January 08, 2005

Fuck, shit, ass, cunt, prick, asshole, cock-sucker. Two hundred thirty-four times on two hundred thirty-five pages. THE COURT: You mean each of those happens to be used exactly the same number of times? MR. FAIRFIELD: No, Your Honor, that is the total number of times that those words are used. The Boston trial of "The Naked Lunch" was the last major censorship trial of a work of literature in the United States. Here are excerpts from the testimony of Norman Mailer and Alan Ginsberg during that trial, and related material.
posted by Korzeniowski the Cat 19 years ago
  • You're obsessed with this shit, aren't you?
  • Jeez, the lawyers didn't even know what the book was about. Goes to show you that people can't see the forest for the trees. Just because something says "fuck" doesn't mean it has no value. Except in this comment.
  • This book was banned in Australia because, among other things, it contained an episode in which two men rub their anuses together. How do they do that?
  • Some things are best left to the imagination.
  • Early goatses.
  • And, by the way, Nostril, the trials that overturned US book bannings were pretty important for us poor, curious USAians back in the'60s. Being able to read Henry Miller, Anais Nin, and Lawrence Durell, as well as Burroughs, was very nice.
  • I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions, But really I am neither for nor against institutions, (What indeed have I in common with them? or what with the destruction of them?) Only I will establish in the Mannahatta and in every city of these States inland and seaboard, And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large that dents the water, Without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument, The institution of the dear love of comrades.
  • Well, that type of "dear love" mentioned here was called "obscenity" way back then. Nice verse, but I'm not sure how it relates to the banning of those books. "Institutions" weren't their target. It was, truly, "writing about life as I know it." They weren't trying to cripple any mandated proscriptions, (at least until the trials started.) It was art, not politics. If they'd been politically motivated, the books wouldn't have been nearly so good.
  • I know. I just wanted to work on my copy and paste technique.
  • being able to read...Lawrnce Durrell was very nice. Think reading and rereading his brother Gerald's work is far nicer -- and way the hell funnier. I found reading Lawrence once to be a crashing bore, to be perfectly candid. /Philistine cluching The Bafut Beagles to his breast
  • =clutching, dammit, clutching
  • I know. I just wanted to work on my copy and paste technique. Poetic Collage or is that just a piece of Walt Whitman? Here's a question, if the book was banned for those words and situations what would happen to the transcripts of the trial? If they censored those too, how would they be able to use the case as a precedant? I liked this. I've read parts of the book and wasn't really able to apprieciate it and this was an odd sort of book review for me.
  • Speaking of trying to ban books one hasn't read, whatever happened to that concerned mom-bot who wanted to get The Catcher In The Rye out of her son's classroom? Burroughs deserves all the appreciation he now receives. I recall the nonsense that went on when it was published, and while he was a freak, he wrote some of the more compelling works of modern fiction.
  • bees - yes, Gerald's writing was wonderful, but I don't think it was wever banned. When I read LD's quartet back in college, I was so in love with it, but when I tried to reread it years later, it wasn't as wonderful as I had thought. There are just some things you can't revisit. Which makes me a little anxious about trying Henry Miller again. But he was a mind blower for someone coming of age in the late 1950s/early 60s. And not just the ubiquitous sex. His father cleaning farts out of suits, rye bread with butter and sugar. the Cosmodemoniac Telegraph job, his time in Paris, and, especially, his obsession with June. The Tropics were great, but the Sexus/Nexus/Plexus trilogy was a journey. And, his essay on bread was right on. I suggest you read them, in paper form. Holding the books and turning their pages was so much more satisfying than trying it on line.
  • By the time LD's Quartet was published there, I believe enthusiasm for bannig books was on the wane in the States, path. First mention of the poet Cavafy I encountered was via one of LD's novels -- so it wasn't a total waste for me. I've difficulty imagining anyone banning Gerald Durrell's work, but then, Twain's Huck Finn was always being banned. So perhaps it's possible. Read Henry Miller long ago. Didn't take to him -- back then I much preferred Arthur Miller's work.
  • Henry Miller's Book of Friends is pretty good -- an old man looks back on the neighbourhood he was brought up in. Sweetly written, too, nothing to prove.
  • Or better yet, Jonathon's.
  • Or even Gavin.