The Artistic Censoring of Sexuality: Fantasy and Judgment in the Twentieth-Century Novel (review)

Mooney’s The Artistic Censoring of Sexuality is an extensive study of the treatment of sexuality in the context of art in modern and postmodern literature, with an emphasis on the interaction between sexuality as written art and its censorship, as they denote the culture’s socio-political landscape. Mooney informs her discussion on censorship by discussing the works of Foucault, Barthes, and Bourdieu, and points to the importance of her book in illuminating the influence that a literary work can have on general audiences’ relation to the Law. Thorough analysis of the treatment of sexuality and censorship extends to four novels: Joyce’s Ulysses, Nabokov’s Lolita, Martin-Santos’s Tiempo de Silencio, and Erofeev’s Russkaia Krasavitsa, all presented as particularly provocative in the context of European and North American twentieth-century culture.

In the introduction, the author addresses the ramifications of censoring sexuality in art, focusing on historical censorship in the countries where these four novels were written and published: Ireland, Great Britain, France, The United States, Spain and Soviet Russia. She provides readers with an understanding of the historical origins of literary censorship and its ties to religion, politics and economics of a society. Comparing liberal democracies to dictatorial regimes, Mooney then describes the four novels’ routes to publication. In addition to historic censorship, Mooney discusses psychic censorship of sexuality based in part on Freudian Lacanian theory, comparing textual censoring of sexuality to psychic censoring in dreaming. Mooney also draws on Žižek’s theory of fantasy to explain the process of artistic censoring of sexuality as means of controlling its meaning and ethical value, with a focus on sexual fantasy and its relation to two-sided judgment.

In chapter one, Mooney compares the novels’ censorship backgrounds and their effects on the legal system and cultural acceptance of sexuality in literature. Ulysses and Lolita are presented as works that suffered post-publication censorship based on “flexible legality” in liberal democracies, which led to a significant change in the judgment on future literary treatment of sexuality. In contrast, Tiempo de Silencio and Russkaia Krasavitsa present the fate of texts in repressive regimes such as Franco’s Spain and the Soviet Union. Their practice of pre-censorship altered the novels before even allowing them to be published.

In chapter two, Mooney explores Ulysses’s characters Bloom and Stephen in “Circe,” as figures who face the Law and their own selves in a quest for self-discovery through their exploration of gender performance and censored sexuality. She then discusses the chapter’s dramatic and narrative structure. “Circe” simultaneously serves as an indicator of the societal need to overthrow the paternal figure and confronts societal intolerance of transgressive sexuality.

In chapter three, Lolita’s narrator Humbert Humbert is explored in terms of his sexual desire for a young girl. Humbert first separates the child, Dolores Haze, from his fantasy version of her as the nymphet, Lolita. He then censors his desire for the other so that he can prevent self-judgment from interrupting his exploitation of the child. Through his confessional narrative, Humbert intentionally provokes aesthetic and ethical judgment from the readers.

In chapter four, Mooney juxtaposes Tiempo de Silencio’s Pedro with the Spanish political situation under Franco. Pedro is alienated from his surroundings and himself, and he is torn between traditional Spanish beliefs in fate and his desire to excel in progressive scientific research. His interest in sexuality is connected with its negative aspects. He censors that interest by channeling it through cancer research.

In chapter five, Russkaia Krasovitsa’s Irina offers a self-censored confession, and her writing as well as her experiences reflect the censorship of sexuality in the Soviet period. Her sexuality is presented negatively and without ties to its life affirming aspects. In her role as a Russian martyr, Irina evokes the elements of non-redemptive apocalypse, and serves as Erofeev’s commentary on the socio-political situation...