Impressions on Iron Gates Chapter One

Field marshal skewers an infant and drinks its blood

Worded in the language and terminology of someone who has spent too long a time writing reports inside the military, Iron Gates opens with a scene right out of the holocaust fantasy world. Two soldiers hold a woman while an infant lies crying on the floor in an open field. The first main character is introduced, it is the field marshal, who with sadistic intent proceeds to impale the small child on the bayonet of his rifle and drink some of its blood as it pours down the edge of the blade.

In line with expectations of classical fiction, the narrative drops the reader right into the fray.

The rest of the chapter is a description, from the point of view of the field marshal, though always narrated by an omniscient third person of the nature of a hellish military organization in a world past the point of societal collapse.

Without specific depictions, it is stated that the rank and file, and apparently also the officers, are rapists and murderers. There is also the explicit use of the word cannibal, hinting at the field marshal’s little blood imbibement from the infant’s pierced flesh.

It is telling that propagandistic agents in the pay of intelligence services in Amerika and the UK have claimed that this is a kind of fantasy world for fascists. On the contrary, although the specific mechanics echo more pirates, cartel gangs, and African warlords, the Right rolls its eyes at the accusation knowing it is what they fear the Left would and have done in the past to the world. Soviet states are named.

The truth, dear reader, is that the writer or writers of Iron Gates seem to be collecting into one place and into one characterization both the past sins and future fears of all parties in the face of human excess and defilement.

We will continue to explore this now legendary, tacitly forbidden novel. In a climate where De Sade, Peter Sotos and Georges Bataille are raised up as the extreme art of ironicists, Iron Gates continues to be feared and propagandized against. Keep reading this series of articles to understand why.