Dirt for Art's Sake: Books on Trial from Madame Bovary to Lolita

A professor of French and comparative literature, Ladenson (Proust's Lesbianism) sets out to answer the question, ""How does an 'obscene' book become a 'classic?' "" with this spry but exhaustive look at the history and culture surrounding the modern world's most controversial literature. Ladenson touches on numerous ""dirty"" books, using a handful of landmark titles as jumping-off points for a wide-ranging survey: Madame Bovary, Les Fleurs du Mal, The Well of Loneliness, Ulysses, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Tropic of Cancer and Lolita. Using court records, novelists' letters, newspaper reviews and other books on the subject, Ladenson constructs a vivid composite of society's shifting relationship with such polarizing subjects as adultery, homosexuality and pedophilia-including the suppression thereof as well as the appetite therefor. Tracing the evolution of ""obscenity"" from the 1850s to the late 20th century, Ladenson outlines the debates over ""art for art's sake,"" as well as the province of realism, illustrating the rocky process of acceptance for the twin concepts and the literature they provoked. Witty, well-written and relevant, including fascinating details from the lives of writers, court cases as recent as the 1960s and as far-flung as Japan, and attempts to reinvent controversial works for contemporary audiences (such as two film versions of Lolita), this highly readable study should make scholars and book junkies as happy as pigs in lit.