Marx’s Nightmare
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Marx's Nightmare
by Peter McLarenHe awoke
with the aftertaste of his nightmare
weighing heavily on his
fading recollection
of factory-fed vampires in striped pantaloons
red runnels of blood
flowing from their culled smiles
squeezing the tears of the night shift workers
into small vials assembled on conveyor belts
to be sealed, stamped and sold back
to the workers
for the price of something called
labor power
He sank back into sleep
and the next day
had an idea
for a book.
Peter McLaren is Professor in the Division of Urban Schooling, the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles.
There's actually a nice wee book entitled 'The Return of Karl Marx' by someone called Grey Lynn that dates from the 1941, and is a fictionalised imagining of Karl Marx waking up in war time London and encountering various individuals and left groups who speak in his name. There is a funny depiction of SPGB in the book, though they are not explicitly referred to as the SPGB . . . but it's definitely them/us.Despite looking around the internet, I've never been able to find out any information about Grey Lynn. For all I know, it's a pen name. Even the publisher of the book isn't that well known. However, the introduction was by the famous author and anarchist, Herbert Read, so maybe that's a clue to the background to the book.Worth reading if you get the chance but I note that the copies of the book that turn up secondhand on the net are really expensive for what is essentially a novella.
Well, it's been a while since I tried to find out anything about the book and the author, but after posting the above comment I took a chance and searched again. It threw up this wee snippet from August of this year: "Pseudonym of an untraced author, though some circumstantial evidence points to a tentative identification. Grey Lynn, an inner-city district of Auckland, New Zealand, was the birthplace of Felix (Runcie) Kelly (1914-1994), an artist who moved in 1935 to the UK, where his work was espoused by Herbert Read, who commissioned him to illustrate the 1946 edition of his sf novel, The Green Child (1935), and who wrote an introduction for a volume of his paintings – Paintings by Felix Kelly (graph 1946). Earlier, Read had introduced the sole printing of The Return of Karl Marx (1941) as by Grey Lynn; it is possible that Kelly took the city of his birth for a pseudonym, as he was serving in the RAF at the time and it was not normal practice to publish under one's own name while in uniform. The Return of Karl Marx is an sf Satire featuring the Reincarnation of the philosopher from his grave by unexplained means; after viewing the Decadent UK of 1940 (> New Zealander) he returns, sadly, to his place of rest. [JC] – See more at: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/lynn_grey#sthash.jOfeEd4j.dpuf" From this link.
"Where did yo find theMarx's Nightmare post? "http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/mclaren290713.html
i managed to acquire a copy of the Return of Kerl Marx at one time which went on the circuit of lending out, never to be returned, alas. He is also is a great critic of the CP of the time , taking work for the Daily Worker as a wage slave. But now you got me interested in seeing what the Green Child is like.
Here's some of felix Kelly artwork. http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/search.aspx?term=Felix%20Kelly and Peter Mclaren: http://www.petermclaren.org/html/texts.html
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