BROKEBACK ETERNITY
Nov. 21st, 2009 02:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogAs long as we’re talking about Kentucky bugaboos over literary obscenity ...
ITEM: Kaylie Jones, daughter of From Here to Eternity author James Jones, reveals that a major gay sex storyline was cut from the novel.
Which was scandalous not just because it involved explicit gayness, but explicit gayness between Army soldiers.
Ms Jones uses this to raise the issue of allowing gays to serve openly in the military – an issue on which we haven’t progressed very far since From Here to Eternity was published sans gayness.
But her article on it is an interesting slice of literary censorship history, from a time when groups like the National Organization for Decent Literature actually had the clout to ban books, and the Post Office would refuse to even ship books the NODL or anyone else declared immoral.
The never-before-seen gay scenes are also interesting reading.
DISCLAIMER: I’ve never read From Here To Eternity. I probably should. But all I’ve really known about it is that beach scene from the film version, which in itself didn’t interest me. I thought, “Okay, romance film with a war backdrop or war film with a love angle – either way I’ll be over here reading Beat writers and playing with lightsabers, thanks.”
And yeah, sure, it’s one of those books that saw a few bans in its day, but so did Lady Chatterly’s Lover, and DH Lawrence has never really interested me either.
But I like this brilliant excerpt from a letter Jones wrote to his editor at Scribner’s, Burroughs Mitchell to explain why he didn’t want to edit the sex and harsh language:
The things we change in this book for propriety’s sake will in five years, or ten years, come in someone else’s book anyway … and we will wonder why we thought we couldn’t do it. Writing has to keep evolving into deeper honesty, like everything else, and you cannot stand on past precedent or theory, and still evolve…You know there is nothing salacious in this book as well as I do. Therefore, whatever changes you want made along that line will be made for propriety, and propriety is a very inconstant thing.
They edited the book in the end – and it was declared obscene in New York anyway. Which just goes to show,
Don’t ask don’t tell,
This is dF
ITEM: Kaylie Jones, daughter of From Here to Eternity author James Jones, reveals that a major gay sex storyline was cut from the novel.
Which was scandalous not just because it involved explicit gayness, but explicit gayness between Army soldiers.
Ms Jones uses this to raise the issue of allowing gays to serve openly in the military – an issue on which we haven’t progressed very far since From Here to Eternity was published sans gayness.
But her article on it is an interesting slice of literary censorship history, from a time when groups like the National Organization for Decent Literature actually had the clout to ban books, and the Post Office would refuse to even ship books the NODL or anyone else declared immoral.
The never-before-seen gay scenes are also interesting reading.
DISCLAIMER: I’ve never read From Here To Eternity. I probably should. But all I’ve really known about it is that beach scene from the film version, which in itself didn’t interest me. I thought, “Okay, romance film with a war backdrop or war film with a love angle – either way I’ll be over here reading Beat writers and playing with lightsabers, thanks.”
And yeah, sure, it’s one of those books that saw a few bans in its day, but so did Lady Chatterly’s Lover, and DH Lawrence has never really interested me either.
But I like this brilliant excerpt from a letter Jones wrote to his editor at Scribner’s, Burroughs Mitchell to explain why he didn’t want to edit the sex and harsh language:
The things we change in this book for propriety’s sake will in five years, or ten years, come in someone else’s book anyway … and we will wonder why we thought we couldn’t do it. Writing has to keep evolving into deeper honesty, like everything else, and you cannot stand on past precedent or theory, and still evolve…You know there is nothing salacious in this book as well as I do. Therefore, whatever changes you want made along that line will be made for propriety, and propriety is a very inconstant thing.
They edited the book in the end – and it was declared obscene in New York anyway. Which just goes to show,
Don’t ask don’t tell,
This is dF
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2009-11-22 12:02 pm (UTC)