Zero Tolerance Magazine • View topic - What books you reading?

Hey Guys! How's every one doing?
Just a few words to add to what has been said about Lords Of Chaos: I read that book once and once only, and while I found it interesting in parts it seems prone to a certain amount of sensationalism which makes me question its motives.
I can remember an MTV interview done with a very young Ishahn ( he must have been about 18 at the time) which kinda hilights what I am trying to say. Ishahn talked about Satanism in this interview and how believed in Satan blah, blah-you know the spiel....
Not that long after Prometheus The Discipline OF Fire and Demise was released I got the chance to interview Ishahn for a Texas based publication and what was interesting was how far he distanced himself (publicly at least) from those very intense words and attitudes he spoke of in that MTV interview which has been subsequently used by various media outlets.
It is so obvious that because of its very nature Black Metal draws a lot of people who are intensly intelligent yet are some how lacking inside the ability to cope or deal with the word around them or whose opinions are grounded in malcontent for the society they live in. [Black Metal] I think gave them a vehicle to express those feelings back then that in a way is not as subversive or as powerful today as it was when it first started ( I could be wrong just my opinion) which is why I think a lot of the so called true bands almost deconstruct or deliberately regress to capture that feeling that connection to spirit the Black Metal in the early days in Norway had. I think the thing as far as the pagan aspects or links to Black Metal go, some of the bands who I think capture the spirit of so called true Black Metal seem to caputre the connection and spiritual feeling of the land; the mountains, fjords, forest etc.
[This] has been carried around the world and molded or grafted to the spirit and mythos of differing cultures to create the scene we have which is interesting in of itself because you tend to see a lot of BM bands from around the world trying to recapture or recreate that feeling of the early days.
Anyway...
Back to Lords Of Chaos. While it has to be said that those who shaped the scene in the early days in Norway who have become legend or are legends forging another path ( such as Mayhem) it is clear to me that a lot of them in their grasping to seek fulfillment outside the norms of Norwegian Society which by any Western cultures standards is quite forward thinking, a lot of them read materials that fed [those feelings] and helped shape them, but clearly were missing a certain understanding of the realities of history tending to romanticise these mythologies because they found a certain fulfillment of those feelings. But in all truthfulness I wonder how many of them would actually be truly prepared to live like that without the modern age to fall back on.
I think the conclusion that I drew about Lords Of Chaos especially in regards to Varg Vilknes is that he was already damaged ( which I think the book tries to explain) emotionally and somehow sought out literature that both fed his self belief and ego that he somehow, had a greater destiny that he was born to lead be raised up apart from others yet really showed how actually ungrounded as an individual he actually was because he tended to go from one type of mythology to another ( as we all know the Nazi's themselves somehow sought legitimacy to Nordic myhology amongst many others including Himmler's obssesion with blood based cults and religions and the obssession with Atlantis). Varg it seemed ( and this was interesting to read) drifted and seemed to try to latch on to various controversial figures I think in order to support him and his beliefs and his lifestyle choices to justify how he felt. I think also what it showed was actually how jealous of Euronymous he really was. I think in Euronymous he found musically speaking at least or in spirit a person who felt the same disenfranchisment with the world around and through Black Metal found a home or a way to destroy or regress the world. I thought that Varg kinda looked up to Euronymous but was also jealous because it was Euronymous and not he who was getting the attention; was the driving force the leader and because of [Varg's] ultimately flawed nature of self loathing and insecurity coupled with his obvious meglomanic tendancies which was fed by his jealousy he killed him.
Back to my argument about the book from a perspective of a fan of Black Metal music because of the music alone I think Iwould share a lot fans frustrations when the outside world shines its light on our scene and delibertely focuses on stuff like this and it has to be said that a lot of what drove/drives our music is rooted in this and the more morbid aspects (such as those who preportedly took pieces of Dead's skull when he committed suicide) but that has to be expected because they would do the same of punk, or goth or more tradiotnal metal for that matter, or whatever. That is the nature of the beast.
I think the really bad thing and hereby going back to the sensationalism aspects ( because Ithink the author was American) really focused far too much on the facist ramblings of a clearly ungrouned person ( Vilknes)I don't know if it was to expose this apsect of Vilknes in particular and it drifted way too much into associated biographies of people who really had no place in Black Metal Music. In my opinion I am not sure that Euronymous would have embraced this aspect-yeah pure conjecture for sure-of what Vilknes was trying to do outside of music which is sad because Burzum musically certainly captured the spirit of the mountains the fjords the cold grimness of Norway and its aesthetics.
Just my opinion-ther might be some out there who think I am just plain wrong.

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