James Joyce | Guy Portman's Blog

Transgressive Fiction: A History

Mar 09 2018

Transgressive fiction is a genre that focuses on characters who feel confined by the norms and expectations of society and who break free of those confines in unusual and/or illicit ways. Protagonists in Transgressive literature are in one form or other rebelling against society. Due to this they may appear to be anti-social, nihilistic or even sociopathic. Transgressive literature deals with potentially controversial subjects …

Though fiction of this kind has only relatively recently been labelled as Transgressive, its origins lie in the literature of the past. The writing of the Marquis de Sade, Émile Zola and even Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s seminal work, Crime and Punishment, have been described as Transgressive. But it was the following 20th Century authors who came to be viewed as the early exponents of the genre.

James Joyce

February 2nd 1882 – January 13th 1941

Notable Transgressive Work: Ulysses

D. H. Lawrence

September 11th 1885 – March 2nd 1930

Notable Transgressive Works: Lady Chatterley’s Lover, The Rainbow

Lady Chatterley’s Lover, though published was heavily censored, due to what was regarded at the time as its pornographic content. Thirty years after Lawrence’s death Penguin attempted to publish the original version, but were forced to go to trial because of the ‘Obscene Publications Act’ of the previous year.

Vladimir Nabokov

April 22nd 1899 – July 2nd 1977

Notable Transgressive Work: Lolita

Nabokov’s most famous work, Lolita, is widely regarded as one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century. It is also considered one of the most controversial books of all time because of its sensitive subject matter – the protagonist Humbert Humbert’s infatuation with a twelve-year-old girl.

William S. Burroughs

February 5th 1914 – August 2nd 1997

Notable Transgressive Works: Junky, Queer, The Soft Machine, Naked Lunch

Burroughs was a controversial character who rebelled against the social norms of his era by writing about disillusionment, drugs and homosexuality. The non-linear Naked Lunch was perceived as so scandalous at the time of its publication that it underwent a court case under U.S. obscenity laws.

To be continued …

4 Famous Male Writers’ Writing Styles

Feb 20 2015

Every author has his/her own distinctive writing style. My own evolving writing style utilises dry humour, satirical observations and concise prose.

This week’s blog post is dedicated to 4 famous writers’ writing styles:

James Joyce

(February 2nd 1882 – January 13th 1941)

Notable works: Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, A, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Ireland’s most famous author is remembered as being one of the most influential writers of the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century. Joyce embraced an experimental, stream of consciousness writing style. His seminal work Ulysses contains more vocabulary words (30,030) than the entire Shakespearean canon of 38 plays.

The former poet took his experimental style a step further with his final book, Finnegan’s Wake (1939). Written in Paris over a period of 17 years, Finnegan’s Wake utilises a stream of consciousness style, idiosyncratic language and literary allusions. The book is regarded as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the English language.

William S. Burroughs

(February 5th 1914 – August 2nd 1997)

Notable works: Junkie, Queer, The Soft Machine, The Naked Lunch.

William S. Burroughs was at the forefront of the Beat generation, influencing the likes of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. His often-controversial works (c.f. drugs and homosexuality) include 18 novels, in addition to a number of novellas and short stories, many of which are semi-autobiographical in nature. Burroughs’s writing is characterised as being sardonic, dark, humorous and confessional.

Burroughs was the pioneer of the collage technique, which entails cutting up text with a pair of scissors and then rearranging it to create new text. His seminal work, the non-linear and highly controversial Naked Lunch was created in this manner.

Click on the links to read my reviews of Junky and Queer.

Ernest Hemingway

(July 21st 1899 – July 2nd 1961)

Notable works: The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man & the Sea.

Ernest Hemingway won The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1953) and The Nobel Prize in Literature (1954). Hemingway embraced the minimalist style of writing that he had been required to use when he had been a journalist. This style, known as The Iceberg Theory (Theory of Omission), utilised short, terse sentences, which was in stark contrast to the ornate prose of the literati of the time. It is this simple and direct writing style that has endeared Hemingway to so many readers down the years.

Click here to read my review of The Old Man and the Sea.

Jack Kerouac

(March 12th 1922 – October 21st 1969)

Notable works: On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur.

American novelist, poet and artist Jack Kerouac was a member of the Beat Generation. Kerouac primarily wrote autobiographical novels. His most famous book, On the Road, is set against a backdrop of poetry, jazz and drug use. It was the defining work of the post-war Beat Generation.

Kerouac typed On The Road over a period of 3 weeks in the spring of 1951, on a 3-inch thick, 120-foot long scroll. Through attempting to omit periods from his work and improvising words he created his own innovative, spontaneous prose writing style – a style that was influenced by Jazz music and Bebop.

Click on the links to read my reviews of Maggie Cassidy and On The Road.

Transgressive Fiction

Feb 14 2014

Transgressive literature is a genre that focuses on characters who feel confined by the norms and expectations of society and who break free of those confines in unusual and/or illicit ways.

Protagonists in Transgressive literature are in one form or other rebelling against society. Due to this they may appear to be anti-social, nihilistic or even sociopathic. Transgressive literature deals with potentially controversial subjects such as sex, drugs, crime, violence and paraphilia.

Though fiction of this kind has only relatively recently been labelled as Transgressive, its origins lie in the literature of the past. The writing of the Marquis de Sade, Émile Zola and even Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s seminal work, Crime and Punishment, have been described as Transgressive, due to what at the time was perceived as their controversial subject matter.

The following 20th Century authors all wrote books that could be labelled as Transgressive. They are presented in chronological order:

James Joyce

February 2nd 1882 – January 13th 1941

Notable Transgressive Work: Ulysses

James Joyce was a central figure in the modernist avant-garde. His seminal work, Ulysses, embraced a revolutionary stream of consciousness style that influenced many later writers. At the time of its publication, the masturbation scene in the book’s Nausicäa episode was viewed as so scandalous that it was the subject of an obscenity trial in the United States. Ulysses came out victorious and the case is today remembered as a landmark in literary free speech.

Click here to read my blog post about James Joyce

D.H. Lawrence

September 11th 1885 – March 2nd 1930

Notable Transgressive Works: Lady Chatterley’s Lover, The Rainbow

D.H. Lawrence’s novel The Rainbow faced an obscenity trial and was banned, all copies being seized and burnt by the authorities. Perhaps his most famous novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, though published was heavily censored, due to what was regarded at the time as its pornographic content. Thirty years after Lawrence’s death in 1960 Penguin attempted to publish the original version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, but were forced to go to trial because of the ‘Obscene Publications Act’ of the previous year.

Click here to read my blog post about D.H. Lawrence

Vladimir Nabokov

April 22nd 1899 – July 2nd 1977

Notable Transgressive Work: Lolita

Lolita, Nabokov’s most famous work, is widely regarded as one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century. The book is also amongst the most controversial books of all time due to its sensitive subject matter. To this day Lolita continues to court controversy. In 2013 the producer of a long-running one-man show in Saint Petersburg, in which Leonid Mozgovoy reads out passages from Lolita on-stage, was assaulted after being accused of being a paedophile.

Click here to read my review of Lolita

William S. Burroughs

February 5th 1914 – August 2nd 1997

Notable Transgressive Works: Junkie, Queer, The Soft Machine, Naked Lunch

The writers of The Beat Generation wrote about disillusionment and rebellion. One of its most famous exponents, William S. Burroughs, was a controversial character with a penchant for rent boys and heroin, who rebelled against the social norms of his era by writing about disillusionment, drugs and homosexuality. Arguably his most famous book, the non-linear Naked Lunch was viewed as so scandalous at the time of its publication that it underwent a court case under U.S. obscenity laws. In 2012 a Turkish publisher faced obscenity charges after releasing a Turkish translation of The Soft Machine.

Click here to read my review of Queer

Click here to read Transgressive Fiction Part 2

Alcoholic Authors II

Sep 27 2013

Following on from last week, this is part two of my Alcoholic Authors series.

James Joyce

(February 2nd 1882 – January 13th 1941)

Notable works: Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, A, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Irish novelist and poet James Augustine Aloysius Joyce is regarded as one of the most influential writers of the modernist avante-garde of the early Twentieth-century. In 1999 Time Magazine named Joyce amongst the hundred most important people of the last century. In 1998 Modern Library ranked Joyce’s seminal work, Ulysses, as the best English language novel of the Twentieth-century. Another of his books, A, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, came in at number three on the same list.

Joyce was a notorious binge drinker, who was adamant that he could not write as well without the aid of alcohol. There is no doubt that Ulysses, an innovative work that utilised a stream of consciousness narrative would have been very different had the author not been under the influence whilst writing it. Various theories have been proposed as to why Ireland’s greatest ever writer drank so heavily, perhaps it was in part due to his father having been a heavy drinker or the fact that he was affected so profoundly by the death of his mother from cancer during his early adulthood.

During his time living in Paris Joyce was a drinking buddy of Ernest Hemingway. The slightly-built, bespectacled Joyce was said to often start bar fights and then hide behind the much bigger Hemingway, yelling, ‘deal with him, Hemingway. Deal with him.’

Hunter S. Thompson

(July 18th 1937 – February 20th 2005)

Notable works: Hells Angels, Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas, The Rum Diary.

The father of Gonzo journalism, a style of journalism written without claims of objectivity that usually takes the form of a first-person narrative, Hunter S. Thompson was an iconic figure in the counter-culture. The writer first became well known internationally for his book, Hells Angels (1967).

The author was known for his lifelong heavy use of alcohol and drugs. Substance abuse is a central theme in much of his writing, including his most famous work, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Thompson drunk a wide range of alcoholic beverages, whiskey being a particular favourite. More often than not he was said to have started the day with beer and cocktails before progressing to straight liquor. Never one for the vagaries of waiters Thompson would typically order three to six drinks at a time.

At a first meeting with a New York publishers, a young Thompson allegedly drunk twenty double Wild Turkeys in about three hours. At the meeting’s conclusion he walked out as if he had been sipping tea. He once famously said,

‘I hate to advocate for drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.’

Thompson suffered from a bout of health problems in later life, culminating in his suicide aged sixty-seven. Per the author’s wishes his ashes were fired out of a cannon in a ceremony funded by friend and star of the movie adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Johnny Depp.

Click here to read part one of Alcoholic Authors.