A Compass Boxed

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30152, 8 June 1963, Page 3

A Compass Boxed

(A leading article from "The Times’’}

Talking to the young author of a likely first novel, a publisher suggested the other day that it would lose nothing and be a better work of art if the dirty words in it were cut. Sincerely and indignantly the author replied that if a novel came out. under his name without any dirty words in it he would lose face among his literary friends This fashionable attitude is worth considering in a week in which for connoisseurs of such things there have been some deliciously significant essays in publicity. A cabaret performer w’ho was turned back from entering the country has been described as having an “important message” which, owing to the aarrowminded attitude of the Home Office, will be kept hidden from British audiences. A thirty-ycar-old reprinted novel, the sate of which in Britain had not hitherto been regarded as prudent, has been the target of eulogies which any writer might envy The author has been praised for his "singleness of vision." no doubt justifiably, and we as a nation have been reproached for being “even today almost the last civilised people to publish a volume long known to everyone in the literate world ”

There is, of course, a pretty stale and familiar side to all this furore Rough language and glimpses of the seamy s de of life have always been publicised, even though those who drew attention to them were in the past generally censorious The interesting point in this stage of transition through which we are living is that a writer, by breaking such surviving rules as he may still be able to discover, can safely count on being noticed in a big—and in a favourable —way The convention of Mrs Grundy has been replaced by that of Priapus A fig leaf is a badge cf shame. This being so, the sooner we move on to the next stage tn popular criticism the better The champions of the new freedom are more and more being reduced to the ridiculous position of the shadow boxer They have established their point that grave and reverent critics will be found to defend almost anything that was once held to be indefensible. Why not. then take the rough stuff as read give a book in which it comes no more prominence than it deserves on its general merits, and so play fair by other books just as good except *hat they are not so dirty Until *he fighters for f'lMdom of exoression over sex reach this ootnt of emancipation thev cannot claim to be quite free of th® old Adam A nudist camp is cleaner than a strip-tease act.