The fascinating English novelist and memoirist, Anthony Powell, he of the epic A Dance to the Music of Time, caught a London bus in October of 1960 to attend a trial at Old Bailey, where proceedings were under way to determine whether D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover could be published in accordance with the requirements of His Majesty's Obscene Publications Act of 1959. And therefore could be allowed to circulate freely in the United Kingdom.
The book had already been cleared for publication in the United States, which must have increased the supply of copies making their way into the British market. Times and mores may change, but not publishers' determination to sell as many of their books as possible.
En route to the law courts at the east end of the Strand, Powell overheard heard two other passengers on the bus, evidently tourists, discussing the quaint old structure they were passing. "What is that building?" one asked. "Is it a church?"
"No, it's not a church," the other replied. "I went in and had a look 'round yesterday. I rather think it's a sort of hotel."
Powell was amused, for if "the Law Courts gave the air of an hotel the Old Bailey when I arrived there was a theatrical First Night with all sorts of literary figures wandering about its corridors. Based--like much of the best comedy--on material not in itself intended to be comic, the Trial was played by a cast of character-actors almost without exception accomplished in their individual roles."
The prosecution of the book's publisher for offending public decency was as solemn as the defense's counter-arguments, for the bewigged members of the British bar in 1960 were not known for their sense of humor. Opposing counsel in the case could have stepped out of a courtroom melodrama like Witness for the Prosecution, or maybe Rumpole of the Bailey, with his capsule description of Mrs. Rumpole (never used in her presence) as "she who must be obeyed." Their street address: 25B Froxbury Court, Gloucester Road, London, an under-heated old mansion where both he and Hilda are consigned to shiver away their nights, which might explain Rumpole's habit of taking refuge in English pubs from time to restorative time.
At one particularly perceptive point in his summary of the proceedings against Lawrence's once controversial novel, Powell notes that "the Defense's testimony well illustrated an innate aspect of British puritanism whereby some formerly condemned practice, once vindicated in the eye of the Law and public opinion, cannot remain a matter for toleration only, but must be propagated as something actively beneficial. What is allowed must be good. Accordingly, the supporters of the book were some of them constrained by this national idiosyncrasy to plead that not only should Lawrence's novel remain uncensored, but that Lady Chatterley's Lover should be taught in schools and made the subject of organized discussion in youth clubs . . ."
Sound familiar? For this kind of turnaround is scarcely limited to British mores in the Swinging Sixties ("England swings like a pendulum do/ Bobbies on bicycles, two by two . . .") but can now be seen here across the pond, where homosexuality has gone from the love that dare not speak its name to the one that cannot shut up. So does whispered scandal become crushing bore.
The same transformation can be observed as the latest rage in unorthodox sexual identities--the transgendered--goes from curiosity to fashion. And so no doubt will the next in the parade of scandals on their way to becoming crushing bores. First the envelope is pushed, then disappears as anything goes, then becomes normal, whatever that may be at the moment.
Could we all just relax and take refuge in a discreet disregard of all these successive uproars? A policy of salutary neglect has been known to work wonders. Or as an English noblewoman of another century replied when asked if she objected to homosexuality, "My dear, I don't care what people do as long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses."
What business is it of ours if those who practice the latest sexual fetish on its way to becoming the latest craze refrain from hurting themselves or anybody else? Why not just leave them alone as they leave the rest of us alone? Or would that be unspeakably sensible--and decent?
Or as Mr. Justice Brandeis once commented, the Constitution confers on all of us "the right to be left alone--the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men."
Paul Greenberg is editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. E-mail him at:
pgreenberg@arkansasonline.com
Editorial on 03/22/2015