The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses • Hacker News Board

Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses

#71

Post by jandrese » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 7:30 PM UTC

asimpletune wrote: post #40

jandrese wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like after 100-200 pages of Gravity's Rainbow one of two things can happen: 1. The reader can't figure out what the hell is going on anymore or who anybody is. They give up and stop reading. 2. The reader can't figure out what the hell is going on anymore or who anybody is. They stop trying to make sense of the book and just read the words. "Sure this guy has a toilet stuck to his foot now, and can prevent b…

The literary device in the novel is effect preceding cause. Like, very early in the book the hypersonic v2 - and how series it is for things to blow up and then you hear it - is introduced, but if you miss it then that then you miss all the other times we see the same concept.

That's not effect preceding cause, that's just sound moving slower than something else! The sonic boom didn't blow up the tenements, the faster than sound missile did.

Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses

#72

Post by hereforphone » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 7:08 AM UTC

rataata_jr wrote: post #61

avereveard wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we do worse than that nowadays, instead of censoring the offending text we censor the person whole

Slightly different. Blasphemers used to be executed back then, now you lose your job, ability to bank, go out in public etc. Slight improvement?

Blasphemers are still executed, it's just politically incorrect to criticize the countries it happens in.

Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses

#73

Post by pstuart » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

hereforphone wrote: post #55

pstuart wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's at the discretion of the platform. Why don't you test the limits of HN? At a certain point you will be "censored" here. And if that happens is it because dang hate's your freedom or you've pushed the limits of tolerable behavior?

Pushing the "limits of tolerable behavior" are why the books were band as well.

There's a vast difference between acceptable behavior for guests and making something illegal.

HN is a forum where we are the guests of pg, dang, et al. They have rules for behavior -- https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Not abiding by these rules can get you banned. Are you going to complain about that? Are your rights being trampled on?

edit: p.s., it's "banned", not "band"

Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses

#74

Post by CRConrad » Sun, Jul 04, 2021, 9:59 AM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #64

jandrese wrote: post #3

> Despite Quinn’s persuasive argument—Ulysses was so dense and convoluted that no one could possibly understand it, much less be debauched by it, he argued—a three-judge panel, using the Hicklin test, concluded that the book had the potential to corrupt youth and was therefore obscene. LOL. The kids are too dumb to be corrupted by this book! The best part is that it is true. If you have enough constitution to be able…

When I was a teenager, I looked for "banned" (none of them actually banned when I grew up in Norway) books, and excitement turned to disappointment most of the time at how outright boring the supposed obscene parts were. I was mostly shocked at how little it used to take to get people worked up.

I read Lady Chatterley's Lover at ~15-17, some forty years ago... Really couldn't grok what all the fuss had been about; Felt mostly like "Didn't people back then even know where babies come from?". (Not that there were any babies made in it, AFAICR, but that level of naïveté.)