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There's a scene in a S10 Stargate episode where books are burned, real books, actually burning. It made me shudder to watch it. I had to look away.
Literary censorship is utterly abhorrent to me and always will be.
I've never read Lolita. I tried to, back when we were writing the Secretary fic, but although my local library had it (and proudly displays banned books once a year with a label saying that all can be borrowed) it was always checked out and I never got around to buying it.
As a lot of you know, an LJ comm set up to discuss the book, has been suspended from LJ today, along with several others, because the interests, not surprisingly given the nature of the book, include references to underage sex and interests are being used by a certain vigilante group as a way to track pedophiles (ETA or what they hope are) and get them suspended from LJ.
The Secretary LJ,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
secretary_fic has 'Lolita' as an interest and not casually. Faith is over 18; no minors are involved in the story, but the book, a classic, is one that plays an important part in her reconciliation with Wesley.
I'm posting this short extract from our fic here, containing quotations from 'Lolita' as a form, not of protest as much as an affirmation of what I believe. It won't mean much unless you know the fic but I think anyone who does will remember just how pivotal it was.
She really should turn out the light ‘cause she’s trying to get eight hours sleep a night and repair some of the damage caused by three months of insomnia and crying but she can’t help poking through the pile of books on her nightstand to try and decide what to read next.
Tropic Of Cancer looks kinda promising because there is no way in hell she’s reading Lolita. Doesn’t even know why she checked it out of the library but she’s already scanning the first page Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul - oh, so not going there, she thinks with a shudder, when her cell starts ringing.
She picks it up, eyes still skimming through the opening paragraph and hits the green button. “Hey.”
There’s no answer and she wonders if there’s a bad connection when she hears that teeny hiss of static on the line that happens when no-one’s saying anything.
“Who’s there? Xand, is that you? You recreating the opening scene from Scream again ‘cause, like, it wasn’t funny the first forty seven times, y’know.”
And there’s this tiny sound, like someone catching their breath, and she knows as clearly as if he’d just said her name who’s on the other end of the line.
The book’s open on the bed in front of her and there’s a million things she could say. A million things she wants to say. Maybe she’d start with sorry and end an hour later with I love you but she doesn’t speak. Instead she starts to read.
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of my tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.”
There’s another little hitch of air in her ear, a start of recognition or it could be a reaction to the sound of her voice and she sits up straighter so she can sound clearer and carries on.
"She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms, she was always Lolita.”
His breathing is slightly ragged. He’s drunk, or certainly he’s been drinking, and she can see him so clearly like he’s lounging at the foot of her bed, tumbler resting loosely in long fingers, skin burnished in the glow of her bedside lamp and he was never in here, which is just another regret to add to the all the others that she wears like her favorite perfume and she wishes that he had been. Just like she wishes that things aren’t so fucked up and messy that she’s not allowed to…
Fuck it! Just fuck it. And she’s putting the book down and clutching the phone tighter so she can say, “Hey, Wes. You gonna say hello?”
There’s a click that sounds louder than a gunshot and she’s just a stupid girl holding a silent phone up to her ear like she can hear the sea if she listens hard enough.
Literary censorship is utterly abhorrent to me and always will be.
I've never read Lolita. I tried to, back when we were writing the Secretary fic, but although my local library had it (and proudly displays banned books once a year with a label saying that all can be borrowed) it was always checked out and I never got around to buying it.
As a lot of you know, an LJ comm set up to discuss the book, has been suspended from LJ today, along with several others, because the interests, not surprisingly given the nature of the book, include references to underage sex and interests are being used by a certain vigilante group as a way to track pedophiles (ETA or what they hope are) and get them suspended from LJ.
The Secretary LJ,
secretary_fic has 'Lolita' as an interest and not casually. Faith is over 18; no minors are involved in the story, but the book, a classic, is one that plays an important part in her reconciliation with Wesley.I'm posting this short extract from our fic here, containing quotations from 'Lolita' as a form, not of protest as much as an affirmation of what I believe. It won't mean much unless you know the fic but I think anyone who does will remember just how pivotal it was.
She really should turn out the light ‘cause she’s trying to get eight hours sleep a night and repair some of the damage caused by three months of insomnia and crying but she can’t help poking through the pile of books on her nightstand to try and decide what to read next.
Tropic Of Cancer looks kinda promising because there is no way in hell she’s reading Lolita. Doesn’t even know why she checked it out of the library but she’s already scanning the first page Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul - oh, so not going there, she thinks with a shudder, when her cell starts ringing.
She picks it up, eyes still skimming through the opening paragraph and hits the green button. “Hey.”
There’s no answer and she wonders if there’s a bad connection when she hears that teeny hiss of static on the line that happens when no-one’s saying anything.
“Who’s there? Xand, is that you? You recreating the opening scene from Scream again ‘cause, like, it wasn’t funny the first forty seven times, y’know.”
And there’s this tiny sound, like someone catching their breath, and she knows as clearly as if he’d just said her name who’s on the other end of the line.
The book’s open on the bed in front of her and there’s a million things she could say. A million things she wants to say. Maybe she’d start with sorry and end an hour later with I love you but she doesn’t speak. Instead she starts to read.
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of my tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.”
There’s another little hitch of air in her ear, a start of recognition or it could be a reaction to the sound of her voice and she sits up straighter so she can sound clearer and carries on.
"She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms, she was always Lolita.”
His breathing is slightly ragged. He’s drunk, or certainly he’s been drinking, and she can see him so clearly like he’s lounging at the foot of her bed, tumbler resting loosely in long fingers, skin burnished in the glow of her bedside lamp and he was never in here, which is just another regret to add to the all the others that she wears like her favorite perfume and she wishes that he had been. Just like she wishes that things aren’t so fucked up and messy that she’s not allowed to…
Fuck it! Just fuck it. And she’s putting the book down and clutching the phone tighter so she can say, “Hey, Wes. You gonna say hello?”
There’s a click that sounds louder than a gunshot and she’s just a stupid girl holding a silent phone up to her ear like she can hear the sea if she listens hard enough.