Black Wurm Gism - An interview with David Mitchell

I had a chance to talk with Dave about his latest work, Songs of the Black Wurm Gism. Here is an excerpt:

I also invented something called ‘insect porn’ – by that I don’t mean I created a literal niche in the pornography market. I mean I found a useful metaphor that I could use to link Lovecraft with Burroughs. The basic thinking behind it stems from a reading of Theweleit’s book Male Fantasies which is really about the symbols of ‘horror’ and ‘loathing’ prevalent in western society. They are almost universally based on a fear of the feminine, the chaotic. And suddenly a lot of things became clear. The ‘monsters’ in both HPL and Burroughs tend to be biomorphic representations of a deep insecurity, an almost pathological misogyny on a subconscious level. In both writers, the images of disgust tend to be fixated in insects, cephalopods, molluscs, etc., all of which are part of the ‘teaming substrata of the biosphere’.

I also have a strong dislike of pornography, not based on any ideological or moral outlook, but a sincere revulsion for most of it. I remember seeing Brian Sewell once being interviewed and when he was asked if he thought pornography degraded women, he replied; “It does if it’s any good.” LOL

So – ‘insect porn’ – (which I’m going to take further into my own writings as a recurring motif) – ‘the result of an invading intelligence, non-organic possibly, attacking human life at the sexual root, by diverting the sex instinct into non-biological channels. The fixation of sexual desire is diverted from the sexual organs and into the alimentary canal. Mouth. Anus. Perhaps there is a parasite that wishes to transmit itself from host to host and uses the sexual organs of one host to pass into the digestive tract of another host.’ Nasty stuff, but it also opens up possibilities for a lot of black and scatological humour.



Yowsa! You can check out the full interview at the Index .