# Recent controversial or subversive novels **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 26, 2011, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-controversial-or-subversive-novels/604179 "2011-11-26T20:16:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-controversial-or-subversive-novels/604179/21 "2011-11-30T00:28:05Z")
I think the recent [_House of Holes_ by Nicholson Baker](http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/11/house-holes-nicholson-baker-review) might meet the OP’s criteria. Not that anybody thinks explicit sex scenes are anything controversial anymore, but the single-minded porniness of Baker’s work has many people questioning whether this actually counts as literature or is meant to serve any artistic purpose. As the reviewer in the linked article remarks, “_House of Holes_ doesn’t appear to have any literary ambitions at all.” ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-controversial-or-subversive-novels/604179/22 "2011-11-30T00:41:13Z")
> [@Sam\_A.Robrin](#): > > Any truly controversial novel would probably be so hated that it would never get published, let alone distributed, sold, and read. Granted that people can be very sensitive about having their beliefs challenged, but this comes pretty close to asserting that if the novel is truly controversial it won’t be published, and if it’s published, it’s not truly controversial. It’s a tautology, and I think it would only be accurate if “truly” were defined in a very narrow way. ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-controversial-or-subversive-novels/604179/23 "2011-11-30T01:01:12Z")
> [@Sam\_A.Robrin](#): > > “If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you; But if you really make them think, they’ll hate you.” --Don Marquis > > That’s probably the quotation I cite most often. Any truly controversial novel would probably be so hated that it would never get published, let alone distributed, sold, and read. No offense, but this is silly. Can you provide any examples of subjects that “make you think” that no publisher will touch? Even holocaust denial stuff can get published somewhere, and that in no way “makes you think.” Besides, nowadays any nutjob with a keyboard can self-publish anything he or she wants. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-controversial-or-subversive-novels/604179/24 "2011-11-30T01:15:46Z")
> [@lisiate](#): > > Actually I was putting \*Haunted \*forward more for the second sentence in the quote than the first. Meh. It was gross, but no more so than your average Stephen King splatterbook. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Has Card’s [_Empire_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_(2006_novel)) been controversial at all? Seems to have been the author’s intent. I doubt it, since Card didn’t even come up with the scenario. Empire was a work-for-hire book that Card was contracted to do by Chair Entertainment, who wanted a tie-in novel to go with a video game they were developing. I haven’t played it, but I believe the game barely touches on the Civil War plot for something more generically spy-heavy. The game (Shadow Complex) was a huge hit though. Empire was also the inspiration for a later season of that bastion of subversiveness, 24. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-controversial-or-subversive-novels/604179/25 "2011-11-30T01:45:08Z")
I’d put it in the category of “trash”, but _The DaVinci Code_ was moderately controversial due to the negative portrayal of Catholics and using the idea that Jesus fathered children by Mary Magdalene as a major part of the plot. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-controversial-or-subversive-novels/604179/26 "2011-11-30T02:21:50Z")
I read a novel several years ago that made me rethink the incest taboo (for awhile anyway). The couple was a brother and sister (adults), both with damaged childhoods, and the author convinced me that the only way they were going to have any kind of life is if they could be together, in every sense of the word. But dammit, I can’t remember the author’s name (or the title, of course). Shortly after that, I tried to read _The Kiss_, but it’s a lot harder to accept parent-child incest. Plus, that book wasn’t nearly as well-written as the other. Sturgeon’s short story – “If All Men Were Your Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?” – isn’t really an argument for incest but I suppose it could be viewed that way. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-controversial-or-subversive-novels/604179/27 "2011-11-30T02:35:04Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > _The Running Man_ by King-as-Bachmann is pretty subversive. Definitely the story of Everyman against the Evil Corporate-Government Establishment. Yeah cause that’s not something you see in _every single Hollywood movie EVER_. ---
**Author:** ![jordanr2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/838e76/32.png) [@jordanr2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jordanr2)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-controversial-or-subversive-novels/604179/28 "2011-11-30T12:20:29Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I think the recent [_House of Holes_ by Nicholson Baker](http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/11/house-holes-nicholson-baker-review) might meet the OP’s criteria. > > Not that anybody thinks explicit sex scenes are anything controversial anymore, but the single-minded porniness of Baker’s work has many people questioning whether this actually counts as literature or is meant to serve any artistic purpose. As the reviewer in the linked article remarks, “_House of Holes_ doesn’t appear to have any literary ambitions at all.” Baker’s _Checkpoint_ also caused a bit of controversy, as did _Human Smoke_ - not riots in the streets or boycotts or anything like that, but critics argued pretty heatedly over both. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-controversial-or-subversive-novels/604179/29 "2011-11-30T12:54:00Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > I read a novel several years ago that made me rethink the incest taboo (for awhile anyway). The couple was a brother and sister (adults), both with damaged childhoods, and the author convinced me that the only way they were going to have any kind of life is if they could be together, in every sense of the word. But dammit, I can’t remember the author’s name (or the title, of course). Slight hijack, but there was a well-reviewed movie not too long ago that casually made pretty much the same point; it promptly grossed more than double its budget, and the writer promptly got an Academy Award nomination (and Golden Globe nomination, and Writers Guild nomination) for Best Screenplay. [Lone Star,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Star_(1996_film)) where Chris Cooper and Elizabeth Peña grew up thinking their small-town Texas romance was forbidden because of the racial aspect; they reconnect years later during a murder investigation, eventually learn they were kept apart because they had the same father – and after mulling things over, decide, hey, it’s not like we were looking to have kids, so what’s the harm in staying together? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-controversial-or-subversive-novels/604179/30 "2011-11-30T14:42:58Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Yeah cause that’s not something you see in _every single Hollywood movie EVER_. Not in the film adaptation of the _Running Man,_ at any rate, not like in the book. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-controversial-or-subversive-novels/604179/31 "2011-11-30T14:47:12Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Not in the film adaptation of the _Running Man,_ at any rate, not like in the book. Apart from the book being really grim and the movie incredibly weird and flashy, it was the same message. Maybe not the same way of delivering it, but the same message. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-controversial-or-subversive-novels/604179.md?page=1)