“Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back that is an outrage” –Winston Churchill

“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them” –Joseph Brodsky

This past week was Banned Books Week. (For more info, check out the ALA’s official site). I always enjoy this week–not because I think banning books is a good idea (!), but because most of my life has been so white-bread boring that I enjoy feeling a bit subversive just for reading a book. 🙂 In preparing this post, I spent a fascinating hour or so scanning lists of banned books on the Internet. Here are a few from around the Regency period:

Candide, Voltaire–In 1930, US Customs seized a shipment of Harvard-bound copies claiming obscenity. Two Harvard profs mounted a spirited defense of the work, and Customs later admitted a different edition

Fanny Hill, John Cleland–written in 1749, this tale of a prostitute was known for its frank sexual descriptions and its parodies of books like Moll Flanders. It wasn’t cleared from US obscenity charges until 1966.

And speaking of Moll Flanders–Defoe’s novel was banned from the US Mail under the Comstock Law of 1873 (the same law that banned the dissemination of birth control devices and information)

Rousseau’s Confessions–seized by US Customs in 1924 as being “injurious to public morality”

And a few I just got a laugh from:

Ibsen’s A Doll’s House–in 1983 members of the Alabama State Textbook Committee called to ban this play because it “propagates feminist views”

These geniuses also tried to ban Diary of Anne Frank (also in 1983) for being “a real downer”

Vasilisa the Beautiful: Russian Fairy Tales was challenged in Mena, Arkansas in 1990 because it contains “violence, voodoo, and cannibalism” (the perfect story, IMO!)

D.T. Suzuki’s Zen Buddhism: Select Writings, challenged in Canton, Michigan in 1987–“this book details the teachings of the religion of Buddhism in such a way that the reader could very likely embrace its teachings and choose this as his religion.” Because, of course, the last thing we need in this world is a bunch of peaceful Buddhists meditating all over the place.

What are some of your favorite “dangerous” books?

There are guilty pleasures, and then there are pleasures that are just wrong.

One of my guilty pleasures is watching historical movies, no matter the quality. A friend from high school and I (visitors to my blog will know her as the Super-Smart Lawyer) settle down on my couch after my son is asleep, crack open a bottle of wine, and indulge. We’ve seen two versions of Wuthering Heights (Olivier and Dalton), Clive Owen in Return of the Native, Century and King Arthur, Jane Eyre (just the Dalton version so far), and of course some others I can’t recall–we’ve been doing this for awhile now.

My recent Sean Bean obsession, fueled by my viewing of the Sharpe series, has now led me to this: Scarlett. It is the 1994 mini-series based on Alexandra Ripley‘s sequel to Margaret Mitchell‘s Gone With The Wind. He plays a minor character in it, and to my surprise, I discovered it starred another historical favorite, Timothy Dalton.

But when I got it home from the library, I felt a little queasy. It’s six hours long! It’s a TV mini-series! Based on the sequel to a much-beloved book! If I do watch it, it will be alone, so I can hide my shame. My friend does not deserve six hours of cheesy TV melodrama.

Has anyone seen it? Can recommend it? Or not? And what is your guiltiest pleasure movie?

Megan
www.meganframpton.com

S e x.

Sex in the Regency. My advice would be, don’t go there. Look at our own times. Is there a consensus on sexuality? Hardly, and yet everyone has an opinion. Trying to figure out sexual mores from a distance of almost two hundred years is a little daunting. Because for every discovery you make, there’s an exception, and you just end up even more confused.

Sex was for procreation. Except when it wasn’t. Yes, the aristocracy wanted to be sure that their heirs were actually theirs and not the third footman’s…but it didn’t mean anyone was going to enjoy it. Except for the sorts of misbehavior that were purely for enjoyment. Women were stupid creatures who didn’t have any sort of control over the physical desire they weren’t mean to know about. Anything you, uh, did on your own (see how polite I’m being today!) would cause a whole host of exotic, distressing, life-threatening physical and mental symptoms, and everyone would know what you’d been doing.

And oh yes, let’s not forget the distressing consequences of unprotected sex, particularly for women.

It’s enough to make you wonder why and how the Regency is now viewed as this incredibly sexy period. Because, of course, it is. The clothes, the clothes, celebrating men’s beautiful athletic bodies (never in the history of clothing has a style so blatantly demanded that you look there, yes, there–and I don’t count codpieces because they’re just silly). Wonderful, feminine, floaty, transparent gowns for women with not a whole lot underneath. It’s almost as though fashion was an acceptable means of erotic expression.

Romance has created a sort of never-never Regencyland which is a lot of fun to explore. I think it’s also a lot of fun to incorporate some real history into our fantasy. But how much, and what? Real events, real people? What books have you read that you felt really gave you a sense of being in another time and place?

Janet

When in the depths of first draft hell, sometimes I reach for some favorite quotes to keep me slogging. But not the usual motivational stuff. Later, I will appreciate words like Eleanor Roosevelt’s: “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” But when I’m at this stage, I want gritty realism and black humor.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not drive on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. – Winston Churchill

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. – Thomas Mann

There’s only one person who needs a glass of water oftener than a small child tucked in for the night, and that’s a writer sitting down to write. – Mignon McLaughlin

If I don’t write to empty my mind, I go mad. – Lord Byron

Easy reading is damn hard writing. – Nathaniel Hawthorne

The first draft of anything is sh*t. – Ernest Hemingway

Only a mediocre writer is always at his best. – W. Somerset Maugham

Here’s another one I love, though not specific to writing:

Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?
– Gimli, in the cinematic version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Return of the King

So do any of you have favorite quotes, writing-related or otherwise, that help you get through the day?

Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, finalist NJRW Golden Leaf
www.elenagreene.com

Today is the day! Welcome to the MY LADY GAMESTER discussion — complete with some excellent prizes!

To learn about the prizes (which include the book pictured here — an 80-page 11″ by 9″ softbound book full of pictures and info on last year’s movie of Pride and Prejudice, given to Oscar voters), and to see the complete rules, click here.

Remember: there will be at least two winners, and if there are a lot of comments, there will be three winners. So comment early, and comment often!

To refresh your memory — to enter the contest, just leave a comment today (September 26) on this post talking about my Regency, MY LADY GAMESTER. Your comment doesn’t need to be brilliant or funny or clever, and you don’t need to say anything nice about the book either — just as long as the comment basically means something, and has something to do with the book, it will count.

Feel free to say what you like, to introduce a new topic, or comment on one already going!

If you need ideas to get started, here are a couple that occurred to me recently…

I was recently reading some comments made on an early version of the manuscript a long time ago by various people… One of them complained that the whole idea of my plot was flawed — that during the Regency, a woman in Atalanta’s position would just have gone out and caught herself a rich husband to help her family, and the idea of gaming for money would never have crossed her mind. My first thought was “what a silly comment!” My second thought was “Hmm…come to think of it, I am quite certain that such an idea never crossed Atalanta’s mind. But why not?” Setting aside the revenge factor, what was it about Atalanta that made her do what she did? Or, conversely, did I fail to show sufficient motivation for her actions? Did she do what she did merely because the author wanted her to? 🙂

When my brother read the book, he gave me detailed comments on it. (Which I love to get! This, of course, is why I’m doing this remarkably self-absorbed contest.) I was intrigued to learn that he didn’t care for Atalanta’s brother, Tom. What interested me was that I’d found that most readers liked Tom, or at least thought he was a good character…and, in fact, if they disliked a younger brother in the book, it was Edmund, who some found to be a rather two-dimensional character. So. Brothers. Is Tom funny, annoying, lovable, unbelievable, or what? How about Edmund? Is Edmund just a cipher there, a tool in the plot, and a device to reveal Stoke’s character? Will Tom and Edmund end up friends once they’re living together, or will they be like oil and water? 🙂

Poor Sir Geoffrey, living in a dead-end alley with his treasures. So — what’s his problem? How many mental illnesses does he suffer from? Could Malkham really have got him to play cards, like he does at the end? Have you ever heard of an alley in Regency London that had a dead end? 🙂 (I haven’t. That bit was fudged.)

By the way, I fudged something else — the upholstery in the Covent Garden Theatre was not royal blue — it was pale blue. Shocker!

So — please comment! Hopefully this will be fun!

Cara
Cara King — egomaniac, and author of MY LADY GAMESTER, winner of the Booksellers’ Best Award for Best Regency of 2005