UNDER UNDERNEATH THE BUNKER
AN ESSAY BY FOUNDER GEORGY RIECKE

‘There is no single aim to ‘Underneath the Bunker’ except to be aimless; to reject the well-trodden path and rush off into the prickly undergrowth’

I am rarely questioned as to my motivation for producing a magazine devoted to the ignored quarters of the European cultural landscape, yet I am almost constantly harangued with queries as to the title I have bestowed upon this vital project.

U    !   n     !   d    !    e    !    r    !     n    !     e    !    a    !    t    !   h

t    !     h     !   e

B    !    u    !    n     !   k    !    e    !    r

 

What should be my riposte?

- The very sound of the phrase ignites my imagination, like the peal of a two ton bell in an old Russian church on a brisk autumn morning

- Criticism is an art that should not concern itself with surfaces. The critic is a plough, a mole, a worm, a drilling rig, a grave-digger, a foot that squashes grapes, an albatross that plummets into the ocean to snare a juicy fish, an x-ray camera that reveals the very skeleton of one’s being...

 - There are two sorts of criticism: clumsy criticism and clinical criticism. Clumsy criticism scrapes the surface; it ploughs a furrow for a radish seed, digs a trench to hide an egg, creates a bunker for an elf… Clinical criticism burrows far beneath this bunker: to the very soul of things…

 - The bunker is a sandpit in disguise: a mere plaything. It is no more treacherous than a shallow puddle. It puts up the pretence of gravity, whilst in reality it is but a land of trifles, trivia and tin-foil teachers. It shares a mildly subversive and quietly intimate relationship with the fairways of life. The bunker is flirtatious. But ultimately, it belongs…

- The bunker sips the cream off of the pint, and pours the body into the ground. It chokes in disgust on exotic foodstuffs and cuddles up instead to the common loaf. Upon its catwalk a single model prances, in clothes as drab as death. Fashions come and fashions go, they are one and the same, an old suit painted in shades, a pair of trousers with tassels, a new dog with old tricks…

- The ground beneath the bunker is dank and dirty, it holds no guarantees, it conforms to no system, it holds no punches, it belongs to no one…

            It has been fallaciously assumed that I lifted this phrase ‘underneath the bunker’ from a piece of work entitled ‘Receding Rainfall’ by a Bosnian writer named Hoçe. Whilst I am happy to concede that these three words do appear in this order in the first paragraph of his so-called novel, I ensure all who care for such matters that this is pure coincidence. There are so many people that have roamed this earth parting their flabby lips to let forth into the ether some misconceived sentence or so that one is often inclined to believe that there is nothing left to be said. But context provides new life. There was, I fancy, a sombre caveman once who stood about the entrance of his oily house and said a word or two that has since been attributed to a writer by the name of Shakespeare. It was mere coincidence. No one fell at this caveman’s feet, sucked upon his smelly boil and called him genius. They were but words, yet to find a proper context.

Underneath the Bunker. From which source did these immortal words spring?

It matters not. Even in the age of copyright control, trademarks and domain names, people cannot own words. In the same way, words cannot own meanings.

There are very many words. And very many people who arrange words for a living. A significant portion of these people arrange these words into sentences, these sentences into paragraphs and these paragraphs into magazines. Thus there are very many magazines. A multitude of magazines. A mountain of magazines.

How many? Too many. The ego of the modern man prevents him from seeing a good idea from a bad one. Some men have no ideas at all, which they put forth with surprising force, to be accepted with surprising grace from an equally idealess public.

There are more writers than readers. Readers are merely other writers, helping themselves to another writer’s words, which are in turn stolen from them. Words are generated at a furious pace, like rabbits pre-myxomatosis. Ought there not to be a similar virus invented to deal with all of these writers?

 

I feel a cough coming on. Phlegm collects at the rear of my throat. I am infected, mayhap. I am but another writer, as worthy of disease as any other. I toss words into the black hole as liberally as anyone. Five years ago, I was as a common a writer as they come. I was a waiter of words. Working for two or three literary magazines, I received words from the authorial chef, arranged them on my own plate and served them thus to a public who knew very well what it was they had ordered. What would sir like today? A review of the new prize-winning book from so-and-so. And for madam? An article on that latest bestseller. Every now and again, a tentative stab at exoticism – ‘surprise me’ – but this is bohemianism controlled: an avant-garde that simultaneously rejects and is supported by society. There are no real surprises. Surprises are shrink-wrapped; starved of oxygen, removed from their true environment, and designed to shock in the mildest of measures. A worm is pulled from the woodwork, which is all very well for this worm. But there are many other worms. Every year or so a hand stretches underneath the bunker and pulls up a weed and parades it till it wilts, shrivels and dies. The stretching hand is disinfected and begloved, never to break into the ground again.

What if one day this waiter of words was to serve up to his customers something which they never would have ordered? Not merely a ‘surprise’ but something entirely new. And if he was to continue doing this, refusing all their calls for a fresh green salad or a mushroom risotto, and giving them a fried beetles instead, marinated in the urine of a marmoset?

Two years ago, this is what I endeavored to do. Against the advice of my bank manager, I set up a magazine of my own. The money man was right: my project was unprofitable and foolish in every respect. It ignored the ‘marketplace’, brushed aside ‘target audiences’ and cared not a jot for ‘readership’. It turned its back to popularity, bought itself a large overcoat and hid itself deep in the ground, underneath a bunker.

There is no single aim to ‘Underneath the Bunker’ except to be aimless; to reject the well-trodden path and rush off into the prickly undergrowth. To map the Europe that exists in reality, rather than in our fantasies. Europe in all its vastness; its goodness and badness and sadness and madness. A Europe that contains not just Germany, France and the United Kingdom, but Estonia, Bulgaria and Luxembourg as well. A Europe that contains nooks and crannies and within these further nooks and crannies and within these yet more. A Europe that is bigger than any of us could imagine; lighter, darker, beset by clouds, scorched by sun, capped with ice and bathed in turquoise seas. A multi-faceted Europe.

There is no destination towards which ‘Underneath the Bunker’ is traveling. The present is as unknowable as the future. A map bears as much relation to reality as a child’s drawing in wax crayon. But to go nowhere with grace is infinitely much better than going somewhere with false hopes. So it is also a finer thing to stumble upon greatness as you sift through shit, than to sit upon your comfy armchair and refuse to touch anything that doesn’t bear some misconceived ‘mark of brilliance’. The bunker is a beach on which the critics sit in lines of deckchairs, their learned faces turned to the sun, their eyes anchored safely on a straight horizon, watching out for ships on which to heap their praise. If we could only move the sand beneath their feet and let them tumble down below, then they might realise that true greatness doesn’t always come sailing in in the form of a ocean liner.