I just read Elisabeth Ladenson's Dirt for Art's Sake: Books on Trial from Madame Bovary to Lolita (it wasn't bad; I might discuss it later). Ladenson reminds me that in his "On a Book Entitled Lolita," Nabokov wrote that apart from the topic of his book, there are two "themes which are utterly taboo as far as American publishers are concerned":
a Negro-White marriage which is a complete and glorious success resulting in lots of children and grandchildren; and the total atheist who lives a happy and useful life, and dies in his sleep at the age of 106.
You can tell a lot about a society by its taboos and who it likes to see punished, I suppose is the point.
Hmmm.
Well, Happy Christmas, your arse, anyhow.