Age and blood-ties: Do readers impose their taboos on the industry?

Oscar Wilde did not believe in "dangerous" books

The publishing industry claims there are no forbidden themes in fiction, agreeing with Oscar Wilde´s quip that there is no such thing as bad books, only badly-written ones. But we, readers, know very well what topics disturb us. What happens when the public refuses to read novels dealing with controversial topics? Won´t the industry budge to its clientele´s tastes? What are the once safe subjects that now upset modern sensibilities?

I begin by saying that my comments are on the American scene, since the United States is still the leader in book-publishing in the world. Other publishing industries have their own idiosyncrasies and prohibited subjects, but to all of us who write in English, it´s the American industry that matters.

I am fifty-one years old, and like most people my age, I am painfully aware of the distinction between Twentieth Century’s and contemporary cultures. Our way of thinking has evolved tremendously and that applies to literary tastes as well. A Third Millennium reader might be shocked and offended by the way classical works of literature dealt with love in times when spousal rape, underage sex, and sibling marriage used to be the norm.

As modern critics applaud the erasure of racist epithets in Huckleberry Finn, so they show antipathy towards certain subject matters in current fiction. Exploring user´s comments on Amazon and other sites, I have come to recognize what issues are considered “icky” and elicit the most “how gross!" and ”eeews!” from readers. Among those controversial scenarios are cousin-marriage and May-December affairs, even when they take place in historical settings.

From Jane Austen to Louisa May Alcott, “kissing cousins” were frequent romantic elements in Victorian novels. Over a hundred years, and several medical and social misconceptions later, marriage among cousins disgusts American audiences. Unless it is shown as illegal, incestuous and negative, such a relationship in modern literature is unthinkable. Not surprising since the only Western country that bans those unions is the United States (and it´s unlawful just in thirty states).

Cousin-marriage a la Austen

The British YA novel How I Live Now, has been widely criticized on the Internet for depicting a love affair between a fourteen-year old and her first cousin. Users and critics agree that books should carry warnings signs to alert readers about unsavory content. Not even children’s literature is safe from such displeasure. I heard that copies of the well-loved Babar series now have been censored so there is no mention that Celeste, the elephant’s wife, is also his first cousin. Are they doing the same with Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit? Because if I don’t ill recall, Peter married his first cousin, Topsy.

The same distaste applies nowadays to that old romantic staple: May-December love affairs. Even if it happened in days of yore, the idea of an underage wife makes readers flinch. It’s no use telling people that until World War I, men married old and women married in their teens. Just remember Scarlett’s fear of becoming a spinster like 20-year old India Wilkes. But perhaps, Gone with the Wind is, by present standards, a dangerous novel.

May-December romance in GWTW

I was nine-years old when I came across my first copy of Gone with the Wind. It took me two days to finish it and less than fifty pages to turn it into my favorite novel of all time. It might come as a surprise that Melanie marrying her first cousin or Scarlett marrying the much older Rhett Butler did not shock me. I am embarrassed to say, I was not even offended by Rhett raping the heroine. I guess, many felt that way because in 1987, conducting a poll among my high-schools students, I found that GWTW was still a YA bestseller. I wonder if that would hold true today. Do teen readers, and adults, still fall in love with GWTW, or are they uncomfortable with it´s racism and sexism, not to mention the odd matrimonial customs of the Old South?

Gigi and her much older paramour

With that in mind, I can understand why modern sensibility cringes at films like Gigi, based on Colette´s novel, which has a fourteen-year old reforming and marrying a bored womanizer. How do people feel about Jo March marrying old, but loving, Professor Baher? And how many complaints have I read about Twilight because 100-year old Edward is a tiny bit older than teenaged Bella? The fact that Bella is an “Old Soul”, who would much rather cook and read Jane Austen than do drugs at the nearest disco, should be taken into consideration.

Bella messing around with an "older man"

As I wrote once, Fantasy and Science Fiction offer great refuges for taboo-breaking. George R.R. Martin became a bestselling author after creating a world, in his saga Song of Ice and Fire, where incest is not a crime, thirteen-year-old brides are acceptable. The hottest craze for vampire romances lets May-December thrive as long as, quoting a reader, “the hundred-year old vampire looks good!”

Must add, so this doesn´t sound like an attack on people´s preferences, that certain novels do disturb me , even if set in fabled worlds or historical settings. Today, many of us are uncomfortable with early bodice-rippers that dealt with “rape fantasy” romances (i.e. heroine raped by hero). Visiting a romance forum, I sympathized with comments repudiating Rosemary Rogers and Kathleen Woodwise’s works for including that scenario, but then I was appalled when the same readers embraced Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander that has the villain raping the hero. Talk about a double standard!

To anyone that asks, I wholeheartedly recommend Jacqueline Carey´s Kushiel series. It offers elegant prose, plenty of intrigue and adventure stories, and Carey has created a wonderful parallel world that mirrors the European Middle-Ages. Having said that, I confess that after reading the first book in the series, I gave up on it. I found it excessive , not to mention sickening, to read about a society that made sex the number-one priority, where girls were trained to become sacred prostitutes , and where the heroine’s greatest gift was to experience pleasure through pain.

I realized that only the “Historical Fantasy” label permitted the Kushiel series to become part of mainstream literature. I don’t believe it would have worked if masochist Phedre had been the protagonist of a contemporary romance or a historical novel, because reader tolerance does not encompass historical settings. And one of the best examples is The Kindly Ones, Jonathan Littel’s award-winning novel.

American- born Littell chose to write this novel in French, he had it published by the prestigious Gallimard publishing house, and eventually went on to get Le Prix Goncourt, the French equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize. The Kindly Ones is an exploration of the Holocaust written from the point of view of an SS officer, a highly educated, but deeply-disturbed human being.

Although vastly praised, The Kindly Ones has come under fire by several critics that begrudge its historical inaccuracies, the handling of the Holocaust, and last but not the least, the almost pornographic juxtaposition of sex and violence. Add to the fact that the protagonist is homosexual and has this obsession with somodizing his sister, and you´ve said it all.

There´s even a story that Littell, having been rejected initially by many American publishing houses, eventually rewrote his novel in French. What fuels the possibilities of this rumor being true is that The Kindly Ones’ translation, bought by HarperCollins, did very poorly in the American market. Which shows the industry knows its readers and their likes and dislikes.

Now it´s your turn to tell us what subjects you find repellent? What novels have made you cringe? And should the industry stay away from controversial themes?