# Why do we need a book like "Hogg"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 16, 2010, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261 "2010-02-16T23:13:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261/61 "2010-02-17T01:53:54Z")
> [@FE3O4ENAIL](#): > > OK, but I don’t like it. Fair enough. Just because we don’t try to prevent icky gross books from being published doesn’t mean that we have to like icky gross books being published. ---
**Author:** ![FE3O4ENAIL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ba9def/32.png) [@FE3O4ENAIL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FE3O4ENAIL)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261/62 "2010-02-17T02:03:26Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Fair enough. Just because we don’t try to prevent icky gross books from being published doesn’t mean that we have to like icky gross books being published. Okey dokey. Now I am going to wrap my country boy hick brain around this"from an aesthetic one – it denies the creative agency involved in the act of reading and insists that any work only has one privileged interpretation" It is good to get out every now and then. Ignorance fought! Night everybody. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261/63 "2010-02-17T02:05:11Z")
> [@](#): > > No, I was hoping that there are some things that all could agree are too far. It appears that we all are in agreement. I haven’t seen anyone here who has read this book or is planning to. I’m sure most people feel the same way. If nobody wants to read it, it won’t be read. But what if somebody does want to read it? Are you saying they shouldn’t be allowed to read it? ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261/64 "2010-02-17T03:43:20Z")
Someone wanted to write Hogg, and some people wanted to read it. (We even have someone on these very boards who seems quite taken with it, which is how it came up in the first place). There seems no acceptable reason to deprive those people of their liberty to enjoy the book, regardless of who is or how many are not among them. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261/65 "2010-02-17T04:46:10Z")
I personally have no use for _Hogg_, but I have no use for _The Notebook_ either. There’s an old movie from the late 70’s or early 80’s called _First Monday In October_ which stars Jill Clayburgh as the first woman Supreme Court Justice (this movie was made before Justice O’Connor took that honor in real life). Her character was a political conservative who frequently clashed with a liberal justice played by Walter Matthau. One plot point involves a porn film which is before the Court for some reason (I don’t remember why, exactly. I think they were supposed to be deciding if it was obscene). This case becomes a point of conflict between Clayburgh’s character and Matthau’s. At one point during their argument, Matthau says, “So its crap. What if it is crap? That’s not the point. Crap’s got the right to be crap.” That’s basically how I feel about _Hogg_. The best artistic expression can’t exist unless the worst is allowed to exist. You pull the weeds, you kill the flowers. ---
**Author:** ![jordanr2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/838e76/32.png) [@jordanr2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jordanr2)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261/66 "2010-02-17T04:56:13Z")
like someone else here, I’m wondering how many of the people in this thread have read HOGG. I have, and I didn’t think much of it, but that has nothing to do with its content, more to do with its tedious, repetitious (lack of) style. It’s just one dirty incident after another, not nearly as shocking as its detractors might imagine. Delany’s THE MAD MAN is a work of similarly filthy content, but also a genuinely moving and intelligent novel of far more literary merit. The point is, content alone doesn’t justify a book - it’s the treatment of that content that does it. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261/67 "2010-02-17T05:52:01Z")
> [@jordanr2](#): > > like someone else here, I’m wondering how many of the people in this thread have read HOGG. I have, and I didn’t think much of it, but that has nothing to do with its content, more to do with its tedious, repetitious (lack of) style. It’s just one dirty incident after another, not nearly as shocking as its detractors might imagine. Delany’s THE MAD MAN is a work of similarly filthy content, but also a genuinely moving and intelligent novel of far more literary merit. The point is, content alone doesn’t justify a book - it’s the treatment of that content that does it. And that, in a nutshell, is my major objection to it–no, I haven’t read it but I’ve read some Delany and my “educated hunch” has been confirmed by your analysis, that it would be just an unending “Oooh, look at me stomping all over your bourgeois puritanical morals–I’m so daring and _transgressive,_ aren’t you impressed?” fapfest. It’s incredibly difficult to write interesting, believable, effective sex scenes, whereas it’s a whole lot easier to write horrific descriptions of sordid depravity because the vocabulary is so easy and so much more accessible to the average reader. Anyone can make you puke, few can make you fall in love. The gag reflex is as inexorable as gravity and nearly impossible to control by force of will, but the path to orgasm can be short circuited by the most ephemeral of distractions. There is shit, and there is art, both are the result of creative acts but we don’t pretend they’re equivalent in value. The real trick would be to write the same book, generally speaking, but to make it understandable, redemptive and to force the reader to actually sympathize and understand the actions of the characters as being necessary and appropriate given the framework of the story. Done perfectly, the reader would hate the characters just as much for their actions but love them for themselves. Now THAT would be a truly dangerous book–instead of the merely distasteful failure that we have now. One Theodore Sturgeon who didn’t die untimely is infinitely more subversive than a million sleazy exploitation writers. My objection is esthetic, not moral. ---
**Author:** ![jordanr2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/838e76/32.png) [@jordanr2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jordanr2)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261/68 "2010-02-17T06:03:21Z")
> [@SmartAleq](#): > > The real trick would be to write the same book, generally speaking, but to make it understandable, redemptive and to force the reader to actually sympathize and understand the actions of the characters as being necessary and appropriate given the framework of the story. Done perfectly, the reader would hate the characters just as much for their actions but love them for themselves. Now THAT would be a truly dangerous book–instead of the merely distasteful failure that we have now. One Theodore Sturgeon who didn’t die untimely is infinitely more subversive than a million sleazy exploitation writers. agreed, and this is pretty much what Delany accomplishes in THE MAD MAN as opposed to HOGG. (if I remember correctly, in some foreword or afterword, he writes off the latter novel as being pretty much the product of boredom.) Extreme sexual behavior obviously has its place in literary fiction; HOGG just isn’t a particularly good exemplar of this. The novel’s existence doesn’t need any justification (I think the premise of this thread is stupid), but any notion that it has great aesthetic merit requires arguments that I haven’t seen yet. > [@](#): > > My objection is esthetic, not moral. this is the kind of perspective I’d like to see more of. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261/69 "2010-02-17T06:04:23Z")
**Smart Aleq** You should read _Nova_ and _Empire Star_. Delany is an amazing writer and shouldn’t be judged on a shitty piece of self-indulgence like Hogg. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261/70 "2010-02-17T06:18:46Z")
> [@FE3O4ENAIL](#): > > I am having trouble understanding the support for vile, disgusting, degrading works. That’s your personal opinion, and not everyone would agree with you. There were many people who lived the lifestyle(s) portrayed in the book, and their story deserves to be told. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. There are “vile, disgusting, degrading” things in the Bible. Is that a reason to not publish it? ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261/71 "2010-02-17T06:39:47Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > **Smart Aleq** You should read _Nova_ and _Empire Star_. Delany is an amazing writer and shouldn’t be judged on a shitty piece of self-indulgence like Hogg. I’ll take that under advisement, along with _The Mad Man_, but I have to say that Delany will have to wow significantly to overset the opinion of the man I’ve formed based on what I’ve read to date. I have a (possibly irrational) aversion to uneven writers, I prefer those who’re disciplined and can deliver reliable quality in their work. Delany strikes me as the Whizzo Quality Assortment of '60s New Wave SF. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261/72 "2010-02-17T15:10:23Z")
We can take a lesson from Larry Flynt - if the First Amendment protects _Hogg_, it protects you, too. Frankly, I don’t see what the big deal is - somebody wrote a distasteful book. Don’t like it? Don’t read it. You’d really have to go out of your way to find and read the thing, you know. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261/73 "2010-02-17T15:27:53Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > The best artistic expression can’t exist unless the worst is allowed to exist. You pull the weeds, you kill the flowers. That’s about it right there. Hogg sounds repulsive, but a lot of people were disgusted by Lolita, and I’ve found myself defending that book many times. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261/74 "2010-02-17T15:35:22Z")
> [@FE3O4ENAIL](#): > > No, I was hoping that there are some things that all could agree are too far. But there just aren’t. For me, Kanye’s latest autotune travesty, the remake of We Are the World, Chicken Soup for the Nascar Soul, Lady Gaga, and Twilight are “too far.” They’re a waste of time for me and I wouldn’t mind if they didn’t exist. But someone else might feel that exact way about something I love. It’s just too arbitrary. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261/75 "2010-02-17T15:49:13Z")
> [@SmartAleq](#): > > And that, in a nutshell, is my major objection to it–no, I haven’t read it but I’ve read some Delany and my “educated hunch” has been confirmed by your analysis, that it would be just an unending “Oooh, look at me stomping all over your bourgeois puritanical morals–I’m so daring and _transgressive,_ aren’t you impressed?” fapfest. > > It’s incredibly difficult to write interesting, believable, effective sex scenes, whereas it’s a whole lot easier to write horrific descriptions of sordid depravity because the vocabulary is so easy and so much more accessible to the average reader. Anyone can make you puke, few can make you fall in love. The gag reflex is as inexorable as gravity and nearly impossible to control by force of will, but the path to orgasm can be short circuited by the most ephemeral of distractions. There is shit, and there is art, both are the result of creative acts but we don’t pretend they’re equivalent in value. > > The real trick would be to write the same book, generally speaking, but to make it understandable, redemptive and to force the reader to actually sympathize and understand the actions of the characters as being necessary and appropriate given the framework of the story. Done perfectly, the reader would hate the characters just as much for their actions but love them for themselves. Now THAT would be a truly dangerous book–instead of the merely distasteful failure that we have now. One Theodore Sturgeon who didn’t die untimely is infinitely more subversive than a million sleazy exploitation writers. > > My objection is esthetic, not moral. This is exceptionally well said. Sometimes the job of art – any art – is to highlight the abuses and corruptness beneath the surface of society, portraying it for the reader who may have ben insulated from it in order to make extremely clear to them the dehumanizing or otherwise deleterious effects they have. Upton Sinclair was not turned on by what happened in the slaughterhouses; he saw his task as holding up to the people of America, “This is where the food on your tables comes from; this filth is what you’re eating.” Net result: reforms that produced the FDA and other inspection agencies. When Barb and I counseled a group of disturbed teens, 20 out of the 22 of them described to one or the other of us what we would classify as abuse in their pasts: emotional, physical, or sexual. The sample is extreme – they were, after all, disturbed teens by definition. But the point it makes is to me a valid one – there is a **lot** of covered-up abuse out there. And sometimes it’s the job of the fiction writer to show that, graphically. Delany is not a pornographer – he’s a serious novelist, whose work I don’t personally enjoy reading, but who reviewers and critics whom I respect think is a good writer. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261/76 "2010-02-17T16:22:40Z")
Twenty people have come out against censorship in this thread but not a single person has suggested censorship is a good idea, even of Hogg, which does at least have the benefit of giving Argent Towers a reason to live. So who’re we arguing against? “Why do we need a book like Hogg” is not necessarily a call to csensorship. It’s a valid question; irrespective of where you are on the issue of censorship, does the book serve a purpose beyond the most prurient of interests? Would the world be better off if it didn’t exist? Or is there something of value that Delaney has added to the human experience? Questioning value is not suggestion of censorship. Half the webcomics - more, actually - that are out there could vanish tomorrow and the world would not be worse off for it, but I’m not saying we should censor webcomics. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261/77 "2010-02-17T16:35:28Z")
The OP didn’t really make that distinction, **RickJay**. > [@FE3O4ENAIL](#): > > Censorship is one area where there is the belief that we must set no limits. Why is that? > [@FE3O4ENAIL](#): > > Could we not agree there are some things we don’t need to print? When it comes to your question, I don’t think I can improve on **Polycarp** ’s post. I don’t see any value in the book, but I don’t have to. Somebody evidently thinks it can shed some light on something. **Argent Towers** felt it showed that words are just words and don’t hurt anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261/78 "2010-02-17T16:40:23Z")
> [@FE3O4ENAIL](#): > > But alot of people like scripture. They are not in the same class as Hogg. > You would have a real problem convincing a majority that they are valueless. > > How many like that book we are talking about, and should a few demented souls have a say? I submit that scripture (whatever the flavor) has been responsible for FAR more deaths and mayhem than Hogg. So, as a societal ill I think banning scripture would be a much greater net positive than banning Hogg. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261/79 "2010-02-17T16:49:02Z")
[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole] So, as a societal ill I think banning scripture would be a much greater net positive than banning Hogg. [/QUOTE] Well, except for all the riots and religious fervor it would unleash, not to mention when folks like me get up in arms because you are so flagrantly trying to breach one of our more cherished rights, that of free speech. Leaving all that aside though, yeah, it would be a much greater net positive after the smoke clears and we cart away all the dead bodies… -XT ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261/80 "2010-02-17T17:09:55Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Twenty people have come out against censorship in this thread but not a single person has suggested censorship is a good idea, even of Hogg, which does at least have the benefit of giving Argent Towers a reason to live. So who’re we arguing against? > > “Why do we need a book like Hogg” is not necessarily a call to csensorship. It’s a valid question; irrespective of where you are on the issue of censorship, does the book serve a purpose beyond the most prurient of interests? Would the world be better off if it didn’t exist? Or is there something of value that Delaney has added to the human experience? > > Questioning value is not suggestion of censorship. Half the webcomics - more, actually - that are out there could vanish tomorrow and the world would not be worse off for it, but I’m not saying we should censor webcomics. That’s the only reason I came in here - because I thought that was going to be the question, but the OP made it clear that it wasn’t. "Why do we need a book like “Hogg?” is a far, FAR more interesting question than “should Hogg be censored?” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-need-a-book-like-hogg/529261.md?page=5)