Celebrate the freedom to read during Banned Books Week.
Scanning the banned books table at my favorite local bookstore I came across this mini-review of one of my long-time favorite oft-contested books:
And right next to it, one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century:
Those silly Diesel boys.
Can you imagine being told what you can or cannot read and come to your own conclusions about? There is a nice little essay about the neverending Harry Potter ban brouhaha where the author sums up the why of the ban attempts quite nicely:
...[to] limit education and information to facts so incontestable that they arouse no controversy at any level, thereby leaving young people unequipped to think about and address larger questions about the nature of our society.
If you don't allow your child (or adult, for that matter) to ponder through imagination and possibility in books the vast world in which we live, how can they be expected to tackle it everyday, and try to move fluidly through it? It's just one less tool they have to succeed. I feel so lucky that my parents encouraged me to read everything I could get my hands on. While I'm no super-genius from reading everything from Playboy to Russian lit, at the very least reading assured me that the world is my oyster.
Only the suppressed word is dangerous.
Karl Ludwig Börne
Amen.
Scanning the banned books table at my favorite local bookstore I came across this mini-review of one of my long-time favorite oft-contested books:
And right next to it, one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century:
Those silly Diesel boys.
Can you imagine being told what you can or cannot read and come to your own conclusions about? There is a nice little essay about the neverending Harry Potter ban brouhaha where the author sums up the why of the ban attempts quite nicely:
...[to] limit education and information to facts so incontestable that they arouse no controversy at any level, thereby leaving young people unequipped to think about and address larger questions about the nature of our society.
If you don't allow your child (or adult, for that matter) to ponder through imagination and possibility in books the vast world in which we live, how can they be expected to tackle it everyday, and try to move fluidly through it? It's just one less tool they have to succeed. I feel so lucky that my parents encouraged me to read everything I could get my hands on. While I'm no super-genius from reading everything from Playboy to Russian lit, at the very least reading assured me that the world is my oyster.
Only the suppressed word is dangerous.
Karl Ludwig Börne
Amen.
Labels: books
posted by Ammie at 9:50 PM
6 Comments:
While I agree with what you are saying, many of your points, etc. I still believe some books just shouldn't exist: please allow me to list those in ascending order:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
:)
Trevor
Wow, not even The Da Vinci Code? ;P
Am I the only person in the world who read CATCHER IN THE RYE and thought "God, that little twerp needs a slap" at least once a page? Just me?
Willard Pierce's "Turner Diaries" - so kindly given to me from the legendary Chad Macho- was an enlightened reading for my high school mind. And I mean enlightened, literally.
Ah. But to burn it? To preserve it for it's "historical significance" would be quaint.. as would be the preservation of the "Harlequinn Romance" series.
...I am not going to bother looking up the proper spelling for that one...
Regardless, these literary treasures are potentially all that may remain after the catastrophe, the comet or such, which is going to wipe this earth clean of most everything.
The reason that these two particular series survive is attributed to their locality.. deep beneath the wastelands of the Rub'al-Khali, where a Bedouin servant has her stash of western literature pilfered from the stores of her owners, and where she, before the comet hit, wiled away her nights in her secret cave dreaming of the sensual life despite her clitorectomy at an early age. Apparently, it was not entirely effective in suppressing her forbidden desires.
Regardless, in the future, when what is left of civilization rebounds, after a few thousand years, and discovers these things- they assume, of course that the literature is religous in nature and yadda yadda
Mark, I recall thinking Holden Caulfield was a saint when I first read Catcher... in high school, and then I reread it for a college course and I did get the itchy bitch slap hand a couple of times. I think I got less whiny and misunderstood as I got older. Holden, however, is mercifully frozen in time.
Craig, RE: Harlequin. Astute.
Chad Macho. Ha, that's name I haven't heard in a long time. Didn't he do something famous in Oklahoma City? Or was it Atlanta?
"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."
Noam Chomsky
Chad's fate is unknown, though last I heard he was warming up to the idea of spectrums beyond pale- believe it or not. I think his whole act was a safe outlet for teenage angst, given that that the trees of Tuolumne County cast no shadows, it seems.
Aside- yeah. Noam has it correct- as eveyone comes from somewhere, and they must be allowed to proceed to somewhere else.. else beyond here.
People and books- both are mere repositories for principles and narratives-
Where is the distinction drawn?
While the book cannot stand up for action, it is a call to action metered out, regardless. Energy and potential energy, Abortion..
and pacifism.
How does one not burn books, but then burn people, regardless?
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