Got shamed at a bookstore for buying 'Lolita', now I get it

Last weekend I was in Powell's in Portland picking up a copy of Nabokov's 'Lolita' for a book club. The cashier, some guy in his 20s, gave me this look and said 'you know people get weird about this one, right?' I laughed it off, but then he told me it's been banned in multiple countries, including Lebanon and parts of Australia, way past the 1950s. I had no idea it was still getting pulled off shelves anywhere recent. That sent me down a whole rabbit hole about how the book's history as a banned text actually shapes how we read it today. We tend to see it as just a classic novel now, but the censorship fights were really about who gets to decide what's literature vs. what's just disturbing. Has anyone else had a moment where buying or checking out a banned book made the whole debate feel more real? I'm curious what book did that for you.

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terry85018d ago

Banned where?" makes you realize the whole thing is about control, not content.