banned books and why censorship makes me laugh
—Harper Lee
The Pulitzer Prize winning novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” has been banned from school libraries and denounced for so-called racial slurs and profanity.
The American Library Association keeps a database of objectionable reads and publishes a ‘Most Frequently Challenged Books List’. The list is a melting pot of celebrated authors including Harper Lee, Judy Blume, JK Rowling, Roald Dahl and Toni Morrison.
The ALA have teamed up with Yahoo! to promote Banned Books Week and to encourage “free people to read freely”.
If you’d like to join the rebellion may I recommend one of my personal favourties, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”. Maya Angelou’s autobiographical masterpiece has been near the top of The list for over two decades.
If that doesn’t illicit a jaw-dropping ‘You’ve got to be kidding me’ response, maybe this will.
In no particular order, a selection of the most controversial, most challenged and yes, pity upon pity, most banned books of the last ten years.
1. “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker
2. “Harry Potter” (the series) by JK Rowling
3. “Beloved” by Toni Morrison
4. “The Outsiders” by SE Hinton
5. “Lolita” by Vladmir Nabokov
6. “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain
7. “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck
8. “How to Eat Fried Worms” by Thomas Rockwell
9. “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding
10. “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley
Go on. Knock yourself out.
*See More Challenged/Banned Classics. Also, for giggles check out the ALA. You’ll find Worms between “Girls and Sex” and “View from a Cherry Tree”.
deconstruction
“Obviously you don’t like it,” I tell him.
“Well, it needs a lot of work” He hears me hmpf! and then says, “You want my honest opinion, don’t you?”
“I wasn’t asking for your HONEST OPINION.” I say the words in my most mocksome British accent. “I was just reading it to you.”
He rolls his eyes so hard they’re bound to hurt his head. “You really cant take it, can you?”
Maybe he’s right. Maybe I do see ‘criticism’ as one of those ugly nine letter words like polyester or glutamate. But in my defense, he’s not offering me much else – no construction at the end of it all. Just “Mmmmm, no” or “I don’t like it” or, as is his recent habit, silence.
I should be grateful. I guess. Grateful he’s not building me up to make a fool of myself like those poor sods on ‘American Idol’.
It’s hard to hear you’re bad at something, even when that’s not what you’re being told. But how do you improve if you don’t know where or why or how?
Time to grin and bear it, I guess.
other people’s emails.
Buff,
Thank you so much.
In other news, I went to bed last night wearing my six-year old black glasses (I thought you ran over those.) and a homemade poultice of dry yeast and lemon juice on my face for spots. (Try an aspirin and water paste. The salicylic acid works wonders.)
I was reading the introductory essay of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style and giggling. (I never giggle at grammar.) Next thing I know I’m getting a text message from a group of scientists at MIT declaring me the least bone-able person on the planet. (Clearly they haven’t met my cousin Chuck.)
Rah for self-esteem.
intervention
“You know those 80 year old bird women who rattle around on their porch and throw things? Well, if you’re not careful. That’s gonna be you.”
She doesn’t say a word, so I know she’s listening.
“I’m serious. You’re headed down a slippery slope, lady. Full of cat hair, senility and tinned fruit.”
She’s staring at me. Head cocked. Lips pursed.
“What are you going to tell your grandchildren when they ask why grandma’s snarling at the post man. Or why she’d rather drink vinegar from a half-gallon jug than stop by their birthday party.”
She’s not liking it. ‘Talk to the hand,’ she’s thinking. She’ doesn’t say it. But she’s thinking it.
“It’s time for an intervention. You’re still an attractive young woman. Life doesn’t end with divorce you know.”
It really doesn’t.
“Now. Let’s go shopping for Sarees and we’ll talk about men. I’ll even let you buy me dinner.”
confucius say
“Buffy, you should blog about how you live your life in mild, hysterical panic and how you’d be much happier and more relaxed if you just learned to chill.”
the coming of darkness
Summer faded into fall and the leaves began to drop. To rot by the road and on the mountain side.
Old Man Bishop killed a hog. Invited the whole town out for pulled pork and revival. The place needed a soul cleaning and a man from Alabama was coming to do just that. In a tent down by the river.
We left Hutchinson Holler at the end of October. When the ladies auxiliary came out to decry the devil on his holy day. Momma tore up roots that never took and carried us back down to the railroad. Back to what she knew before she knew nothing.
The air lost its thickness when the gossip died down and the cool began to come.
Life went on. For most. But for me there was nothing left in the whole wide world but a boy and a grave and the man who put him there.
planes trains and almost automobiles
Today, I almost died. Here’s how.
It’s been eight years since I traded in the Thunderbird for trains, tubes and taxis. Since I gave up private transport for the public kind. I know I sometimes moan about queues and time tables but the truth of it is, I enjoy being able to hail cabs from my doorstep and catch trains to the continent from just around the corner.
This morning I paid a visit to Burberry (because it’s not considered cheap and chavy on this side of the pond) and the Cheesecake Factory (because he hasn’t been able to get it out of his mind since reading this blog). On a whim I decided to drive. Pulled out onto the left side of a right sided street – i.e. the wrong side of a very busy road – and was reminded that, for the moment, I’m no longer in Blighty.
Blimey!
old york
This morning I went back to the village for a little photo rejuvenation facial. Walked by the apartment and felt sad. Someone had pulled the curtains and opened the windows to my use-to-be bedroom.
I should really be unpacking and rearranging – so when I come home I’ll have something a little more orderly than mess to come home to. But I’m not. And I wont. I know me. And I know me will stay in boxes and suitcases for the next several months.
He says he’s moving to Bath on our return. Bath is gorgeous and perfect and just what I use to want; but yesterday I walked through The Shambles of that not-at-all-new York…..and fell a little bit in love.
The streets look too Hollywood, too storybook to be real. But they are – and always have been.
I love standing in the middle of it all. Feeling and knowing that for a thousand years people have lived to become things here.
He says I’ll hate the tourists. I say, I’ll cope.
