Jordan axes Saddam's new novel "Get out of here, curse you!"

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L26431394.htm

AMMAN, June 26 (Reuters) - Jordan has banned Saddam Hussein's new novel on the grounds the tale of an Arab tribesman who defeats a foreign intruder could hurt relations between the two countries, censors and the publisher said on Sunday.

"Get out of here, curse you!," believed to have been penned by the ousted Iraqi leader before the U.S.-led war, was set to be released in Jordan and other Arab countries on Thursday by a Jordanian company with the permission of Saddam's family.

"Publishing this novel will harm the Iraqi-Jordanian relationship and we are keen to have the best relations with Iraq. Jordan will not approve its publication. If they want to publish it they have to do it abroad," Ahmad al-Qudah, head of the government's Press and Publication Department, told Reuters.

The publisher said he had printed 10,000 copies for distribution in Jordan and other Arab countries, including Iraq, after winning initial permission. He said censors changed their mind after a local newspaper reported the upcoming launch. snip

Under Jordanian law, the department has authority to censor books published in Jordan, a close U.S. ally.

[thebigidea]

1. I must admit, i'm quite fascinated by this aspect of that jackass

I would love to see some translated excerpts, this could be the Ed Wood Jr. of pulp fiction!

Have there been other dictator/novelists in recent history?

[NNN0LHI]

2. His forte is love stories if that tells you anything n/t

[TheWraith]

6. It's frequently been my experience

That people tend to choose hobbies that are an opposite or counterpoint to their day job--an office worker who rides a motorcycle, or a cop who takes up fishing. I guess that a dictator who writes love stories is the same principle taken further.

That title: "Get out of here, curse you!"? I guess it's probably snappier in the original Arabic.

[mom cat]

5. Just searched it on Dogpile.... absolutely nothing was there.

[Lautremont]

7. Ed Wood is actually already the Ed Wood of pulp fiction.

He wrote a pretty fair number of berzerkoid books with titles almost as good as "Get out of here, curse you!"

[thebigidea]

8. yeah, I know. I turned one of them into a film a few years back

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0198417/

I think I was just awake too long when I wrote that - think I meant to write "romance novels"

Strange that I'd scribble that considering I spent two years of my life tracking 'em down - i've got a big pile, with great titles like "Diary of a Transvestite Hooker" "Orgy of the Dead" etc etc etc

Interesting to see his fevered film activities transfer to pulp, the first few years of books are really fun and staggeringly autobiographical in many ways. Then it kind of descends into really dull pseudoporn with a few Wood flashes here and there.

[Lautremont]

11. Wow. That's a film I'd love to see.

It's crazy enough, as you say, to see the guy's movies turned into books. A case in point, from Orgy of the Dead:

Our relationship had grown by leaps and bounds. We took to the junkyards at night, boldly and hazardly barefoot among the rusty springs, the jagged pieces of glass, to see who could get wounded first. Then we went through a little ritual of caring for each other. I was developing a splendid facility with sterilizing the orifice, scapulectomy, orchidectomy and other First Aid methodology. We found fourteen different junkyards, no two alike, and each new discovery a wonderfully exciting experience. Our love flourished and progressed as the heaps of decomposed junk mounted.

Good stuff - very romantic. Nice to see another filmmaker on here, btw.

[thebigidea]

12. great quote!

"Orgy" is so strange - I was always curious about how the novelization of a movie that's basically a bunch of bad strip acts would read... its actually lots of his short stories shoehorned into the cardboard plot.

The Wood film got lots of mixed reviews, I either got yelled at for sticking too close to his text or straying too far from it.

We actually ended up shooting a followup feature based on his unfilmed "Vampire's Tomb" screenplay, and a b&w 16mm short based on this melancholy little piece about two drunks called "To Kill a Saturday Night."

By that point, I suddenly realized the cult film basement can be a really depressing ghetto - and to be pigeonholed as some schmuck that did Ed Wood stuff would be nightmarish! I tried to do them with love for the source material, but they came off a bit too campy and arch-on-purpose. Deadly when you're trying to do stuff like this - nobody sets out to make a bad movie on purpose, and its foolish to try.

So those were never edited, and sit on a shelf waiting for a rainy day. In some cases, its probably better to just see them as a line in a filmography than as an actual film.

What's even more disturbing, the followup project was to be Maldoror!
Then 9/11 hit and I got feverishly into politics. The sig link has an archive of all the campaign videos, fluffy yet occasionally amusing stuff.

[Lautremont]

13. How bizarre. I acted in a Maldoror film some years back.

Truly, DU must be the place to be, to have two people who've dabbled in two seperate Maldoror film projects.

I'll check out the stuff on your site. Looks pretty cool!

[atommom]

3. It would be an interesting book to see.

What I'd really like to see, though, is an expose of his relations with the US government over the years. THAT would be very interesting!

[NNN0LHI]

4. Hey, who knows? If this one sells the sky is the limit

That is if the old bugger lives long enough to write another book.

Don

[daleo]

9. It should be packaged with other great Iraq war literature

Like "The Pet Goat".

[ismnotwasm]

10. So a black market

In Saddam's book in Jordon? Anyway, how strange.