You cut it off before the best part:
Luther (‘A perverse and pestilent monk, who left his monastery only in search of new cocks to suck’), women (‘God’s proof that He does not love us’), bread (‘Pale, tasteless filth’), the afternoon (‘This useless desert of time I must endure seven times a week, while fools go grinning in the sunshine—is there not a river to drown them?’), the colours red (‘Vile, Popish shade’) and green (‘The gaudiness of heathenry’), the sky (‘A gawping-cloth for the feeble-minded’), water (‘See how they suck it up, as if Satan were not lord of this world, and the liquid that wells up from its depths were not the very piss of Satan’), and his own fingers (‘Swinish instruments’).
the afternoon (‘This useless desert of time I must endure seven times a week, while fools go grinning in the sunshine—is there not a river to drown them?’)
i love this man
the sky (‘A gawping-cloth for the feeble-minded’)
Replace IQ tests with making people look up at the sky. If they’re fond of it, they’re stupid.
his own fingers
When the hatred of everything that exists is genuine
I get the feeling that this dude would continue like that about absolutely everything.
This is referring to 16th century monk Laurentius Clung, former disciple of Calvin. Article here. Scroll down to imperfection.
Edit: this is not a real person and is in fact a fantastic bit
I can't find anything about this guy outside of this article. I'm hoping there's a misspelling or something because I'm going to be really bummed if he didn't exist.
what if the greatest trick the big clungus ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist?
Even greater; what if the greatest trick he ever pulled was convincing the world he did exist?
I actually emailed the guy who wrote this article because I too tried desperately to find anything on our lovely Clung. He sounds like a really funny pessimist in the vein of Cioran. I'll reply here if the author ever replies with a source.
Good call.I couldn't find any candidate Clungs, so I started looking at as many 16th century Laurentiuses I could find. So far mostly Lutheran Swedes rather than renegade Calvinists. There is a Laurentius who's all over The Anatomy of Melancholy, but as a medical writer and not as a sickness-of-the-soul type of fellow.
Edit - If he did exist he really should have been mentioned in Cioran or as an obsession for one of Bernhard's narrators or a Lars Iyer character.
Edit edit - Damn it all:
"Edit: I tried searching for “Laurentius Clung” and I only found the article this was lifted from, so in my weakness and desire for this insane theological position to be real I just assumed the author had access to rare primary sources. I have since been informed that Clung is just a hilarious invention." https://trilobiter.tumblr.com/post/751561497005654016/edit-i-tried-searching-for-laurentius-clung-and
"unfortunately i made him up" is his emailed reply, so yeah this checks out
Thanks for the update. Tremendously unfortunate. I move that Sam Kriss start exclusively writing under his new heteronym.
Yeah I told him as much, I still expect to hear more from our beloved Clung.
I just read a biography of Thomas Müntzer (a much more radical rival of Luther's who was killed leading a peasant uprising), and honestly all of these quotes are just how these guys wrote at the time
Remember thou well the words of our house: "May they choke on their pies"
The building would be burning down around me and I would be told I can leave now and I'd still be whacking him with the rifle after all the rounds are spent
