illicit pleasures

What have Lolita, The Origin of Species, and The Satanic Verses got in common?

The answer is, they have all been banned somewhere. Wikipedia has a list of banned books.

Borders is being subversive and offering 40% off banned books at the moment. The list is fascinating.

• Slaughterhouse 5: The Children's Crusade - A Dirty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut
  I've read this book, but didn't enjoy it that much. I suppose it was banned because of its pacifist stance and relentless exposé of the pointlessness of war.
• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
  I've read this - definitely a classic
• The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
  I bought the first edition. Great book.
  
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
  One of my favourite books of all time
  
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
• Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby, Jr.
• Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
  Sorry, but I could never get into this book; it's boring. I love Lawrence's travel writing, can't bear his novels
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
  I really liked this book, and the sequel The Temple of my familiar was even better
  
• Flowers in the Attic by Virginia Andrews
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  Excellent. It's all about why banning books is wrong. Ironic, really.
  
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
  Boring, boring, boring.
  
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
  
• Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
  Started this, couldn't finish it
  
• Ulysses by James Joyce
  
• The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
  A great classic of the "invert" theory of lesbian love. Mothers used to give it to their daughters to let them know they knew, apparently.
• The Dark by John McGahem
• Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
  
• Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
• The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
  I had to read this for my German degree; still didn't manage to finish it, even though I wrote an exam paper comparing it with Freud's Interpretation of Dreams (which I hadn't read either). I confess: I am a very lazy intellectual. I get 90% of what I know from reading novels.
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
  I have read this, years ago. It was bleak, but well-written.
• Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang
• The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
  Utterly magical on the first reading; couldn't get into it the second time around.
• Germinal by Emile Zola
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
• The Rights of Man, Common Sense and Other Political Writings by Tom Paine
• Animal Farm: A Fairy Story by George Orwell
  Blimey, was this banned? Where? It was a set text at school. Great book.
• The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien
• The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
  

The main reason things seem to be banned is either because they are politically subversive or sexually explicit, except The Origin of Species, which is presumably banned in creationist states of the US, or something.

They missed out the Harry Potter books, but I suppose those aren't actually banned by any legislatures, only by certain schools and libraries. Things used to get banned for being religiously subversive, such as Steganographia by Johannes Trithemius and Picatrix or Ghayat al Hakim, but they seem to have ignored that category - maybe because now you can get them as free e-texts online. Picatrix was allegedly one of the books that Casanova was imprisoned for possessing. The Index of books prohibited by the Catholic Church was abolished in 1966.

What these people don't realise is the psychology of the thing. The minute I hear that a book or film has been banned, or that someone somewhere doesn't want me to read or see it, it makes me want to go out and read it or see it. For instance, I had no plans to go and see The Last Temptation of Christ. Yawn, I thought, yet another film about Jesus. But as soon as I heard that it was controversial and people wanted it banned, it made me want to go and see it. I didn't see it in the end (apathy set in), but it illustrates how stupid it is to try and ban things. Notice how I thought several of the books listed above were actually quite boring - they would probably have sunk without trace if they hadn't been banned, but I expect the fact they were banned made them instant best-sellers (a bit like Spycatcher, which I bought in Germany because there was a court order against it being published in the UK, but that turned out to be rather boring).

Richard Zimler

I have now read three books by Richard Zimler: The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon, Hunting Midnight and The Seventh Gate. They follow the fortunes of the Zarco family, who are Sephardic Jews from Portugal. If you want to know what the style is like, try to imagine a Jewish version of Robertson Davies.

In The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon, Berekiah Zarco tries to discover who murdered his uncle, whilst there is a particularly vicious pogrom going on. In some ways it reminded me of The Anointed One by Z'ev Ben Shimon Halevi, but Zimler is the more accomplished writer of the two (though Halevi is excellent from an esoteric point of view). Zimler's characters are sympathetic and well-drawn; even those who are in the business of preserving their own skin even at the cost of betraying others are finely depicted so that their motivation can be understood. Zimler's main theme in this book and The Seventh Gate is the idea that a person can sacrifice themselves to change history; this is also the theme of Halevi's The Anointed One.

Hunting Midnight is about a friendship between John Zarco Stewart and Midnight, an African healer and freed slave. It's a beautiful book, though quite heartbreaking. It deals with slavery, the hidden Jews of Portugal, love, loss and betrayal.

The Seventh Gate is about Isaac Zarco, who lives in Berlin in 1933, and the struggle by him and his circle of friends to resist the Nazis. The characters are beautifully drawn. The book shows how the slide into Nazi totalitarianism came about, and how it affected people's lives, like the Jewish population, children who were considered subnormal, people with gigantism, and dwarves - all of whom were considered undesirable by the Nazis. It also explains why people waited until the last possible minute to leave Germany. In the midst of all this, Isaac Zarco is reading the book written by Berekiah Zarco and trying to attain the Seventh Gate of the Divine realm.

extended book meme

I just had an idea for a slightly random extended version of the meme:

Pick the first noun in the second sentence of the passage you have produced from the first book, and use that as a search term in Google Books (use Advanced Search and check Full View to get whole books, otherwise you may not be able to see page 123). Pick the third search result, and repeat the first meme with the online book.

I tried it with mine, but the word was "parking" which produced some exceptionally dull results, so I'm going to do it with my blogger profile, which gives me the word "archaeologist".

Result: The Works of Thomas De Quincey, 1863

For surely Dr Parr, on any subject whatever barring Greek was as competent a scholar as Master Heyne. And on this particular subject, the jest is apparent, that Parr was, and Heyne was not, a schoolmaster. Parr had cultivated the art of teaching all his life; and it were hard, indeed, if labours so tedious and heavy might not avail a man to the extent of accrediting his opinion on a capital question of his own profession.

I love 18th century prose, it's so convoluted.

random book meme

Lifted from Chas Clifton:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

My book is Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps, lent to me by a friend. I still haven't got around to reading it because I object to its biologically deterministic model of gender, but it is the only non-technical work to hand. So, here goes:

The best parkers are German men with 88% doing it successfully on the first attempt. Parking tests at driving schools show that women generally do better at reverse parking than men during driver training, but statistics show women perform worse in real life situations. This is because women are better than men at learning a task and successfully repeating it, provided the environment and conditions under which they do it don't change.

What a load of pseudo-scientific psychobabble. What about the other variables in the situation; and look at the way that the authors have made an unjustified conclusion based on a few random statistics which may mean something completely different than what they say they do! "Statistics show women perform worse in real life situations" does not justify the conclusion that women work better under circumstances that don't change, or necessarily suggest that that is the cause of it. It could be caused by the fact that some women tend to process many stimuli at once rather than focusing in on one particular stimulus.

Anyway, I tag Liz Williams, Joe Gordon, The Silver Eel, Methodius and Balador to do the same (and post a link in the comments when you've done it, if you choose to accept).

another book list

A list from the BBC's Big Read (the nation's 100 favourite books)

(x) = read it
( ) = not read it

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien (x)
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen ( )
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (x)
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams (x)
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling (x)
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee ( )
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne (x)
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell (x )
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis (x)
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë (x)
Total so far: 8

11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller (started but not finished)
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë ( x)
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks ( )
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier ( )
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger (x)
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame (x)
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens (started but not finished)
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott (x)
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres (x)
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy (read the first chapter, got bored)
Total so far: 13

21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell ( )
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling (x)
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling (x)
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling (x)
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien (x)
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy (x)
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot (x)
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving ( )
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck (x)
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll (started but not finished)
Total so far: 20

31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson ( )
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez (started but not finished)
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett ( )
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens (x)
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl (x)
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (x)
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute (x)
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen ( )
39. Dune, Frank Herbert (x)
40. Emma, Jane Austen ( )
Total so far: 25

41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery (x)
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams (x )
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald (x)
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas ( )
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh ( x)
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell ( x)
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (x )
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy (x )
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian (x)
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher ( )
Total so far: 33

51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett (x)
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck (x )
53. The Stand, Stephen King ( )
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy ( )
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth ( )
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl ( )
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome (x)
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell (x )
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer ( )
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky ( )
Total so far: 37

61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman ( )
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden ( )
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (x)
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough ( )
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett (x)
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton (read, but embarrassed to admit it)
67. The Magus, John Fowles (x)
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (x)
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett (x)
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding (started but not finished )
Total so far: 43

71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind (read it but hated it)
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell ( )
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett ()
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl ()
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding (x )
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt ( )
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins ( )
78. Ulysses, James Joyce ( )
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens ( )
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson ( )
Total so far: 45

81. The Twits, Roald Dahl ()
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith ( )
83. Holes, Louis Sachar ( )
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake (x)
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy ( )
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson ( )
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (x)
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons (x)
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist ( )
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac (x)
Total so far: 49

91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo ( )
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel (x)
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett (x)
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho ( )
95. Katherine, Anya Seton ( )
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer (read it, but embarrassed to admit it)
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez ( )
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson ( )
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot ( )
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie (x)
Total: 53

I'm surprised at some of the things that made it onto the list, and some that didn't. Personally I can't stand Jane Austen's stuff. And Brits should just be utterly embarrassed that a book by Jeffrey Archer beat a book by Salman Rushdie. Midnight's Children was a brilliant book; Kane and Abel was shite. And as for Perfume (no 71) - what a deeply horrible book. Read Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins instead. I also think that either a lot of children must have voted in the poll, or people don't read adult novels. But I'm pleased that His Dark Materials and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe are in the top 10. There's a lot of SF and fantasy on the list, too, but not enough SF. And it's great to see some of my favourites such as Cold Comfort Farm and The Grapes of Wrath, on the list.

China girl

I just finished reading A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, by Xiaolu Guo. I hate writing book reviews, but I have to tell you how brilliant this book is. It is by turns hilarious, poignant, observant and witty. Each chapter is headed by a new word learnt by the heroine, Zhuang, and the chapter tells of the experience relating to the new word. Experiences range from mystification at the weird stuff English people eat, to failures of communication with her noncommittal English lover (who thinks equality and freedom are excuses for not committing to anything, especially relationships). There's lots of philosophical musings in it as well as food, sex, plants and vocabulary. It's like a cross between Bridget Jones and Bill Bryson, but written from the point of view of a 24-year-old Chinese woman who is abroad for the first time.

favourite books

What's amazing about this, is not so much how many books Art Garfunkel has read (967 in 28 years) but the fact that he has kept a list of the books he has read since 1968. I wish I had kept a list of all the books I have read and when I read them. I have thought this several times over the last few years, and still not done anything about it. I hate writing reviews, so blogging about the books I have read would be difficult. I sometimes blog about books I have read, but not consistently. I can probably produce a list of favourite books though - but the top ten would be different depending on when you asked me. Still, I'll try... here goes, in no particular order (though I think Hallucinating Foucault is one of the few books where I got to the end and wanted to read it all over again).

• Hallucinating Foucault (1996) by Patricia Duncker
• The Ghost Sister (2001) by Liz Williams
• The Wild Girl (1984) by Michèle Roberts
• The Silver Darlings (1941) by Neil M Gunn
• Swing Hammer Swing (1992) by Jeff Torrington
• The Corn King and the Spring Queen (1931) by Naomi Mitchison
• Possession (1990) by AS Byatt
• The Chymical Wedding (1989) by Lindsay Clarke
• The Bell (1958) by Iris Murdoch
• The Deptford Trilogy (1970, 1972, 1975) by Robertson Davies
• Northern Lights (1995) by Philip Pullman
• The Dyke and the Dybbuk (1993) by Ellen Galford
• Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990) by Salman Rushdie
  
• The Horse and His Boy (1954) by CS Lewis
• Cold Comfort Farm (1932) by Stella Gibbons
• The Telling by Ursula K Le Guin
• The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin
• A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin
• Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett
• The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) by Douglas Adams
• The Lord of the Rings (1954/55) by JRR Tolkien
• Steppenwolf (1928) by Hermann Hesse
• Le Grand Meaulnes (1913) by Alain-Fournier
• Group Portrait with Lady (1971) by Heinrich Böll
• The Woodlanders (1887) by Thomas Hardy
• The Golden Arrow (1916) by Mary Webb
• Precious Bane (1924) by Mary Webb
• The Wind in the Willows (1908) by Kenneth Grahame
• The Way of Wyrd (1983) by Brian Bates
• Puck of Pook's Hill (1906) by Rudyard Kipling
• The Blanket of the Dark (1931) by John Buchan
• Mani - Travels in the Southern Peloponnese (1958) by Patrick Leigh Fermor
• A Time of Gifts (1977) by Patrick Leigh Fermor
• The Alexandria Quartet (1957-60) by Lawrence Durrell
• Prospero's Cell (1945) by Lawrence Durrell
• Sexing the Cherry (1989) by Jeanette Winterson
• The Years of Rice and Salt (2002) by Kim Stanley Robinson
• Stardust by Neil Gaiman
• Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
• Mythago Wood (1984) by Rob Holdstock
• A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley
  
• What the Bee Knows (1989) by PL Travers
• The Load of Unicorn (1959) by Cynthia Harnett
• Witch Child (2000) by Celia Rees
• The Art of Conversation with the Genius Loci (2005) by Barry Patterson
• Witches, Druids and King Arthur (2003) by Ronald Hutton
• Voices from the Circle, eds Prudence Jones and Caitlin Matthews
• Practical Magic in the Northern Tradition by Nigel Pennick
• Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome
• Stravaganza: City of Masks (2004) by Mary Hoffman
  Stravaganza: City of Stars (2005) by Mary Hoffman
  Stravaganza: City of Flowers (2006) by Mary Hoffman
• Portrait in Sepia (2000) by Isabel Allende
• The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck
• Jitterbug Perfume (1984) by Tom Robbins
  

I suppose what I look for in a book is an element of the magical and mystical side of life, but embedded in the everyday - kind of magical realism, but not in a formal sense. And I want there to be a hint in the book that life has meaning. It doesn't have to have a happy ending, but I don't want to read stuff that is nihilistic. And it must be beautifully written.

Pip has kindly directed me to LibraryThing, a social networking site for book-lovers.