Word: perrine
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...BOWDLER'S LEGACY: A HISTORY OF EXPURGATED BOOKS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA by Noel Perrin. 296 pages. Atheneum...
What could prompt an educated man to change Lady Macbeth's most famous line to "Out, crimson spot"? Or to excise mention of Queequeg's underwear from Moby Dick? In framing answers, Noel Perrin, professor of English at Dartmouth, takes as his point of departure Dr. Thomas Bowdler, who had a passion for chess and prison reform and an aversion to London smog, sick people, and all writing that, as he put it, "can raise a blush on the cheek of modesty." Certainly the Family Shakespeare (first edition 1807, second edition 1818) became the most popular expurgation...
Licensed Hands. Delicacy, Perrin suggests, became an overrated virtue in the 19th century. No response rated higher than "being easily shocked." One proved one's sensitivity by one's blushes, as Dr. Bowdler indicated, and, if necessary, by fainting. It was clearly feminine behavior, and Perrin dares to hint that behind every successful bowdlerizer there is a woman. Perrin's real scoop, however, is the suggestion that the real Bowdler probably was not Thomas at all, nor his wife, but his sister Henrietta Maria, known as Harriet...
...What Perrin's survey makes alarmingly evident is that bowdlerizing could become almost as unbridled a lust as lust itself. An expurgator may begin quietly enough by "lopping" or "cutting." He might omit, say, Sodom and Gomorrah from Old Testament stories. But before he is through, he is likely to end up as a compulsive cleaner-"the sort of man who is capable of bringing out an expurgated edition of Wordsworth," as a Victorian clergyman with a penchant for editing was once described...
Young Girls of Rochefort -- Jacques (Lola, Umbrellas of Cherbourg) Demy's fabulous Cinemascope musical with a great Michel Legland score and the cast of the year: Catherine Deneuve and Francoise Dorleac pursued by Gene Kelly (looking a young 35) and Jacques Perrin, while Michel Piccoli and Danielle Darieux watch from the wings. The color photography radiates day-light and Demy steadfastly resists all but the joyful aspects of romance