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AL Kennedy's top 10
controversial books
AL Kennedy appeared on the
Granta best young British novelists lists of 1993 and 2003. The author of
uncompromising, stylistically inventive and emotionally charged novels and
short stories, her books include So I Am Glad, Everything You Need and On
Bullfighting. Her most recent book is Indelible Acts.
Buy Indelible Acts at Amazon.co.uk
More about the Granta 2003
list
"Taking offence at books
is a centuries old tradition. This may concern a question of personal
taste, political expediency, or a desire to guard the malleable from
dreadful things that they might take to. Plato wanted Homer kept from
immature readers, Caligula was keen to suppress The Odyssey in case the
Greek style freedoms it suggested caught on. What follows is a list of
books which trouble, which are awkward, and many of which have offended at
some point - although, Lord knows, not one of them leaped into an
unwilling reader's hand and forced them to study every line. My aim is not
to offend but to illustrate that freedom of the imagination is something
we sacrifice only at great risk and that sometimes we may be prepared to
resist real evil by meeting its fictional self. So, in no particular
order."
1. The Dark by John
McGahern
An astonishing study in power, fear, sexuality and
religion. Staggeringly well written and heartbreaking in every possible
way. Famously banned for a time in Ireland.
Buy The Dark at Amazon.co.uk
2. Fear and Loathing on
the Campaign Trail '72 by Hunter S Thompson
Insanity, obscenity,
profanity, illegality and reptilian paranoia - but which is more
distressing, HST's lunatic chemical life and Gonzo prose style, or Richard
Milhous Nixon and co taking a whole country for a nasty ride? And where,
by the way, is the energy of Gonzo now when we need it?
Buy Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 at
Amazon.co.uk
3. That Hideous Strength
by CS Lewis
Dreadful title, wonderfully savage book. This fantasy
anticipated the postwar decline in British education with ghoulish
clarity. No fauns and witches (they're banned in some US schools, by the
way), only very adult evil, moral weakness and the kind of unremitting
justice that unsettles the soul.
Buy That Hideous Strength at Amazon.co.uk
4. Sergeant Getulio by
Joao Ubaldo Ribeiro
A stunningly written, unflinching journey with
a man we should find appalling. And the sergeant does indeed horrify, but
also emerges as terribly familiar, a monster we can feel under our skin.
Not for the fainthearted, but worth it - a lovely, angry, truthful
book.
5. Lolita by Vladimir
Nabokov
Great for a kneejerk banning, even today. A different
monster here, in paedophile Humbert Humbert, but one who is equally
unnerving and, ultimately, just as close at hand. A faultlessly crafted
work without prurience and with considerable knowledge of human nature.
Also rather more use than a lynch mob on the lookout for
paediatricians.
Buy Lolita at Amazon.co.uk
6. Wuthering Heights by
Emily Brontė
Lambasted when it came out as irredeemably perverse
and, I quote, as practically "French".
Buy Wuthering Heights at Amazon.co.uk
7. Slaughterhouse Five by
Kurt Vonnegut
This appears consistently on the American Library
Association's list of "most frequently challenged books". Apparently the
fact that it evokes the dreadfully disinterested havoc of war is
offensive, rather than necessary. It also uses bad words and black humour,
unforgivable in time of war, and employs phrases like "The gun made a
ripping sound like the opening of the fly of God Almighty." Dear me.
Buy Slaughterhouse Five at Amazon.co.uk
8. The Confidence Man by
Herman Melville
A rarely appreciated masterpiece by a writer
pushing the boundaries of his craft. It's also subtly and very deeply
alarming in its examination of personality, compromise and evil.
Buy The Confidence Man at Amazon.co.uk
9. Don Quixote by Miguel
Cervantes
Placed on the Index in Madrid for the sentence "Works of
charity negligently performed are of no worth." Justifiably a classic of
world literature and one a remarkable number of people have never actually
read.
Buy Don Quixote at Amazon.co.uk
10. The Beach at Falesa/
The Ebb Tide/ Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by RL Stevenson
They're all
published together in at least one edition. Mr Hyde, of course, didn't fit
with the image of everyone's favourite children's author and the two late
stories didn't appear unedited until long after the author's death;
implying, as they did, that the British Empire might not have been an
entirely altruistic enterprise. For burning moral certainty and deep
understanding of human frailty and hypocrisy, see all the above. For an
additional savage attack on economic violence, abuse of power and the
insanity of capital, The Ebb Tide can't be beaten.
Buy Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde at Amazon.co.uk
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