BookTalk.org

Mine are Lolita, Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Johnny Got His Gun.

Banned by whom? How did you read these if they were banned where you were? I liked Lolita, found it sad but beautifully written. LCL was dated by the time I read it And don't know of the other one.

Johnny Got His Gun is indeed a fine book. Trumbo was an interesting character who IIRC wrote the screenplay for Spartacus as well as a few other famous movies - soem of which penned under a pseudonym while he was in Mexico trying to eke out a living despite being blacklisted by the government and Hollywood producers.

hrm... what other books have I read that have been banned or notably controversial. I oncestarted reading Huck Finn but it just didn't interest me and I laid it aside. I still have it. Maybe one of these days... The Satanic Verses was a mostly enjoyable book. I thought it would have been more involving if 50 to 100 pages had been chopped off (pun intended) but certainly it is an interesting work.

There must have been other banned/comtroversial novels I've read (or attempted to read) but I can't think of them at the moment.

Bridge to Terabithia is on the banned book list! I find that completetly insane!

lady of shallot wrote:Banned by whom? How did you read these if they were banned where you were? I liked Lolita, found it sad but beautifully written. LCL was dated by the time I read it And don't know of the other one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banned_books
Over the years many books have been banned by the government or libraries on many different grounds and many different reason. Lady Chatterley’s Lover caused shit storm like no other :

:British obscenity trial
When the full unexpurgated edition was published by Penguin Books in Britain in 1960, the trial of Penguin under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959 was a major public event and a test of the new obscenity law. The 1959 act (introduced by Roy Jenkins) had made it possible for publishers to escape conviction if they could show that a work was of literary merit. One of the objections was to the frequent use of the word "fuck" and its derivatives. Another objection involves the use of the word "cunt".
Various academic critics and experts of diverse kinds, including E. M. Forster, Helen Gardner, Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams and Norman St John-Stevas, were called as witnesses, and the verdict, delivered on 2 November 1960, was "not guilty". This resulted in a far greater degree of freedom for publishing explicit material in the United Kingdom. The prosecution was ridiculed for being out of touch with changing social norms when the chief prosecutor, Mervyn Griffith-Jones, asked if it were the kind of book "you would wish your wife or servants to read".
The Penguin second edition, published in 1961, contains a publisher's dedication, which reads: "For having published this book, Penguin Books were prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, 1959 at the Old Bailey in London from 20 October to 2 November 1960. This edition is therefore dedicated to the twelve jurors, three women and nine men, who returned a verdict of 'Not Guilty' and thus made D. H. Lawrence's last novel available for the first time to the public in the United Kingdom."

It is very disheartening that such great literature has been restricted over the years.

Oh you should read Johnny Got His Gun it is an unappreciated masterpiece thankful it is more easily available in this day and age.

missyannlala wrote:Bridge to Terabithia is on the banned book list! I find that completetly insane!

I don't find it insane, but it is a shame. "Bridge" introduces an alternative reality, a realm that was not of God's making. A big no no. It is a shame that many books geared for children are banned, because someone has decided that a child's imagination goes against God.

"Grapes of Wrath" is one of my favorites. Oh no, breastfeeding a man at the end! The horror! Although, there might be other reasons for it being banned


And I'd wager a lot of Oscar Wilde's works are banned somewhere. ;P

Suzanne wrote:

missyannlala wrote:Bridge to Terabithia is on the banned book list! I find that completetly insane!

I don't find it insane, but it is a shame. "Bridge" introduces an alternative reality, a realm that was not of God's making. A big no no. It is a shame that many books geared for children are banned, because someone has decided that a child's imagination goes against God.

I read the Bridge to Terabithia when I was in seventh grade in class. My teacher tended to bend the rules for which i'm truly greatful. That book was the first book that made me cry. I fell in love. It started my love of reading.It had a huge impact on me and I will pass that to my children.

Another great book that was banned for the same kind of reason is The Golden Compass. Although there is a great deal of insult directed toward Catholicism. I feel its underlying and for children it dose not have the impact that it gets blamed for.
I enjoyed it as a child and never got the underlying message until I re-read it as an adult.

catcher in the rye was one of the first books i ever read. its been claimed to be controverial by the use of prostitution, language, all the 'Phoney' chartacters .

I cannot remember if the editor of Maldoror states the collection was banned outright, but Ducasse certainly had a very hard time getting it published, and he died under rather strange circumstances. I am impatient with anti-theist romanticized evil, however, and spleen used to make victimization of children alluring doesn't appeal to me. Little humans also make me impatient; I am reading it because the surrealists rescued it, however, and it's apparently a movement text.

Edit: I have only read a few sample cantos before I purchased the kindle file, and I am still reading the introduction, which has educated more about Melmoth than the editor of Melmoth has so far .

Such is the life of a failed intellectual, eh?