Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Books* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
- First Amendment to the United States Constitution
In 1973, Charles McCarthy, the head of school board at Drake High School in North Dakota, ordered all 32 copies of Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five" to be burned. This came after English school teacher Bruce Severy decided to use the anti-war novel as a teaching aid. The author's letter to McCarthy, which he didn't reply, was seething with rage:
"Books are sacred to free men for very good reasons, and that wars have been fought against nations which hate books and burn them. If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own... it was a rotten lesson you taught young people in a free society when you denounced and then burned books - books you hadn’t even read."
The novel took place after World War II, but the incident happened during America's involvement in the Vietnam War. It was a conflict that the US was bound to lose, which polarized the nation. There's a limit to one's tolerance. Banned Books Week was founded in 1982 by Judith King, a prominent library activist. The campaign celebrates intellectual freedom, and if this year's line of events is of any indication, there's hardly any change in attitude towards books with unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints then and now.
Los Angeles-based performance artist Tim Youd lives twenty four hours a day in a plate-glass window, in a prison of banned books. Young-adult (YA) authors Malinda Lo and Rainbow Rowell will talk about censorship in YA fiction. Then there's a series of events at the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library in Indianapolis. Vonnegut's letter will be read one more time.
The books they tried to ban
Some books were banned due to cultural differences, while others were deemed inappropriate due to its political context. But a number of titles were taken off the bookshelf because of knowledge (or lack of). Why rock the boat, they would say. The world needs dreamers. Let's take a look:
"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll. In 1931, the governor of Hunan province in China banned the book because he didn't like the depiction of humans and (talking) animals being on the same level. No one told him about its psychoanalysis.
"Harry Potter" fantasy series by J.K. Rowling. Believe it or not, many copies were burned because it promoted witchcraft and occult. Good to know this isn't the 17th century.
"Lady Chatterley’s Lover" by D.H. Lawrence. It's sexually explicit, so this is not for everyone. But what critics fail to grasp is the author's take on traditional roles that (British) women must abide during the Victorian era.
"1984" by George Orwell. Many didn't like Orwell's bleak vision of a dystopian future. (War is peace, slavery is freedom, ignorance is strength.) There was good reason back then, as the world was still reeling. But they didn't foresee the unexpected turn of events decades later.
"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum. This book is inoffensive. It's also one of the most beloved fairy tales (after the success of "The Wizard of Oz"). But many US libraries banned it after its publication. The librarians believed the image of an independent female protagonist was unwholesome. (Tradition.)
