We’re so pleased to welcome author JL Merrow today to help us celebrate the Freedom to Read, and be sure to check out the great giveaway details too.
Welcome, JL!
Tales of the Unexpurgated
Hi, I’m JL Merrow, and I’d like to talk to you about one of my favourite banned books.
The book I’ve chosen is bawdy, salacious and full of men and women behaving badly. Under the Comstock Law of 1873, it was illegal to send this book through the US Mail, and it’s been banned in UK and US schools, the latter as recently as 1995. When I went to school (okay, not quite as recently as 1995) I was able to read this book—but only in a version which had been heavily bowdlerised and stripped of all obscenity.
I’m talking, of course, about Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
Yes, really. Now seen as a key work of Middle English literature—indeed, as one of the most important works in all English literature—the Tales have, over the six centuries since they were written, provoked an awful lot of hand-wringing, tutting and outraged sensibilities. Quite impressive for a collection of simple tales of simple folk, full of country matters and Ye Olde Englyshe Spellynge. Quaint, even (not to be confused with queynte, which is a word that appears in the Tales and has quite a different meaning ).*
So why do I love the Canterbury Tales? Well, I have fond memories of my strait-laced English teacher reading out the rude bits of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale** to us—she being the only one in the class with an unexpurgated version. And, too, I’ve always loved language, and the Middle English of Chaucer’s time always appealed to me much as using my knowledge of German to puzzle out written Dutch still does—so close to the language I know, and yet at first sight, so different.
But mostly, I think, I love the Canterbury Tales because they show how people, even six hundred years ago, were pretty much the same as we are today: imperfect, often coarse, and fond of a good laugh. It’s tempting to think of people going on a pilgrimage as pious religious bores and exactly the sort who would ban an “obscene” book—but this motley collection of pilgrims was far from po-faced. The characters whose tales they told may have gone dutifully to church every Sabbath day, but they sinned merrily every other day of the week (and probably twice on Sundays).
Ban it all you like: obscenity (by the censors’ blinkered definition) will out.
I’ll leave you with a quote from The Summoner’s Tale (in modern English translation, because if you’ve read this far you deserve a break):
“Now then, put in thy hand down by my back,”
Said this man, “and grope well behind.
Beneath my buttock where shalt thou find
A thing that I have hidden in private.”
“Ah!” thought this friar, “That shall go with me!”
And down his hand he thrusts to the cleft
In hope to find there a gift.***
– Geoffrey Chaucer, The Summoner’s Tale
* The modern version has only four letters. And the first one isn’t “q”.
** That’s the one about the big cock.
***Spoiler: he gets farted on.
Giveaway: I’m offering an ebook of winner’s choice from my backlist (see my website, https://jlmerrow.com/, for a list of my books) to a randomly-chosen commenter on the post, and I’d love to hear about your own favourite banned book. Or your favourite Canterbury Tale! :)
**Comment Deadline: 11:59pm on Saturday, October 1, 2016**
About the Author
JL Merrow is that rare beast, an English person who refuses to drink tea. She read Natural Sciences at Cambridge, where she learned many things, chief amongst which was that she never wanted to see the inside of a lab ever again. Her one regret is that she never mastered the ability of punting one-handed whilst holding a glass of champagne.
She writes across genres, with a preference for contemporary gay romance and mysteries, and is frequently accused of humour. Her novel Slam! won the 2013 Rainbow Award for Best LGBT Romantic Comedy, and her novella Muscling Through and novel Relief Valve were both EPIC Awards finalists.
JL Merrow is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, International Thriller Writers, Verulam Writers’ Circle and the UK GLBTQ Fiction Meet organising team.
Find JL Merrow online at: www.jlmerrow.com, on Twitter as @jlmerrow, and on Facebook.
I love the Canterbury Tales… My favourite is the Wife of Bath’s tale. As for forbidden books, one of my favourites is Animal Farm, which was forbidden in URSS, obviously… Alice in Wonderland is another favourite of mine which was forbidden in certain provinces of China.
Heh, yes, the Wife of Bath’s tale is a bawdy classic!
And I’m not surprised about Animal Farm – but Alice in Wonderland? O_o
Mind you, it is kind of druggie!
I think it is because of anthropomorphized animals: behaving like human, wearing clothes, talking etc… It is considered an insult to humans O_o
OMG, by that token you’d have to ban Winnie the Pooh as well! And Beatrix Potter, Charlotte’s Web, Watership Down, Guess How Much I Love You…
Poor Chinese kids, growing up with no talking animals! :(
Thanks for sharing. :) My favorite banned book will be a lot of others as well, I think, but I love the Harry Potter series. I remember reading it for the first time and devouring the first three in a big gulp while waiting on tenterhooks for the rest to come out one by one. I couldn’t believe it the first time I heard that they were “controversial” or “banned” because I just don’t see it. But I guess that’s why literature is always open to interpretation.
Heh, I first read Harry Potter BECAUSE it was controversial! I was friendly with a group of Evangelical Christian mums when it came out, and we agreed we should all read it to judge for ourselves if it would lead our children into satanism. ;)
Needless to say, we all agreed people were making a fuss about nothing – and I was totally hooked on the series! Still am, tbh – I got a huge thrill going on the Warner Studios tour and walking down Diagon Alley. :D
I read Canterbury Tales in university way back in the day. We read the entire thing in Middle English (not censored). I remember the professor reading parts out loud and guffawing and turning red during the bawdy parts – this to a lecture class of several hundred students.
Thanks for the post!
LOL! Sounds like a fun class. :D
The funniest bit about my English teacher reading out the rude bits was that she hadn’t realised we had the expurgated versions – and of course, we were all sitting there wondering why on earth she was suddenly telling us all about Chanticleer’s sex life! ;)
I can recall reading some of the canterbury Tales, it must have been at school in the 70’s but I can’t recall much beyond the difficulty of reading the olde englyshe!
We also did Animal Farm for O level I think – I was just focussed on getting through it and learning what had to be done to consider the wider connotations.
I love the olde englyshe – but then I’ve always been keen on foreign languages! And it sounds like you had a similar experience with Animal Farm to what I did. I don’t know what they were thinking of, really, teaching the book but not the historical context.
I too have read the Wife of Bath’s tale and it is great. I also enjoyed Boccaccio’s Decamerone, Lady Chatterly’s Lover and Lolita; I think they’ve been banned at times, and a couple of Swedish novels and poetry that wasn’t banned but ended up in court for their immoral content (meaning either too explicit sex for that time or blasphemous content). In the end the authors acquitted. But I’ve still had students reacting strongly to the sexually explicit poem, I let them read it themselves though.
I enjoyed Lady Chatterly’s Lover, but I have to confess I failed to get on with any of Lawrence’s other books.
And I can never see the name “Boccaccio” without thinking of HG Wells’ Mr Polly and his “Bocashieu” and “Rabooloose”! :)
Wow! I’m surprised that Canterbury Tales has been banned so recently. My favorite banned book is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. It’s a great book that inspired so many people to become readers or read more.
It’s really ridiculous what some people get up in arms about, given all the other things in the world they could more usefully try to ban (by which I mean things that actually harm people) isn’t it?
And yes, I love the Harry Potter books, both for themselves and the way they’ve got children who weren’t otherwise readers interested in books. :)
Since I am from Indonesia, these literature titles are not so familiar for me (we read totally different kind of literature when I was in school, mostly focusing on Indonesian literature rather than English/World classics).
I guess due to our political climate these days, I assume that ALL of LGBT books I am currently reading will be banned by my government. Good thing they haven’t caught up with it considering my country is not a ‘reading’ society yet. So I guess my favorite banned books will be all of these LGBT romances I read.
Whoops – please see reply below. :)
Thanks for sharing.
I’m surprised that my absolute favorite Ernest Hemingway book, A Farewell to Arms was banned. And another favorite of mine by Hemingway The Sun Also Rises was banned. Animal Farm, by George Orwell was a great read. I didn’t realize the Harry Potter series and LotR were banned as well.
Goodness, the nutters would have a field day if they saw my bookshelves and my Kindle! Gasp!
Heh, yes, it’s amazing how tame some books banned for obscenity now seem compared to mainstream fiction, let alone erotica/romance! :D
Wow – that’s a really different perspective on the whole banned books thing. Sorry to hear you live under such an oppressive regime, and I really hope things improve soon.
I wonder though – in this internet age, can any books really be successfully banned? I hope you’ll have the freedom to continue to read the books you love. Sending love to you and all the LGBT people in your country. <3
If you read about LGBT news coming from Indonesia, things are not really looking well at the moment. There is quite a bad spotlight towards the LGBT society, influenced by the religious doctrines about the wrongness of being non-heterosexual. Some of the LGBT-affiliated websites have been suggested to be banned by the Ministry of Communication and Information. Then again, as you said, in this Internet age, people could still find a way to work around it I guess. Plus I hope they still aren’t aware of the availability of LGBT books online. That is how me (and my reader friends) keep on our love for reading the LGBT books of course :)
Ami, I’ve been reading up on the situation in Indonesia since your comment, and it makes for deeply saddening reading. I can’t imagine what it must be like for young LGBT people growing up in a country where their sexuality/identity is classed as a mental disorder and over 90% of the population think it’s wrong to be gay.
I hope and pray things will get better, and not worse.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve read a Canterbury Tales. I think the last time was in high school almost ten years ago. If I had to pick one on the ban list it’ll be To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Oh, I remember reading TKAM at school – my mother, and a group of other mums, banded together to protest to the school about us reading it! My own personal experience with book-banning! ;)
To be fair, they didn’t want it banned altogether, they just thought 11 was too young to be reading it.
I took a whole class on The Canterbury Tales in college. We read them in the original middle English. It was great. My favorite is The Wife of Bath. And my favorite banned book is probably Harry Potter.
The rhythm of the Canterbury Tales is so much better in the original, isn’t it? And yay – another vote for Harry Potter! :)
Interesting post. I don’t know what are all the books that have been banned, but I do know one is Huck Finn. I love Twain, and even when I was young, I was able to put in context the “offensive” parts.
Purple Reader – TheWrote [at] aol [dot] com
I recently reread Canterbury Tales in my very erudite book group (mainly composed of English professors at the local university) and enjoyed it much more than in high school. My favorite banned book is A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. My suspicion why it was banned is because it has a strong female character.
Great post! Hmmm…my favorite banned book is American Psycho. After watching the movie, I just had to read the book. Why are the books always better than the movie?!
Great post. My favorite banned books include 1984 by George Orwell, the Harry Potter series, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, and The Call of the Wild by Jack London.
We only had the Wife of Bath’s Tale in school. (Oddly, our teachers always played up the bawdiness, probably because they assumed it was the only way hormonal teens would pay attention to it…)
One of my favorite banned (internationally-in author’s home country of Germany during the ’30’s and (I think) ’40’s) books is “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque.
Another favorite (from the ALA lists) has got to be “Sons and Lovers” by DH Lawrence.
The first I’ve read on my own – first time in high school, multiple times since then. Think one of the reasons I’ve “liked” (not necessarily the right word due to the subject) it is that it shows the consequence of war. (Not a full fledged peace dove here, but not an ardent war hawk either.)
The other (which led me to more of Lawrence’s work), I was fortunate enough to have as required reading in one of my English classes (think it might have been senior year, but I’ve lucked out with all of my teachers in that regard – even managed to muck through Hesse’s Steppenwolf in sophomore year).
My favorite banned books were the Harry Potter series. I read them when my son did & saw absolutely nothing wrong with them.
Thanks, everyone, for stopping by and chatting with JL during Banned Books Week!
I’ve just conducted the drawing for her backlist book giveaway–today’s lucky reader is Yvonne B.! Congrats to you, Yvonne. I’ve just emailed JL with your contact info, so expect to hear from her soon. :)