Frivolous literature, with its erotic origin, has always presupposed freedom of expression and freedom of thought as such. Its emergence can be directly related to the emergence of writing, and even mass distribution - with the development of printing in the 15th century. At the same time, the first experiments that have come down to us in this literary field concern erotic poetry (especially ancient Greek and Roman): from the lyrics of Sappho, Catullus, Ovid and Juvenal to the poetic kisses of John Secundus.
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The phrase “frivolous prose” arose only in the 17th century, although formally works of earlier periods can be attributed to it: from the “Song of Songs” from the Old Testament to the medieval “Decameron” by Boccaccio. However, the true standards were established only in the eighteenth century. It was then that the works of John Cleland, Denis Diderot, Choderlos de Laclos, and later the Marquis de Sade were published. For four centuries, the plot foundations of this genre have changed little, except that the stylistic boundaries have expanded somewhat.
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The desire to consider this phenomenon in a cross-section prompted the creation of this material, although attempts to compile a list of "The Most Frank Books" had already been made earlier. Yes, but American literary critics and publishers of erotic magazines “sinned” with this. And therefore, such lists often showed through tendentiousness or, even worse, the popularization of "local" fiction. Realizing the fact that absolute objectivity in such selections is practically impossible, nevertheless, a certain attempt was made to move away from excessive bias. In addition, in order to avoid accusations of authoritarianism and some kind of rating systematization, the books are arranged in chronological order by date of publication.
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Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure
About what: The story of a naive provincial woman who first came to London. A series of erotic adventures as a comfort woman, however, does not prevent the young heroine from finding and finding true love. The book is written in the first person and in bright colors depicts the everyday life of a brothel and the work of courtesans in every detail.
Why: The novel of the English writer John Cleland for a long time gained fame in the history of literature as a frivolous and obscene book. In America, this novel was censored for more than two hundred years, and only in the 1960s was it legally "amnestied" as a talented literary work that does not offend public morality. The narrative, presented with a frankness unprecedented for that time, is a bold immersion in the diversity of sensory experience. The author's text is full of subtle irony and metaphor.
Quote: “We saw how satisfaction flashed in her eyes when the gentleman introduced into her the plenipotentiary representative of his fury, how it flared up until he penetrated to the very limit, how it finally shone during his violent convulsions.”
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Dangerous Liaisons / Les liaisons dangereuses
Choderlos de Laclos
First post: Amsterdam and Paris, 1782
About what : The heroes of the novel in the letters of the French officer Pierre Choderlos de Laclos - the Parisian aristocrats Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, come up with an intrigue to seduce the young Cecile de Volange, who has just left the monastery school. The correspondence in the book, according to the author, is the real correspondence of secular characters of that time.
Why: The appearance of Dangerous Liaisons was accompanied by success and, no wonder, by scandal. The success was due to the exceptional merits of the book itself, later called a world masterpiece, and the scandal arose because the ubiquitous criticism and public opinion considered the novel indecent and ... pornographic. The book described in detail the morals and customs of secular living rooms, love and war of whims, manipulation, methods of seduction and other love vicissitudes. The writer was accused of promiscuity and admiring vice. It was because of this that the doors of many metropolitan salons closed before Laclos, and even his military career was at stake.
Quote: “The first truth is that every woman who agrees to make acquaintance with an immoral man becomes his victim. The second is that every mother who allows her daughter to have more confidence in any other woman than herself, acts at best imprudently.
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Teleny or The Reverse of the Medal
Oscar Wilde
First post: London, 1893
About what: The love story of two young people, described in all psychological, anatomical and erotic details.
Why: An erotic novel, which, on the basis of numerous indirect data, is attributed to the great English witty writer, the head of European aestheticism and symbolism, Oscar Wilde. It was published anonymously in 1893, three years after The Picture of Dorian Gray, and has since been considered an absolute masterpiece in its genre. According to another version, this gay novel was created by a group of young people under the general guidance of Wilde (which, however, does not diminish its artistic merits).
Quote: “There are two kinds of voluptuousness. Both are equally strong and irresistible. The first type is a hot, burning, sensual passion that flares up in the genitals and rises to the brain, forcing people to bathe in joy, feeling with their souls the winged divine power that soars above the earth. The second is a cold, bilious passion of the imagination, a sharp inflammation of the brain that dries up the blood, like young hops in wine.
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Lady Chatterley's Lover
David Herbert Lawrence
First post: Florence, 1928
About what: According to the story, twenty-two-year-old Constance Reid suffers, being married to the paralyzed baronet Clifford Chatterley. The girl, feeling moral and physical dissatisfaction, finds solace in her relationship with the forester Oliver Mellers. With him, she liberates herself and for the first time realizes what it means to love deeply and sensually and to be loved.
Why: Lawrence's last novel, published by a private Italian publishing house in 1928, became a kind of spit in the direction of puritanism and hypocrisy. The ethical liberalism of the writer, his conviction that every person is given the right to free moral choice, did not appeal to many representatives of the so-called nobility. The intensity of passions and the brightness of the love scenes of this novel were perceived by the guardians of morality as a challenge to public opinion. The book was banned immediately after its publication, and the finished edition was confiscated and destroyed. The ban was in effect for more than 30 years, and only in 1960, after a high-profile lawsuit, the novel was rehabilitated, and since then to this day remains one of the most widely read in the world.
Quote: “True marriage rests on the union of blood. The phallus is a column of blood. And he fills the valley of the woman's blood. The great flow of male blood rushes to the very origins of the great flow of female blood - without invading, but within its limits.
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Bosom of Irene / Le Con d'Irène
Louis Aragon
First post: Paris, 1928
About what: The everyday life of a young man who, after a break with his passion, decided to stay a little in parental home. The emotional drama, coupled with the boredom that prevails in a provincial town, maintains an atmosphere of constant restlessness in the 25-year-old hero. The scurrilous fantasies that haunt the young man in his dreams often break out, acquiring hypertrophied erotic forms.
Why: “This is the best, most beautiful text that touches on eroticism,” said Albert Camus about the book. And sometimes you can’t even believe that this erotic opus is the work of one of the “creators socialist realism". However, the truth is that in the early 1920s, the future communist Louis Aragon was associated with the Surrealists, who opposed conventional wisdom and values. Often, their books were published clandestinely and sold in special stores, displayed not on the shelves, but under them. The book, being in a sense a portrait of the author's youth, was published under a pseudonym (circulation of only 150 copies). “The Bosom of Irene” is the extant part of “The Defense of Infinity”, one of the most controversial works of our time. No wonder that when in 1968 Jean-Jacques Pover wanted to republish the book under the real name of the author, Aragon, to whom he applied for permission, answered him exclusively in the third person: “... the author refuses ... the author forbids ... it is impossible for the author ...”, thereby, as it were, emphasizing once again his non-involvement in the creation of this text.
Quote: “O sweet bosom of Irene! So tiny and so priceless! Only here a man worthy of you can finally achieve the fulfillment of all his desires.
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Tropic of Cancer
Henry Miller
First post: Paris, 1934
About what: There is still no consensus on what genre the Tropic of Cancer can be attributed to: documentary, fiction or autobiographical prose. However, each of the versions is not without plausibility. The poetic narrative about the "Parisian" period of Henry Miller's life is initially multi-layered.
The whole world is concentrated in a second of orgasm. Our land is not a dry, healthy and comfortable plateau, but a huge female with a velvety body that breathes, trembles and suffers under a raging ocean ...
Why: "Pornographer", "sexist", "male aggressor" are common epithets that characterized Henry Miller after the publication of this novel. At the same time, the writer received a lot of praise, including from such literary authorities as Thomas Eliot, Norman Mailer, George Orwell, Ezra Pound. The last of them, by the way, belongs to catchphrase: "Here is an obscene book that deserves to be read." But the first wave of popularity in Miller's homeland rose there only a decade after its publication, when American soldiers, once in Paris, bought up the entire English circulation in the bud. And another decade and a half passed before they decided to publish the book in the States, and even then - the publishers had to endure more than fifty litigation(Of course, on charges of corruption of morals). Today, volumes of research have been written about it, it is studied at universities and constantly reprinted.
Quote: “Do whatever you want, but let what you do bring joy. Do what you want, but let what you do cause ecstasy. When I repeat these words, thousands of images come into my head - funny, terrible, maddening: a wolf and a goat, a spider, a crab ... and a uterus with a hinged door, always open and ready to absorb everything ... ".
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Our Lady of the Flowers / Notre Dame des Fleurs
Jean Genet
First post: Paris, 1943
About what: The novel reveals the life story of the transvestite prostitute Divina (derived from the French - Divine). Divina at the beginning of the novel dies of tuberculosis, and in the end, she is ranked among the saints.
Why: The debut novel was written by Jean Genet in prison, where he another term for stealing from a bookstore a volume of Marcel Proust, still unknown to him. The story of the life of the Parisian bottom is largely autobiographical. The coverage of the topics of homosexuality and crime, which were a severe taboo in the middle of the 20th century, against the will of the writer, made Genet one of the symbols and inspirers of the gay equality movement.
Quote: “Her body manifested itself every second. Manifested itself in a thousand bodies. No one knew what was happening, and did not know about the tragic moments of Divina, who was fighting with God.
"Victorian morality called for a strict separation of men and women. Even books written by male authors were not put on the shelf where the ladies' writings already stood. Some women refused to sleep in rooms where men's portraits hung on the walls. Piano legs, in turn , covered out of modesty - their curves could recall the seductiveness of women's legs ... In addition, Victorian etiquette banished all references to sexuality from the language. Therefore, reading French novels was considered indecent. Women also could not use words such as "sex" or "cowards ”, and the topic of underwear was taboo in polite society.
In turn, they said about pregnant women and puerperas that they "left for the village." No mention of the erogenous zones was allowed, so the body from head to chest was called the "bust", and everything below was vaguely called the "belly", which was not supposed to be spoken of. The most the Victorians could do was occasionally whisper about "twin bunnies," "sausages," and "hot desserts." A young couple should not be left alone. It is customary to put wedding gifts on a separate table - everything, except for the linen donated to the newlywed, must be immediately hidden. This sight can shock the groom, and the poor bride will blush like cancer from shame.
It was believed that an honest woman could not have any carnal desires. Characteristically, women during sexual intercourse were advised to keep their eyes closed and think about their homeland.
In the 1897 manual by Sylvanius Stall “What you need to know young man” emphasizes that sex can be done at most once a week, in a dark room. Partners should never undress together. And yet, if only etiquette guides are to be believed, our understanding of Victorians will be limited. Their double morality is unvarnished by the fact that there have never been so many brothels in London as in that era. In other words, in civilized circles and in public, sex was a taboo subject, but behind the scenes, a completely different picture was observed. This was also known to Baroness Staff, who gave advice on how a good wife should relate to the fact that her husband spends time in brothels: "Never talk about your suspicions. You may be unhappy and your heart is broken into a thousand pieces, but do not look for consolation on the side: it is dangerous, and your life may be filled with sin. Take better care of raising children.
(from the book: Turunen A. Only after you: The World History good manners / Per. from Finnish — M.: Alpina Publisher, 2019).
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