Re Sexual descriptions

[Craig Clark]

Kerneels Breytenbach, whom we missed on Friday night, wrote:

>  Paul Mackin wrote about the sexual descriptions in GR and the fact that
> not many people remember the pre-Lady Chatterley days. GR was officially
> unbanned in South Africa late in the eighties. When I tried to get hold
> of a copy in the seventies, I was informed that it had been deemed
> undesirable because of explicit sexual descriptions. Fortunately I knew
> an air stewardess (as they were known in those days). Lady Chatterley,
> along with most of Henry Miller's novels.

When I registered for my Master's Degree in 1985 I had to apply for 
permission from the Department of Home Affairs for permission to 
import a copy of _GR_ for study purposes. Inter alia, I had to sign a 
document agreeing to keep the book under lock and key when I was not 
using it, and undertaking only to quote it for bona fides academic 
purposes. It goes without saying that I used to hold court in the 
University Canteen, reading passages aloud... I finished the draft of 
my dissertation in late 1986, spent a year revising it, and submitted 
it a few weeks before _GR_ was unbanned in January 1988.

During my honours year, many works on the American fiction syllabus 
were banned, including Richard Wright's _Native Son_ and Norman 
Mailer's _The Armies of the Night_. Phillip Roth's _Portnoy's 
Complaint_ had just been unbanned, but you could only purchase a 
copy if you carried proof that you were over the age of 18. _Lady C_ 
was unbanned much earlier - about 1981 - as were _Lolita_ and _A 
Clockwork Orange_. The Kubrick movie of the latter was unbanned in 
1984 - for more details on the conditions attending its unbanning, 
see "A Clockwork Naartjie", an essay I wrote on the subject of the 
censorship of Kubrick's films in SA. It's to be found on the <alt.movies.kubrick> 
archive website, at http://www.netins.net/showcase/sahaja/essays.html. This article 
also explores the rather arcane world of the South African censor - 
the mechanism involved in getting things banned.

Many of these bannings were attributed to "obscenity" or 
"pornography", though the real motive was political. I've always 
suspected that _GR_ was one of these.

Craig Clark

"Living inside the system is like driving across
 the countryside in a bus driven by a maniac bent
 on suicide."
   - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"