{"id":2437,"date":"2010-05-26T10:27:32","date_gmt":"2010-05-26T17:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2010\/05\/15-most-controversial-books-in-the-western-canon\/"},"modified":"2010-05-26T10:30:56","modified_gmt":"2010-05-26T17:30:56","slug":"15-most-controversial-books-in-the-western-canon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2010\/05\/26\/15-most-controversial-books-in-the-western-canon\/","title":{"rendered":"15 Most Controversial Books In The Western Canon"},"content":{"rendered":"

from Shmoop<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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<\/a>10.\tIt\u2019s Paining Men<\/h3>\n

Who:<\/strong>\u00a0Alice Walker<\/p>\n

What:<\/strong>\u00a0The Color Purple<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

When:<\/strong>\u00a01982<\/p>\n

Why:<\/strong>\u00a0Rape, incest, homosexuality, and an unfavorable portrayal of men<\/p>\n

How:<\/strong>\u00a0Cutting right to the chase,\u00a0The Color Purple<\/em>\u00a0famously opens with a graphic firsthand account of an incestuous rape. After bearing (and being separated from) her father\u2019s children, Celie is forced into a loveless marriage where she is beaten and suffers spousal rape by her husband.<\/p>\n

Her freedom eventually lies in having a lesbian affair with her husband\u2019s mistress and leaving him to start her own business. For many readers, the mother\/daughter\/lesbian lover dynamic leaves little room for any male protagonists, which critics argue reinforces negative stereotypes about black men.<\/p>\n


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<\/a>11.\tStill Haven\u2019t Found What They\u2019re Looking For<\/h3>\n

Who:<\/strong>\u00a0Salman Rushdie<\/p>\n

What:<\/strong>\u00a0The Satanic Verses<\/em><\/p>\n

When:<\/strong>\u00a01988<\/p>\n

Why:<\/strong>\u00a0Irreverence toward Islam<\/p>\n

How:<\/strong>\u00a0In addition to other offences, Rushdie refers to the prophet Muhammad as Mahound, a derogatory, Crusader-era term, and names various prostitutes after Muhammad\u2019s wives.<\/p>\n

Initial backlash included rioting, bombings, and book burnings. In 1989, the Ayatollah of Iran issued a fatwa against Rushdie and \u201call those involved in its publication,\u201d resulting in the assassination of one of the book\u2019s translators and attacks against others.<\/p>\n

Although Rushdie was unharmed, he spent the next nine years living in undisclosed locations under police protection, reportedly even staying at Bono\u2019s house in Dublin from time to time. You know you\u2019re in trouble when Bono\u2019s letting you hide out in his mansion.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>12.\tLady in Red<\/h3>\n

Who:<\/strong>\u00a0Bret Easton Ellis<\/p>\n

What:<\/strong>\u00a0American Psycho<\/em><\/p>\n

When:<\/strong>\u00a01991<\/p>\n

Why:<\/strong>\u00a0Extremely graphic descriptions of torture, murder, mutilation, cannibalism, and more<\/p>\n

How:<\/strong>\u00a0Although\u00a0American Psycho<\/em>\u00a0can be characterized as a satire of American machismo, odds are you\u2019ll be too distracted by the detailed first-person accounts of a serial killer to really appreciate the underlying message.<\/p>\n

After Simon and Schuster backed out of the project, Vintage Books got the publishing rights to the novel \u2013 as well as a lot of heat from feminist groups for its portrayal of violence against women. (To be fair, the narrator also kills a few men and a dog.) As with guns, spray paint, or huff-able glue, many stores require that you be 18 in order to purchase this novel.<\/p>\n


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<\/a>13.\tOn the Origin of Pieces<\/h3>\n

Who:<\/strong>\u00a0James Frey<\/p>\n

What:<\/strong>\u00a0A Million Little Pieces<\/em><\/p>\n

When:<\/strong>\u00a02003<\/p>\n

Why:<\/strong>\u00a0Intentionally deceptive marketing<\/p>\n

How:<\/strong>\u00a0Famously dubbed \u201cA Million Little Lies,\u201d James Frey\u2019s so-called memoir incurred a horrible retribution after it was revealed that many of the more scandalous events in the story never actually happened.<\/p>\n

Particularly damning was the fact that Oprah, who\u2019d previously featured the novel in her book club (and bolstered its sales by about n-teen percent), made it her personal mission to rip Frey and his publisher into a million little pieces on national television. The media carnage and book returns that followed taught Frey one of the most important facts of American life: don\u2019t mess with Oprah.<\/p>\n

[ click to read full list at Shmoop.com<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from Shmoop 10. It\u2019s Paining Men Who:\u00a0Alice Walker What:\u00a0The Color Purple When:\u00a01982 Why:\u00a0Rape, incest, homosexuality, and an unfavorable portrayal of men How:\u00a0Cutting right to the chase,\u00a0The Color Purple\u00a0famously opens with a graphic firsthand account of an incestuous rape. After bearing (and being separated from) her father\u2019s children, Celie is forced into a loveless marriage where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conversation-information","category-literary-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}