MARBELLA CLUB

According to news reports, the offensive passage in Verisimilitude amounts to three sentences that concern the romantic life of an unnamed crown prince

."From King Rama to the Crown Prince, the nobility was renowned for
their romantic entanglements and intrigues. The Crown Prince had
many wives "major and minor "with a coterie of concubines for
entertainment. One of his recent wives was exiled with her entire
family, including a son they conceived together, for an undisclosed
indiscretion. He subsequently remarried with another woman and
fathered another child. It was rumoured that if the prince fell in
love with one of his minor wives and she betrayed him, she and her
family would disappear with their name, familial lineage and all
vestiges of their existence expunged forever."

As reporters covering Nicolaides were warned that it would be just as illegal for them to repeat the passage as it was for him to publish it, news reports I've seen don't say what the disrespectful sentences are. They do say that the law Nicolaides broke has never been invoked by the royal family itself, always by government officials who say the offense puts national security at risk.

Why? Because Thai democracy is constantly falling apart and being patched back together, and the near universal reverence in which the Thai people hold their King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 81, has been deemed indispensable to keeping the country in one piece. Here's blogger Sean Nelson, an American who's taught in Thailand, calling Nicolaides a "fool," adding, "To openly publish such a book and remain in Thailand is asking for trouble."

Nelson continues, "If you do some research on the life of King Bhumibol, you'll see a great man. He's used his ancient powers to up-lift (in a close and personal way) impoverished rural Thais. He took a strong interest in up-lifting the far North of his nation out of suffering and opium-growing. Coffee is now the thriving crop and the land is ideal for it. Not only has he crossed boundaries by allowing commoners to openly look at him, but also to lay hands on him (laugh if you will, but it's a profound symbol.) Considering the culture to which he belongs, he has been a strong force for liberty and equality in Thailand. And, in my possibly wrong opinion, expatriates who under-mine the royal family or the crown prince shit where they sleep."Which, from the descriptions of prison life in Bangkok, might be what Harry Nicolaides will be doing for the next three years. Unless the king pardons him -- and given the king's forgiving history with a law he has said he personally regrets, this is an outcome that's not only possible but even, we must hope, likely.
There are bloggers who maintain that Verisimilitude is so obscure they question whether the book actually exists. They seem to be looking for reasons not to sympathize with Nicolaides. But here's a post from the Akha Heritage Foundation (the Akha are a tribe who live in the hills of northern Thailand) that not only claims the book exists but reviews it, calling it a "trenchant commentary on the political and social life of contemporary Thailand....Savage, ruthless and unforgiving, VERISIMILITUDE pulls away the mask of benign congeniality that Thailand has disguised itself with for decades and reveals a people who are obsessed with Western affluence and materialism and who trade their cultural integrity and personal honour for the baubles of Babylonian America." Then the post prints what it claims is an excerpt from Nicolaides's book, an excerpt describing the romantic exploits of a crown prince. Read it if you dare, but then don't plan a vacation to Thailand.The Akha Heritage Foundation post says, "Write the Thai Government, the Australian Government, and demand his release." That would be a welcome development, and I'm not sure their post brings it any closer.