It all goes downhill

Dumitru Duduman was given a message by an angel (which are oftentimes divine messengers sent by God) that America is Mystery Babylon and it became this way because it kind of condoned or tolerated the introduction of idols into an otherwise Christian colony, once it became a superpower it became progressively more evil time. AA Allen said that American culture does have a habit of popularising or originating such filth, as to be the mother of nearly all the abominations that get unleashed to the planet. This becomes kind of obvious when it comes to the mainstreaming of smut, where although such materials did exist before and even well onto the 18th century, but what’s really astonishing is that this wouldn’t pick up much steam until the time of the sexual revolution where stories like Tropic of Cancer have effectively popularised the use of sexually explicit scenes in books.

Especially coupled with America’s ascendancy to superpower status that even when it didn’t originate pornography, it did get to popularise certain things like pornographic films and magazines, and even the very things that got Marquis de Sade jailed in 18th century France in the form of dark romance. These dark romance stories seem to involve stories of women getting sexually tortured by men, which seems to be right up Sade’s alley but one that’s widely enjoyed by many with their authors getting off scot-free. America’s transformation into the epicentre of moral and spiritual abomination is quite terrifying to behold, the fact that it’s practically Hell on Earth makes one wonder just how evil America is and would get at any point in time. It does make for a strange transformation to even witness a self-proclaimed Christian colony to indulge in these things, but it’s a very double-minded country on the verge of collapse.

I have indulged in sins myself, doing it despite feeling bad about it, though I do try to confess it to God and pray for others, to be honest. Maybe some Americans are like this themselves as well, or even the people I pray for just the same. But as AA Allen said that a country’s cultural character is judged by what it produces, so in the case with the United States it popularises both edifying materials and filth with the same gusto. A rather strange country if there ever was one that went from piety to decadence without developing a conscience in-between, since this is a take on a popular quote that’s been attributed to various people like Oscar Wilde over the years. The actual quote is that America went from barbarism to decadence without developing civilisation in-between, in the sense that America’s status as a superpower happened overnight compared to countries like Spain and France. Or better still Iran and China, which were around for more than 5000 years and are the very tools of indignation God will use to deal with America soon enough.

There’s actually a book published sometime in the 1960s called ‘Is The USA in Prophecy’ which talks about both America’s rise to power coupled with its decadence and Britain as a declining superpower, where if America is prophetic Babylon then it stands that Britain is its mother that will witness it die in some way as well as dying herself. Or at the very least the United Kingdom would finally dissolve into three separate countries again in centuries, with Northern Ireland finally reuniting with the rest of Ireland. It’s one of the earliest surviving documents, years before Duduman’s own revelation, that America is Mystery Babylon and it’s unfortunately rather rare. It’s also oddly not rare of a view either as others like David Wilkerson also hold it in ‘Set A Trumpet’, so it stands to reason that America is a new Babylon in the sense of setting a really bad example for other countries to follow. Whatever your sentiments or reasons are for hating America, it wouldn’t even surprise God as he knew it would turn into Babylon the Great over time.

There’s some talk in the Russophone corner of the Internet that America practically originated pop culture as we know it, not that European countries like Britain and Italy lack their own, but that America popularises things like Spider-Man and introduced innovations in media that originated in other countries like what animation is to France when it comes to things like the use of rotoscoping. It’s practically a version of motion-capture when it comes to capturing movements as realistically as possible, which would become the standard for not only American animation but also video games. People like the Fleischer brothers pioneered this technique that other animation studios like Russia’s Soyuzmultilm would come to use eventually, it should be noted that cartooning itself (which comics are very much a subset of this discipline) has roots elsewhere. But what America did is to introduce stories that remain popular to this day like Garfield and Peanuts, a mode of production where there’s a cartoonist who specialises in cartooning with a pencil and another who inks, and so on.

It’s kind of astonishing that a number of British comics in the 1970s and 1980s were in black and white, but to better compete with their American counterparts is to become just as colourful as they are. Come the 2020s and it’s the norm for 2000AD comics stories to be in colour, as the earlier ones were in black and white. Let’s not forget that American comics were among the first comics publications to be printed in much better quality paper, eventually moving onto glossy paper that became the gold standard for superhero publications around the world. Maybe not all as there was something like Bayan Knights in the late 2000s but the resulting publications were primarily in black and white, and on much cheaper paper than the glossy ones used for their US imported counterparts. American influence didn’t exactly get rid of British pop culture, but given America’s stronger presence as a current superpower that Britain would inevitably follow its lead anyways.

This also goes for other things like music where although guitars have existed for centuries, the electric guitar undoubtedly originated in the United States. It should be noted that electric guitars aren’t inherently evil in and of themselves, just as keyboards and music software aren’t evil in and of themselves, or for another matter popular music genres like pop, rock, jazz and hip hop. It is however unfortunate that a good number of musicians from the US canon were also at the forefront of popularising, if not originating, filth themselves be it Cher, Chuck Berry or Michael Jackson that it’s also a gold standard for musicians from other countries to emulate their leads. I feel if it weren’t for Cher flashing her bellybutton on telly and then wearing racier and more outrageous outfits later on, we wouldn’t have the likes of Australia’s Kylie Minogue and the like doing it themselves too. If it weren’t for Robert Johnson popularising devilry, then other musicians from far and wide wouldn’t do the same thing too.

If it weren’t for somebody creating New Kids on the Block as the white version of New Edition, we wouldn’t get K-Pop boy bands and it’s often suspected that they often take African American music for inspiration. It should be noted that Seo Taji and the Boys (one of the earliest K-Pop bands and so far among the very few non-prefab ones around) got their start in hip hop, which is an American import, and one of its members would go on to found YG Entertainment. K-Pop itself is no stranger to such devilry like its western counterpart, that it seems America is truly at the forefront of popularising filth and abomination. There’s practically no mistaking that rock, rap and modern pop are byproducts of US influence, that historically both Sweden (the country behind Roxette, The Cardigans and Ace of Base) and Britain (the country behind The Prodigy, Spice Girls and Wham) prioritised their own music above America’s. In fact Sweden even had to set up a kind of music education to keep its kids from being into American music, though it didn’t last long in a way as American music made inroads as it would in Britain.

It’s not inherently bad to like these musicians for as long as you don’t make idols out of them (to the best of one’s abilities, as I’ve fallen into this trap a lot before), but there’s really no mistaking that America’s at the forefront of popularising a lot of shameful things in life. Whether if this includes prefab boy bands at all but there’s really no getting around that Britain got the idea of making boy bands if it weren’t for America doing it first, so after New Edition we get Take That soon after. Denniz Pop didn’t just produce albums with Ace of Base, he’d also come to produce albums with the Backstreet Boys later on. In the same way there’s no mistaking that America also originated certain dance music genres like techno and house that this would hit Europe one day, where in Britain this led to the formation of acid house (which the Prodigy was a part of this scene early on) around the end of Margaret Thatcher’s reign. Actually it should be noted that Ace of Base also started out as a kind of techno band called Tech Noir, which goes to show you how influential America is to mass culture or pop culture.

If it also means popularising rather embarassing things or other worldly things, that America is going to be at the forefront of filth anyways. It could be argued we have America to blame for why things like porn magazines exist or arguably Barbie, since it turned out that this doll brand’s actually based on a cartoon prostitute named Lili. One would wonder if Denmark’s Aqua was weirldy prescient about this revelation when it came to their most infamous song called ‘Barbie Girl’ (practically their equivalent to The Prodigy’s ‘Smack My B Up’ in terms of controversially sexist lyrics), even when they weren’t aware of it at the time. With the revelation that Barbie is based on a cartoon prostitute makes her much more questionable than one would realise, especially when in tandem with occult imagery, that it seems America succeeds in popularising a lot more questionable things really. Either way, America is Mystery Babylon and will always be at the forefront of popularising spiritual abominations.

Nearly forgotten associations

When it comes to conceiving of the character Ermentrude Wolfenbarger, it’s primarily based on the odd fact that wolves were actually this associated with witchcraft in some countries like Switzerland before (she is Swiss herself). Mind you even their domesticated relatives dogs were also highly associated with witchcraft in countries like France, Germany and Britain at some point, the association still exists in some African countries like Cameroon and Ghana even not all Africans believe in this themselves. Though there are African sermons and devotionals that do bring this up, they also bring out other topics like forgiveness and arrogance for instance. It is one interest but not the only one around, as they also discuss other matters like love as well.

But even then this is one association that does deserve some reappearance, if one wants a break from the usual stereotype, more often than not it’s informed by a very limited experience with certain things and peoples. Very limited interest in such things and peoples as well to boot, that’s why a number of fictions tend to be kind of dyed in the wool repetitive. TV Tropes might be interesting but not to a reliable extent since most of its obsessions relate to modern pop culture or mass culture in some way or another, not so much earlier folk cultures and high cultures alike. For both of these two, you might as well peruse both older documents (including those dating back to the early modern period) and academia to better delve into such subject matters that don’t appear often in modern mass culture.

And if you want to go the extra mile, then you could also peruse inspirational literatures and journalistic literatures on the same as well, but in a way that makes one wonder if American mass culture/pop culture is kind of very selective in some fashion. Maybe not necessarily selective but more in the lines of being really detached from the past, if because American culture kind of came out of the blue when compared to not only Europe but also China, India, Iran and arguably Senegal, Ghana (when it was both the Ashanti Empire and the Gold Coast), Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo. From the early modern European standpoint, associating dogs with witchcraft’s rather unsurprising, which goes to show you how common this association was in the past.

It’s not at all forgotten in African countries, if because it’s still relevant to this day. But I feel European countries have gotten more postmodern, alongside the profound American influence that came by. Germany had a vexing attitude to dogs before and still does to this day, only in the past it had a lot to do with witchcraft. At present it’s due to both canine predation and people poisoning dogs out of spite, but either way Germany seems more apprehensive around dogs than America is. The same goes for both Austria and Switzerland, since they also have the same problems as well. It’s kind of befitting that one of the most prominent dogs in Germanophone culture is the demonic familiar of Dr Faust, as popularised by Johann von Goethe.

One that’s more deeply embodied in German culture than what Cujo does for American culture, in some regards a lot moreso. And then there’s Malleus Maleficarum, which brings up the association of wolves with witchcraft. So associating either wolves or dogs with witchcraft in the European mind wasn’t that strange before because it used to be this commonplace, similar associations exist in America as a country but only in isolated pockets among some indigenous communities. This is where the American attitude to dogs diverges from its German counterpart, one that seems more consistently enthusiastic around them. That’s not to say Germans don’t value dogs at all, but it’s undermined by recurring suspicions of foul play. Something America doesn’t have to the same extent, really.

The association of wolves and dogs with witchcraft wasn’t really that strange in early modern Europe, owing to its previous ubiquity, that had a character like Ermentrude Wolfenbarger emerged in say 1618, she wouldn’t have been surprising. She is a witch who not only habitually uses dogs and wolves to attack people, but also bewitches them the same, sends dog spirits to torment them and turns into a wolf herself, a witch who’s right at home in African Pentecostal thought as she would be in early modern European Christian thought. But given Canada’s greater proximity to America that a character like Ermentrude Wolfenbarger would stick out like a sore thumb, as Canada was also formed fairly recently and very much a settler-colony as America is.

On the subject of serial killers and pet dogs, there are instances where such characters do like and care for dogs. Most notably the likes of Harold Shipman (who had a black poodle), Myra Hindley who had a dog named Puppet and Dennis Nilsen who had a dog named Bleep, though the thought of murderers having dogs wasn’t so odd during the witch trials. But that’s got to do with them being associated with or suspected of witchcraft in some way that it was to be expected, Ermentrude Wolfenbarger being a murderous witch who likes dogs is pretty unremarkable in this light and likewise the same would go for Harold Shipman, Dennis Nilsen and Myra Hindley in a way. In modern fiction, the closest equivalent would be Dudley and his dog Muttley, which speaks to a kind of underrepresentation.

As underrepresented as witches with dogs, which are historically interconnected and interrelated in Europe before. To the point where if American fiction is in short supply of villainous dog owners that the only viable alternatives are real life stories of murderous dog owners and folklore involving witches who have dogs for familiars, especially if these beliefs are outside of mainstream American culture (Europe at some point, Africa at present). Ermentrude Wolfenbarger and her dogs would be a return to the earlier portrayal, as found in Johann von Goethe’s Faust, so is her using their wild relatives the wolves to do the exact same thing.

These were even mentioned in the book Demons of Urban Reform, which features mentions of documents encountering similar characters in real life at the time. Ermentrude Wolfenbarger and her canine association might be a controversially refreshing change of pace, a villainous witch who uses both dogs and wolves to antagonise people and animals alike.

Whither Americana

The more America turns out to be Mystery Babylon, the more I feel newer American musicians might not have lasting careers beyond the 2010s and 2020s, wherein America doesn’t just get destroyed by a natural disaster but also where American influence gets revoked around the world. To the point where America becomes symbolic of the past, a world those born in the 2020s can’t completely relate to. They might have the (dis)advantage of being born in an era where America’s already a declining superpower, so they’re never going to relate well to memories of an era where America was still a superpower. I had compared Lady Gaga to Aretha Franklin before, but I feel Franklin lucked out because her career lasted for as long as America remained a superpower in her lifetime.

Lady Gaga might not get to witness her career continue in her forties, not just due to an earthquake sent by God to destroy America, but that America will officially stop being a superpower anytime soon this year. As the Bible speaks of musicians no longer playing in Mystery Babylon, so Lady Gaga might never get to continue her music career in any way she likes. Her music will no longer get played on the radio, it will also not get played by people in their own playlists. It would be shocking to think that there will come a time when people actually and sincerely get over American musicians, with an unconscious feeling that America really isn’t going to last long as a superpower. A feeling that Ameria’s nearing its end as a superpower, further confirming and fulfilling Biblical prophecy.

American music might no longer be popular all over the world over time, it’s already on its way arguably but it will officially stop being popular once we head closer towards WWIII. There might even come a time when God officially allows both China and Russia to take over the world, as to hand over America’s allies to them as comeuppance for their own sins and for allying more with the country he hates the most, that this is when both Chinese and Russian soft power get popularised big time. If American influence does get revoked on nearly every country, which it already is to an extent, one particular question might concern the cultural aspects of this. If American influence gets revoked around the world, what’s going to make up for a loss of American influence in fields like music and publishing?

I remember praying for others to cope with say Philippine publishers coming to translate Hong Kong, Chinese, Indonesian, Vietnamese and Japanese books, or Canadian publishers coming to translate Swedish, Russian, Norwegian, Estonian and Latvian books to make up for a potential loss and also to lessen the amount of American influence both Canada and the Philippines have been exposed to. At present America has both the world’s largest publishing industry and the world’s largest music industry, that the loss of American influence in these fields would be pretty deep and deeply shocking. To use the Philippines as an example, to make up for the loss of American influence in publishing it would have to turn to its closest neighbours and two of its allies to make up for it there.

The examples I pointed out are China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Japan and Korea (if it gets reunified at all), which also extends to the comics wing of the publishing industry. For Canada the substitutes would also have to come from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania (and Moldova), Hungary, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway, admittedly these are my personal preferences. But it’s still going to take big shoes to fill to make up for a loss of US influence in these fields, however imperfect these may be in the interim given how I feel about sermns when something doesn’t play these as expected.

A similarly pertinent topic would concern the animation industry, wherein the loss of American influence would be just as awkward and painful. Japanese animation might not suffice as a panacea, whether on its own or that it’s kind of stigmatised, so perhaps accepting substitutes from other places like China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand might just be as necessary to make up for a loss. Even then it seems inevitable American influence will be largely undone, with remnants of it persisting in both Christianity (Pentecostalism) and technology (computing, computers, Internet), for as long as the latter serves the former they will remain together. Perhaps it’s for the better that American influence wouldn’t last, because most of it’s no good and that will be the last of it.

She’s a product of her times

I remember reading somewhere that Antonia Fraser created Jemima Shore to be the opposite of herself as well as representative of feminism in the 1960s and 1970s, wherein such women want to be liberated from motherhood and domesticity and to be very independent themselves. It’s unsurprising that the stories the character appeared in mostly appeared between the 1970s and 1990s, though it seemed she hasn’t appeared in any further stories until now. It seems the character’s brand of feminism resonated with a number of women of a certain mindset, ideology and time period, these stories the character appears in still get reissues every now and then, but at other times she hasn’t appeared in any further adventures because I suppose by the time the 1990s rolled in she risked being kind of outdated in some regards.

She’s not necessarily this irrelevant as her stories do get reissued but I feel one possible reason why the character doesn’t appear in any further stories, perhaps until now, is that she seems way too tied to a certain ideology or school of thinking that was popularised in the period she first showed up. I’m pretty much running around in circles but I feel it kind of limited what else Antonia Fraser could do with her once that school of thinking went out of vogue as time went on, whereas characters like Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple as well as Nancy Drew not only continued to appear in further written stories, but also get to constantly appear outside of prose fiction. Like I feel the way Jemima Shore’s characterised is way too tied to this time period, that of a professional woman who does whatever she wants to do.

Whilst the earlier Nancy Drew stories do have some dated elements, yet the titular heroine continued to appear in further adventures well onto the 21st century. Miss Marple might also be seen as belonging to a different time period, but I feel the way she’s characterised feels less dated. Actually in general, the ways both Miss Marple and Nancy Drew are characterised feel less dated than Jemima Shore is, the latter would also get into romantic relationships herself and even has the same hair colour but the vibe isn’t that of an independent, liberated woman who does whatever she wants to do. As with these two, the overall characterisation is simply that of a female citizen sleuth, though it is simplistic it’s also more timeless than say a liberated woman who does whatever she wants to do.

In fact to the extent that there were still Nancy Drew books being written in the 1990s and 2000s, not just short story anthologies but also full blown novels. In this same period Jemima Shore would appear sporadically but not necessarily appearing in full blown novels, so it seemed as the feminist school of thought went from wanting to be super liberated to embracing femininity and rectifying negative attitudes to it, at any point where Jemima could’ve reclaimed traditionally feminine pastimes like sewing and even homemaking as feminist activities she continued to be characterised in the mold of 1960s-1970s feminist thought. It’s not that these stories she appears in went out of print at all, but it’s kind of hard writing further stories with this characterisation in mind.

If both Nancy Drew and Miss Marple are any indication, sometimes a relatively simpler characterisation is what it takes to make a character practically and truly timeless. Social trends and phenomena do have a way of influencing the way people write characters and stories, sort of like how Jemima Shore’s a byproduct of second-wave feminism. But as feminist thought continues to change, the way Jemima’s characterised practically keeps her stuck in that time period, in fact to where Antonia Fraser couldn’t write further stories with her, maybe until now. Even then it’s not hard to see how certain stories and characters remain painfully dated, whereas others continue to feel fresh and timeless.

Colin

A character I created last year though he first showed up in a dream, oddly enough as inspired by Dio Brando from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, along with another character who’s a clairvoyant gunman. He has some similarities to Dio Brando, namely his clothing, habit of knife throwing and ability to stop time, though in his case he can only do so in a localised area so he really doesn’t stop time all the way. But enough for him to do whatever he wants to do, which helps that he’s also an excellent escapologist himself. He kind of looks like a younger Liam Howlett himself, he’s one of the members of the band The Prodigy. Two of his bandmates left early and one of them died, so both he and Maxim Reality are currently the band’s oldest surviving and longest serving members at this point, assuming others joined in eventually.

The one character who looks like Maxim Reality is Fabrice Tientcheu, but it’s kind of awkward that Fabrice is one of the good guys, whereas Colin Sallow’s the one who murdered Jemima Szara’s boyfriend out of spite. Even more awkward is that Fabrice Tientcheu likes cats and Colin Sallow likes birds more, Colin even studied biology before as a foreign exchange student in Gothenburg, Sweden. Wait a minute, one of my other favourite bands (Ace of Base), came from this city. Colin really does a lot of birdwatching and actually owns some birds himself, though these are chickens, parrots and ducks. He also frequently feeds pigeons and ravens, though he used one raven to give him something to get out of somewhere soon enough.

Due to his time in Sweden, he’s able to whip out some Swedish food himself. Though from what’s shown in-story is that he makes pickled beetroots, which is a popular Swedish food by the way. He’s also a close friend of Richard Sorm, much to Jean-Louis Lumiere’s anger and disgust, even though he’s closer to Jean-Louis in age. Also Colin’s an aspiring politician and his own father’s a politician too, though his own politics have yet to be determined as this is a draft. As to where he actually comes from, we do know that he spent time in Sweden as a foreign exchange student. But I suppose he comes from somewhere in the cities, or maybe in the suburbs of a city because he’s got a garden to grow beetroots with. But for all we know, he’s not American, he’s neither British too.

A Canadian though he could come from somewhere in Windsor, maybe a suburb within that city so far and his own father’s a diplomat. So this is another reason why he spent time, in fact much of his late adolescence, in Sweden. He didn’t become a foreign exchange student by choice, but that’s what he ended up doing there. Not to mention, both Fabrice and Colin dressed up as sailors (that alludes to the way Tadzio’s portrayed in the film Death In Venice), but the former did this to keep track of him. He may not be one of the heroes of the story, rather the villain instead, but this gives you an idea of who he is.

Changing Into Something

The weird thing about speculative fiction is that a good number of writers in that school of thought tend to treat shapeshifting as separate from magic/witchcraft, even though these are quite closely connected in fiction that shapeshifting’s as much an aspect of witchcraft as having familiars and casting spells are. When you think about it, if somebody shapeshifts into a dog, this kind of violates the laws of physics as to be wholly supernatural in nature. Not to mention so suspicious that you can’t help but wonder if somebody disguises themselves as a dog to get away with something, or if that dog may not even be a real dog at all. So shapeshifting being a subset or aspect of witchcraft makes good sense really, especially regarding the intentions and true nature of something or someone.

Despite her own faults (whatever they may be), I wonder if JK Rowling’s own issues with fantasy fiction largely stem from her greater familiarity with and love of folklore. I’m pretty much projecting my feelings on her, but it’s feasible that the way magic’s depicted in Harry Potter may in fact be closer to its folkloric incarnation than it does in most fantasy fiction. It’s not just that the magical characters cast spells on people and have familiars, but a number of them also shapeshift. But this makes me wonder if Rowling might have stumbled upon facsimiles of early modern witchhunting books or at least those about that sort of matter, again I’m projecting here but this is highly plausible.

After all the character of Dobby the Elf has folkoric counterparts in some parts of England. And the Veela are based on the Polish Wila, to the extent that Rowling is this intimated with folklore. If you have witches and wizards turning themselves into animals, then this is closer to folklore than it is in some literary fantasy schools. It’s like in urban fantasy where shapeshifting is treated differently from witchcraft, where you have wolf-shifters, leopard-shifters and so on. I don’t know much about the Harry Potter stories and I haven’t read those myself, but I feel given Rowling’s greater sympathy towards folklore than with the literary fantasy school as popularised by JRR Tolkien, this gives the series a different but legitimate character.

Ever since JRR Tolkien unleashed Lord Of The Rings that fantasy writers are compelled to create elaborate worlds to justify and rationalise the existence of magic and supernatural creatures, this isn’t true for other literary fantasy schools like urban fantasy to an extent. But I feel a good number of fantasy stories since Tolkien and the like feel very detached from folklore in some regards, whereas in folklore fairies and their ilk seem more like omens than legitimately separate species from humanity. Where witchcraft feels realer than one realises, given the possibility of somebody casting spells on you. It seems the only people who genuinely see witchcraft as a legitimate problem are Christians, the ones who don’t just suspect witchcraft in literature.

But also suspect how and why witches cast spells on people to make them do something bad or wish ill on them in many more ways, that this is something fantasy literature usually doesn’t take into consideration. Maybe it does in a way, but I feel most fantasy writers have this mindset of having to create a fictional world as to rationalise or justify the fantastical. Like I said, many folkloric creatures were/are more like omens than separate species. Very odd and suspicious beings that could be used as warnings for something, or as augurs of what is to come. It’s possible Rowling’s own take still adheres to the literary fantasy school to a degree, but I feel some of her issues with fantasy fiction may partly stem from her greater understanding and love of folklore.

Do reading cultures even exist there?

When it comes to the subject of reading cultures in sub-Saharan African countries, I feel this is more complicated and surprising than the matter of these countries and cultures being oral. The existence of African Ajami literature (African languages and literatures written in Arabic script) kind of challenges this notion, which is still being done to this day though it does also challenge the notion of Africans being illiterate. Especially when it comes to being illiterate in something written in the Latin script, take myself for instance. I’m technically literate but I’m illiterate in something written in the Chinese script, this would be no different with a good number of Africans being more literate in the Arabic script than they would with the Latin script.

Then we get the preponderance of African educational and academic literatures, which kind of puts a dent on reading for pleasure but I feel there might be more Africans who do read for pleasure than one realises. Maybe not necessarily in a way one would recognise it as, if you were to take myself as an example again, I actually do have a habit of reading academic texts for pleasure. There might be Africans who do developed a habit of reading from reading educational/academic texts a lot, just as there are Africans who developed a habit of reading from reading magazines and newspapers. That’s not to say publishing in African countries is nonexistent, but given fiction is such a hard sell there that the ones that do succeed excel in something that’s either educational/academic, generally informative or spiritual.

Especially if you take not only books but also magazines, websites, devotionals, Bible readings and newspapers into account that reading cultures do exist in African countries, though they may not necessarily happen in the way westerners expect them to be. Unfortunately this is something a good number of Africans have internalised themselves, even if this may not necessarily be the case in other circumstances and situations. This is also complicated by things like religion where Arabicisation went with Islamisation as it is in parts of Nigeria, Mozambique, Kenya and Ghana as well as Senegal and Mali in general, but even then I don’t think reading cultures in African countries are nonexistent.

Rather they developed differently from the western models, where I feel you can make an argument for African countries having a tradition of informative and spiritual literatures at this point. Maybe not necessarily the western model of having a tradition of fiction literatures, but it is there on some level and in some form.

Female creatives and their muses

Comparing Taylor Swift to PD James seems really odd at first, but they’re evidently women whose works are inspired by their relationships with men, in the case with the latter it’s an adulterous relationship with another man at that. I said many times before that if PD James did base her creation Adam Dalgliesh after a man she had an affair with, that puts her closer to Dante Alighieri than she would with Dorothy L Sayers in this regard. Admittedly, I know little about Dorothy Sayers, but the thing with Dante Alighieri is that he seems hung up on his boyhood crush, despite being married to Gemma Donati. It’s this boyhood crush who inspired some of his works, most notably La Vita Nuova and The Divine Comedy, whereas his wife seems to be barely mentioned, if at all, in his body of work.

If PD James did base Adam after a man she had an affair with, then it’s as if Beatrice-personaggia was the protagonist of the Divine Comedy and also La Vita Nuova, with Dante-personaggio coming later and the proxy for Gemma Donati being nowhere in sight. A sort of terrible irony to think that PD James was against infidelity but actually committed it in private, with more details of this affair with another man being leaked now and later. Sort of hypocritical of her to be against infidelity when she herself cheated on her husband with some other bloke, the same man who inspired her character Adam Dalgliesh. Moving onto Taylor Swift, she is infamous for basing songs after her relationships with the men she repeatedly broke up with. Perhaps befitting one of her albums is called The Tortured Poets Department, if because she is an artist tortured by the memories involving her muses.

Some of these songs involve well-known men like Jake Gyllenhaal, John Meyer, Joe Jonas (from the Jonas Brothers) and Taylor Lautner, who used to be in the Twilight films I think (his colleagues Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart have moved onto more prestigious productions by now). The fact that some of her songs are based on her previous relationships with these men qualify them as muses of sorts, in the sense that they inspire a portion of her body of work. To reiterate, Taylor Swift is a tortured poet haunted by the memories about her muses, and part of her body of work is dedicated to each and every one of them. So women do have muses, but because the muse is so often expected to be female, that logically the artist has to be male. A kind of objectification in that the woman’s expected to inspire the man, where she has to service or submit to her man in some way.

So reversing the roles would be pretty unthinkable, even if it’s more common than one realises. This would have interesting implications for Taylor Swift’s career, since it’s widely believed that some of her songs are about her ex-lovers. Likewise if PD James did base Adam Dalgliesh after a man she had an affair with, then her sidepiece should also be seen as her muse. It’s not something that comes to mind for others, but it makes sense for Taylor Swift to have muses, since some of her songs seem to be about the men she broke up with. Or for another matter, PD James towards her lover, however questionable this may be.

Of women and their doomed relationships with their muses

There’s a post by Unherd about how a number of Taylor Swift’s songs involve doomed relationships with men, not helped by that she often breaks up with the men she loved, leaving no relationship to last in any way she would’ve preferred at some point. That this author goes on analogising them to literary works involving doomed relationships of sorts as well as courtly love, that it seems for some female creatives, the relationships they pursue with the men they love often end tragically or in ways they never expected in a way they like. Which more often than not inspire their body of work, than if they lead lasting and fulfilling relationships with them.

When it comes to PD James’s affair with a man like her own creation, the real tragedy lies with how she may have been unable to divorce her husband given how unhappy she was with him. So she was struck in this limbo area of keeping a secret lover, whilst appearing to be a devoted married wife on the surface. That secret lover may turn out to be the real inspiration for her creation Adam Dalgliesh, but this involves looking at Emma Lavenham differently. As in the latter character becomes a means for PD James to live out an affair with her muse in some other way, doing the things she never got around to in real life. So a doomed relationship with her spouse coupled with her carrying out an affair in secret’s what inspired the Adam Dalgliesh stories, in ways that wouldn’t be if she never did both.

This kind of has a parallel to what Charles M Schulz did in his lifetime, especially towards two women at two different periods in his life. The first one before he got married was Donna Mae Johnson, whom he dated until she left him for another man. The second was Tracy Claudius, a woman he had an affair with. The former inspired the character of the little red-haired girl, the other inspired a storyline where Charlie Brown tells his dog Snoopy to stop talking to this other dog. One might only imagine if his spouse made him do the same thing when she caught him in the act at the time. But PD James’s affair with her muse is so secretive that it’s a matter of time for it to be revealed, though it may already have in some papers. Even then, her affair with her muse and her unhappy relationship with her husband both have a tragic ring.

Adam Dalgliesh would have never come about if if weren’t for these two factors, a happily married and truly monogamous PD James wouldn’t have created him anyways. If Taylor Swift had been in a happy, long-lasting relationship with just one man, we wouldn’t have a substantial body of work from her in any way her fans recognise it as. It’s wild to think that sometimes it’s the failed relationships that inspire art, instead of a happy, lasting one. Sometimes it’s the affairs with other people that inspire art, instead of one’s supposed love (see also Dante Alighieri for that one). PD James would be writing very different stories if she never had an affair with her muse, Taylor Swift would literally sing a different tune if she was in a lasting, satisfying relationship with just one man.

So it seems such relationships are more inspiring to their art, than if they were in satisfied, monogamous relationships.

Can affairs inspire art?

I feel the more PD James gets outed for her adultery anytime soon, the more one wonders if her affair with another man played a big part into shaping the character of Adam Dalgliesh, even moreso that she hated her husband that if she never cheated on him for another man, she’d be writing very different stories by then. Instead of the investigations of a character based on her lover, we’d get dark stories about women surviving their abusive husbands. Then she’d be the 20th century version of Colleen Hoover in this regard, even though PD James doesn’t seem too fond of romance books. But I feel that’s what she’ll be writing about, if she had never cheated on him with another man.

It’s not necessarily wrong to seek inspiration from people you’re into or were into, but with James having had an affair with a man like her own creation makes his marriage to Emma Lavenham all the more dubious, like as if she’s living out something she never got around to in real life. Compounded by her having an unhappy marriage to her husband, then one would wonder why she even cheated on him in the first place. It’s possible for the author’s spouse to be the muse of the story, but for others it’s somebody else who takes their place. Even when no real infidelity occurred, but if somebody seems hung up on their crush instead of their spouse, if Dante Alighieri’s any indication, it’s going to cast doubts on their marital relationships anyways.

So it’s no different if PD James constantly used her sidepiece as a muse instead of her husband, to the point where the Adam Dalgliesh stories might be her way of living out her affair with him in some other way. It would be horrifying to think that she got all the forensic knowledge from dating him, that it does beg the question whether or not PD James would’ve created Adam without having had an affair with him. I even said before that PD James would’ve written very different stories if she never had an affair with her detective sidepiece, veering closer to Colleen Hoover and possibly acting as a precursor to her in some way. She might not even write crime fiction at all, but rather doing literary fiction, which would’ve limited her appeal.

But when Adam Dalgliesh himself’s based on the man she had an affair with, one might wonder if an affair like this inspire stories and characters like him.