Triggered

[heslopian]

that is, if i am in a classroom about to read Joyce to the little angels, i might like to say, in a more human way, "there are bits in this book that may make you feel uncomfortable, or inspire intense emotions, due to the subject matter. . . [oh dear, that didn't sound human, at all. but you get the point]"

It's funny you should mention Joyce. I've been reading Dubliners for my course, and one story implicitly ends with two little boys unexpectedly witnessing a paedophile-vagrant wanking in a field. There's a story that'd be triggered up the arsehole and out of the mouth these days!

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I read a lot of stuff when I was probably too young for it. The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson (a book about an admitted psychopath and Texas sheriff who feels nothing while hurting and killing), poems by Anne Sexton about masturbation and the Holocaust, ghost stories and crime novels. Part of the reason that I was attracted to the library was that it contained stuff not restricted by the censors and grown-up world; you could expose yourself to all kinds of shocking experiences without having to buy meth and break into cars