Word: sexe
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...historical novels, Englishman Alfred Duggan (The Little Emperors) is out of step with most of the others in his business; he 1) follows history, instead of twisting it to fit his story; 2) is steeped in his subject but does not smell of the library; and 3) keeps sex in its place. Duggan's penalty is that his novels have scant chance to become U.S. bestsellers. His satisfaction on the other hand, can be that he is writing some of the best historicals to be had nowadays-historical which are also good novels...
Duggan's Lady for Ransom is told in the first person by an 11th century soldier-turned-monk who never raises his voice. In a Byzantine Empire setting in which rape and pillage were as common as piety, Author Duggan does not muster enough sex-and-sadism scenes to outfit a single chapter of many historicals. He simply tells a fine story full of color and action, informed with a sense of history as pervasive as it is unobtrusive. Professors trying to explain how the Turks were able to wallop the Christian armies of Byzantium could do much worse...
Sorokin & Sex...
...standards of the contemporary historical novel, things are pretty tame. Jude saves a young-girl from making a fool of herself over an old man by doing her portrait as if she had drowned herself, like the old man's previous young wife; Jude flirts gingerly with sex when he meets a blowsy, redheaded tavern mis tress whose face just fits the Rubens-like nude canvas which he almost never dis plays. Closest he comes to trouble is when a sheriff mistakenly nabs him as Ruby Lambkin, a highwayman whose legendary misdeeds run a counterpoint through the novel...
Between Dragnet and the pack is a qualitative difference. CBS's new The Man Behind the Badge, which borrows techniques both from Dragnet and The Big Story, may develop into a close rival. Badge skillfully adds a dash of sex to its sadism, and makes the dose palatable to the squeamish with a high-sounding dedication to such unsung public servants as probation officers, women wardens, youth counselors and tracers of missing persons...