Memoirous

I was reminded the other day of something that happened when I was a teenager, before the “new” Woodbourne Library in Centerville was built, when they rented space in a strip mall near PK Hardware, where my mother worked part-time. Anyway, I tried to check out a book and the librarian at circulation told me in a prim voice that “this book is for adults.” I believe I was in high school. The book was The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley. Published in 1953 it had a Victorian feel and theme of illicit love at the plot’s center. I say feel because it wasn’t as explicit in its treatment of sex as D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover . You see, I checked it out anyway.   I remember being a little lost while reading it. I knew something was going on between the adult characters. In fact, it made me wonder if adult material was discouraged because it was so oblique. Because the story is told from the naïve point of view of a young boy used as the lovers go-between we only catch glimpses ...