by Charlotte Harris
The last week of September marks Banned Books Week, an event first launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in challenges to books in libraries, shops, and schools. To mark the occasion, let’s take a look at the use and censorship of so-called ‘obscenity’ in novels – and remember why it’s important that readers have open access to all books.
Obscenity has birthed some of the most iconic books of all time. From the erotic portrait of extramarital romance in D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, to the teenage angst of Holden Caulfield in J.D Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, and even the disturbing paedophilic desires of Humbert Humbert in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita: taboo topics and explicit language clearly have a role to play in the canon of great literature. These novels are linked not only by their history of censorship and controversy, but also by their commercial success as enduring bestsellers. Whether it’s Henry Miller or E.L. James, authors of controversial literature have transfixed readers with their use of obscenity. The censorship of these novels exposes the detachment between their public condemnation and their lasting popularity.
The most famous case of obscenity in literature might be the aforementioned Lady Chatterley’s Lover, a book so hotly debated for its erotic content and foul language that it went to court. The novel’s depictions of sex are still shockingly explicit today: Lawrence had our entire lecture theatre blushing in my university days of the 2020s, so it stands to reason that the book would turn readers of the 1920s to a deep shade of crimson. But that sense of shock and embarrassment is exactly what Lawrence wanted us to feel. He used literature to make us question our ideas of what can and can’t be discussed. Can divorce ever be justified? Is female sexuality shameful? Should it be so? Is class disparity in a relationship acceptable? By banning the book upon publication, the literary authorities of the era blocked these topics from discussion. It took a further thirty years for Chatterley to be printed and read by the millions, contributing to a climate of sexual liberation and social progress, and a breakthrough in literary artistic freedom.
“Lawrence’s message, as you have heard, was that the society of his day in England was sick […] and that what we ought to do was to re-establish personal relationships, the greatest of which was the relationship between a man and a woman in love, in which there was no shame and nothing wrong, nothing unclean, nothing which anybody was not entitled to discuss.”
–Gerald Gardiner, The Trial of Lady Chatterley : Regina v. Penguin Books (1961)
The important thing to remember about obscenity is that the things we class as obscene are always changing. Obscenity isn’t fixed. Women’s ankles used to be shocking. Premarital hand holding used to raise eyebrows. Times change, and it’s by reading and talking about literature that challenges our current ideas that we are able to move forwards. If you want to be at the forefront of the next cultural revolution, take a look at the official Banned Books Week list consisting of the most challenged books of 2024, and read the books that some people really don’t want you to.
Banned Books Week: Why We Should Read the Obscene
by Charlotte Harris
The last week of September marks Banned Books Week, an event first launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in challenges to books in libraries, shops, and schools. To mark the occasion, let’s take a look at the use and censorship of so-called ‘obscenity’ in novels – and remember why it’s important that readers have open access to all books.
Obscenity has birthed some of the most iconic books of all time. From the erotic portrait of extramarital romance in D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, to the teenage angst of Holden Caulfield in J.D Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, and even the disturbing paedophilic desires of Humbert Humbert in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita: taboo topics and explicit language clearly have a role to play in the canon of great literature. These novels are linked not only by their history of censorship and controversy, but also by their commercial success as enduring bestsellers. Whether it’s Henry Miller or E.L. James, authors of controversial literature have transfixed readers with their use of obscenity. The censorship of these novels exposes the detachment between their public condemnation and their lasting popularity.
The most famous case of obscenity in literature might be the aforementioned Lady Chatterley’s Lover, a book so hotly debated for its erotic content and foul language that it went to court. The novel’s depictions of sex are still shockingly explicit today: Lawrence had our entire lecture theatre blushing in my university days of the 2020s, so it stands to reason that the book would turn readers of the 1920s to a deep shade of crimson. But that sense of shock and embarrassment is exactly what Lawrence wanted us to feel. He used literature to make us question our ideas of what can and can’t be discussed. Can divorce ever be justified? Is female sexuality shameful? Should it be so? Is class disparity in a relationship acceptable? By banning the book upon publication, the literary authorities of the era blocked these topics from discussion. It took a further thirty years for Chatterley to be printed and read by the millions, contributing to a climate of sexual liberation and social progress, and a breakthrough in literary artistic freedom.
“Lawrence’s message, as you have heard, was that the society of his day in England was sick […] and that what we ought to do was to re-establish personal relationships, the greatest of which was the relationship between a man and a woman in love, in which there was no shame and nothing wrong, nothing unclean, nothing which anybody was not entitled to discuss.”
–Gerald Gardiner, The Trial of Lady Chatterley : Regina v. Penguin Books (1961)
The important thing to remember about obscenity is that the things we class as obscene are always changing. Obscenity isn’t fixed. Women’s ankles used to be shocking. Premarital hand holding used to raise eyebrows. Times change, and it’s by reading and talking about literature that challenges our current ideas that we are able to move forwards. If you want to be at the forefront of the next cultural revolution, take a look at the official Banned Books Week list consisting of the most challenged books of 2024, and read the books that some people really don’t want you to.