textfiles/politics/SPUNK/sp000926.txt

 From the pages of the "Industrial Worker"

RED LONDON, by Stewart Home
ISBN 1 873176 12 0
Published in 1994 by AK Press
22 Lutton Place, Edinburgh EH8 9PE, Scotland, UK
5.95 Pounds + 10% handling

U.S. order to AK Press, POB 40682, San Francisco, CA 94140-0682
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RED LONDON is a  novel  about  a  revolt  of  the  oppressed
against  their  oppressors.   Its  protagonists  spend their
working lives as members of what is  termed  these  days  by
official   authorities  from  Clinton  to  Habermas  as  the
"underclass".  The sell their time as  prostitutes,  obscure
rock  musicians,  porn  magazine photographers and so forth;
while devoting their free time to sexual  pleasure  and  the
murder  of  the  ruling  class.   They  are  libertines with
visceral passions.  Their  practice  of  meeting  out  class
vengeance  is  both  crude  and  ruthless.  They are serious
proles with serious lusts.

RED LONDON is not for the squeamish  or  prudish  of  heart.
Stewart  Home's  prose  is on a par with the Marquis de Sade
when it comes to sex and violence.   Here's  a  taste.   The
setting  is  a rock concert for conservative teens, given by
an older Tory rock star, Sebastian Fame, whose  neurosis  of
choice  happens  to be pedophilia.  Security for the concert
is by a gang of fascist boot boys, known as the Aryan  Youth
League.    Nobody   suspects   that   the  Soho  Prostitutes
Collective has planned a guerilla action.

"The minders jumped to attention when a  van  skidded  to  a
halt  outside the hall.  Twelve masked wimmin leapt from the
transit, while  the  driver  remained  at  the  wheel.   The
heavies  relaxed.  Obviously these birds were a part of some
practical joke, one of their mates had no doubt set them  up
by writing to Jeremy Beadle.  The two AYL yobs were mentally
incapable  of  accepting  the fact that many of the greatest
fighters down the ages had been wimmin.
"'We don't need to see your faces', the fatter of  the  pair
laughed,'just get your tits out.'
"'Get your tits out, get your tits out, get  your  tits  out
for the lads!' his mate chanted, but not for long!
"Cleo floored the sexist retard with  a  kidney  punch  that
brought  blood bubbling up through his mouth.  Then the kung
fu chick broke the bastard's spine by bringing her boot down
on th back of his neck.  There was the satisfying crunch  of
splintering  bone  and  the fascist bore became just another
name on the Met's long list of murder victims.
"Simultaneously, Melody Thrush slammed a clenched fist  into
the other minder's mouth.  Having rearranged the brickhead's
teeth,  she  landed  a  devastating  blow to his stomach and
within seconds, the prick was puking his lunch.   If  nature
had been left to take its course, it looked like the bastard
would  have  retched  up  his  guts,  piece by little piece.
Instead the steel toe-capped boots of  several  SPC  members
rained  in  against  his body.  After the first few ribs had
snapped with a sickening crack, a badly aimed kick  hit  the
cunt's  head  and  the  beer  boy's  body went limp.  It was
bloody unfortunate that his brain no longer  registered  the
searing  pain  which  accompanied  the  early  stages of the
beating.  But, to the fascist, the icy numbness of  physical
blackout  was  more  welcome than a million pound win on the
pools.
"Sebastian faltered and broke off midway through a  song  as
the SPC cut through the hall in a flying wedge.  After a few
screams,  the  crowd  fell  silent  and the only sound to be
heard was the tramping of boots on the wooden  floor.   Cleo
and  Melody  grabbed Fame.  The other SPC members herded the
audience into a side room.  Adults were simply shot  through
the head and left where they fell.
"Sebastian was shoved across the stage and held against  the
wooden  cross.  Melody removed two hammers and a fistfull of
six-inch nails..."

RED LONDON is Home's latest novel.  Like his previous  works
of  fiction:  NO PITY, PURE MANIA and DEFIANT POSE, Home has
set RED LONDON in a Britain which has already raced  through
the   cautionary  traffic  light,  flashing  "  a  clockwork
orange", into  a  nearly  visible  future  populated  by  an
increasingly class conscious, if semi-educated, proletariat,
who   live   within   the  socio-economic  boundaries  of  a
capitalist system in terminal decay.   In  RED  LONDON,  the
self-appointed vanguard of the lumpen and proles is composed
of  young  men  and  wimmin,  who have cut their ideological
teeth on a tract penned by the then notorious  K.L.  Callan.
Callan's  infamous,  banned  book,  MARX,  CHRIST, and SATAN
UNITED  IN  STRUGGLE  is  passed  in  xerox  copies  between
self-styled  anarchist   fighting   units   and   individual
anarcho-nihilists,  like  Adolf  Kramer.  Kramer is the main
protagonist.    His   mental   interior   reads    like    a
politico-genetic  cross  between  Charles  Manson and Ulrike
Meinhof.   He  is  the  archetypical  child  of  the   urban
terrorist   movement,   grown   more   sly;   but   just  as
psychopathically dogmatic as his forbearers.  Adolf and  his
comrades  are  prone  to  using  the  blood  of  their class
antagonists to dab quotes on walls at the  scenes  of  their
actions.   It  is  invariably K.L. Callan's MARX, CHRIST and
SATAN UNITED IN STRUGGLE which is quoted.

"Adolf slit Gallon's throat with a flick-knife, then set  to
work  ritually  mutilating  the  bodies  of  the  two  class
traitors.   After  dipping his fingers in the gouts of blood
that were still spurting from Gallon's bulk, Kramer scrawled
the following observation across the living room wall:
     Contrary to orthodox opinion, be it situationist or conservative,
     it is quantitative--not qualitative--problems that lie at the
     root of the current crisis.
"It was a quotation from MARX, CHRIST and  SATAN  UNITED  IN
STRUGGLE,  magnum  opus of that most mysterious of nihilists
K.L. Callan."

These exiles from  main  street  move  within  a  milieu  of
militant  vegans,  situationists,  buddhist  priests, nazis,
skinheads and other assorted denizens of  lumpen  and  prole
origins.  You follow them through the pages of RED LONDON as
they  drink,  fight,  and  sexually  amuse themselves in the
public housing projects, whorehouses, streets  and  bogs  of
the  city.   RED  LONDON  is  a  simple  book,  written in a
minimalist style, with more than  a  few  repetitious  icons
e.g.  the ubiquitous bottles of 100 Pipers Scotch, preferred
brand of the underclass; the ever present  sexual  motif  of
couples, "beating out the primitive rhythm of the swamps."

It's also an exciting bit of anarchist  pulp  fiction.   The
sex  and  ultra-violence  can  stir  up  your deepest Id-ish
fantasies.  But, I don't think that it should be read as  an
organizing prescription, the way its heroines/heroes seem to
have  read  K.L.  Callan's  MARX...  .  Nor do it think that
Stewart Home sees himself  as  the  K.L.  Callan  of  today.
There  is  more tongue in cheek within RED LONDON than is to
be found in the numerous scenes of oral sex.

No.  RL might better be read  as  a  warning;  much  as  the
proles  of  yesteryear  read  Jack  London's IRON HEEL, that
foreboding tale predicting the advent of the fascist  States
of  the mid 20th Century.  The warining this time is for the
bourgeois of the world,  whose  commodified  morality  leads
them  to  treat  their  wage-slaves  as  nothing  more  than
carbon-based biological work units to be thrown on society's
scrap  heap  when  they're all used up.  Home has given us a
novel about a pissed off underclass of midnight ramblers who
are going to be the first to stick their knives  right  down
the  throats  of  the  ruling class--and baby it hurts!  The
warning  is  as   simple   as   that   old   working   class
aphorism--what goes around, comes around.

Mike Ballard


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