Eugenics and Race-Realism

      Margot Metroland

      11

    • In Defense of the White Union

      Asier Abadroa

    • Everything Everywhere All at Once: The Oscar Winner the System Loves

      Steven Clark

      32

    • Incels on Wheels: Jim Goad’s Trucker Fags in Denial

      Beau Albrecht

      17

    • The White Pill

      Margot Metroland

      10

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 528 Karl Thorburn on the Bank Crashes

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Women Philosophers

      Richard Knight

      23

    • Stranger Things and Surviving in the Modern World

      Howe Abbott-Hiss

      2

    • The Fabulous Pleven Boys

      P. J. Collins

      2

    • Nuclear Families: Threads

      Mark Gullick

      4

    • Reviewing the Unreviewable

      Margot Metroland

      3

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 527 Machiavellianism & More

      Counter-Currents Radio

      2

    • The Machiavellian Method

      Greg Johnson

      11

  • Recent comments

    • Antipodean

      The Great Debate

      I am looking forward to it very much also.However not quite everyone will be able to listen at a...

    • Beau Albrecht

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      That's a cute one.  Then after the shoe brush thing, the Black asked for a donation of stock, and...

    • Beau Albrecht

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      I did hyperlink some excellent presentations about these; here they are again: https://www....

    • Jeffrey A Freeman

      June is the Gayest Month

      The Bible’s condemnation of faggotry… Not exactly as explicit as I’d like it to be. Just sayin...

    • Hamburger Today

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      There's an old joke with the punch-line, 'I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you...

    • Doug Huntington

      The Great Debate

      This debate is going to be awesome, absolutely cannot wait. :)

    • Antipodean

      June is the Gayest Month

      Another tour de force. ’Gay’ is a delightful word and name that’s been put in a dungeon and had...

    • S. clark

      June is the Gayest Month

      Instead of Eliot, I'll take John G. Whittier: "O, for boyhood's time of June crowding years in...

    • Kenneth Vinther

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      Conservatives often talk about the "long march through the institutions," but I personally think...

    • J. Smith

      Martinez Contra Fascism

      Agree

    • Al Dante

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      Go the way of the dinosaurs? Hope might be a thing with feathers, but the descendants of the...

    • ArminiusMaximus

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      I am not so sure those CEOs are as in charge as this article implies. If it were only advertising...

    • Francis XB

      Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 534 Interview with Alexander Adams

      Years ago I was doing research at a major West Coast university. The campus had an exhibition of...

    • Alexandra O.

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      'Woke Capitalists' in our midst today overlook its biggest contradiction:  as leftist-socialist...

    • Gallus

      Football’s Race War

      A great summary article that cover a lot. Thanks. The race baiting continues within the media with...

    • Stephen Paul Foster

      June is the Gayest Month

      April may have been "the cruelest month," for Eliot, but were he to resurrect himself today he'd...

    • Gallus

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      The two most recent 'wins' such as Bud Light and Target may be the start of the drop off in major...

    • Race Warrior

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      Unlikely because Hispanics are the greatest consumers and Hispanic births absolutely exploded in...

    • Jud Jackson

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      Brilliant article but Fred C. Dobbs has a good point and a good question in his comment.    You end...

    • Fire Walk With Lee

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      Chil-Fil-A lost me during the Summer Of St. George when Dan Cathy humiliated himself by getting down...

  • Book Authors

    • Beau Albrecht
    • Alain de Benoist
    • Kerry Bolton
    • Jonathan Bowden
    • Collin Cleary
    • Jef Costello
    • Savitri Devi
    • F. Roger Devlin
    • Buttercup Dew
    • Julius Evola
    • Jim Goad
    • Gregory Hood
    • Juleigh Howard-Hobson
    • Greg Johnson
    • Charles Krafft
    • Anthony M. Ludovici
    • Trevor Lynch
    • H. L. Mencken
    • J. A. Nicholl
    • James J. O’Meara
    • Christopher Pankhurst
    • Tito Perdue
    • Michael Polignano
    • Spencer J. Quinn
    • Fenek Solère
    • Irmin Vinson
    • Leo Yankevich
    • Francis Parker Yockey
    • Multiple authors
  • Webzine Authors

    Editor-in-Chief

    • Greg Johnson, Ph.D.

    Featured Writers

    • Beau Albrecht
    • Morris V. de Camp
    • Stephen Paul Foster, Ph.D.
    • Jim Goad
    • Alex Graham
    • Mark Gullick, Ph.D.
    • Greg Johnson, Ph.D.
    • Spencer J. Quinn

    Frequent Writers

    • Aquilonius
    • Anthony Bavaria
    • Alain de Benoist
    • Kerry Bolton, Ph.D.
    • Collin Cleary, Ph.D.
    • Jef Costello
    • F. Roger Devlin, Ph.D.
    • Richard Houck
    • Ondrej Mann
    • Margot Metroland
    • John Morgan
    • Trevor Lynch
    • James J. O’Meara
    • Kathryn S.
    • Thomas Steuben
    • Michael Walker

    Classic Authors

    • Maurice Bardèche
    • Jonathan Bowden
    • Julius Evola
    • Guillaume Faye
    • Ernst Jünger
    • Kevin MacDonald, Ph.D.
    • D. H. Lawrence
    • Charles Lindbergh
    • Jack London
    • H. P. Lovecraft
    • Anthony M. Ludovici
    • Sir Oswald Mosley
    • National Vanguard
    • Friedrich Nietzsche
    • Revilo Oliver
    • William Pierce
    • Ezra Pound
    • Saint-Loup
    • Savitri Devi
    • Carl Schmitt
    • Miguel Serrano
    • Oswald Spengler
    • P. R. Stephensen
    • Jean Thiriart
    • John Tyndall
    • Dominique Venner
    • Leo Yankevich
    • Francis Parker Yockey

    Other Authors

    • Howe Abbott-Hiss
    • Michael Bell
    • Buttercup Dew
    • Giles Corey
    • Bain Dewitt
    • Jack Donovan
    • Richardo Duchesne, Ph.D.
    • Emile Durand
    • Guillaume Durocher
    • Mark Dyal
    • Fullmoon Ancestry
    • Tom Goodroch
    • Andrew Hamilton
    • Robert Hampton
    • Huntley Haverstock
    • Derek Hawthorne
    • Gregory Hood
    • Juleigh Howard-Hobson
    • Alexander Jacob
    • Nicholas Jeelvy
    • Ruuben Kaalep
    • Tobias Langdon
    • Julian Langness
    • Travis LeBlanc
    • Patrick Le Brun
    • G A Malvicini
    • John Michael McCloughlin
    • Millennial Woes
    • Michael O’Meara
    • Christopher Pankhurst
    • Michael Polignano
    • J. J. Przybylski
    • Quintilian
    • Edouard Rix
    • C. B. Robertson
    • C. F. Robinson
    • Herve Ryssen
    • Alan Smithee
    • Fenek Solere
    • Ann Sterzinger
    • Robert Steuckers
    • Tomislav Sunic
    • Donald Thoresen
    • Marian Van Court
    • Irmin Vinson
    • Aylmer Wedgwood
    • Scott Weisswald
  • Departments

    • Book Reviews
    • Movie Reviews
    • TV Reviews
    • Music Reviews
    • Art Criticism
    • Graphic Novels & Comics
    • Video Game Reviews
    • Fiction
    • Poems
    • Interviews
    • Videos
    • English Translations
    • Other Languages
      • Arabic
      • Bulgarian
      • Croatian
      • Czech
      • Danish
      • Dutch
      • Estonian
      • Finnish
      • French
      • German
      • Greek
      • Hungarian
      • Italian
      • Lithuanian
      • Norwegian
      • Polish
      • Portuguese
      • Romanian
      • Russian
      • Slovak
      • Spanish
      • Swedish
      • Ukrainian
    • Commemorations
    • Why We Write
  • Archives
  • Top 100 Commenters
  • Private Events
  • T&C
  • Contact
Sponsored Links
Above Time Coffee Antelope Hill Publishing Paul Waggener IHR-Store Asatru Folk Assembly No College Club Imperium Press American Renaissance The Patrick Ryan Show Jim Goad The Occidental Observer
Print January 22, 2021 7 comments

The Elephant Man

Trevor Lynch

2,907 words

David Lynch’s second feature film, The Elephant Man (1980), is one of his finest works. In many ways, The Elephant Man is Lynch’s most conventional “Hollywood” film. (Dune too is a “Hollywood” film, but a failed one.) The cast of The Elephant Man is quite distinguished, including John Hurt, Anthony Hopkins, Sir John Gielgud, Dame Wendy Hiller, and Anne Bancroft. The film was produced by Mel Brooks, who left his name off so that people would not expect a comedy.

The Elephant Man was a commercial success and a critical hit. It received eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. It also prompted the Academy to create a new award for makeup the next year. The Elephant Man won the British Academy Film Awards for Best Film, Best Actor (Hurt), and Production Design, as well as the French César Award for Best Foreign Film. It is routinely included in critics’ “best” lists.

Although The Elephant Man is about a hideously deformed sideshow freak, Lynch’s treatment is sentimental and compassionate, not lurid and exploitative. Indeed, The Elephant Man is wholesome, heartwarming, and quite explicitly Christian, which is surprising given that Lynch, being a longtime devotee of Transcendental Meditation, is more Hindu than Christian. 

Yet The Elephant Man is unmistakably the work of the director of Eraserhead. It is exquisitely shot in black and white by cinematographer Freddie Francis, who later worked on The Straight Story. The Elephant Man also features Lynch’s trademark surreal montages, low-tech special effects, and meticulous sound design, created with his longtime collaborator Alan Splet. Like Eraserhead, The Elephant Man treats technology as an almost demonic force and depicts urban life as hellish and alienating. Finally, the grotesque subject matter and sentimental manner of treating it are also quite Lynchian. 

The story of The Elephant Man can be summarized quite briefly. Joseph Merrick (called John Merrick in the film) was born in England in 1862. By the age of five, he began developing abnormally and became shockingly deformed, probably due to Proteus Syndrome. Merrick’s skull became massively enlarged and distorted. His right arm became enlarged and useless, but his other arm was normal. His spine was alarmingly twisted, affecting his gait. His body was covered with wart-like growths. He also had difficulty breathing. His head was so massive that he had to sleep sitting up. If he slept normally, he would have been asphyxiated. 

Unable to work, Merrick began to exhibit himself as a sideshow freak, which provided a precarious living due to police bans and dishonest carnies. In 1883, a surgeon named Frederick Treves discovered Merrick and exhibited him at a meeting of the Pathological Society of London. Merrick and Treves developed a friendship. Merrick’s plight became a cause célèbre of British high society. Championed by Queen Victoria herself, Merrick was given a permanent home at London Hospital, where he died at the age of twenty-seven. Lynch’s film takes some liberties with the story but conveys the essence.

The opening montage of The Elephant Man is pure Eraserhead. Like the opening of Eraserhead, it is an allegory of a monstrous birth. We begin with the eyes of a woman in a Victorian photograph. Later we learn this is John Merrick’s mother. We hear an ominous mechanical humming. Then we see elephants, the mother’s face overlaid. The elephants freeze then approach. We hear their lowing and trumpeting. We see a woman thrown to the ground and writhing in slow motion terror, to increasingly distorted sounds. (In Lost Highway, Lynch films the transformation of Fred Madison into Pete Dayton in a similar way.) Then we see white smoke rising against a dark backdrop. A baby cries. The sequence is based on the side-show origin myth of the Elephant Man, premised on the idea that a child’s development can be shaped by maternal experiences. 

Next we see a Victorian circus. The camera focuses on a well-dressed gentleman in a top hat. This is Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Frederick Treves. Although Treves looks like the embodiment of Victorian propriety, he enters the sideshow through an exit door marked No Admittance. This transgressive gesture is repeated a few seconds later. We catch glimpses of standard freaks, such as a bearded lady. Then we meet a horrified woman being comforted by a gentleman. Treves plunges into the darkness from which they emerged. 

Treves’ destination is the Elephant Man exhibit. When he arrives, however, the curtain is closed. The police are shutting the exhibit down for being degrading and “monstrous.” The “proprietor,” Mr. Bytes, is a fictional composite of the carnies with whom the real Merrick worked. Brilliantly played by Freddie Jones — who was Thufir Hawat in Dune and had a cameo in Wild at Heart — Bytes is a seedy drunkard and sadist. 

Treves is determined to see the Elephant Man and eventually tracks Bytes down for a private showing. In Blue Velvet, Sandy is not sure if Jeffrey is a detective or a pervert. Likewise, in The Elephant Man, we are led to wonder if Treves is a doctor or a pervert. Bytes has Treves pegged as a pervert — a fellow pervert — and leeringly intimates that they share a common secret. Later Bytes speaks to Treves practically like a pimp: “I move in the proper circles, for this type of thing . . . In fact, anything at all, if you take my meaning.”

But when Treves finally sees the Elephant Man, he does not view him with a doctor’s objective curiosity, or a pervert’s salacious leer. His face registers utter shock. Then a solitary tear appears in his eye. 

Treves is still, however, a man of science — and a man of some ambition. Thus he arranges to exhibit Merrick to the Pathological Society of London. 

Later, after Merrick has been severely beaten by Bytes, Treves admits him to the London Hospital. Initially, he is placed in an isolation ward near the clock tower, Lynch’s gentle homage to The Hunchback of Notre Dame. 

At this point, we are thirty minutes into the film and still have not yet seen Merrick’s face. Lynch handles this slow reveal masterfully, and once we see Merrick, it takes a while before we see him up close. By taking his time, not only does Lynch build suspense, but he also fully humanizes the character before revealing the full horror of his appearance. Also, it should be noted that Hurt’s Elephant Man costume and makeup are not as grotesque as the real Joseph Merrick. 

Up to this point, Merrick has said nothing either. Treves has assumed he is an imbecile. But this is not true. Eventually, he gets Merrick to speak. 

Merrick’s presence is opposed by Francis Carr Gomm — the Governor of the hospital warmly portrayed by Sir John Gielgud — on the grounds that the hospital does not admit incurables. Nevertheless, Carr Gomm wishes to meet Merrick, and Treves believes that if the interview goes well, Merrick might be allowed to stay. But the conversation is quite awkward, and when Merrick repeats the same phrases in contexts where they make no sense, Carr Gomm thinks he is an imbecile who has been coached. 

But when Merrick recites the 23rd Psalm, and then begins to open up, both Treves and Carr Gomm are thunderstruck. They both had hoped Merrick was an imbecile, because intelligence could only magnify his suffering. But Merrick has not just suffered greatly, he has retained his humanity. He has managed to remain a sensitive and decent human being, a beautiful soul in a hideous material prison, a theme that also harmonizes with the essentially Gnostic outlook of Eraserhead. Carr Gomm is overcome with compassion. He vows to find some way to give Merrick a safe haven. The whole sequence is immensely moving. 

You can buy Trevor Lynch’s Part Four of the Trilogy here.

Carr Gomm writes a letter to the Times publicizing Merrick’s plight and asking for support, which brings Merrick to the attention of high society and low. 

Queen Victoria dispatches her daughter-in-law, Alexandra, Princess of Wales to read her letter to the board of the London Hospital in support of giving Merrick permanent residency. Upon completing the letter, Alexandra looks directly at the board members and says, “I am sure you gentlemen may be counted on to do the Christian thing.” Which they do. When Carr Gomm, Treves, and the stern hospital matron Mrs. Mothershead bring Merrick the good news, he is overcome with emotion, as is any viewer who doesn’t have a severely deformed heart. 

A prominent actress, Madge Kendal (Anne Bancroft), wishes to meet Merrick. So do the drunkards and floozies who associate with London Hospital’s seedy night porter, Sonny Jim (a name reused by Lynch for Dougie’s little boy in Twin Peaks: The Return). 

By day, Merrick receives actresses and society matrons bearing lavish gifts. These are sentimental well-meaning souls who want to marvel at a triumph of the human spirit. By night, he is assailed by raucous drunkards who pay Sonny Jim a few coins to laugh at the Elephant Man. 

Mrs. Mothershead, played beautifully by Wendy Hiller, disapproves of both sets of visitors. She sacks Sonny Jim when she finds out about his shows. She also reproaches Treves for allowing the more genteel gawkers, saying that Merrick is once again a sideshow curiosity. 

This prompts one of the most touching scenes in the movie. Treves has a sleepless night over the question, “Am I a good man, or am I a bad man?” Treves is a good man, and part of what makes him good is his willingness to entertain such questions. Nobody can watch The Elephant Man without admiring the Victorian middle and upper classes: their exquisite manners, their moral earnestness, and their desire to edify and beautify a nation wrecked by Blake’s “dark Satanic mills.” 

Treves’ moral crisis is paired with a Lynchian montage of Merrick’s night terrors. As with the severed ear in Blue Velvet, Lynch’s camera approaches then dives into a hole, this time the eyehole in Merrick’s hood. We follow pipes to the sound of mechanical chuffing like Merrick’s labored breathing. We see men laboring in factories with machines, bringing to mind Eraserhead’s Man in the Planet, who is a Gnostic symbol of the spirit’s bondage to matter. A leering crowd emerges from the darkness, holding a mirror to Merrick’s terrified face, which is intercut with elephant parts. Then he flashes back to the beatings he has received from Bytes. Lynch is a master of putting dreams on film: prophetic dreams, wish-fulfillment dreams, and nightmares.

The contrast between good and bad men is underscored one night when Bytes slips in among the last batch of Sonny Jim’s revelers and kidnaps Merrick, taking him to a circus on the Continent. Merrick’s health is declining, however, and he cannot perform. A drunken Bytes beats him then locks him in a cage next to some angry, threatening baboons. 

It is a terrifying sequence, using an odd technique that crops up in The Straight Story and Twin Peaks: The Return, in which Lynch places the camera and microphone far from the action, framing it in a vast space and forcing the viewer to strain to see and hear what is happening. It is a return to the static cameras of the early talkies, which often seem like filmed stage plays. 

This circus sequence specifically brings to mind Todd Browning’s classic Freaks, where sideshow freaks band together to avenge one of their own. In The Elephant Man, however, they simply liberate Merrick from his cage and put him on a boat at Ostend to carry him back to London. 

When Merrick arrives at Liverpool Street Station, he is harassed by urchins who want to know why his head is so big. Fleeing, he accidentally knocks over a little girl. Her mother shrieks an alarm. A large crowd pursues him. The monster is unmasked then cornered in a toilet, where he proclaims the famous lines “I am not an animal. I am a human being! I am a man! I am a man!” Then the police arrive and return Merrick to his home at London Hospital. 

Merrick’s life is nearing its end. Mrs. Kendal and Princess Alexandra take him to the theatre, where he is enchanted by what appears to be a children’s fairytale pantomime. The play montage is pure Lynch, but at his most naïve and winsome, using special effects from the silent era less to depict the story than Merrick’s childlike rapture.   

When Merrick returns to his room, he completes work on his model of Saint Phillip’s Cathedral, then signs it “John Merrick.” To Samuel Barber’s hauntingly melancholy Adagio for Strings, Merrick says “It is finished,” bringing to mind the words of Christ on the cross. Then Merrick looks at a picture of a sleeping child and decides to lie down to sleep like a normal person, which he knows will kill him. As he breathes his last, the camera takes our eyes to the picture of Mrs. Kendal, then the picture of his mother, then the model of the cathedral, rising with the music to focus on the cross on the highest spire. Then we see the stars, and begin to move quickly among them, shades of Dune. 

Merrick’s mother begins reciting lines from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Nothing Will Die”: 

Never, oh! never, nothing will die.
The stream flows,
The wind blows,
The cloud fleets,
The heart beats,
Nothing will die.

In the original, the first line is a question, but in the movie, it is a declarative statement. The poem continues “Nothing will die; All things will change.” This flatly contradicts the Christian idea of the immortality of the human soul, affirming instead the essentially pagan and naturalistic idea that all things merely change, one into another, which is also consistent with Hindu and Buddhist ideas that reincarnation is not the transmigration of consciousness from one body to another, but more akin to one flame lighting another before going out. 

As she recites, the mother’s face appears beyond the stars in a halo of light, which sucks in the white smoke associated at the beginning with Merrick’s birth, then finally fills the screen. The End.

There is no evidence that the real Elephant Man killed himself this way. Lynch does not treat it as a death of despair. In fact, Merrick tells Treves that he is happy every day of his life. Near the end of the movie, it is established that Merrick is dying, probably of a problem with his lungs. If abnormal things are growing on the outside, surely they are growing on the inside as well. Maybe Merrick has accepted that death is imminent and decides to end on a happy note and spare himself further suffering. 

Lynch treats Merrick’s death like an apotheosis, turning him into a patron saint of the unfortunate. 

Lynch is masterful in his treatment of the grotesque, which is akin to the sublime because it both attracts and repels us. But there is a false note when Merrick explains people’s reaction to him by saying, “We fear things that we don’t understand.” In what sense do people fear the Elephant Man? Is their fear rational or irrational? Do they suffer from a “phobia” like “homophobia,” “transphobia,” or “Islamophobia”? Should we shame them for cowardice and congratulate ourselves for our bravery?

In truth, most people are not afraid of Merrick. They are simply disgusted and horrified by him. Thus it is false to accuse them of “fear.” Moreover, disgust and horror are simple biological reactions to anything unwholesome. Such reactions protect us from dangers: disease, tainted food and water, etc. Thus it is doubly false to claim this is an irrational fear: a phobia. Is disgust simply a disguised form of fear? Maybe, but it feels different, so isn’t it a different feeling? If disgust is a fear, however, it is not an irrational one. 

We are all curious about bad things that befall other human beings: accidents, illnesses, deformities. If we satisfy our curiosity, the result is horror. At this point, however, there are two basic ways to deal with horror: mockery or compassion. 

As Anthony M. Ludovici argued in The Secret of Laughter, laughter is glorying in one’s superior fitness. Forced or nervous laughter, however, is an attempt to reassure oneself that one really is more fit.

But the horror we feel is ultimately based on the recognition that misfortune can befall us all. No, the Elephant Man’s affliction is not contagious, thank God. But none of us is immune to misfortune of one sort or another. Compassion is the recognition of this fact: one sees oneself in the other and feels for him as one feels for oneself. Mockery is a lie and evasion, compassion an admission of the truth. 

As Lynch’s career unfolded, he would take us to darker and darker places. He would wring laughter from us over terrible things. But he always sided with the better angels of our nature in the end.  

The Unz Review, January 20, 2021

If you want to support Counter-Currents, please send us a donation by going to our Entropy page and selecting “send paid chat.” Entropy allows you to donate any amount from $3 and up. All comments will be read and discussed in the next episode of Counter-Currents Radio, which airs every weekend on DLive.

Don’t forget to sign up for the twice-monthly email Counter-Currents Newsletter for exclusive content, offers, and news.

 

Related

  • A 5D Plan in 3D: Hitchcock’s Dial M For Murder

  • Munchhausen: The Third Reich’s Wizard of Oz

  • Documenting the Decline

  • Polite Society: A Film for the Coronation

  • Remembering Edward Gibbon

  • (500) Days of Summer

  • Grosse Freiheit Nummer 7: The Best German Film on World War II?

  • The Korean Musical Mystery

Tags

Anne BancroftAnthony HopkinscompassionDame Wendy HillerDavid LynchdisgustevilfearFreddie JonesJohn Hurtmovie reviewsreligionSir John GielgudThe Elephant ManTrevor LynchtruthVictorian era

Previous

« Rock Bottom Blackpills

Next

» Inauguration 2021:
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
A Review

7 comments

  1. Stephen Phillips says:
    January 22, 2021 at 7:57 am

    Thank you for the review.

  2. Weave says:
    January 22, 2021 at 6:26 pm

    My fear is always, can this happen to me? Or someone I love? I am not sure I saw that outlined.

  3. Barbarossa says:
    January 22, 2021 at 7:24 pm

    Wow! Thanks for the review.

  4. Sartor says:
    January 22, 2021 at 10:17 pm

    St Phillip’s Cathedral? St Paul’s seems more likely.
    However, a brilliant review that also gives the lie to your moralistic critics. Many thanks.

  5. McCauley says:
    January 23, 2021 at 3:02 am

    My mother rented this movie for us as kids from the library. I remember feeling so sad watching it. It sticks with me to this day. Great review.

  6. Flel says:
    January 23, 2021 at 11:09 am

    Was it rational to fear and isolate lepers? It seems utterly normal to recoil from what is viewed as ugly or unclean, even if it is ultimately human. The mob mentality also comes into play with such treatment of differences from the perceived norm. It is a great film and well worth the effort to see at any time. Thank you for bringing it back to our attention.

Comments are closed.

If you have Paywall access,
simply login first to see your comment auto-approved.

Note on comments privacy & moderation

Your email is never published nor shared.

Comments are moderated. If you don't see your comment, please be patient. If approved, it will appear here soon. Do not post your comment a second time.

  • Recent posts

    • The Great Debate

      Cyan Quinn

      2

    • Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      Beau Albrecht

      14

    • June is the Gayest Month

      Jim Goad

      10

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 535 Ask Me Anything

      Counter-Currents Radio

      1

    • Úryvky z Finis Germania Rolfa Petera Sieferleho, část 3: Nové státní náboženství

      Rolf Peter Sieferle

    • Football’s Race War

      Pox Populi

      6

    • VDARE Facing Mortal Threat

      Peter Brimelow

      5

    • Collin Cleary Interviewed on Richard Wagner

      Collin Cleary

      1

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 534 Interview with Alexander Adams

      Counter-Currents Radio

      1

    • The Union Jackal, May 2023

      Mark Gullick

      17

    • Biden and Bibi

      James J. O'Meara

      11

    • Forward with a Vengeance

      Tom Zaja

      2

    • Notes on Strauss & Husserl

      Greg Johnson

      1

    • The Worst Week Yet: May 21-27, 2023

      Jim Goad

      24

    • The Honorable Cause: A Review

      Spencer J. Quinn

      8

    • George Friedman’s The Next 100 Years

      Thomas Steuben

      4

    • Remembering Oswald Spengler (May 29, 1880-May 8, 1936)

      Greg Johnson

      2

    • Euthanizing the Homeless? It’s a Start

      Jim Goad

      8

    • Remembering Louis-Ferdinand Céline (May 27, 1894–July 1, 1961)

      Greg Johnson

      12

    • Blood, Soil, Paint

      Greg Johnson

      1

    • Céline’s Guerre

      Margot Metroland

      7

    • The Trial of Socrates

      Greg Johnson

    • Fields of Asphodel

      Tito Perdue

    • George Floyd and the “Color” of Revolution

      Stephen Paul Foster

      11

    • The Dakota Territory’s Indian Wars During the Civil War, Part 2

      Morris van de Camp

      1

    • No, Really, Everything’s Fine!

      Gunnar Alfredsson

      18

    • Euthanizing the Homeless? It’s a Start

      Jim Goad

      25

    • The Dakota Territory’s Indian Wars During the Civil War, Part 1

      Morris van de Camp

      1

    • How Much Would Slavery Reparations Actually Cost?

      Beau Albrecht

      35

    • No Brexit This Way

      Mark Gullick

      8

    • Martinez Contra Fascism

      Thomas Steuben

      25

    • Úryvky z Finis Germania Rolfa Petera Sieferleho, část 2: „Věčný nacista“

      Rolf Peter Sieferle

    • A 5D Plan in 3D: Hitchcock’s Dial M For Murder

      James J. O'Meara

      16

    • After Waco

      Morris van de Camp

      18

    • Munchhausen: The Third Reich’s Wizard of Oz

      Steven Clark

      13

    • Nueva Derecha vs. Vieja Derecha Capítulo 1: Política y Metapolítica

      Greg Johnson

    • The Worst Week Yet: May 14-20, 2023

      Jim Goad

      15

    • The (So-Called) New York “Thought Criminals” & the “Intellectual Dark Web”

      Alex Graham

      9

    • Documenting the Decline

      Spencer J. Quinn

      7

    • Remembering Richard Wagner (May 22, 1813-February 13, 1883)

      Greg Johnson

      3

    • Remembering Dominique Venner (April 16, 1935–May 21, 2013)

      Greg Johnson

      3

    • Clash of the Billionaire Comic-Book Supervillains

      Jim Goad

      2

    • The Psychology of the Politically Correct

      Richard Knight

      65

    • Springtime in Tallinn

      Veiko Hessler

      13

    • Liberal Anti-Democracy, Chapter 6, Part 2: Conclusion

      Kenneth Vinther

      11

    • Remembering Julius Evola (May 19, 1898–June 11, 1974)

      Greg Johnson

      5

    • Clash of the Billionaire Comic-Book Supervillains

      Jim Goad

      22

    • On White Normie “Brainwashing”: A Reply to Kevin MacDonald, Paul Craig Roberts, & Other Dissidents, Part 2

      D. H. Corax

      11

    • Liberal Anti-Democracy, Chapter 6, Part 1: Conclusion

      Kenneth Vinther

      1

    • Úryvky z Finis Germania Rolfa Petera Sieferleho, část 1

      Rolf Peter Sieferle

  • Classics Corner

    • Cù Chulainn in the GPO:
      The Mythic Imagination of Patrick Pearse

      Michael O'Meara

      5

    • Remembering Dominique Venner
      (April 16, 1935 – May 21, 2013)

      Greg Johnson

      11

    • A Robertson Roundup: 
      Remembering Wilmot Robertson
      (April 16, 1915 – July 8, 2005)

      Margot Metroland

      13

    • Metapolitics and Occult Warfare

      Greg Johnson

      2

    • Remembering Maurice Bardèche:
      October 1, 1907–July 30, 1998

      Greg Johnson

      2

    • The Power of Myth:
      Remembering Joseph Campbell
      (March 26, 1904–October 30, 1987)

      John Morgan

      11

    • The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

      Trevor Lynch

      24

    • The Searchers

      Trevor Lynch

      29

    • Gabriele D’Annunzio

      Jonathan Bowden

      2

    • Remembering A. R. D. “Rex” Fairburn (February 2, 1904–March 25, 1957)

      Greg Johnson

      1

    • Denis Kearney & the Struggle for a White America

      Theodore J. O'Keefe

      1

    • Posthuman Prospects:
      Artificial Intelligence, Fifth Generation Warfare, & Archeofuturism

      Christopher Pankhurst

      5

    • Earnest Sevier Cox:
      Advocate for the White Ethnostate

      Morris van de Camp

      15

    • Remembering Jack London
      (January 12, 1876–November 22, 1916)

      Greg Johnson

      2

    • Remembering Robinson Jeffers:
      January 10, 1887–January 20, 1962

      John Morgan

      3

    • Remembering Pierre Drieu La Rochelle:
      January 3, 1893–March 15, 1945

      Greg Johnson

    • Remembering Rudyard Kipling (December 30, 1865-January 18, 1936)

      Greg Johnson

      10

    • Restoring White Homelands

      Greg Johnson

      34

    • Remembering Hinton Rowan Helper

      Spencer J. Quinn

      11

    • What’s Wrong with Diversity?

      Greg Johnson

      10

    • Redefining the Mainstream

      Greg Johnson

      3

    • Edward Alsworth Ross:
      American Metapolitical Hero

      Morris van de Camp

      8

    • The Talented Mr. Ripley & Purple Noon

      Trevor Lynch

      19

    • Christmas & the Yuletide:
      Light in the Darkness

      William de Vere

      3

    • Thanksgiving Special 
      White Men Meet Indians:
      Jamestown & the Clash of Civilizations

      Thomas Jackson

    • Colin Wilson’s The Outsider

      Sir Oswald Mosley

      4

    • Dostoyevsky on the Jews

      William Pierce

      4

    • Jefferson &/or Mussolini, Part 1

      Ezra Pound

      5

    • I Listened to Chapo Trap House So You Don’t Have To

      Doug Huntington

      98

    • The Homeric Gods

      Mark Dyal

      13

  • Paroled from the Paywall

    • Politicizing Luz Long, Part II

      Clarissa Schnabel

      2

    • Politicizing Luz Long, Part I

      Clarissa Schnabel

      2

    • Breaking Beat: Reflections on The Rebel Set, a Masterpiece That Never Was

      James J. O'Meara

      1

    • If Hillary Had Won

      Stephen Paul Foster

      1

    • Nice Racism, Part 3

      Beau Albrecht

      1

    • Nice Racism, Part 2

      Beau Albrecht

      7

    • Nice Racism, Part 1

      Beau Albrecht

      5

    • Aristophanes’ Clouds, Part II

      Greg Johnson

      1

    • Aristophanes’ Clouds, Part I

      Greg Johnson

      1

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 530 The Genealogy of Wokeism

      Counter-Currents Radio

      5

    • Patrick Bateman: “Literally Me” or a Warning?

      Anthony Bavaria

      9

    • British Sculpture, Part II

      Jonathan Bowden

      1

    • British Sculpture, Part I

      Jonathan Bowden

      2

    • The New Story

      Jocelynn Cordes

      21

    • Why Does Cthulhu Always Swim Left? Part 2

      Beau Albrecht

      1

    • Why Does Cthulhu Always Swim Left? Part 1

      Beau Albrecht

      11

    • Robert Rutherford McCormick, Midwestern Man of the Right: Part 2

      Morris van de Camp

      1

    • Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: Prophet of Eugenics and Race-Realism

      Margot Metroland

      11

    • In Defense of the White Union

      Asier Abadroa

    • Everything Everywhere All at Once: The Oscar Winner the System Loves

      Steven Clark

      32

    • Incels on Wheels: Jim Goad’s Trucker Fags in Denial

      Beau Albrecht

      17

    • The White Pill

      Margot Metroland

      10

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 528 Karl Thorburn on the Bank Crashes

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Women Philosophers

      Richard Knight

      23

    • Stranger Things and Surviving in the Modern World

      Howe Abbott-Hiss

      2

    • The Fabulous Pleven Boys

      P. J. Collins

      2

    • Nuclear Families: Threads

      Mark Gullick

      4

    • Reviewing the Unreviewable

      Margot Metroland

      3

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 527 Machiavellianism & More

      Counter-Currents Radio

      2

    • The Machiavellian Method

      Greg Johnson

      11

  • Recent comments

    • Antipodean

      The Great Debate

      I am looking forward to it very much also.However not quite everyone will be able to listen at a...

    • Beau Albrecht

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      That's a cute one.  Then after the shoe brush thing, the Black asked for a donation of stock, and...

    • Beau Albrecht

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      I did hyperlink some excellent presentations about these; here they are again: https://www....

    • Jeffrey A Freeman

      June is the Gayest Month

      The Bible’s condemnation of faggotry… Not exactly as explicit as I’d like it to be. Just sayin...

    • Hamburger Today

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      There's an old joke with the punch-line, 'I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you...

    • Doug Huntington

      The Great Debate

      This debate is going to be awesome, absolutely cannot wait. :)

    • Antipodean

      June is the Gayest Month

      Another tour de force. ’Gay’ is a delightful word and name that’s been put in a dungeon and had...

    • S. clark

      June is the Gayest Month

      Instead of Eliot, I'll take John G. Whittier: "O, for boyhood's time of June crowding years in...

    • Kenneth Vinther

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      Conservatives often talk about the "long march through the institutions," but I personally think...

    • J. Smith

      Martinez Contra Fascism

      Agree

    • Al Dante

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      Go the way of the dinosaurs? Hope might be a thing with feathers, but the descendants of the...

    • ArminiusMaximus

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      I am not so sure those CEOs are as in charge as this article implies. If it were only advertising...

    • Francis XB

      Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 534 Interview with Alexander Adams

      Years ago I was doing research at a major West Coast university. The campus had an exhibition of...

    • Alexandra O.

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      'Woke Capitalists' in our midst today overlook its biggest contradiction:  as leftist-socialist...

    • Gallus

      Football’s Race War

      A great summary article that cover a lot. Thanks. The race baiting continues within the media with...

    • Stephen Paul Foster

      June is the Gayest Month

      April may have been "the cruelest month," for Eliot, but were he to resurrect himself today he'd...

    • Gallus

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      The two most recent 'wins' such as Bud Light and Target may be the start of the drop off in major...

    • Race Warrior

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      Unlikely because Hispanics are the greatest consumers and Hispanic births absolutely exploded in...

    • Jud Jackson

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      Brilliant article but Fred C. Dobbs has a good point and a good question in his comment.    You end...

    • Fire Walk With Lee

      Will Woke Capital Soon Go the Way of the Dinosaur?

      Chil-Fil-A lost me during the Summer Of St. George when Dan Cathy humiliated himself by getting down...

  • Book Authors

    • Beau Albrecht
    • Alain de Benoist
    • Kerry Bolton
    • Jonathan Bowden
    • Collin Cleary
    • Jef Costello
    • Savitri Devi
    • F. Roger Devlin
    • Buttercup Dew
    • Julius Evola
    • Jim Goad
    • Gregory Hood
    • Juleigh Howard-Hobson
    • Greg Johnson
    • Charles Krafft
    • Anthony M. Ludovici
    • Trevor Lynch
    • H. L. Mencken
    • J. A. Nicholl
    • James J. O’Meara
    • Christopher Pankhurst
    • Tito Perdue
    • Michael Polignano
    • Spencer J. Quinn
    • Fenek Solère
    • Irmin Vinson
    • Leo Yankevich
    • Francis Parker Yockey
    • Multiple authors
  • Webzine Authors

    Editor-in-Chief

    • Greg Johnson, Ph.D.

    Featured Writers

    • Beau Albrecht
    • Morris V. de Camp
    • Stephen Paul Foster, Ph.D.
    • Jim Goad
    • Alex Graham
    • Mark Gullick, Ph.D.
    • Greg Johnson, Ph.D.
    • Spencer J. Quinn

    Frequent Writers

    • Aquilonius
    • Anthony Bavaria
    • Alain de Benoist
    • Kerry Bolton, Ph.D.
    • Collin Cleary, Ph.D.
    • Jef Costello
    • F. Roger Devlin, Ph.D.
    • Richard Houck
    • Ondrej Mann
    • Margot Metroland
    • John Morgan
    • Trevor Lynch
    • James J. O’Meara
    • Kathryn S.
    • Thomas Steuben
    • Michael Walker

    Classic Authors

    • Maurice Bardèche
    • Jonathan Bowden
    • Julius Evola
    • Guillaume Faye
    • Ernst Jünger
    • Kevin MacDonald, Ph.D.
    • D. H. Lawrence
    • Charles Lindbergh
    • Jack London
    • H. P. Lovecraft
    • Anthony M. Ludovici
    • Sir Oswald Mosley
    • National Vanguard
    • Friedrich Nietzsche
    • Revilo Oliver
    • William Pierce
    • Ezra Pound
    • Saint-Loup
    • Savitri Devi
    • Carl Schmitt
    • Miguel Serrano
    • Oswald Spengler
    • P. R. Stephensen
    • Jean Thiriart
    • John Tyndall
    • Dominique Venner
    • Leo Yankevich
    • Francis Parker Yockey

    Other Authors

    • Howe Abbott-Hiss
    • Michael Bell
    • Buttercup Dew
    • Giles Corey
    • Bain Dewitt
    • Jack Donovan
    • Richardo Duchesne, Ph.D.
    • Emile Durand
    • Guillaume Durocher
    • Mark Dyal
    • Fullmoon Ancestry
    • Tom Goodroch
    • Andrew Hamilton
    • Robert Hampton
    • Huntley Haverstock
    • Derek Hawthorne
    • Gregory Hood
    • Juleigh Howard-Hobson
    • Alexander Jacob
    • Nicholas Jeelvy
    • Ruuben Kaalep
    • Tobias Langdon
    • Julian Langness
    • Travis LeBlanc
    • Patrick Le Brun
    • G A Malvicini
    • John Michael McCloughlin
    • Millennial Woes
    • Michael O’Meara
    • Christopher Pankhurst
    • Michael Polignano
    • J. J. Przybylski
    • Quintilian
    • Edouard Rix
    • C. B. Robertson
    • C. F. Robinson
    • Herve Ryssen
    • Alan Smithee
    • Fenek Solere
    • Ann Sterzinger
    • Robert Steuckers
    • Tomislav Sunic
    • Donald Thoresen
    • Marian Van Court
    • Irmin Vinson
    • Aylmer Wedgwood
    • Scott Weisswald
  • Departments

    • Book Reviews
    • Movie Reviews
    • TV Reviews
    • Music Reviews
    • Art Criticism
    • Graphic Novels & Comics
    • Video Game Reviews
    • Fiction
    • Poems
    • Interviews
    • Videos
    • English Translations
    • Other Languages
      • Arabic
      • Bulgarian
      • Croatian
      • Czech
      • Danish
      • Dutch
      • Estonian
      • Finnish
      • French
      • German
      • Greek
      • Hungarian
      • Italian
      • Lithuanian
      • Norwegian
      • Polish
      • Portuguese
      • Romanian
      • Russian
      • Slovak
      • Spanish
      • Swedish
      • Ukrainian
    • Commemorations
    • Why We Write
  • Archives
  • Top 100 Commenters
Sponsored Links
Above Time Coffee Antelope Hill Publishing Paul Waggener IHR-Store Asatru Folk Assembly No College Club Imperium Press American Renaissance The Patrick Ryan Show Jim Goad The Occidental Observer
Donate Now Mailing list
Books for sale
  • The Trial of Socrates
  • Fields of Asphodel
  • El Manifiesto Nacionalista Blanco
  • An Artist of the Right
  • Ernst Jünger
  • Reuben
  • The Partisan
  • Trevor Lynch’s Classics of Right-Wing Cinema
  • The Enemy of Europe
  • Imperium
  • Reactionary Modernism
  • Manifesto del Nazionalismo Bianco
  • O Manifesto Nacionalista Branco
  • Vade Mecum
  • Whiteness: The Original Sin
  • Space Vixen Trek Episode 17: Tomorrow the Stars
  • The Year America Died
  • Passing the Buck
  • Mysticism After Modernism
  • Gold in the Furnace
  • Defiance
  • Forever & Ever
  • Wagner’s Ring & the Germanic Tradition
  • Resistance
  • Materials for All Future Historians
  • Love Song of the Australopiths
  • White Identity Politics
  • Here’s the Thing
  • Trevor Lynch: Part Four of the Trilogy
  • Graduate School with Heidegger
  • It’s Okay to Be White
  • The World in Flames
  • The White Nationalist Manifesto
  • From Plato to Postmodernism
  • The Gizmo
  • Return of the Son of Trevor Lynch’s CENSORED Guide to the Movies
  • Toward a New Nationalism
  • The Smut Book
  • The Alternative Right
  • My Nationalist Pony
  • Dark Right: Batman Viewed From the Right
  • The Philatelist
  • Confessions of an Anti-Feminist
  • East and West
  • Though We Be Dead, Yet Our Day Will Come
  • White Like You
  • Numinous Machines
  • Venus and Her Thugs
  • Cynosura
  • North American New Right, vol. 2
  • You Asked For It
  • More Artists of the Right
  • Extremists: Studies in Metapolitics
  • The Homo & the Negro
  • Rising
  • The Importance of James Bond
  • In Defense of Prejudice
  • Confessions of a Reluctant Hater (2nd ed.)
  • The Hypocrisies of Heaven
  • Waking Up from the American Dream
  • Green Nazis in Space!
  • Truth, Justice, and a Nice White Country
  • Heidegger in Chicago
  • End of an Era: Mad Men & the Ordeal of Civility
  • Sexual Utopia in Power
  • What is a Rune? & Other Essays
  • Son of Trevor Lynch’s White Nationalist Guide to the Movies
  • The Lightning & the Sun
  • The Eldritch Evola
  • Western Civilization Bites Back
  • New Right vs. Old Right
  • Journey Late at Night: Poems and Translations
  • The Non-Hindu Indians & Indian Unity
  • I do not belong to the Baader-Meinhof Group
  • Pulp Fascism
  • The Lost Philosopher
  • Trevor Lynch’s A White Nationalist Guide to the Movies
  • And Time Rolls On
  • Artists of the Right: Resisting Decadence
  • North American New Right, Vol. 1
  • Some Thoughts on Hitler
  • Tikkun Olam and Other Poems
  • Summoning the Gods
  • Taking Our Own Side
  • Reuben
  • The Node
  • The New Austerities
  • Morning Crafts
  • The Passing of a Profit & Other Forgotten Stories
Copyright © 2023 Counter-Currents Publishing, Ltd.

Paywall Access





Please enter your email address. You will receive mail with link to set new password.

Edit your comment