It's Banned Book Week.
I wrote earlier this week about the trending Speak Loudly movement that's growing on Twitter and in the blogosphere. Well, whether accidental or intentional, the trend bleeds nicely into Banned Book Week, which starts today. If you're on Twitter, check out #BannedBookWeek and #SpeakLoudly for lists, quotes, author endorsements and some nifty twitterwit. SpeakLoudly also has its own, brand-spankin' new site, which is very cool.
All of this momentum is the joy of a confluence of current banning news (Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson), and the regularly scheduled Banned Book Week festivities. When you're thinking about banned books and why people get to antsy about them, understand this: Very little pisses writers and readers off more than someone thinking that literature shouldn't be available to people.
But then, if you read blogs, I'm preaching to the converted already...
If you check out the ALA's Top 100 Banned Books list there are some surprising and some not so surprising pieces of literature showcased. I find it hilarious that Harry Potter is considered too dangerous for anyone. And Of mice and Men? Really? (And by "really" what I really mean is, "What the fuck?")
So today, because this whole blog-thing started out with quotes, and because I said pretty much all that I wanted to say about banning books in the aforementioned post, and because I'm pressed for time, I thought I'd just provide a nice list of quotes on the evils of censorship. You know, in honor of my roots...
Here are my favorites:
"Libraries should be open to all except the censor." John F. Kennedy
"If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed." Benjamin Franklin, 1730
"All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remember back to when we had those old-fashioned values, and I say let's get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States -- and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death!" Kurt Vonnegut
"A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to." Laurence Peter, professor of education, 1977
"Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail." Alfred Whitney Griswold
"God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide."
Rebecca West
"Every burned book enlightens the world." Ralph Waldo Emerson
"An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all." Oscar Wilde
"The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame." Oscar Wilde
"In every cry of every man,/ In every infant's cry of fear,/ In every voice, in every ban,/ The mind-forged manacles I hear." William Blake
And finally, because profanity is trending here in thinkingoutloud-land these days, and because he said it like a motherfucker:
"Take away the right to say 'fuck' and you take away the right to say 'fuck the government.'" Lenny Bruce
Me? I've managed to put enough scratch together to go buy Speak, so I know what I'll be reading tonight.
UPDATE:
The response of bookish bloggers everywhere has been truly remarkable. There's even a list of blogs on the subject that continues to grow and grow. Check it out (along with a great post) at Reclusive Bibliophile and take a few minutes to appreciate an amazing video of Laurie Halse Anderson reciting a Speak-inspired poem called Listen.
Showing posts with label Speak. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Speak. Show all posts
Saturday, September 25
Monday, September 20
Speak, and Speak Loudly
I have to keep this short today (rarely an easy thing for me) as I have miles to go editing the novel. Let’s see if I can find ‘short’ in my vocabulary.
First, there will be a post on this article from the SBS in Australia on Wednesday or Thursday. It makes me fume in barely-expressible ways and I’m hoping that more stories on the report mentioned will surface before then so I can, perhaps, gain a little more perspective.
Tomorrow is World Alzheimer’s Day, so I’ll be busy elsewhere. If you get through your blog reading list of stuff, feel free to revisit my post on the subject. Better yet, if you blog and the subject resonates, join the cause and add your voice.
Today though… well, today I’m going to jump on Twitter's #SpeakLoudly bandwagon in light of this week’s controversy regarding Laurie Halse Anderson's YA book Speak, the story of a girl who is raped and must deal with the excruciating aftermath of that event. It’s an important story and, by all accounts, superbly written. When I have a budget for book buying again (there are aspects of poor artist life that I don’t like), it will be one of the very first books on my ‘to buy’ list.
Speak and Ms. Anderson are big literary news this week because Wesley Scroggins, a Business Management Professor in Missouri, has taken it upon himself to mount a campaign to ban the book from high school libraries because he considers it pornographic. Apparently Vonnegut's Slaughter House Five is also unworthy and dangerous. If you’re a fan of Sugar at The Rumpus (and you really, really should be), then you’ll know what I mean when I say that it sounds like Ms. Anderson writes like a motherfucker. This, in turn, seems to offend Mr. Scoggin’s delicate sensibilities.
Rather than see past his own overgrown social myopathy to the simple truth that the real is very often not pretty, and that writing about stuff that isn’t pretty is important, nay, vital to helping people (especially our youth) see the world for what it is, warts and all, Mr. Scoggins thinks that we should protect young people from said truth by banning anything he considers dangerous from the libraries of the world. As if ignorance ever solved anything.
We, of course, know better. We know that the ostrich method of dealing with tough stuff is bullshit. And we hopefully also know that fiction – real, hard, ugly and transforming fiction – can be an agent of expressing truth that is as or more piercing and disarming than any real news story can be.
That’s one of the many things I love about fiction: It can take us to places, put us in situations that we will (hopefully) never have to actually deal with in the really-real world, but that we still need to acknowledge and own. Fiction, good fiction, is an agent of empathy; perhaps one of it’s most powerful ones, and we live in a world that needs more empathy, not less; more knowledge, not ignorance; more truth, not a fucking cowardly commitment to denial and lies.
The response to the proposed ban has been heartwarming and heart breaking at the same time. #SpeakLoudly is trending nicely on Twitter and the lit blogosphere is rallying. For proof of that, check out Ms. Anderson's comments, Pimp My Novel, [Bloggers [[heart]] Books], Lisa and Laura Write, and C.J. Redwine's poignant post at The Last Word, just for a few quick examples.
Book banning just boggles my mind a bit, especially when the reasons are so spurious and the topic is so important. I find myself wondering how those of us who are proponents of banning can live lives so full of fear that ignorance seems like a better choice than reality. I don't get that kind of denial. It just seems pathetically selfish.
And yes, I'm being judgmental, and I'm okay with that right now. I'll feel remorse later. Maybe.
There’s a long way to go yet before we get to rest, so follow the links and join the cause, please. You can get a little ribbon for your Twitter and FB icons at Twibbon if you search for SpeakLoudly, join Laurie's FB page here , follow the Tweets here and here, and you can Tweet your ass off using the #SpeakLoudly hash tag. And buy Speak at a local independent bookstore too.
Okay, my novel beckons, and she's a jealous mistress...
First, there will be a post on this article from the SBS in Australia on Wednesday or Thursday. It makes me fume in barely-expressible ways and I’m hoping that more stories on the report mentioned will surface before then so I can, perhaps, gain a little more perspective.
Tomorrow is World Alzheimer’s Day, so I’ll be busy elsewhere. If you get through your blog reading list of stuff, feel free to revisit my post on the subject. Better yet, if you blog and the subject resonates, join the cause and add your voice.
Today though… well, today I’m going to jump on Twitter's #SpeakLoudly bandwagon in light of this week’s controversy regarding Laurie Halse Anderson's YA book Speak, the story of a girl who is raped and must deal with the excruciating aftermath of that event. It’s an important story and, by all accounts, superbly written. When I have a budget for book buying again (there are aspects of poor artist life that I don’t like), it will be one of the very first books on my ‘to buy’ list.
Speak and Ms. Anderson are big literary news this week because Wesley Scroggins, a Business Management Professor in Missouri, has taken it upon himself to mount a campaign to ban the book from high school libraries because he considers it pornographic. Apparently Vonnegut's Slaughter House Five is also unworthy and dangerous. If you’re a fan of Sugar at The Rumpus (and you really, really should be), then you’ll know what I mean when I say that it sounds like Ms. Anderson writes like a motherfucker. This, in turn, seems to offend Mr. Scoggin’s delicate sensibilities.
Rather than see past his own overgrown social myopathy to the simple truth that the real is very often not pretty, and that writing about stuff that isn’t pretty is important, nay, vital to helping people (especially our youth) see the world for what it is, warts and all, Mr. Scoggins thinks that we should protect young people from said truth by banning anything he considers dangerous from the libraries of the world. As if ignorance ever solved anything.
We, of course, know better. We know that the ostrich method of dealing with tough stuff is bullshit. And we hopefully also know that fiction – real, hard, ugly and transforming fiction – can be an agent of expressing truth that is as or more piercing and disarming than any real news story can be.
That’s one of the many things I love about fiction: It can take us to places, put us in situations that we will (hopefully) never have to actually deal with in the really-real world, but that we still need to acknowledge and own. Fiction, good fiction, is an agent of empathy; perhaps one of it’s most powerful ones, and we live in a world that needs more empathy, not less; more knowledge, not ignorance; more truth, not a fucking cowardly commitment to denial and lies.
The response to the proposed ban has been heartwarming and heart breaking at the same time. #SpeakLoudly is trending nicely on Twitter and the lit blogosphere is rallying. For proof of that, check out Ms. Anderson's comments, Pimp My Novel, [Bloggers [[heart]] Books], Lisa and Laura Write, and C.J. Redwine's poignant post at The Last Word, just for a few quick examples.
Book banning just boggles my mind a bit, especially when the reasons are so spurious and the topic is so important. I find myself wondering how those of us who are proponents of banning can live lives so full of fear that ignorance seems like a better choice than reality. I don't get that kind of denial. It just seems pathetically selfish.
And yes, I'm being judgmental, and I'm okay with that right now. I'll feel remorse later. Maybe.
There’s a long way to go yet before we get to rest, so follow the links and join the cause, please. You can get a little ribbon for your Twitter and FB icons at Twibbon if you search for SpeakLoudly, join Laurie's FB page here , follow the Tweets here and here, and you can Tweet your ass off using the #SpeakLoudly hash tag. And buy Speak at a local independent bookstore too.
Okay, my novel beckons, and she's a jealous mistress...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)