Many novels of the past 50 years or so, including literary ones, have been fairly candid in their references to sexual matters. That’s the case with parts of John Irving’s In One Person, Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle, Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint, Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls, and numerous other fiction books. (Fifty Shades of Grey? Haven’t read it.)
But while sexual references were often more coded and subtle in pre-1960s fiction, things could still get relatively frank at times. I was reminded of that last week while reading Marjorie Morningstar, which was published in 1955 and mostly set in the 1930s. (Poster of the movie version above.) There’s plenty of G-rated “necking” in Herman Wouk’s novel, but also adultery, sex with no plans to get married, flashes of naked skin, and more — even as much of the novel has non-romantic things on its mind (show biz, ambition, conformity vs. rebellion, class divisions, obsessive parenting, Jewish culture, the rise of Nazi Germany, etc.). An excellent novel, though the plot turn at the very end was disappointing.
Going further back in time, we have Henry Miller’s sex-heavy Tropic of Cancer (1934), which was banned in the U.S. for many years; Erskine Caldwell’s God’s Little Acre (1933), which contains scenes explicit enough for its time to get the author taken to court and the book banned in some cities; D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers (1913), which was graphic enough to have about 10% of its content edited out before publication — even as some remaining scenes were still pretty risqué for their day; Emile Zola’s Nana (1880), with its blunt depiction of the life of its prostitute protagonist; Herman Melville’s Pierre (1852), which focuses on a possibly incestuous relationship; and Honoré de Balzac’s The Magic Skin (1831), which includes an orgy scene.
Long before that, there’s plenty of amorousness in novels such as Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews (1742) — with characters like the revealingly named Lady Booby.
What are your favorite pre-1960s novels that were more sexually frank than you might have expected? And some of the more candid ’60s and post-’60s fiction you’ve liked?
My literary-trivia book is described and can be purchased here: Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Authors and the Greatest Novels of All Time.
In addition to this weekly blog, I write the award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column for Baristanet.com. The latest weekly piece — about yet another oversized building coming to my town — is here.
‘Right in the middle of a spicy movie starring Natalie Wood.’
Wonder if it was Marjory Morningstar? Sorry couldn’t resist that line from a Tom Paxton song. Lol, always going to find my way to a post like this given I like to write quite a lot spice. When I worked in that library Lady Chatterly’s Lover was kept in the back office and had to be asked for. i kid you not. Naturally we all read it. I was never a big fan of Lawrence. We had to read Sons and Lovers in school. Obvi that would NOT have been allowed had it been the original. I just always found that despite being taught that he championed the working class, in that book, he did anything but and that the teacher must have read a diff book. I did read Women in Love but..what a confession for a writer who writes sex…I got bored and gave up on it. Also I have never read 50 Shades. I actually feel that ‘real’ writing about sex is short on the ground. Like there’s a lot of graphic stuff out there. 50 Shades was an interesting phenomenon here in the UK cos not many UK writers really wrote sex. Starting out in the romance/sex writing industry I found that the perception by US publishers was that UK writers couldn’t write it whereas their authors just wrote it as a matter of course. Pages of it. I sometimes wonder if that is why that book took off the way it did. Here certainly. To return to Pin to See the Peepshow–oh lord you will thinking, not again. One of the things I also liked was that that book was written in the 30s and obvi she kept it clean in terms of scenes BUT she dissected what it was like to be in this dreadful marriage where the husband had to ‘have his rights.’ And poor Julia with her ideas of romance and all, setting out on this great, what will this be like adventure, found that this really was in the hands of the partner. Then she’s down to engineering all sorts like a separate bedroom and whether not just staying with her mum and sleeping on the landing wouldn’t have been better after all. And it’s quite a thread of dark humor in that book . But it led me in the direction of thinking that that kind of dissection with any regard to sex in literature is actually more interesting than pure descriptions of body parts.
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Thank you, Shehanne, for the excellent comment! I can see how this post would be relevant to your own book writing.
Ha! I hadn’t been aware of that Tom Paxton song. Could well have been a reference to “Marjorie Morningstar.” (What a great novelist Herman Wouk was.)
I hadn’t read “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” until after writing this post, and found it to be a pretty good (not great) novel — the sex and non-sex parts.
And, yes, many older novels were very or somewhat coded in discussing sex. As you allude to, things were often the better because of it. Subtlety can be a good thing.
Your mention of dissecting bad marriages reminds me that few novels did that better than George Eliot’s “Middlemarch.”
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There you go my friend.. https://youtu.be/NaGT7OH7nPQ
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I first heard it on a concert here in Dundee yep… 19 oatcake it was. t was a Sunday night. I always remember standing outside in a short line waiting to go in and this very ordinary guy with a guitar and a cap came up the covered set of pretty grotty stairs from the neighbouring pretty grotty street, walked right by and went through the doors. And we were all like how did he just get in there like that. I know you know what \I am going to say as to why.
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Love it! Such clever lyrics. (He looked so young then.) And thanks for that evocative recollection of seeing him.
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The lyrics are great and yeah he does look so young there.
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Dave two of the current day novelists, one you mentioned is John Irving’s In One Person, and Wlater Mosley in Devil in a Blue Dress set in 1948, Charcoal Joe set in 1960 . The author was easy with sexual encounters but I loved his books set in those days.
In One Person, author deals with the coming of age of a bisexual man and his coming to grips with his sexual identity..In One Person” begins in the mid-1950s, when Billy is 13, and shadows him until he is in his late 60s, in 2010.
Billy became a well known author and have gone through, AIDS epidemic, losing firends .
Irving was writing as Billy.
It is an excellent Novel, I urge all fans of Irving to read it.
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Thank you, bebe!
“Devil in a Blue Dress” definitely also has its sexual moments. Terrific crime novel that I’m glad you recommended to me!
I thought “In One Person” (which you also recommended) was excellent. Well-written, quirky, compassionate, and a real chronicle of the sexual prejudices and open-minded changes for the better of the past half-century or so. All the deaths in the novel did get ultra-depressing after a while, but that was the way it was during the earlier years of the AIDS epidemic.
Wrestling and wrestlers are certainly a recurring theme in several Irving novels!
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Dave, I am so glad that you`ve read Irving book,. They say his Son was gay whatever.
How about that grandpa ;), Ms. Foster., and so one. Plus so much heartbreaking.
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Interesting, bebe. Not surprised that there was a real-life family connection John Irving could emotionally draw on.
And, yes, so many memorable characters who were bisexual or gay or cross-dressing or transgender, etc.
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Beautiful post and interesting comments
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Thanks so much, Luisa! 🙂
I enjoy all your (wonderfully written/very informative) blog posts as well!
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Thank you
🌹❣🌹
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You’re very welcome!
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Dave, today is the 78th death Anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore
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Thank you for mentioning that, bebe. A giant of a writer and a giant of a person.
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I know you have seen this but for others who might be interested.
https://www.thestatesman.com/opinion/rabindranath-tagore-man-who-walked-alone-1502786407.html?fbclid=IwAR1HMBvwjJ0YpEtET0arE4_hpKIpEvQnM3hY8gKq5KsMKPmWXwQZR9TwQ2I
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An absolutely fascinating piece, bebe!
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Just today I was reading an obscure Algernon Blackwood novel, titled The Promise of Air”, and in the back were notices of other books published by MacMillan and Company– among them, were two, “Lover’s Gift and Crossing” and “Mashi and Other Stories” by Sir Rabindranath Tagore– reasonably priced by 1918 standards.
A coinkidink!
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How nice…Tagore has written many short stories , and Novels.
The Tagore blog I posted up to Dave.
This was one well known movie from a short story, ” Broken Home “,
On ” Sir”, Tagore Tagore turned down ” Knight hood”, because of Jallianwala Bagh massacre .
And now greedy publishers sells book sometimes as Sir Rabindraneth Tagore.
Why do they do that by writing Sir , who knows, when he rejected that title.
But 78 yera have passed since Tagore died and as we know the whole World have turned greedy, with no respect for other human beings.
Yes, He stood alone !
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Nice, jhNY!
And, bebe, that’s very interesting information. Tagore does seem like the type of person who wouldn’t have been comfortable with “Sir” — for one thing, a reminder of India’s (now former) colonial overlord, the UK. And, yes, Tagore wrote in a variety of formats — novels, short stories, poetry…
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“Jallianwala Bagh massacre ”
The Jallianwala Bagh massacre, also known as the Amritsar massacre, took place on 13 April 1919 when Acting Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered troops of the British Indian Army to fire their rifles into a crowd of unarmed Indian civilians in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, Punjab, killing at least 400, including 41 children, one only six weeks old. Over 1,000 were injured.
The Jallianwalla Bagh is a public garden of 6 to 7 acres (2.8 ha), walled on all sides, with only five entrances. Dyer blocked the main exits, and the troops continue to fire into the fleeing civilians until their ammunition was almost exhausted. He later declared his purpose was not to dispel the rally, but to “punish the Indians”. He did not stay to count the dead, much less offer aid, and his curfew condemned many of the wounded to die overnight where they lay..
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Despicable and heartbreaking, bebe. So terrible what humans (including those from oppressor/imperialistic nations) can do to other humans. 😦 😦
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Tagore in his strong protest of inhumanity of British ruling , rejected Knighthood.
His Nobel Prize was awarded in 1913.
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Good for him! (The rejecting and the ultra-prestigious Nobel.) Imperialism and colonialism are always inhumane.
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Not to change the topic…
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Busy girl Maggie of todsay
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Thank you very much, bebe, for the link and the comments! Maggie is busy indeed. 🙂
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Good Morning Dave, that Maggie girl1s update..
Now in NYT in the morning, I search foe her to update myself 🙂
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Thank you, bebe, for the post — and for searching for Maggie’s articles! 🙂
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I believe that very incident is recreated on film in the biopic of Gandhi starring Ben Kingsley– but it’s been quite a while since I saw it.
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You may be right, jhNY! I also haven’t seen that movie in ages — since it first came out in the early 1980s.
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Tagore’s refusal of knighthood reminds me of a line of Pound’s:
“I ask a wreath which will not crush my head…” (“Homage to Sextus Propertius)
Ezra Pound, “Poetry” magazine, December 1912:
“The appearance of the poems of Rabindarath Tagore, translated by himself from Bengali to English, is an event in the history of English poetry and of world poetry. I do not use these words with the looseness of contemporary journalism. Questions of poetic art are serious, not to be touched on lightly or with a spirit of bravura.
Bengal is a nation of fifty million people. The great age of Bengali poetry is this age in which we live. And the first Bengali whom I heard singing the lyrics of Tagore said, as simply as one would say it is four o’clock, “Yes we speak of it as the Age of Rabindarath.””
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“I ask a wreath which will not crush my head” — that’s a GREAT line! And a terrific two paragraphs on Tagore by Pound.
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Beautifully said..and thanks for posting this
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So glad to have pleased you!
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Sorry I don1t have the words..
This bejewlled necklace does not suit me,, it hurts when I wear it, when I try to tear it it bothers me. It chokes my throat, tune does not come out,…
so on and on..in my bad words..
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I totally hear you, bebe. A very understandable reaction to that bejeweled necklace. Sort of like a gilded cage.
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Bonjour Tristesse when Françoise Sagan was only 18, became an overnight sensation.
One twisted novel. , 17-year-old Cécile spends her summer in a villa on the French Riviera with her father Raymond and his current mistress,Elsa and Cécile gets along well with Elsa.
Raymond was very attractive anld a philanderer. .
Their peaceful holiday is shattered by the arrival of Anne a A cultured, principled, intelligent, hard-working woman ., who soon became Raymon`s lover and got engaged and Anne forbade Cécile to stop seeing Elsa..
Cécile in her cunning way plotted something to get rid of highly sensitive Anne , who left in tears and plunged the car to the river and died.
I was so young and cried and cried reading these sensitive novels…
Those were the days…
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Wow, bebe! Françoise Sagan started being published very young!
And wow again — sounds like a LOT goes on in “Bonjour Tristesse”!
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Come to think of it, the 11th century work “The Tale of Genji”, by Lady Murasaki Shikibu, has plenty of sex in it, and is very often described as the world’s first novel! So, right from giddy-up, sex has had its place in fiction.
Of course, the sex therein is more often problematic to modern eyes than not, as it’s often forced on women by Genji, who seems to take what he can get wherever he goes, though he’s a refined noble of poetic bent, with exquisite taste in incense.
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Excellent mention, jhNY! I’ve read “The Tale of Genji” (possibly a somewhat-abridged version), and that nobleman title character was indeed far from noble at times. Royalty is often like that… 😦
A novel that’s now 1,000 years old!
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I think the nobility of every society has found it easier to see the uses of their social inferiors than their humanity.
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True that. VERY true. 😦
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When in High School read a series of books by French Novelist Françoise Sagan , all translated in English. my Brother had them in the bookcase.
Bonjour Tristesse, A Certain Smile, Aimez-vous Brahms? and so on.
That was a great escape from studies, were all sweet and sexy novels.
” Aimez-vous Brahms?”.1960,
.Paula a divorced interior disigner had Roger as her lover, but she wanted more . Met Simon a very young and handsome man . Simon madly fell in love with Pauls and introduced her to Brahms, . Soon Pauld realised she needed Roger, and left Simon with a lot of sadness.
Simon`s grief was heart wrenching.
None of these novels had the ridiculous details of sexy scenes, but even more sexy to read Dave.
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I’ve never read Françoise Sagan, but her work seems to fit this topic. Thank you for mentioning her!
And you’re right, bebe, that subtlety can make novels sexier to read!
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Odd story here, Dave. The racy novel “Peyton Place,” by Grace Metalious, was published in 1956, with the movie out the next year. For reasons I will never understand, my prudish mother loaded all four of us kids plus our father into the car and took us to a drive-in movie to see it, probably in 1958 or ’59. I remember almost nothing about the movie nor any family discussion afterward. But the novel should be on your list. And if Mom still were alive I’d ask you to interview her about this mystery trip to the movies.
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That IS a mysterious story, Bill! (And well told.) “Prudish” and “Peyton Place” don’t seem to match, except for the opening letter “P.” Perhaps your mother was seeing into the NFL’s future and thought the movie would be about quarterback Peyton Manning? 🙂
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I’m not sure if you really are spying on me, Dave, but you’re starting to freak me out!
Over the weekend, I had a random thought about a scene in Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth. There’s a pretty violent rape told from the POV of the rapist, and while it’s obviously not cheery, it was SO well written that as a reader, I was kind of desensitised from the victim and *almost* enjoying it from the rapists perspective. And it got me wondering if you ever had / would write a blog about the sometimes taboo topic of sex. And then…
Of course, rape and sex have very little in common, and the above scene doesn’t remotely fit your topic this week (is obviously post 1960s as well as not being about sex) but it’s almost spooky that you’d pick this week to write this particular blog!
As far as the actual topic goes, I read Lady Chatterley’s Lover about a thousand years ago expecting lots of naughtiness. I have no idea whether it was actually a good book, or whether it was racy for its time, but I remember feeling pretty ho hum about it all.
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Thank you, Sue! Ha! Another one of those coincidences, I guess. 🙂
There are, unfortunately, plenty of rapes depicted in literature — whether graphically or off-scene, and you’re right that that despicable act has little to do with sex and much more to do with violence, criminality, power imbalance, etc.
While I haven’t read it, it sounds like “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” was risqué for its era but relatively tame by today’s standards (or lack of standards). Times have really changed in that respect.
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On the blog last week, I credited my street-level suppliers with my eclectic reading tastes, and they are responsible in a way, given that most of what I read depends on what they put out for sale. But truth is, it’s Ezra Pound, more than any other influence over all the years. I read “The Metamorphoses” in Rolf Humphries translation because he praised Ovid, and now I’m reading the 16th century Arthur Golding translation of it, because Pound praised it without reserve in the “ABC of Reading”, and though I read that decades ago, I maintained an interest over all the years. I read Chinese Tang Dynasty poems because he translated a few, I read some of the Troubadours, again on his recommendation, and Dante’s “Inferno”. Today, I remembered I had read some love poetry from Ancient Egypt, and though what I leave a link to below is not his work, it was Pound, again who introduced me.
I will not defend his politics or prejudices, period, beyond saying that he, like a great many others in the Depression Era, felt obligated to come up with something that would improve the status quo. He had taught himself several languages, and probably most of all he knew. He made the mistake of attempting to teach himself political economy without outside help, and had in that instance, more of a fool than he knew for an instructor.
I remain grateful he took time to instruct fools like me in world literature appreciation. The lessons have lasted me many decades.
So, to show sex goes way back, as written, here’s a bit of love poetry from Ancient Egypt:
Your love has penetrated all within me/
Like honey plunged into water, etc.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_Love_Poems
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Thank you, jhNY! Ezra Pounds indeed sounds like quite an influence on you — literature-wise specifically, of course.
And that is quite a sensual poem from way, way back. Very well-written, too.
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The City and The Pillar by Gore Vidal and Refletions in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers.
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Good ones, SW! Thank you! I’ve read that Carson McCullers novella, and it’s riveting.
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Finally realized I had to log into wordpress to comment if I wanted to avoid the aka Anonymous. As I said before, I don’t know who Anonymous is but I wish they’d stop using my name. Ha!
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Ha, SW! Glad you’ll be avoiding “Anonymous,” who is famous enough to go by only name (like Bono, Madonna, Beyonce…). 🙂
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“Tom Jones” by Fielding,. Saw film many years ago in college with Albert Finney. He had a lot of animal magnetism !
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Thank you, Michele! That’s a good one! Not sure how much racier the “Tom Jones” movie was than Henry Fielding’s novel (I haven’t seen the film), but the book was certainly racy for its time!
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Good morning! “The Carpetbaggers”, by Harold Robbins, came out in the early 60s. A lot of sex. Have a great week, Dave! 🙂
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Good morning, Pat! Excellent example of this topic! I’ve heard about “The Carpetbaggers” and its racy nature, but haven’t read it.
I did once see Harold Robbins in a New York City restaurant — in the ’90s or ’80s, can’t remember which. I do remember being with a couple of friends, one of whom said, for what it’s worth: “Hey, isn’t that f*#*in’ Harold Robbins?!” 🙂
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I secretly attended a showing of “The Carpetbaggers” but told my mother I was going to see “The Unsinkable Molly Brown”. If I’d had any regard for the value of money, I would have kept the price of admission and spent it on something worthwhile, like cheap candy. Though I do recall the beauty of Carol Baker with some fading fondness.
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I hear you, jhNY, about secret movie switching! I did that, too, a few times. 🙂 Sorry the film wasn’t better.
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Sneaking around was the important thing. Just to where and what one sneaked was almost incidental. Keep ’em guessing!
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Ha! Yes! And no smartphones back then for the parents to try calling…
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At thirteen,telling the folks I was going to a Boy Scout troop meeting, I headed off downtown to witness a disc jockey’s attempt to break the record for continuous on-air endurance, which took place in a clean, well-lighted car showroom. My friends and I, in our heedless enthusiasm, allowed ourselves to be interviewed, and took the time to wish the DJ well on his quest, and to greet our classmates at home who might be listening. Some were, and called my house to tell whoever picked up that they’d heard me on-air. My parents greeted me at my front door with news of the several calls, and an important follow-up: grounded for a month. I only wish that this was the limit of my sneakiness, but there were other temptations and occasions throughout my teenage years.
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Great memory, jhNY! Probably still worth the radio appearance. 🙂
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… and I recall the beauty of George Peppard :-). But other than the eye candy, that movie was pretty awful.
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Yes, Pat, bad movies often compensate with eye candy! (Maybe “I. Candy” should be in their credits. 🙂 )
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LOL!!!
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🙂
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Indeed what a handsome man he was.
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Oh my goodness, bebe, that scene in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” where he’s soaked to the bone as he helps Audrey find Cat in the pouring rain — my knees still go a little weak at the thought. No man ever looked better drenching wet. 🙂
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HA..so true, that movie I was looking at George Pepperd instead of Hepburn.
And in Carperbaggers…on wow 🙂 , and so many others.
Drop dead georgeous.
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Oh how embarrassing..read The Carperbaggers and some other novels of Harold Robins.
Ane now even worse..Fifty Shades series, all trashy and in paperbacks, and movies all over. What a downdrade to some good literature.
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I like my cat better than the idea of “Fifty Shades,” even though he has only two or three shades of gray… 🙂
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My Pomchi is greying here and there..also no one in here have mentioened any of those trash, tells us Dave everyone has good taste.
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Sad when a pet gets a bit gray from age. 😦
Whether animal or human, members of your household have standards!
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She is old we decid4ed not to travel. That is okay…
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You’re a very kind pet person, bebe, and I’m sure your doggie is grateful.
The one thing I hate about travel is Misty the cat not having his people at home. 😦
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Don’t be embarrassed, bebe. I considered reading Fifty Shades — considered it more than once. The reviews were so scathing but the sales were so astronomical, I was curious to see what all the fuss was about. In the end I didn’t read it, but I was definitely tempted.
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Ha ha.bebe here, 50 shades of grey is pure trash..I borrowed the book then read a few pages, burst out laughing and the end 🤣
Anyways I’ll talk about some French Novels later…today First day of p therapy. Ouch 😱
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Ha ha, bebe! I enjoyed your description of your reaction to “Fifty Shades of Grey.” 🙂 Just not my thing, either.
The very best of luck with the beginning of your rehab today!
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FYI bebe
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Thank you, bebe! Saw this. Shocking yet of course not shocking how white (and male) Republican representation in Congress is.
(And I saw that Maggie contributed to this story. 🙂 )
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Indeed that`s why I posted this, that Maggie is a busy girl Dave
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Thanks again, bebe! 🙂
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HA…reading above Dave, when I post from my ipad in the evenings it comes as anon…but that is really is me, of course there is something to avoid. In the other place…anyone would h`v claimed me….eek..glad that place no longer exists.
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bebe, iPads are from Apple, and Anonymous also starts with an “A,” so… 🙂
Speaking of initials, HP indeed doesn’t exist anymore in the way it once did.
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Oh thank goodness…and so many did not dare to come to your blog…HA.. 🙂
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Whenever I see an HP article linked in my Facebook feed I (almost) always don’t click on it. Don’t want to give them extra traffic! 🙂
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OMG they are trolling you …I have not seen the sleeping queen anywhere these day…good..
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Ha, bebe! I don’t think it’s trolling; just some of my Facebook friends posting HP pieces. 🙂
And yes, a much lower profile these days for a certain someone!
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I was reading “War and Peace” with a grad student a couple of years ago, and he was stunned at the amount of implied sex in it! No English-language work from the same era could have been so frank. “Anna Karenina” is also quite frank. Although the sex between Anna and Vronsky is not described explicitly, there clearly is a sex scene, and Anna becomes pregnant with Vronsky’s child.
Similar, in Dostoevsky’s “Notes from Underground,” the Underground Man clearly has sex with the prostitute Liza, although the act itself is skipped over.
The Russian poets of the previous generation were even more upfront about it than Tolstoy and Dostoevsky’s generation. Some of their published works were pretty racy, and some of their unpublished works were downright pornographic.
Here’s a link to an English translation of a racy little poem by Pushkin that was unpublished during his lifetime. In Russia Gentiles are not circumcised, hence the “thing” that distinguishes the two groups:
https://www.uni-potsdam.de/u/slavistik/lamprecht_slavistik/pushkin/opus_ueb/trans_en/hristos%20voskres/gu_rebecca.html
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Thank you, Elena, for all those well-described examples from Russian works — and that poem is indeed racy! When one thinks of sexual frankness in 19th-century literature, one thinks of, say, France more than Russia — but the latter has its moments. There’s of course also some “debauchery” in “The Brothers Karamazov” (that sleazy dad, for instance), but it’s not explicitly depicted.
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Turgenev’s “First Love” features a bit of offbeat sex by inference– of the s&m variety, involving a whip, in the hands of the lover shared by a father and son, though as I recall, each was previously unaware of their common interest.
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Thank you, jhNY! Interesting. One never knows what an IT (Ivan Turgenev) person will do… 🙂 Turgenev could definitely surprise a reader.
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There’s reference to that sort of going-on in Lampedusa’s “The Leopard” too,found in a room shut for decades:
“On the low ceilings were some very unusual reliefs in colored stucco, fortunately made almost indecipherable by damp…In every room and even in the drawing room were wide, too wide sofas, showing nails with traces of silk that had been torn away…on the fireplaces were delicate little marble intaglios, naked figures in paroxysms but mutilated by some furious hammer… Inside (a cupboard) was a bundle of small whips, switches of bull’s muscle, some with silver handles, others wrapped halfway up in a charming old silk, white with little blue stripes, on which could be seen three rows of blackish marks; and metal instruments for inexplicable purposes.” (p.185)
Published 1960– so it just got under the wire.
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Wow — I had forgotten that passage from “The Leopard,” which I’m grateful you recommended to me a few years ago. One of the most beautifully written novels I’ve ever read (and of course most of it was rated “G” or “PG,” not “R”).
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Come to think of it, I may have gotten things mixed up, as to whose hand held the whip– now I’m thinking it was the father.
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Perhaps the band Devo would know the answer. 🙂
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“When a problem comes along, you must…”
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“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” (Betty Smith, 1943) is quite sexually frank, with attempted rape, sex outside of marriage, adultery, and longing for physical connection, as seen through the eyes of a young girl. Recent reading with some excellent sex scenes includes the “Outlander” books by Diana Gabaldon.
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Thank you, Becky! Sorry for my delayed response; your comment ended up in my blog’s spam folder (not my doing), and I just moved it here when I noticed.
“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” is a very good example of this topic! I haven’t read the “Outlander” books, but glad you mentioned them. Which reminds me of another series that recently inspired a TV production — George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire” books, which are fairly frank sexually.
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I’ve had several people say, lately, that my comments have gone to their spam. Not sure what I can do about that!
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Sorry about that, Becky. It seems to be kind of random, because it has happened once in a while to several commenters on my blog who said nothing objectionable. Maybe my topic this week made some comments seem sensitive, but there was nothing wrong with yours!
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By the way, I read “The Winds of War” and “War and Remembrance” years before I read “Marjorie Morningstar”. I found it almost unbelievable that Herman Wouk wrote all 3!!!
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Thank you, lulabelle! I haven’t read “The Winds of War” and “War and Remembrance,” but did read “The Caine Mutiny” — which was also quite different from “Marjorie Morningstar” in many ways. Herman Wouk seemed to have been an impressively wide-ranging writer.
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I’ve read “The Carpetbaggers” as a teenager and I recall it as scandelous. 🙂
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Now that’s a great adjective! 🙂
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Oh, Dave!!! You failed to mention “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” by D. H. Lawrence and “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov.
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Oops — you’re right, lulabelle! Glad there’s a comments section. 🙂
I haven’t read “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” but have certainly heard a lot about it. Did read “Lolita,” and had very mixed feelings.
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Humbert Humbert was a pedophile!
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I totally agree, lulabelle! A major reason I felt VERY queasy about the novel.
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Yes, but a piker compared to Clare Quilty.
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True! An even lower lowlife than the lowlife Humbert Humbert.
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I read both in the 60’s, expecting something really racy. My reaction was, “huh?” These days, kids watching NetFlix get exposed to so much more – but that is another conversation.
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Excellent point, Almost Iowa! I guess everything’s relative. Most “racy” novels are far less racy than certain movies, what people can find on the Internet, etc.
I read “Lolita,” and it’s certainly not hugely “explicit.” More like disturbing and unsetting. Well-written, but one wonders how much Nabokov was being sort of satirical and how much he was “into” the VERY age-inappropriate relationship he depicted. 😦
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Hey lulabelle … I’ve always meant to read “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” someday, and I’ve got to be honest — it’s because I’m curious about just how dirty is it, lol 😉 Obviously, it was scandalous in its day; does it still hold up, so to speak?
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I’m now very curious, too. Will see if I can spot that D.H. Lawrence novel in my local library — if it’s not covered with a cut-up paper bag or something. 🙂
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It’s been YEARS since I read “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” but I remember being amused by his descriptions of their sexual encounters. 🙂
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Thanks to Sharon Terrel McAlister for recommending Herman Wouk’s work!
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