“Istanbul Publisher Faces Obscenity Trial”

I was catching up with the news on Huffington Post and I found about a translated version of William S. Burroughs’ novel “The Soft Machine.” The publisher and the translator of the book are facing obscenity charges over publishing the novel in Istanbul. According to the Turkish Government the reasoning behind this trial is “The way the book deals with the coarse, sleazy, vulgar and weak aspects of humans will develop an attitude that allows the justification of criminal activities in the readers’ minds.” These were similar reasons another one of Burroughs’ novels, “Naked Lunch” was banned in Boston in the 1960s for a short period of time.

Reading this article really got me thinking about publishing rights. Here in the U. S. censored versions of Huck Finn have been in the news, bringing up the question “is it okay to change a classic novel?” While the Turkish government appears to be having a conversation that happened in the U.S. back in the 1960s: “How much is too much?” I have never read the novel in question, but I wondered if people could really justify criminal activity solely based on what fictional characters do in a novel? The conversation has been in the news about movies, television and video games being too violent, but it has been awhile since I have heard of a book being “too violent.”

Can a novel be to violent or too crude? Can someone’s morals be degraded because of a novel? Should a publisher, translator, and writer be censored because a novel handles subjects that are taboo? The article explains, “Burroughs’ raw depictions of heroin addiction and homosexuality are hard to digest for some in Turkey, whose mostly Muslim population of 74 million is steeped in old traditions.” If the majority of the population considers the subjects immoral and wrong, does that mean the book should be banned for everyone? Where do you draw the line?

You can read the article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/16/william-s-burroughs_n_862406.html