Off Color Novels

I have read all but Fifty Shades, and I got lost somewhere in the middle of Lady Chatterly. I know some people avoid these kinds of books, because of the "naughty" parts. But, most of the good ones have compelling writing, aside from such antics. I would read the authors, even without blue passages. On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with it, either.

I've avoided 50 shades, simply because the excerpts people have posted have been so painfully badly written. I understand it was meant as fan fiction, not literature, but that was just bad ****.

Read Lady Chatterly in my late teens. Didn't really get why it was thought to be naughty - it was still banned in Canada at the time - the copy I read belonged to the daughter of my grandparents landlady in Germany - the landlady gave me the book to read because she thought I was bored visiting my grandparents.

Good writing is good writing. I've found some good (but not necessarily memorable) writing in collections of erotica - I buy lots of short story collections as they're great for reading while travelling. I don't think I've ever found any erotic writing that meets the standard of my favourite authors (EF Benson and PG Wodehouse).

Some of what I labeled erotic is not really titillating. But because they don't avoid the subject, they get a reputation. Ulysses, for instance, never came close to real erotica, as far as I was concerned. It didn't seek to spark a prurient interest as I read it.

I didn't read Candy, 50 Shades of Gray, and Blue Movie. The others I've read. Can't see any reason to avoid them.

The guy that wrote Candy and Blue Movie, Terry Southern, also wrote parts of Dr Strangelove.

Terry Southern's books are over the line, for today's readers, I think. In the 60s, underage sex was generally, but not totally, frowned upon. In some places, child marriage must have been legal. Roy Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis come to mind. Candy must have made Southern a bundle. It was popular enough to inspire a movie, starring Peter Sellers, with help from Ringo Starr. I didn't like the movie at all and didn't watch the whole thing.

Candy crosses the line, for today's standards, because she is a high school girl and all the sexual escapades involve her. The fact that the book did so well says lots about the moral fabric of the country, probably. Southern tapped into the same vein for a chapter or so, in Blue Movie. For, one character, though an adult, looked like a small child. (Blue Movie is based on the premise that a major movie studio films a porn movie, by persuading Hollywood stars to perform in it).

So, Terry Southern likely would not have published this stuff, today.

No interest in those schmaltzy, sloppy cooty filled novels.

Some of the books in question stink. No doubt about it.
edit -
Probably 90% of them stink. A statistic I just invented.

The oldest known literary work, the epic of Gilgamesh, contains explicit descriptions of sex. The participants are a wild man, Enkidu (inky do) and the sacred prostitute, Shamhat. The result of their meeting is that Enkidu enters a state of limbo in which he is no longer accepted by the community of wild animals, but he's not civilized yet. He is initiated into civilization by being encouraged to eat bread and wine.

To modern eyes, it's ironic that at the beginning of the story, it's Gilgamesh, the city ruler, who is amoral. It's Enkidu, the wild man, who brings morality into Gilgamesh's life by demanding that he recognize the suffering of others. Gilgamesh comes to love and depend on Enkidu and it's Enkidu's death that inspires Gilgamesh to seek immortality by going on a quest to find the flood survivor.

To convey the time frame of the writing of Gilgamesh, scholars say to imagine the span of time from the present back to original writing of Genesis. Gilgamesh is that far back again.

I contact my inner prude when I read it, but I don't think it was meant to be pornographic. Does it qualify as off color?

I read the "Song of Ice and Fire" (Game of Thrones) books and liked them.

I just used the term "off color" as a hook. I intended to be inclusive of any book depicting sex, whether pornographic or merely inclusive as a matter of telling the story. Gilgamesh is a wonderfully detailed tale to be that old.

Then Gilgamesh would be my favorite, then. With books and movies, my favorites are those that contain things that keep coming back to me. Most of them aren't off color.

Have you ever read anything by Gore Vidal?

My favorite Vidal is Burr.

It's Chatterley, not Chatterly.

Me too.
I've a friend who got a job as his typist while trying to stay (and succeeding) in Italy.

I'll leave with this, their cat was named Burr. Not sure re if it was hers later on in LA or theirs in Ravello/LA.

I should contact her and ask her to post, but, hey. I don't want to bother people.

Thanks for the correction.

I had to Google it
A Song of Ice and Fire is a series of epic fantasy novels by the American novelist and screenwriter George R. R. Martin. The first volume of the series, A Game of Thrones, was begun in 1991 and first published in 1996. The series has grown from a planned trilogy to seven volumes, the fifth and most recent of which, A Dance with Dragons, took Martin five years to write before its publication in 2011. The sixth novel, The Winds of Winter, is still being written.

The story of A Song of Ice and Fire takes place on the fictional continents Westeros and Essos. The point of view of each chapter in the story is a limited perspective of a range of characters growing from nine, in the first novel, to thirty-one by the fifth. Three main stories interweave a dynastic war among several families for control of Westeros, the rising threat of the supernatural Others beyond Westeros' northern border, and the ambition of Daenerys Targaryen, the deposed king's exiled daughter, to assume the Iron Throne.

Martin's inspirations included the Wars of the Roses and the French historical novels The Accursed Kings by Maurice Druon.[2][3] A Song of Ice and Fire received favorable critique for its diverse portrayal of women and religion, and praise for favoring realism over magic. An assortment of disparate, subjective and sometimes inaccurate points of view confront the reader, and the reader may not safely presume that a favorite character will prevail, or even survive. Violence, sexuality and moral ambiguity frequently arise among a thousand named characters.

As of April 2015, the books have sold more than 60 million copies worldwide[4] and have been translated into at least 45 languages.[5] The fourth and fifth volumes reached the top of The New York Times Best Seller lists upon their releases.[6] Among the many derived works are several prequel novellas, a TV series, a comic book adaptation, and several card, board and video games.