Artists and raconteurs have long realized that certain extrinsic patterns enhance a story, giving one more turn of the screw to the tale of horror or one or more wave of delight to the joke. Among these patterns are socially or psychologically or theologically forbidden ideas. Thus, a joke seems funnier if it in includes an ethnic reference or imitation—a pattern of commentary that is socially unacceptable in an “enlightened” age. A liberal may prove his liberalism by his willingness to tell ethnic jokes, using his own ethnic group or another for the butt of the laughter, and ending with the protest that “some of my best friends are …” Probably older than the ethnic joke—certainly as old as recorded tales told by man—is the dirty joke. The story here is enhanced by the addition of a sexual element that would not ordinarily enter into polite conversation. The combination of surprise and embarrassment and delight in the forbidden erupts in a richer laugh than the usual clean story provokes. Obviously the pleasure people take in discussing human sexuality has kept books on best-seller lists that would far sooner have fallen into disrepute if judged by literary standards of style, plot construction, or credibility.
Pure pornography (which is catalogued at our local book store by the form of the perversion explored rather than by author or title) is a different consideration. Some talented authors make use of pornography for aesthetic purposes. Portnoy’s Complaint, for example, is a witty, intellectually exciting attack on Freudian analysis and Jewish mothers as well as a thoroughly dirty book. Another Country is a remarkable study of the black man’s paranoia, his aspirations, and his tragedies as well as a thoroughly dirty book. These authors have a great deal to say and find that their audience enlarges with their sex scenes. So these are dragged in again and again in blatant currying of popular favor. Ironically, there is a diminishing return on this: in time the reader skips quickly through the description of intercourse the way he skips the description of scenery in another book. So the author fights to hold the reader’s attention by varying the language, the partners, the positions, or the perversions.
All of this is part of the age-old struggle for popularity, the constant love-hate relationship between the author and his audience. Novels must compete with TV and football for attention. And the novelist must compete successfully or perish—that is, go back to teaching English. Sometimes a first-rate author like Baldwin or Roth tosses off a pot-boiler to allow him to continue his serious writing. Sometimes he allows Hollywood to warp a beloved early novel so that he can finance another creation. It is all a part of survival or of success—the American dream.
One kind of twist added to literature almost as frequently as sex is religion. There is a kind of thrill in hearing Patton say he reads his Bible “every g—d—day.” Sinclair Lewis found a delighted audience for his attack on tent-evangelists. Chaucer drew a chuckle when he showed the corruption of some clergy and used them as the butt of his practical jokes. The admixture of religion has enriched horror stories, given depth to war narratives, added significance to proletarian novels of labor battles. In our day the catalogue of heroes with J. C. initials is ridiculously long. Whether he be Faulkner’s Joe Christmas or Steinbeck’s Jim Casy, he is relying on his meaning in the novel.
This again seems a legitimate enough undertaking in its context. We may quarrel with the identification and deny that every lynch victim is parallel to the crucified Christ, but we must recognize the naturalness of this trend. The novelist must make use of the life and ideas around him. No story has more thoroughly ingrained itself in the hearts of Western men than the narrative of the Crucifixion. Archetypal critics insist it echoes the scapegoat image, a portion of the collective unconscious. Social critics assert that it is the legacy of the Christian Church. But both admit that it is one of the most moving and richly provocative actions of all time. Thus the artist, who is always in touch with the theology of his world, would naturally draw on its central theological symbols.
Lately there has been an increase in a slightly different pattern that I identify as “pious pornography.” That is, authors have continued to use their central religious figure—be he saint, prophet, or Christ—but have added to this the titillation of exaggerated sexuality. We might observe this in such older novels as Lewis’s Elmer Gantry, in which the pseudo-saint of the sawdust trail is a secret sex goddess and the preacher brings women to Christ through his sex appeal, seduction following hard upon baptism. Maugham’s celebrated “Rain” follows a parallel pattern. Another earlier novelist who made use of this religion-sexuality theme was D. H. Lawrence. But for Lawrence, sex was close to religion, both a part of the dark unknown of the universe.
Several modern authors have taken a somewhat more subtle approach. Updike, after a number of books showing a strong tendency toward Calvinism and toward healthy sexuality, produced an overwrought, pornographic monster in Couples. He makes his hero a church-going, loving, virile saint (Peter) who sleeps with every woman he meets. If Updike is endeavoring to say (a la Tea and Sympathy) that sex can be a blessing bestowed upon those whom we pity, love, admire, or whatever, he fails miserably. The sexual activity is always violently lusty, full of appetite, signifying nothing. His point seems instead to be that the decent churchgoers who are married to non-churchgoers (who are also not very good in bed) are justified in copulating freely and frequently with all friends and acquaintances. They do have to pay for breaking the social/moral law, but this is largely because they take their lust more seriously than other people. Thus they abort their illicit progeny, break up their marriages, lose their homes and their friends, but do return to one another. Updike is a talented and brilliant writer; he should be embarrassed by this book.
Other writers are less disturbing because less capable or less religious. William Styron, though, is equally disturbing to the Christian reader. His latest hero, Nat Turner, is a saint-prophet-Christ in a far more exaggerated way than Updike’s Piet. Nat sees visions, dreams dreams, and turns ploughshares into swords. The biblical allusions abound, usually carefully interwoven with meditations on rape. The climactic scene, when Nat is transformed from an Old Testament prophet to a saviour full of love for his fellow man, is mingled with an act of masturbation. When he cries “I come,” the reader does not know whether to drift into an uplifting memory of the final words of Revelation or to snort at the innuendo. In this deliberate double entendre, Styron defeats his own purposes. What could have been a fine dramatic conclusion becomes a confused dirty joke. The flaw carries all through the book—a novel that has the makings of one of the finest artistic creations of modern America. Instead of being thoroughly classical, it is frequently baroque and maudlin.
I can only lament, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” Gimmicks like these will bring a richer chuckle, a more thrilling shudder, a deeper despair—and a fatter pocketbook. But the artist has only one chance to live on earth. His talent is a treasure to be shared. His ideas will find form once, and the reader will know his mind and his ideas from that single form. There is a finality to the printed word that makes it differ from the spoken one and carry a greater responsibility. To some few writers in every age, much is given. Of them and their talents much is required—by man and by God. To use the cheap tricks to turn a fast buck, in Houlden Caulfield’s words “to prostitute your art,” is a great shame carrying with it a great punishment: that moment, that opportunity, that idea is less than it could have been and can never be recovered. The parading of pornography in saintly garb is even worse than blatant lust: it is more likely to confuse and convince the unwary. When we look carefully, we see that the halo is crooked and the wings do not elevate. And then we see that this earthbound creature has cleft feet and a lusty glint in his eye. No snake was ever more subtle than this creation of the modern artist.
Nancy M. Tischler is professor of English and humanities at the Pennsylvania State University Capitol Campus, Middletown. She received the Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas, and she is currently serving as president of the Conference on Christianity and Literature.
