Castration in fiction books

[Lovey (imported)]

I've come across an old sci-fi book from the early 70's called "The Alteration". Anyone here of it?

It's one of those "alternate" history books. You know, like, what if Hitler won WW2. Catch my drift?

Anyway, the book takes place in "present day" and scenario is this: Martin Luther becomes a pope(!) and castration never becomes outlawed by the Vatican when it comes to choirboys.

The "hero" of the book knows what becomes of choirboys, so he decides to leave town because he knows he'll be castrated. The Vatican is hot on his trail to nut him.

Suffice it to say, the Vatican never catches up to him, but he becomes nutted by other means (which is pretty vague in the book how or why he ultimately gets castrated).

I'm also aware of some Anne Rice book where she lovingly describes the castration of the "hero" of that book.

[Paolo]

I've heard of The Alteration. Where did you find it? Anne's book is called Cry to Heaven. Also, River God by Wilbur Smith has a great castration scene, but only one. It's still a good book though. Castration in fiction is a bit hard to come by, it seems; I think that's why we write so much of it here. If you can't find the book to buy that you want, you write it yourself.:p

[Lovey (imported)]

I found "The Alteration" at the local library. The book is at least 30 years old. I don't know if it is still in print. Good luck trying to find it!

[Kortpeel (imported)]

There was a series of books on 'Angelique' by Sergeanne Colonne (I may not have spelt her name correctly) translated from the French. The best one was 'Angelique and the Sultan.' There are several castration scenes in it. One that I recall was a man who fell foul of the Sultan was nullified by tying his genitals to a camel. The camel was made to run off across the desert and when the slack in the rope was taken up: "Oof!"

You sometimes see old paper back copies in second hand book shops. It's a good read.

Kortpeel

[JesusA (imported)]

The Alteration is a novel by Kingsley Amis, a popular, but second-rate, British author. He is best known for Lord Jim, but wrote a number of other novels and short stories and edited anthologies of poetry and science fiction. He was mostly renowned as a curmudgeon and an anti-Catholic. The Alteration displays both of those strands of his character. It was published almost simultaneously with Anne Rice’s Cry to Heaven, but it is nowhere near as well written, nor was it as well-received. Hard to find on the rare book market.

[Cruel_Girl (imported)]

Camille Paglia's book "Sexual Personnae" has several dozen refferences of castration related topics, as well as some scenes depicting physical castration throughout history.

This is popularized most in her book concerning the ancient civilizations within the Greco-Roman world.

[highlander (imported)]

Hi Sarah, I love topic dealing with historical cultures reagding sex and taboo......you seem to have some knowledge in this field, I owned several books dealing with these subject and they are no longer available or banned.

[SquirmEWorm (imported)]

Just read a pretty good castration story in a recent French book by Anna Gavalda called "I Wish Someone Were Waiting For Me Somewhere". It is a collection of short stories, and the castration story is entitled "Catgut". The castratrix in the story is a lady vet, and the author of the story is a lady, so this got me pretty hot.

Enjoy!

[sweetboy (imported)]

While not playing a primary plot role, a couple of Orson Scott Card's books have prominent castrations in them...

"Hart's Hope"

"Songmaster"

[Paolo]

Card also mentions castration in passing in almost all of the ALVIN MAKER books. SEVENTH SON, RED PROPHET, etc. While none of the characters are eunuchs, he does mention it at least once.

SONGMASTER involved chemical castration of singing boys, etc., but never mentioned surgical castration except in passing - something like "it would seem kinder to just cut them off." or something like that.