Kevin's Watch

the other books have been around longer, more staying power. the fuss over AP was hot, but relatively brief.

I'm pretty sure that AP came out after the golden age of banning books. It's exempt.

sgt.null wrote:and at least three deal with sex. wwhat is so horrifying about Catcher in the Rye anyway? I read it and seem to remember it being about a slacker going through a mild life crisis. did i miss some context?

Catcher should be banned. There's a scene in there where the main character gets in an elevator, and the elevator attendant flicks him in the balls. It's very painful to read. I wish I'd never read it. I hate thinking about having some sleezeball flick me in the balls with his index finger. I wish the book had been banned when I was in high school. Banning books can be a good thing, you know. People would complain so much about Jordan and Goodkind if their books were all banned.

Catcher had such an impact on me that I can't remember anything that happened in it.

The 10 "Most Frequently Challenged or Banned Books" according to the ALA.

Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
f Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
Forever by Judy Blume
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Sorta surprising if you ask me.

I guess huck is on there cuz of the n-bomb?

Holsety wrote: Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
f Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
Forever by Judy Blume
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

I'm assuming Daddy's Roomate is about a gay father.
Huck Fin is the N word.
Harry Potter is the magic/devil stuff.
any Judy Blume is because of sex/adult situations.
TErabithia I will guess is magic use as well?
you will have to help with the others. Steinbeck????????

sgt.null wrote:Catcher had such an impact on me that I can't remember anything that happened in it.

duke wrote:And yes, I rank "American Psycho" up there with 1984 and Catcher in the Rye (and the others) as one of the best books of the 20th century, banned or not.

Well, I'm glad you got something out of Catcher. But it escapes me why it's regarded so highly. I fail to see why it should be "required" reading in school (we had to do the book). 1984 I can understand. That is indeed one of the greatest novels I have ever read.

Haven't read American Psycho, so I've no comment. (Haven't even seen the film, but I should).

Holsety wrote: f Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Well, jeez, no wonder it was banned. Steinbeck used the "f" word right there in the title!

Matrix: i think Catcher is some totem that really fails to deliver whatever magic it is rumored to have.

I guess it's not politically correct anymore to have a mentally challenged behemoth going around squeezing things to death...

I'm most likely completely off-base and off track here, and very likely OFF TOPIC, but IMO Steinbeck is banned not specifically for the text of Of Mice and Men (however, there might be issues with the text). It's banned because of Steinbeck's close association with left wing and progressive political causes throughout his life (IIRC, he was a friend of Upton Sinclair the socialist, please see Grapes of Wrath to see what Steinbeck thought of capitalism in general).

Additionally, in OMaM one can be lead to conclude that except for souless, greed of the capitalist economic system these two men, Lenny and George, would not have found themselves in the horrible and tragic circumstances they got into.

Matrixman wrote:
Re: Joyce - see, this is why I don't bother reading him. Academics can keep Joyce to themselves for all eternity, as far as I'm concerned.

Lest you think this conflicts with Alynna's quote that I'm using as my sig, let me say that I'm avoiding Joyce not because of a sense that he's "harmful" (yeah, right) but because I've got better things to read than the works of an author who was just shovelling BS onto his readers as a joke.

I really don't think you could write-off Joyce as "just shovelling BS onto his readers as a joke". You may find his The Dubliners more accessible.

I think it's refreshing that there were writers like Joyce, creating true visionary pieces of literature, while so many other novelists tread water in a sea of mediocrity.

Anyone who can describe syphillis in such a colourful way as "Christy Columb came back with jailbird's unbespokeables in his beak" gets my vote.

Matrixman wrote:
Re: Joyce - see, this is why I don't bother reading him. Academics can keep Joyce to themselves for all eternity, as far as I'm concerned.

I love Joyce. We had to read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in high school, and it had a huge impact on me. I had so much fun writing a paper about that book.

Edge wrote:Not that I'd agree with banning it, but I can understand why 'The Naked Lunch' is on that list. It's very... disturbing.

It is, but I love Burroughs. The first book of his I read was Junky, and I remember enjoying it immensely.

duke wrote:Why oh why isnt "American Psycho" by Bret Easton Ellis on the list? The stink this book caused when it was released was phenomenal. Surely it was banned somwhere.

That’s one of my favorite books. Predictably, the movie didn’t do it justice. I like Ellis in general – particularly Less Than Zero.

sgt.null wrote:and at least three deal with sex. wwhat is so horrifying about Catcher in the Rye anyway? I read it and seem to remember it being about a slacker going through a mild life crisis. did i miss some context?

For some reason, I hate that book. I still can’t understand why it’s such a big deal, but it was, of course, required reading at my school. As was 1984, but I didn’t have a problem with that. I went back and read it again last summer because I hadn’t read it in years – I’d forgotten how good it was.

danlo wrote:I guess it's not politically correct anymore to have a mentally challenged behemoth going around squeezing things to death...

Weren’t there some Looney Tunes cartoons based on that book? I remember watching TV with my little brother years ago, and there was a cartoon about a big, goofy animal which always wanted furry little pets – and he’d “hug ‘em and squeeze ‘em” to death. It would show their lifeless bodies, and they’d always have these looks of horror on their faces. It was kind of morbid. And the big animal had a tiny friend named George, who might actually have been a mouse, if I remember correctly. I recall thinking, “Oh my god, this is Of Mice and Men.”

Montressor wrote:I really don't think you could write-off Joyce as "just shovelling BS onto his readers as a joke". You may find his The Dubliners more accessible.

I think, (without going back), that MM is referring to my comment that Joyce himself used to laugh that Finnegans Wake would keep the scholars busy for a thousand years. And I have no doubt he'll be proved right.

Dubliners and Portrait especially are extremely accessible, and were relatively enjoyable for what they were. I've just never been able to muster much enthusiasm for his work.

--A

i am beginning a study on Ulysses. enjoyable but tough.

taraswizard wrote:I'm most likely completely off-base and off track here, and very likely OFF TOPIC, but IMO Steinbeck is banned not specifically for the text of Of Mice and Men (however, there might be issues with the text). It's banned because of Steinbeck's close association with left wing and progressive political causes throughout his life (IIRC, he was a friend of Upton Sinclair the socialist, please see Grapes of Wrath to see what Steinbeck thought of capitalism in general).

Additionally, in OMaM one can be lead to conclude that except for souless, greed of the capitalist economic system these two men, Lenny and George, would not have found themselves in the horrible and tragic circumstances they got into.

While you can go ahead and conclude this, I don't think OMaM was very heavy-handed on the evils of capitalism. Besides even if they hadn't been looking for a job Lenny still would have probably gotten into "trouble" (remember, the last problem lenny and george had was at some bar IIRC).

I know I'm coming in quite late on this conversation.
I think it's worth pointing out that banning things takes one premise - that some ideas are dangerous, either for individuals or society as a whole. Modern thought - like your typical reaction today to any banning - tends to take the opposite premise - that ideas cannot be dangerous and therefore there is no good reason for banning anything. The question is, which premise is really right?

I have no trouble coming up with dangerous ideas that have had terrible consequences that ought to be banned. Hitler's ideas about Jews (and race in general) for example. And in fact we do ban it and literature that supports it.

If the premise behind traditional thought is right (and it is), then some ideas should be crushed and not allowed free reign, because of where they can lead an individual or society - for example, if that destination is suicide (for the individual) or collapse of marriage and the family (for society). Obviously, the entire question then becomes "What should be banned? Who decides?"

No one ever asks the questions as to why unrestrained sex, profanity, or whatever was deemed worthy of being banned. The assumption taken seems to be that the reasons were religious, and therefore unreasonable (which is a non-sequitur, but very widespread attitude), when it is thinking that fails to examine the reasons that a society banned something that is unthinking.

To act as if nothing should ever be banned is to ignore history.

And yet when has banning ever made any positive difference? All knowledge is morally neutral...only the uses to which it is put makes it "good" or "bad."

--A

Avatar wrote:And yet when has banning ever made any positive difference? All knowledge is morally neutral...only the uses to which it is put makes it "good" or "bad."

--A

Your very questions shows that you do not know if it has made a positive difference. How could you know, unless you had seen two alternative futures? And not all books are of "knowledge" per se - as if it was all about banning scientific textbooks. Ideas are not limited to knowledge - indeed, most banning tends to be of things of a moral nature.

I suppose you might argue that bans on books like The Anarchist Cookbook or books encouraging suicide produce no positive difference? (To at least refer to my earlier example) - that there would be no danger of teens reading stuff like that and attempting to reproduce it? Do you even have children?

Can people harmlessly toss around the idea of flying airplanes into buildings as weapons, for example? (Purely as fiction, of course) Should they be allowed to?

I guess I have to refer back to the question I posed - which premise is right? Can ideas be dangerous?