Rogue Male, published in 1939, is a novel by Geoffrey Household in which the protagonist, a member of what he calls ‘Class X’, heads out to Poland with the aim of hunting a tyrant whose existence is a threat to millions.
Although the novel never mentions his name, it is apparent (and Household admitted to it being the case) that he has a certain Adolf Hitler in his sights. However, he is captured before he can pull the trigger. He is badly beaten and interrogated before being thrown over a cliff by his captors and left for dead. Though severely injured, he is able to literally crawl away and, eventually, sales down river, to arrange a deal with the first mate of a cargo ship which brings him back to Blighty via the East-end dock of Wandsworth.
The hunter, however, has become the hunted and what follows is series of adventures which begins with him killing a pursuer (in self-defence) in a railway tunnel and culminates with him trapped in his own cunningly-crafted underground den, set within the rolling countryside of Dorset.
Eventually, his hunter tracks him down and bottles him up in his badger-like hole. His subsequent escape is ingenious. He emerges with an adopted identity and, having settled the management of his estate with his trustworthy attorney, tans his skin, blackens his hair, adopts a distinct suit, appropriate to his intended destination, and heads off with a visa for Marseilles, France. Thus, he is ‘reborn’ and his life is, literally, renewed.
Household’s narrative is a deceptively simple one for, as is often the way with such tales of a rogue hero, the book offers a number of insights into the question of identity, the nature of being ‘British’, individual sovereignty, man’s primitive aspects, his connection with nature and his fellow men, his creative ingenuity, psychology, the nature of crime, repentance, stoicism and man’s all-pervading spirit. It is a meditation on the balancing of one’s intelligence with one’s earthy instincts. It is also something of a survival handbook, albeit a literary one compared to, for example, one of Ray Mears’ books.
At this point, even a mole should be able to squint sufficiently and see the obvious: that this site was, at least partly, inspired by this novel, which I first read over 40 years ago. It was the essence of the individual spirit, the stoic quality of the hero and the all-pervading sense that he has no choice but to go rogue that appeals to me even now, just as it did then. Life, it is affirmed, is a heroic endeavour and man has to develop his character accordingly.
‘Class X’
Who belongs to Class X? I don’t know till I talk to him and then Iknow at once. It is not, I think, a question of accent, but rather of the gentle voice. It is certainly not a question of clothes. It may be a question of bearing […]
I should like some socialist pundit to explain to me why it is that in England a man can be a member of the proletariat by every definition of the proletariat (that is, by nature of his employment and his poverty) and yet obviously belong to Class X, and why another can be a bulging capitalist or cabinet minister or both and never get nearer to Class X than being directed to the Saloon Bar if he enters the Public.
The protagonist identifies with a loose fitting, easy-going, modestly intelligent and thoroughly British, ‘Class X’ which, he posits, contains elements that can be readily spotted in those who belong to it. It is a class which naturally exists beyond any societal milieu and its ranks are marked by the individual’s keen powers of observation and trust in his own innate knowing , or instinct. ‘Class X’ is thus replete with rogue males, men who exist outside the flock, who are as able, when necessary, to move with it as they are to separate themselves from its wooly mass.
Such men have no political loyalty. Theirs is the realm of natural law, of common sense, of critical thinking and, most crucially, an inherent ability to discern their own emotions to the point where they can simply drop them or utilise them as appropriate to the given situation.
Not for them the satanic labyrinths of deals with the devil and turning a blind eye to the insanity around them: though capable of traveling through the simulacrum and its deceptions, these rogue males are private and capable creatures.
Rogue Males exist everywhere and, I would posit, are the forms of man most feared by the poor specimens of manhood who flounce about in the satanic institutions of the doomed New World Order. I have written about these types before and how the people are governed by the weakest examples of mankind. That these lily-livered types strive so hard for fake-celebrity or phoney historical status as a means of getting their rocks off, that they are so obsessed with ruling over the world and that they actually deem themselves capable of this fool’s errand is a but a great cosmic joke.
The nemesis to such types has always been the rogue male. Indeed, given the earthy qualities of the rogue male, how long would the black-faced actor Justin Trudeau last were he left in a room with any genuine rogue male?
In Household’s narrative, the rogue male creates the opportunity to assassinate a man who is a blatant tyrant and a threat to all that man holds dear: truth, law, liberty and honour. That image alone exemplifies the threat the rogue male has to those ponces who prance around on the world geo-political stage as well as their would-be overlords.
The rogue male is, by comparison to the collective mass of people, an errant:
adjective
1 formal or humorous erring or straying from the proper course or standards: he could never forgive his daughter’s errant ways. • Zoology (of a polychaete worm) of a predatory kind that moves about actively and is not confined to a tube or burrow.
2 [often postpositive] archaic or literary traveling in search of adventure: that same lady errant. See also knight errant.
Paradoxically, it the errant amongst us, whether male or female, who is crucial to the existential uplift of the collective.
Without the knight errants in our midsts, man would be doomed to a life enslaved to the satanic state-corporate and its associated dark realms.
With all that being said, readers may be interested to hear that I am planning on producing a series of RogueCasts, which will feature conversations with a variety of Rogue Males, from any and all backgrounds, who, for self-evident reasons, belong to what Household may have termed ‘Class X’. Watch this space for more details and, if you would like to contribute to the production by way of a donation towards the costs, then please do so via the ‘donate’ button and I will credit it you in the title pages of the podcast.
Wishing you all a blessed day,
Michael
Blessings to David R for his unflinching support of this site.