I love Banned Books Week! Some of my favorite books of all time are banned books…I mean, check out this list of classics! Admittedly, a lot of the banning action took place decades ago, but lest anyone think we’ve relaxed our deathgrip on the minds of our children in this new millenium, here are a nice collection of more recent incidents to sneer at:
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Sallinger: Removed by a Dorchester District 2 school board member in Summerville, SC (2001) because it “is a filthy, filthy book.”
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck*: Banned from the George County, Miss. schools (2002) because of profanity.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley: Challenged in Foley, Alabama (2000) because of the depictions of “orgies, self-flogging, suicide” and characters who show “contempt for religion, marriage, and the family.” The book was removed from the library, pending review.
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien: Burned in Alamagordo, N. Mex. (2001) outside Christ Community Church along with other Tolkien novels as satanic.
If you’re interested in the most up-to-date reporting on the 2008 open season on communication of unapproved ideas, the American Library Association puts out a yearly list of the books that are challenged, restricted, removed or banned–see if your favorites are on there too!
Leaving you with the bittersweet taste of irony, from January of this year. Enjoy!
*I might sympathize with an attempt to ban it from required reading lists–yes, it was on mine in high school–based on the fact that it sucks ass and there are at least one hundred more interesting and compelling novels that could immediately and happily replace it…but no, I have to defend John Steinbeck’s biggest load of crap evar based on principle. A shame, but there you have it.
It’s a shame really. It seems like they could get a lot out of the books if only they could get past the idea that portrayal = promotion (and learn to cope with a few swearwords by age 15).
I want to defend “Of Mice & Men” as a high school reading assignment. I won’t argue with your statement that it sucks – but I actually think it’s a managable introduction to Steinbeck. I mean, you get the idea of who Steinbeck is and what he writes without slogging all the way through Grapes of Wrath or East of Eden. So in a broad lit class (like Sophomore survey) I think it stands up.
The objection to Fahrenheit 451 is nuts. Yes, the Bible is burned, but if you actually READ the book you would find that the book doesn’t defend that action. Let’s advance our reading comprehension skills a little here. Read beyond the sentence – maybe finish the chapter!
And if we’re going to complain about cussing, let’s talk about cable TV, people. For me, the written swear word doesn’t usually impact me as much as the spoken one.
Melanie-
My junior project was on John Steinbeck. If he wrote it, I read it, and analyzed it.
If he was dropped ENTIRELY from English Lit classes, the world would be a better place.
I might sympathize with an attempt to ban it from required reading lists–yes, it was on mine in high school–based on the fact that it sucks ass and there are at least one hundred more interesting and compelling novels that could immediately and happily replace it…but no, I have to defend John Steinbeck’s biggest load of crap evar based on principle.
Word. Although, i agree, if you are going to be forced to beat your head against a Steinbeck, that is the one to go with.
I do however consider The Grapes of Wrath the best book I never finished, and the only book to date that once I started I didn’t finish. I actually liked it OK, once I caught on that if I skipped every other chapter I still knew what the hell was going on.
One. Just one book by a woman that year would have been appreciated, I mean, I had to read Walden for crying out loud, and more Civil War novels than I care to remember…I am not being picky…any one would have been nice.
As a flack, I think it somewhat weakens the case to include in these lists “private” bannings and burnings (e.g., church groups and individuals, rather than schools and libraries). The difference is the difference between Westboro Baptist Church picketing a synagogue and the county closing one down.
It is deeply ironic that the child in the video (I’m calling her a child because she obviously still thinks like one) objects to Bradbury’s book because it speaks of burning a Bible, when, yes, of course, the entire thesis of the text is that people LIKE HER will contribute to a culture that causes books LIKE THE BIBLE to end up being burned. Her and her tool of a daddy.
Maybe if they read a book (including their own text, that Bible they treat like such an icon) once in a while they would grow the fuck up and have some notion of how to think.
But what do I know, I am an atheist and a leftist college professor.
Those guys are on campus this week — you know the ones, the Jesus hawkers, who hand out the tiny bright green New Testaments? I always give them a polite no thank you and walk on past; but, here in Fuck Smith, Arkansas, plenty of my students are Evangelicals. They collect the New Testaments to re-gift them, to the sinner students and professors among them. I have been getting offers all week. My, is it getting down my neck. (The last time was during a conference over an essay. The student, after the discussion on the essay, pulled a copy out of her backpack and said, softly, she just wanted me to have it. I was VERY polite: I just slid my chair back slightly and indicated the entire shelf of various editions of Bibles, Torahs, Jewish study bibles, Greek New Testaments, etc, and said, very nicely, I SWEAR, that I had it covered, thanks. “Oh,” she said, blinking. “I thought you were an atheist.” “Yep,” I said. “Anything else?”)
The Bible is frequently banned. In America. All that violence, and sex (including references to homosexuality and masturbation).
WOW!!!! Trying to ban a book that is about the wrongness of….banning books!!!! My irony meter just exploded.
Ha ha ha, I totally know what you mean about having to defend Steinbeck on principle! I hate his books, he’s the most unreadable author ever. He was on my required reading list in seventh grade (The Red Pony) in seventh grade (late 70′s) and I already hated him (I’d read through much of my parent’s library by then) so I sweet talked my teacher in letting me substitute Huck Finn on the grounds I’d already read TRP. Actually I’d already read both, but I had no objection to Twain…
But I just don’t understand book banners *headdesk* I’ve made a lifetime of deliberately purchasing banned books on principle…
Oh, and yes, the irony of banning Fahrenheit 451. I mean…honestly… Overloads and blows up every irony meter I’ve ever had
Church people burned Tolkien’s books? Are they not aware that Tolkien was a Christian? As a matter of fact, Tolkien converted C.S. Lewis from atheism to Christianity through many long discussions at Oxford, where both were dons. Maybe they don’t know that Lewis was a Christian, either. “Mere Christianity” and “The Screwtape Letters” may be too deep and too satirical, respectively, and the Perelandra trilogy too long for most.
More to the point, have they ever read the LOTR trilogy? Tolkien is all about good vs. evil and he’s not on evil’s side. It’s a bit like burning the New Testament because Satan tempted Jesus in the desert, never mind that Jesus resisted all of Satan’s lures.
I agree that there are better choices than Steinbeck for school reading lists, and I feel the same way about James Fenimore Cooper.