http://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/classics
My fellow Travellers' Companions:
"I am tired of my voice, the voice of Esau. My kingdom for a drink. On."
--James Joyce, Ulysses
Scaffolding begins; details later. Banned books I've read. *Designates books officially banned from dissemination by the U.S Mail at some point--
Possible Topics to be discussed: Don't quote me--for some of these it's been awhile---
James Joyce's Ulysses*--
This book claims to record the thoughts of a man for a 24 hour period, June 16, so-called Bloomsday, but having reread some of the first chapter, I can't see how it totally sticks to that--maybe I am misremembering. Two major characters: Stephen Daedalus from Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man, usually described as a rather gloomy, artistic cat, and Leopold Bloom. Leo's wife Molly is regularly featured. She has a rather famous squawk at the end that runs on for several pages without punctuation. Probably where the book gets the rep for having weird (it does) or no punctuation. Think Monty Python's old lady pepper-pots, but with more substance.
It loosely follows the plot of The Odyssey (hence the name), but also has a lot of connections to Hamlet, and his lack of action. "Childe" or "Sir" Leopold has all sorts of weird fantasies, like wearing a knight's helmet while drinking at the bar "with his beaver up", and thinking he's Don Quixote or some other knight errant. I goes perfect with the stupid shit drunken people babble on about at Irish bars.
Because it's 24 hours we get to accompany characters taking a crap, having pissing contests, and a few other uncivilized bodily function behaviors the literary world of the 1920's wasn't yet ready for...the infamous, onanistic beach scene was probably the most obvious reason for it being banned. However, I remember this book, although weighty in literary ideas, as hilarious. There's a scene in a Dublin tavern where various half-drunk sots run outside to fart so that no one can here them (or whatever else) inside. Plus, just the word play is often funny--I'll try to find a good example to quote here: it can be verrry silly. Here's a very short example --of some newsboys trying to sneak into an office to steal the racing results: "--Hush, Lenahan said. I hear feetstoops."
Or, "Davy Byrne smiledyawnednodded all in one"
I just like the sound of this part:
"She dances in the foul gloom where gum burns with garlic. A sailor-man, rust bearded, sips from a beaker rum and eyes her. A long and seafed silent rut. She dances, capers, wagging her sowish haunches and her hips, on her gross belly flapping a ruby egg.
Old Russell with a smeared shammy rag burnishes again his gem, turned it and held it at the point of his Moses' beard. Grandfather ape gloating on a stolen hoard."
This is good conversation(? or interior monologue--hard to tell in this book, but doesn't matter): thoughts at a funeral, cemetery--on life and death:
"Broken heart. A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood every day. One fine day it gets bunged up and there you are. Lots of them lying around here: lungs, hearts, livers.Old rust pumps: damn the thing else. The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead, you are dead. That last day idea. Knocking them all up out of their graves. Come forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job. Get up! Last day! Then every fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights and the rest of his traps...." heheheheheh
Leopold Bloom spends several moments in the book walking beside curbs, knocking them. That's the main joke, ol' Leo knocking about an ordinary day in Dublin on a hero's quest.
Rereading sections of this book, I have come to accept that I have a drunkard's soul---the optimal place for me to be is a a bar---or a virtual bar, if that works--talking nonsensical smack to another person talking nonsensical smack, and feeling like we just saw the Virgin Mary screw the end of the Universe, together. Whatever that means, but it's what I want. Perhaps with the addition of guitar playing. learning? Maybe! I'm trying to decide if sexual tension is necessary to the ultimate mix....perhaps, perhaps perhaps. But not required.
I will reread this soon.
Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita*
This one I am almost finished with for the 3rd time--trying to see what the professors see in this damned thing. Something to do with the narration. Nabokov was a Joyce lover, referred to Joyce's pornography trial in the Forward of his book, daring it to be banned. It was.
It's rather ridiculous in some ways, that this book was banned--Nabokov himself thinks the publishers in America he submitted it to didn't read past the 1st part, and rejected it more for its lack of graphic material. I have mixed feelings about this book--don't get me wrong, I think it is "great literature" and all. But, this may be my last read of it, now that the cardboard walls fell away and I see the hand of god (Nabokov) in the machinery. That was what he ultimately wanted, I think, as many of his other writings, I hear, are about that. I truly have never felt so overtly manipulated by an author in all my life, and I don't quite know what to do with that.
Do I give him 5 stars for being an expert manipulator ? I tend to like an author I think I would enjoy as a person--you know--like ol' Holden Caulfield's line about finishing a book and wanting to give the author a buzz--shoot the shit. I would dig that, too. I don't feel like giving ol' Vladimir a buzz. Don't think he'd be terribly friendly for a chat.
Continuing on the down side, I do not like Humbert Humbert as a character. His obsession with Lolita bores me. Ultimately, he's a snob. On the plus side, his gift with words is enormous, and almost fun. Games,games, games. What part of the story is true? How much a madman's tale? Does it matter? Ne znaio. I laughed out loud at the end, after he'd committed his revengeful crime on Clare, his alter ego? when he said, (covered in Quilty, heheh), "since I had disregarded all the laws of humanity, I might as well disregard the rules of traffic," as he proceeded then to drive on the left-hand side of an American highway at 20 mph. But that was really the only time I laughed in spite of all the diamond wordplay--definitely tempting to steal ideas . However, I must admit, I was rather moved when pregnant and married Lo, faithful to her Dick, called our narrator "honey".
Henry Miller's (anything, really) Tropic of Cancer and Sexus*
Anais Nin's Delta of Venus*
I'm not entirely sure that this particular book of Nin's was banned, but she definitely had banned books. If this one wasn't, it was because its publishing was not attempted until later in her life--so, self-censored, possibly? When you read it, you can understand why. Even today this book is controversial for it's--em--wild fantasies that go so far as to include incest and violence--some think surprising for the world's most famous female eroticist. Personally, I find Nin's sexuality/sensuality much preferable--more romantic and imaginative, than her erstwhile sexual partner, Henry Miller. They had rather well documented tristes--written about by both, and --again--I find hers more mind penetrating, his more brutal and stultifying.
She had others--married a man 16 years her junior at one point. The PC police complain about her works on goodreads as loudly as they do Henry's, which for some dumb reason makes me proud of my sex.
William S. Burrough's Naked Lunch*
D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover--
Sex in the rain, in fairly brutal detail, outside the gardener's shed.
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