The Trials of Portnoy

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The Trials of Portnoy Page 29

by Patrick Mullins


  Cerf, 1977, p. 256.

  Steven Heller, ‘Paul Bacon, bestseller’, Printmag, 10 June 2015.

  Josh Greenfeld, ‘Portnoy’s Complaint’, New York Times Book Review, 23 February 1969, pp. 1–2.

  Alfred Kazin, ‘Up against the wall, Mama!’, New York Review, 27 February 1969.

  ‘A sex novel of the absurd’, Time, 21 February 1969, pp. 66–67.

  Tony Tanner, ‘Surfeit of oysters’, Spectator, 18 April 1969.

  Christopher Wordsworth, ‘Leading a goy life’, Guardian, 17 April 1969.

  Avishai, 2012, p. 5.

  Cooper, 1996, pp. 110–11. Irvinge Howe would, in 1972, add to the pile a more serious criticism of Portnoy, arguing that it spoke to a ‘yearning to undo the fate of birth’. He asked: ‘Who, born a Jew in the twentieth century, has been so lofty in spirit never to have shared this fantasy? But who, born a Jew in the twentieth century, has been so foolishly in mind as to dally with it for more than a moment?’ See Howe, ‘Philip Roth reconsidered’, Commentary, December 1972.

  Roth, 2016 [1975], pp. 15–16.

  Ibid., pp. 16–17.

  Salman Rushdie, ‘Salman Rushdie discusses Portnoy’s Complaint’, BBC Video, 3 June 2018.

  Atlas, 2019.

  David Remnick, ‘The fierceness of Philip Roth’, New Yorker, 15 May 2000.

  Burgess, 1984, p. 106.

  Roth Pierpont, 2014, p. 53.

  Chapter 6: Regulation 4A

  J.O. Sullivan, ‘Publication for Review’, 19 March 1969, NAA: A425, 72/4378.

  ‘Commonwealth of Australia: Minute Paper: Proof Copy’, 28 March 1969, NAA: A425, 72/4378.

  J.H. Richards, ‘Publication: Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth’, 31 March 1969, NAA: A425, 72/4378.

  Chief Inspector to the National Literature Board of Review members, 18 April 1969, NAA: A425, 72/4378.

  Among the changes amid the agreement for uniform censorship was a decision to bring state representatives onto the National Literature Board of Review who were not necessarily experts in literature. Mulholland, for example, was a Queensland housewife who had served on the Queensland Literature Board of Review; Lloyd O’Neil was a publisher; and Marie Neale was an education and child-welfare academic.

  Una Mulholland to Lloyd O’Neil, n.d.; H.C. Chipman to O’Neil, 3 March 1969; M.D. Neale to O’Neil, 1 June 1969; Lloyd O’Neil to E.R. Bryan, n.d., NAA: A425, 72/4378.

  R.M. Keogh to Malcolm Scott, 11 June 1969, NAA: A425, 72/4378. Regulation 4A of the Customs (Prohibited Importations) Regulation applied to all publications that described, depicted, expressed or otherwise dealt with matters of sex, drugs, crime, cruelty, and/or violence in a way that offended standards of morality and decency.

  Gordon to Customs CBA, 24 June 1969, NAA: A425, 72/4378.

  ‘“Portnoy’s Complaint” appeal plan’, SMH, 28 June 1969, p. 1.

  Greene, in Roger Louis (ed.), 2008, p. 217; Sherry, 2005, p. 45; Young, 1976.

  Harrap to Askew, 27 June 1969, ‘Correspondence relating to the export to Australia of Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Milton Roth’, JC 118/2, Jonathan Cape Archive, University of Reading (hereafter JC 118/2), PRHA, University of Reading.

  Greene to Scott, 4 July 1969, NAA: A425, 72/4378.

  Scott to Greene, 25 July 1969, ibid.

  Bryan to Sloan, 10 September 1969, ibid.

  Greene to Scott, 26 September 1969, ibid.

  Dutton to Greene, 4 July 1969, JC 118/2, PRHA, University of Reading.

  Harrap to Greene, 17 July 1969, ibid.

  Sayers to Greene, 26 August 1969, ibid.

  Greene to Sayers, 12 September 1969, ibid.

  McDonald to Gorton, 17 June 1969, NAA: A425, 72/4378.

  Glaskin to Customs, 31 July 1969, ibid.

  Peacock to Scott, 14 August 1969, ibid.

  Bayes to Scott, 20 September 1969, ibid.

  McElhone to Scott, 7 October 1969, ibid.

  C.S. Gleeson to Scott, 13 October 1969, ibid.

  Burt to Scott, 15 October 1969, ibid.

  ‘Portnoy to gatecrash: Greene’s complaint’, Sunday Observer, 26 October 1969, p. 6.

  Murphy, ‘Radio script: censorship’, July 1967, FLG–7–69, , accessed 21 April 2019.

  Ian Fitchett, ‘Policy would end most censorship’, SMH, 31 July 1969, p. 8.

  Gough Whitlam, 1969 election policy speech, delivered at Sydney Town Hall, 1 October 1969, , accessed 21 April 2019.

  Hasluck, ‘Events following the election of October 25, 1969’, NAA: M1767, 3.

  Evan Williams, ‘This guy Chipp, now…’, SMH, 11 March 1970, p. 2.

  Harrap to Greene, 19 November 1969, JC 118/2, PRHA, University of Reading.

  Greene to Chipp, 1 December 1969, NAA: A425, 72/4378.

  Chipp to Greene, 31 December 1969, ibid.

  Greene to Chipp, 13 January 1970, ibid.

  Williams to Greene, 24 November 1969, JC 118/2, PRHA, University of Reading.

  Warnock to McCutcheon, December 1969, ibid.

  Stucley to Lynch, 14 October 1969; Wallman to Chipp, 29 January 1970, NAA: A425, 72/4378.

  Greene to Rutherford, 15 April 1970, JC 118/2, PRHA, University of Reading.

  Greene to O’Neil, 23 December 1969, ibid.

  Harrap to Greene, 20 January 1970, ibid.

  Stonier to Greene, 3 June 1970, ibid.

  Evan Williams, ‘Mr Chipp’s little show’, SMH, 15 April 1970, p. 2.

  ‘Dirty b**k s**tion’, Arena, 2 March 1970, pp. 16–18.

  ‘MLA objects to book extract’, SMH, 11 March 1970, p. 6.

  ‘Shock therapy’, Arena, 17 March 1970, pp. 2, 18.

  Dyason to Chipp, 27 May 1970, NAA: A425, 72/4378.

  O’Moffat to Chipp, 10 July 1970, ibid.

  Richards to Mills, 5 August 1970, ibid.

  Michie to Chipp, 19 July 1970, ibid.

  Chipp to Michie, 23 July 1970, ibid.

  Chapter 7: Straws in the wind

  John Hooker, ‘Penguin boss fell in love with sea’, Australian, 23 September 1994, p. 23.

  A.W. Sheppard would write, in 1962, that whereas Australia and New Zealand together published around 1,000 books per year, Britain published around 18,000, and the US around 12,000. Moreover, according to P.R. Stephensen, Australia imported around a quarter of total British book production — around £18 million worth of books — each year during the 1960s, with obvious effects on Australian reading culture. As Stephensen put it: ‘The minds of Australians are being conditioned 90 per cent by imported books.’ See Sheppard, ‘Australians are best-sellers’, Sunday Mirror, 26 August 1962; Stephensen, ‘Aust. writers and local publishers’, SMH, 18 July 1962, p. 2.

  ‘Penguin’s former chief takes on another challenge’, Age, 8 May 1976, p. 18; author’s interview with Hilary McPhee, 6 March 2019; Munro and Sheahan-Bright (eds), 2006, pp. 3–52.

  ‘Penguin’s former chief takes on another challenge’, Age, 8 May 1976, p. 18.

  Froelich would later remark that, next to John Hooker (who had called him this), anyone would appear conservative.

  Author’s interview with Peter Froelich, 13 December 2018.

  Dutton, 1996, p. 268.

  Author’s interview with Hilary McPhee, 6 March 2019.

  Dutton, 1996, p. 96.

  Meredith Michie, then married to Michie, recalled Hooker arriving at their home one night uninvited, ‘personable but intense’, and armed with pages of ideas for a new Australian non-fiction list for Penguin. She was not certain whether Michie had offered Hooker a job yet, or whether his appearance pre-empted that. ‘They hit it off and animatedly exchang
ed ideas over a bottle of red(s),’ she said later. (Author’s correspondence with Meredith Michie, 8 July 2019.)

  Stuart Sayers, ‘The business of words absorbs John Hooker’, Age, 3 November 1973, p. 15.

  Jill Rivers, ‘A serious man in the sauce’, Age, 20 October 1984, ‘Saturday Extra’ supplement, p. 11.

  John Hooker, ‘Penguin boss fell in love with the sea’, Australian, 23 September 1994, p. 15.

  Ibid.

  Author’s interview with Hilary McPhee, 6 March 2019.

  Ibid.; McPhee, 2001, p. 92.

  Author’s interview with Bob Sessions, 16 December 2018.

  Thomas Laquer traces the supposed medical associations of masturbation back to an early-eighteenth-century tract titled Onania, or the Sin of Self-Pollution, which promised to guide readers in the ethics of the flesh. See Laquer, 2003.

  ‘“Portnoy’s Complaint” appeal plan’, SMH, 28 June 1969, p. 1.

  Greene to Dutton, in Dutton and Harris (eds), 1970, p. 101.

  Hooker and Dutton, telephone interview transcript, 10 September 1995, Papers of Geoffrey Dutton, NLA MS 7285.

  Polling in 1969 by Roy Morgan showed 60 per cent support among the public for either increasing or maintaining censorship; by December 1970, support would only have slipped by five percentage points. See ‘Poll finds support for censor’, SMH, 4 December 1970, p. 1.

  Graham C. Greene, ‘Telephone conversation with Mr Hooker of Penguin Australia 8/6/70’, 10 June 1970, JC 118/2, PRHA, University of Reading.

  Hooker to Greene, 9 June 1970, ibid.

  Newman to Greene, 15 June 1970, ibid.

  Greene, ‘Telephone conversation with Mr Hooker dated June 16th’, 17 June 1970, ibid.

  ‘Memorandum for Graham C. Greene’, 22 June 1970, ibid.

  Draft contracts, 22 June 1970; Burdock to Hooker 22 June 1970; and Greene to Hooker, 23 June 1970, ibid.

  Greene to Maschler, 25 June 1970, ibid. It appears that this secrecy was maintained. On 14 August, Greene wrote to Michie to say that he would soon like to let Roth know what had been going on: ‘You will remember that we have been keeping him in the dark so that there is less possibility of a leak.’

  Hooker to Burdock, 29 June 1970, ibid.

  Morpurgo, 1979, p. 315.

  Hooker to Greene, 29 June 1970, JC 118/2, PRHA, University of Reading.

  Author’s interview with David Marr, 22 November 2018.

  Author’s interview with Reginald Barrett, 4 July 2019.

  Bill Gummow, ‘Nightmares and notoriety’, Bar News, Winter 1996, p. 32. Barrett is sceptical about whether this advice originated from Cowper. He said later he would be surprised if Cowper would offer such a confident prediction, and points out that there was no love lost between Cowper and Gordon Barton. He adds that he always drew a distinction between the advice that he drafted and that Cowper prepared in response to the instructions from London, and the subsequent publication of Portnoy in Australia.

  Gordon Barton, ‘An open letter to the President of the United States of America’, SMH, 22 October 1966, p. 11.

  Richard Walsh, who became publisher at Angus & Robertson in 1972, argues that the commercial opportunity was a notable factor. The knowledge that Portnoy’s Complaint would sell in Angus & Robertson’s stores and boost its profits, gave an additional reason to print the book; author’s interview with Richard Walsh, 15 May 2019.

  Everingham, 2009, p. 186; ‘Gordon Barton: typescript memoir’, p. 28, Papers of Sam Everingham relating to Gordon Barton, NSW ML MSS 8614, 4 (27).

  Michie to Greene, 24 July 1970, JC 118/2, PRHA, University of Reading.

  Author’s interview with Hilary McPhee, 6 March 2019.

  ‘Penguin’, John Hooker, Papers of Geoffrey Dutton, NLA MS 7285.

  Dutton, 1996, p. 111.

  Michie to Greene, 24 July 1970, JC 118/2, PRHA, University of Reading.

  R.M. Keogh, ‘Minute paper’, 21 July 1970, NAA: A425, 72/4378.

  Michie to Greene, 3 August 1970, JC 118/2, PRHA, University of Reading.

  Author’s interview with Hilary McPhee, 6 March 2019; Di Gribble, ‘Don Chipp: larrikin, censor, and party founder’, Crikey, 29 August 2006.

  See Edward Quill’s statement on his meeting with Aubrey Cousins, 31 August 1970, NSW State Archives (NSWSA): NRS 906, 12/4121, item A69/950.

  Chipp to Eric Willis, 4 August 1970, ibid.

  Chapter 8: An endemic complaint

  Bob Gould, interviewed by Edgar Waters, 27 November 1994, NLA Oral History, TRC 3185, p. 160.

  Chris Pritchard, ‘Booksellers to ignore govt warning’, SMH, 30 August 1970, p. 43.

  ‘Publishers to defy ban on US novel’, SMH, 29 August 1970, p. 7.

  ‘Banned book goes on sale’, Canberra Times, 31 August 1970, p. 6.

  ‘Banned book on sale’, SMH, 31 August 1970, p. 4.

  Kingsmill to Allan, 28 August 1970, NSWSA: NRS 906, 12/4121, item A69/950.

  Hooker to Greene, 2 September 1970, JC 118/2, PRHA, University of Reading.

  ‘Portnoy shop in WA’, Daily News, 1 September 1970, p. 2.

  Author’s interview with Paul Grainger, 30 January 2019.

  ‘Vic govt to prosecute on banned novel’, SMH, 1 September 1970, p. 12.

  Melvin to Jackson, 28 August 1970, NSWSA: NRS 906, 12/4121, item A69/950.

  Bruce Skurray to Willis, 31 August 1970 and n.a., 2 September 1970, ibid.

  Kingsmill to Willis, 31 August 1970, ibid.

  ‘“Open mind on book” — Willis’, Daily Mirror, 1 September 1970.

  ‘Banned novel: Vic will prosecute publisher’, SMH, 1 September 1970, p. 1.

  Dutton (1996) cites John Hooker’s recollection, twenty years after the fact, to the effect that police arrived at eight o’clock; a 7 September 1970 letter from Arthur Rylah to Don Chipp states that it was at ten o’clock; Kenneth Walters stated that it was 10.45 am.

  Michie to Greene, 3 August and 24 August 1970, JC 118/2, PRHA, University of Reading.

  Williams to Greene, 6 September 1970, ibid.

  McCutcheon and Barwell to Greene, 18 September 1970, ibid.

  Reid to Comptroller-General, ‘Press enquiry — Portnoy’s Complaint’, 1 September 1970, NAA: A425, 72/4378.

  ‘Agreement denied’, Canberra Times, 1 September 1970, p. 3.

  Len King, interviewed by Peter Donovan, 11 November 2004, State Library of South Australia, J.D. Somerville Oral History collection, OH 715/1.

  ‘Portnoy complaints’, Bulletin, 12 September 1970, p. 27; Dunstan, 1981, p. 196; ‘Portnoy in WA shop’, Daily News, 1 September 1970, p. 2.

  Michie to Greene, and Hooker to Greene, 2 September 1970, JC 118/2, PRHA, University of Reading.

  Author’s interview with Hilary McPhee, 6 March 2019.

  Chipp to Rylah, 14 September 1970, NAA: A425, 72/4378.

  R.M. Keogh, ‘Minute paper’, 21 July 1970, ibid.

  Don Chipp, CPD HoR, vol. 69, 2 September 1970, p. 832.

  Rylah to Chipp, 7 September 1970, NAA: A425, 72/4378.

  ‘Penguin dollars back Portnoy’, Age, 2 September 1970, p. 3.

  ‘WA seller has plan to beat ban on book’, Daily News, 2 September 1970, p. 2; ‘Portnoy sells — despite raids’, Daily News, 3 September 1970, p. 4; Max Beattie, ‘Portnoy’s Complaint — it hits Melbourne’, Age, 1 September 1970, p. 3.

  David Dale, ‘Mr Portnoy’s complaint: why all this fuss about a book’, SMH, 2 September 1970, p. 14.

  ‘Censorable complaint’, Age, 2 September 1970, p. 9.

  Bob Gould, interviewed by Edgar Waters, 27 November 1994, NLA Oral History, TRC 3185, p. 160.

  ‘Portnoy complaints’, Bulletin, 12 September 1970, p. 27.

  Bob Gould, ‘A bleak wind back to a dismal past�
��, Ozleft, 3 June 2008, , accessed 16 September 2018.

  Hooker to Greene, 8 September 1970, JC 118/2, PRHA, University of Reading.

  McPhee, 2001, pp. 109–10. McPhee said later that this fear caused her to leave the Mont Albert house she shared with Michie while he held his press conference on 30 August (author’s interview with Hilary McPhee, 6 March 2019).

  Hooker to Greene, 8 September 1970, JC118/2, PRHA, University of Reading. All of the available written correspondence between Hooker, Michie, and Greene confirms that another print run was ordered. Peter Froelich, however, states that the second print run never occurred and that there was never any intention of doing it. In addition to the publicity the news of another print run garnered, he said, it would be of benefit to the censorship fight if the public demand for more copies remained unsated: it would help to keep the book in the headlines.

  ‘Penguin will publish book on Portnoy court hearings’, Age, 4 September 1970, p. 2.

  Hooker to Greene, 8 September 1970, JC 118/2, PRHA, University of Reading.

  Rigg (ed.), 1969.

  Author’s interview with Julie Rigg, 31 August 2019.

  ‘Vice squad antics amuse the dean’, Daily News, 5 September 1970, p. 2.

  ‘Many paths to corruption’, Canberra Times, 4 September 1970, p. 2.

  ‘Portnoy be damned, what about aged?’, Truth, 5 September 1970, p. 4.

  ‘The Portnoy tug-of-war’, Canberra Times, 5 September 1970, p. 12.

  John Pringle, ‘Portnoy: a cry from the heart’, SMH, 5 September 1970, p. 19.

  Morris to Michie, 14 September 1970, NAA: A425, 72/4378.

  Greene to Hooker, 22 September 1970, JC 118/2, PRHA, University of Reading.

  ‘“Portnoy’s Complaint” has a setback’, Canberra Times, 1 September 1970, p. 1; ‘No action against Portnoy seller in ACT’, Canberra Times, 8 September 1970, p. 1; ‘Portnoy hearings adjourned’, SMH, 9 September 1970, p. 5. Hughes has no memory of this matter being brought to his attention (author’s interview with Tom Hughes, 2 December 2018).

  ‘Deal on Portnoy slated’, Age, 10 September 1970, p. 10.

 

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