'If you want to understand what postmodernism is, read American Psycho.'

So says my sociology of science lecturer (she's awesome -- and I thought that before she said about American Psycho). I totally agree; for a compelling example of what postmodern consumer society is, American Psycho is the go-to book. There are probably better examples of postmodern literature, but that's not of particular interest to sociologists.

She went on to say something that totally astonished me.

'I once set American Psycho for a class of first-years. The parents weren't happy, but by the end of it, they understood what postmodernism is.'

I find that amazing. What sort of parent would be unhappy about what their kids are reading at university level?

My parents have let me roam free through books since I was a little kid. They taught me how to use a dictionary - the same Concise Oxford I still have - and told me I could read whatever I wanted from home or the young-adult section of the library, look up anything I didn't understand, but that if I came across anything I found disturbing, I should find something else to read. I still think that's good advice, and I follow it to this day. Why read something awful when there's so much that's good out there?

It's caused problems, of course. When I was in year two, I started at a new school, and after the first silent reading time, I went home and complained to my mum about the boring kiddy books that were provided in the classroom. My mum told me to take in my book that I was reading at home, and I did. The next day I came home with a note from my teacher pinned to my bag, telling my parents that I was reading a book that was 'inappropriate for my age level' - insomuch as it had chapters, and no pictures. (Smartarse kid that I was: 'No, look, Ms Wilson, it's got pictures, see, right here on the cover. It's a cat, see?'). The battle over that one took a good couple of months, and in the end the school librarian (Mrs Libeary Smith) was put in charge of my literary welfare.

My parents only ever banned me from reading one book - a book which I promptly snuck out of my mum's bedroom and read cover to cover. It was apparently infinitely forgettable, because for years I thought the book in question was Stephen King's Insomnia, and when I reread it a couple of years ago, there was no sex scene at all. The school librarian told me I had to get my parents' permission to read the second Tomorrow When the War Began book - third? Whichever one had the sex scene - and that permission was promptly given. My mum and the librarian both asked me not to read it in class, so as not to provoke another flurry of notes about age-appropriate reading material.

There were occasional attempts made to steer me away from particular books - my dad once suggested that I might find Stephen King books a bit scary (I was about ten or eleven at the time), and that I should wait til I was a bit older to read them. I waited about three weeks, read The Shining, which was the first Stephen King book I could find on my family's well-stocked bookshelves, and then ambushed my dad to complain that the books weren't scary at all, and that I was really disappointed, and could he reccommend something else instead? That's the only time I can remember being told I was too young to read something.

Last Christmas, my mum bought me a copy of Ben Elton's Past Mortem, which includes a pretty graphic sex scene which features fisting and bareback anal. After I unwrapped it, mum told me that she'd flipped through it in the bookstore, and that it was 'a bit risque, dear -- I hope that doesn't bother you'. She said she'd opened it up, read a page or two, picked her jaw back up off the floor and shut the book firmly, reasoning that I was old enough to make up my own mind about what I read. Mothers seem to have a pretty unerring instinct for the risque - she'd opened that book to the single dirty page in it. It's mostly a humourous detective story. This is not to say that her instincts don't fail her sometimes - when I went to see Secretary, she told me that I might want to leave halfway through because it's disturbing, but that I should stay all the way through anyhow. My dad later told me that she'd gone to see the film under the misapprehension that it was 'a nice romantic comedy'.

As far as uni stuff goes, though, I can't imagine my parents caring at all, beyond the obvious fact that they're concerned about the pragmatism of working in gender and cultural studies, and would quite like it if I were still reading physics textbooks or something. It's one thing to steer a small child in the direction of age-and-intellect-appropriate books, but quite another to tell your 18-year-old, university-level child what they can and can't read. If a kid is bright enough to get into uni, they're bright enough to read American Psycho in a critical way, and to understand that what matters about the book is not necessarily the ol' ultraviolence. Ditto Clockwork Orange, which is another text I've heard criticised on the basis of its appropriateness as a university text (oddly, not the novel, which was set on my year eleven English reading list and which tends to be much less criticised than the film. Are they that different?).

Weird.

(Edited to add: My sister is visiting me at the moment (yes, the predicted drama has materialised), and she says she was only ever told not to read things by teachers. She added that quite a few movies were off-limits, though.)

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Also today: I have written 600 words of my essay which is due on Tuesday, procured a book which will be helpful in writing the remaining 2500 words, made up a recipe for potato and spinach curry (which is, so far, cooking up well, albeit with a bit more kick than I'd anticipated), and bought a new knitting needle with which to embark on my next, supersecret project. Yay for rain, which encourages me to a) sit at home and work, and b) run my outside errands as quickly as possible.