Arnon Grunberg

Pocket

Legs

A lament by Michael Hofmann in LRB:

"The British de-accessioning that began globally soon after the First World War continues. Once, it was an external process, now it is internal. It’s a galloping, seemingly unstoppable condition. We’re not giving away far-flung possessions any more, not de-accessioning, we’re sticking fingers in our eyes, ripping open our mouths, pulling off our ears and our genitals, giving away fingers and toes, arms and legs, heads, trunks. Perhaps this will cost them – us, you – Scotland and the North of Ireland. The car industry, if there is one. Pharmaceuticals. Financial ‘services’. The Scilly Isles. The Isle of Man. Cornwall. Wales. England is rumping itself, it’s done it before, it will be Joseph of Arimathea’s mystical fortress of Tintagel, a little pocket in the Forest of Dean (all hail, great shade of Dennis Potter) or in the marshes of Ely (salaam, Boadicea). Rutland."

Read the lament here.

Ripping open our mouths, pulling off our ears, it's a very accurate description of the will of (some of) the people in many places, self-mutilation.

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