Book Banning

[thesummerqueen]

http://www.salon.com/books/story/index.h...ve_banning

I'd love to make commentary about this, but the guy I got it from basically said what needed to be:

So let me understand this. Beowulf -- the oldest surviving poem of the English language and one of the most important works of English literature -- should be banned, thrown out like some John Grisham novel. Steinbeck's The Pearl, which is an especially accessible and short (26,000 words) parable, should also go. I am astonished that any serious publication would publish such anti-intellectual drivel during Banned Books Week. It's one thing to not like a book. We've all had novels that have been crammed down our throats in school. And taste is subjective. But to ban it? To remove something from the canon? To not have a common cultural reference point? Where does it end? Do we ban Hamlet because there are too many thees and thous? Joyce's Ulysses because it's too hard? Poetry, because it often does not have a story? The Iliad because there are too many characters to keep track of? If this is Salon's bid to matter, then it's a disgraceful one, fitting into a troubling series of recently published articles (such as the Dan Kois one from a few weeks back) in which a readership is encouraged not to read, not to think, not to challenge themselves.

Wrong - I can comment and I will.

For my part, while I was a voracious independent reader of children's fiction from the second grade on, "Lord of the Flies" -- and another novel I was ordered to read at age 10, "Animal Farm" -- convinced me that "grown-up" books were unrelentingly bleak and politically didactic; this kept me from venturing beyond the kids' section of the library for a few years.

Somehow, I doubt that's what kept you from venturing beyond the kids section. Teachers are faced with the almost impossible task of getting modern kids to believe that books are just as cool as games, TV and movies - and after that, they have to fight the nerdy book image that still pervades libraries. I doubt it's one that even e-readers can overcome, as it doesn't matter how you're reading the story, the content is still the same. It isn't enough just to read a book, you have to understand its context in literature and history. I have a feeling either your teacher didn't help you through this, or you were probably too busy chewing gum and passing notes to pay attention.

I'm told "A Tale of Two Cities" gets put on curricula because it's the shortest Dickens novel, but "Oliver Twist" is only a little longer and its mistreated-orphans premise seems vastly more child-friendly. Could it be that "Tale" has a message ("Revolutions are nasty!") that adults find more congenial than the notions a kid might pick up from "Oliver Twist" ("Why not join a gang of pickpocketing urchins?").

As I remember, revolutions are nasty, and Oliver knew that pick-pocketing was wrong. Try again.

But surely the most egregious tale of recklessly required reading comes from Life section editor Sarah Hepola, who at the age of 14 was assigned "Ivanhoe" by Sir Walter Scott, a novelist regarded as unreadable by most adults. "It was my freshman honors English class," Sarah recalled, "and it was the first book we read that year. English had always been my favorite class, a refuge for a kid who felt out of place and loved words, and that pretty much put an end to all that."

That book sits on my shelf by my bed. It's not unreadable by any stretch. Honestly, Great Expectations was a much shittier read during MY honors English class in Freshman year, and we were studying "heroes" that year - perfect for Ivanhoe! Stonewall, I feel gypped! Kidnappings! Knights in armor! Disguises! Racism! Jew-hatred! Beautiful women! Jousts! Robin Hood! What the fuck else do you want, woman?

If the book sections in Wal-Mart and target are anything to go by, most adults (at least, female ones) prefer to read Danielle Steele and Norah Roberts, who are basically the forerunners of Stephanie Meyers. Don't ask that things like Beowulf, with it's gorgeously gory descriptions of boasting heroes and gruesome monsters, be set aside because you're too busy filing your nails and planning on skimming the latest Sweet Valley.