Transgressive fiction is agenre of literature which focuses on characters who feel confined by thenorms and expectations of society and who break free of those confines in unusual or illicit ways.[1]
Because they are rebelling against the basic norms of society,protagonists of transgressive fiction may seemmentally ill,anti-social, ornihilistic. The genre deals extensively with taboo subject matters such as drugs,sexual activity, violence,incest,pedophilia, and crime. The genre of "transgressive fiction" was defined byLos Angeles Times literary criticMichael Silverblatt.[1]
Michel Foucault's essay "A Preface to Transgression" (1963) provides an important methodological origin for the concept of transgression in literature. The essay usesStory of the Eye byGeorges Bataille as an example of transgressive fiction.[2]
Rene Chun, a journalist forThe New York Times, described transgressive fiction:
A literary genre that graphically explores such topics as incest and other aberrant sexual practices, mutilation, the sprouting of sexual organs in various places on the human body, urban violence and violence against women, drug use, and highly dysfunctional family relationships, and that is based on the premise that knowledge is to be found at the edge of experience and that the body is the site for gaining knowledge.[3]
The genre has been the subject of controversy, and many forerunners of transgressive fiction, includingWilliam S. Burroughs andHubert Selby Jr., have been the subjects ofobscenity trials.[4]
Transgressive fiction shares similarities withsplatterpunk,noir, anderotic fiction in its willingness to portray forbidden behaviors and shock readers. But it differs in that protagonists often pursue means to better themselves and their surroundings—albeit unusual and extreme ones. Much transgressive fiction deals with searches forself-identity,inner peace, orpersonal freedom. Unbound by usual restrictions of taste and literary convention, its proponents claim that transgressive fiction is capable of incisive social commentary.[5]
The basic ideas of transgressive fiction are by no means new. Many works that are now consideredclassics dealt with controversial themes and harshly criticized societal norms. Early examples include the scandalous writing of theMarquis de Sade and theComte de Lautréamont'sLes Chants de Maldoror (1869).[6] French authorÉmile Zola's works about social conditions and "bad behavior" are examples,[7] as are RussianFyodor Dostoyevsky's novelsCrime and Punishment (1866)[8] andNotes from Underground (1864)[9] and NorwegianKnut Hamsun's psychologically-drivenHunger (1890).[10] Sexual extravagance can be seen in two of the earliest European novels, theSatyricon andThe Golden Ass, and also (with disclaimers)Moll Flanders and some of the excesses of earlyGothic fiction.[11]
A simpler, more literal example of transgressive fiction isKate Chopin'sThe Awakening, in which a married woman, feeling confined by the gender constructs of her society and pressures imposed upon her by her family and friends to be keen in her duties as a mother and wife, leaves her family and pursues extramarital relationships.[12] Commenting on gender roles of the late 19th century,The Awakening faced major criticism for its depiction of a woman being unfaithful to her family, despite the fact that Chopin had written several similar short stories prior toAwakening's publication. It is now considered to be a landmark of earlyfeminist literature.[12]
The early development of the genre was anticipated in the work of early 20th century writers such asOctave Mirbeau,Georges Bataille, andArthur Schnitzler, who exploredpsychosexual development.[13][14][15]
On 6 December 1933, US federal judge John M. Woolsey overturned the federal ban onJames Joyce'sUlysses.[16] The book was banned in the US due to what the government claimed was obscenity, specifically parts of Molly Bloom's "soliloquy" at the end of the book.[17]Random House Inc. challenged the claim of obscenity in federal court and was granted permission to print the book in the US. Judge Woolsey's explanation for his removal of the ban is often quoted: "It is only with the normal person that the law is concerned."[18]
In the late 1950s, American publisherGrove Press, under publisherBarney Rosset, began releasing decades-old novels that had been unpublished in most of the English-speaking world for many years due to controversial subject matter. Two of these works,Lady Chatterley's Lover (D. H. Lawrence's tale of an upper class woman's affair with a working class man) andTropic of Cancer (Henry Miller's sexual odyssey), were the subject of landmark obscenity trials (Lady Chatterley's Lover was also tried in the UK andAustria).[19] Both books were ruled not obscene and forced the US courts to weigh themerit of literature that would have once been instantly deemed pornographic (seeMiller test).[20] Similarly, the authorVladimir Nabokov publishedLolita in 1955 to a great deal of controversy due to thehebephilia that occurs between the book's main characters, Humbert Humbert and Lolita. The transgressive nature of this subject has madeLolita a book often found on thelist of books banned by governments[21] and thelist of most commonly challenged books in the United States.[22]
Grove Press also published the explicit works ofBeat writers, which led to two more obscenity trials.[23] The first concernedHowl,Allen Ginsberg's 1955 poem which celebrated Americancounterculture and decried hypocrisy and emptiness in mainstream society.[24] The second concernedWilliam S. Burroughs' hallucinatory,satirical novelNaked Lunch (1959).[25] Both works contained what were considered lewd descriptions of body parts and sexual acts. Grove also publishedHubert Selby Jr.'s anecdotal novelLast Exit to Brooklyn (1964), known for its gritty portrayals of criminals, and sex workers and its crude, slang-inspired prose.[26]Last Exit to Brooklyn was tried as obscene in the UK.[27] Grove Press won all these trials, and the victories paved the way both for transgressive fiction to be published legally, as well as bringing attention to these works.[28]
In the 1970s and '80s, an entire underground of transgressive fiction flourished. Its biggest stars includedJ. G. Ballard, a British writer known for his strange and frighteningdystopian novels;[29]Kathy Acker, an American known for hersex-positive feminist fiction;[30] andCharles Bukowski, an American known for his tales of womanizing, drinking, and gambling.[31] The notorious1971 film version ofAnthony Burgess'sA Clockwork Orange, contained scenes of rape and "ultraviolence" by a futuristic youth gang complete with its ownargot, and wasa major influence on popular culture; it was subsequently withdrawn in the UK, and heavily censored in the US.[32]
In the 1990s, the rise ofalternative rock and its distinctly downbeat subculture opened the door for transgressive writers to become more influential and commercially successful than ever before.[33] This is exemplified by the influence of CanadianDouglas Coupland's 1990 novelGeneration X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, which explored the economically-bleak andapocalypse-fixated worldview of Coupland's age group. The novel popularized the termgeneration X to describe this age demographic.[34] Other influential authors of this decade includeBret Easton Ellis, known for novels about depravedyuppies;[35]Irvine Welsh, known for his portrayals ofScotland's drug-addicted working class youth;[36] andChuck Palahniuk, known for his characters' bizarre attempts to escape blandconsumer culture.[37] Both ofElizabeth Young's volumes of literary criticism from this period deal extensively and exclusively with this range of authors and the contexts in which their works can be viewed.[38]
The early 21st century saw the rise of writers likeRupert Thomson,R. D. Ronald and Kelly Braffet with their protagonists further pushing the criminal, sexual, violent, narcotic, self-harm, anti-social and mental illness related subject matter taboos from the shadows of the transgressive umbrella into the forefront of mainstream fiction.[39] Ronald's novelsThe Elephant Tree andThe Zombie Room are based in the fictional city of Garden Heights, providing a fresh, contemporary melting pot to showcase the amalgamation of UK and US cultural and societal dissatisfaction and frustration, that had previously been portrayed very differently.[40]
In the UK, the genre owes a considerable influence to "working class literature",[41] which often portrays characters trying to escape poverty by inventive means, while in the US, the genre focuses more on middle class characters trying to escape the emotional and spiritual limitations of their lifestyle.[42]
Jason Tanamor
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