Dear Diary

[Maurizio Mariotti]

.


[Excerpted from MM's secret diary]

Dear Diary,

My mother, a teacher, continuously encouraged me to read -- but she
freaked out when she found me (age 13) reading "Tropic of Cancer" and
confiscated the book.

How to confuse, with inexplicable double standards, a boy with a young
mind eager to learn and who follows Mother's advice.

MM

.

[Jim Reith]

so back to the picture books under the mattress
[Excerpted from MM's secret diary] 

Dear Diary, 

My mother, a teacher, continuously encouraged me to read -- but she
freaked out when she found me (age 13) reading "Tropic of Cancer" and
confiscated the book. 

How to confuse, with inexplicable double standards, a boy with a young
mind eager to learn and who follows Mother's advice. 

MM 

.

[Maurizio Mariotti]

.

Post by Jim Reith
so back to the picture books under the mattress

Hehehehe...

Some factoids about Italy in the 50s:

Tropic of Cancer (and most Miller's books) was banned in Italy in 1929
by the fascist government, together with a number of other books such
as Lady Chatterly's lover.

However, they were all unbanned after the war with a new Constitution
that allowed freedom of expression, so it was quite legal for
adolescents eager to learn to acquire copies of those books.

What remained censored - in blatant conflict with the new Constitution,
if you ask me - was the full graphic depiction of nudity, so skin
magazines had a hard time as they had to cover nipples and the pudenda.
So, what did we get for our visual gratification? Scandinavian
magazines, mostly Swedish and Danish, which, as you correctly suggest,
had to be kept under the mattress. :)

Sadly, this distinction between legality (the books) and technical
illegality (Swedish magazines) was completely ignored by our parents
who confiscated everything and told us to go Confession and be cleansed
of our sins of prurience.

Frustratingly, you could not explain to the priest that you legally
read Tropico del Cancro but illegally looked at Swedish nudies, because
in the eyes of God they were all the same.

Mau :-)