Banned/Questionable Books

[buster00]

The other day I happened to catch some show dealing with the 1993 murders of Lawrence T. Horn's family. Horn had hired a friend, James Perry, to carry out the slayings. It was on, like, Court TV or something.

Central to the case was a book found in Perry's posession -- Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors.

The victims' families sued the publisher, Paladin Press, claiming that the book was in part responsible for the killings. The victims were murdered in a fashion very similar to methods described in Hit Man.

Paladin settled out of court, agreeing to destroy their remaining copies still in stock. Apparently, though, you can still find it on the net.

[Wolfpack]

I've never understood the furor over The Catcher in the Rye. What do people find so offensive and objectionable about it? Even considering the time it was written, I still can't figure it out.

[RenoNevada2000]

hey DJJ, have you seen the news about the woman in your neighborhood, and mine, Gwinnett County Georgia, who is trying to get the Grande Rojo Potter books banned from school libraries?

I love that. Is she giving the same reason that I heard that the books teach children how to do magic? Or just that it contains wizards and witches within its covers. As if these books are the first fantasy books to ever be published...

she is claiming they are a part of the indoctrination of kids into the wiccan religion.

What an extreme LACK of faith this nitwit has. If she truely thought her religion was the true/superior faith, she wouldn't be worried/intimated by another religion trying to convert people? Or does she fear that her god might not be able to beat up someone else's god?

A true conservative would believe in allowing an unrestricted marketplace of (religious) ideas decide what is the true faith...

[RenoNevada2000]

Wow, alot of these books seem to have homosexual content.

That's cuz only gays read and reading makes you Dumbledore.

Except reading the Bible, which just makes you vote Republican and drop IQ points.

[brainiac]

O.J.'s book about killing Nicole and Ron got banned by not being published. Public outrage and pressure on the publishing house made them pull the book.

I believe this to be a moral and ethical decision but was it the correct decision?

Banning books we love strikes us as wrong but banning disgusting books
somehow seems more OK. At least banning this book isn't going to make me lose any sleep pondering his amendment rights.

[Iconoclastica]

I almost feel like this book was *banned* because of fear that it would not sell, rather than actual morals on behalf of the publishers . . .

They probably realized that average people would feel ashamed having ownership of that kind of filth attached to their name, narrowing the audience to an unprofitable few.

Though that's just cynical speculation . . . it might not be as logical as it sounds in my head :-p

[darkjedijaina]

I almost feel like this book was *banned* because of fear that it would not sell, rather than actual morals on behalf of the publishers . . .

They probably realized that average people would feel ashamed having ownership of that kind of filth attached to their name, narrowing the audience to an unprofitable few.

Though that's just cynical speculation . . . it might not be as logical as it sounds in my head :-p

that's kind of the way i felt about it, too.

[thebostonlocksmith]

I've never understood the furor over The Catcher in the Rye. What do people find so offensive and objectionable about it? Even considering the time it was written, I still can't figure it out.

I know what you mean... Was it because of the prostitute???

I didn't think too much of it either, it was alright, but i expected more(?)...

[brainiac]

O.J.'s book about killing Nicole and Ron got banned by not being published. Public outrage and pressure on the publishing house made them pull the book.

I believe this to be a moral and ethical decision but was it the correct decision?

Banning books we love strikes us as wrong but banning disgusting books
somehow seems more OK. At least banning this book isn't going to make me lose any sleep pondering his amendment rights.

Ok, quoting myself but for clarification purposes.

I don't for one minute believe the publishing house stopped this book because they had morals and ethics. I believe that not printing it was moral and ethical even in the face of my disagreeing with book banning. Book banning is wrong on almost every count but, banning (by not actually publishing this piece of filt) feels right somehow.

And for the record, I think lots of people would have purchased and read the book and maybe that is my cynicism showing.

[Tyrone_Shoelaces]

If it's any consolation the books were printed and right now all couple hundred thousand copies are being fed into a chipper shredder and News Corp. is taking a bit of a financial hit.

[Eunuch Provocateur]

I think manga should be banned. That's just shit. That and erotica. I'd be totally okay with outlawing those two genres.

Nobody cares about Magical Realism in Brooklyn these days.

[buster00]

I think manga should be banned. That's just shit. That and erotica. I'd be totally okay with outlawing those two genres.

Nobody cares about Magical Realism in Brooklyn these days.

OJ's book, strangely, was to fall under all three of the aforementioned genres.

[DinoDeLaurentiis]

O.J.'s book about killing Nicole and Ron got banned by not being published. Public outrage and pressure on the publishing house made them pull the book.

Anna the Fox, they also pull a the "OJ'S Family Christmas Special," eh? Holy crappa, can a you imagine??

"Merry Christmas, eh kids? Anna the Santa Claus, he bring a you a the special treat, eh? It's a the book that tell a you how I would have a killed a your mother, eh? Iffa I hadda gone anna done it, that is...."

[HollywoodBabylon]

I think manga should be banned. That's just shit. That and erotica. I'd be totally okay with outlawing those two genres.

Nobody cares about Magical Realism in Brooklyn these days.

Magical Realism in Brooklyn??
Surely, even by the standards of fiction, that's a pure contradiction in terms

[unikrunk]

I'm surprised no one has brought up this subtle yet terrifying subliminal monstrosity; Hop on Pop, by one "Dr." Theodore Geisel “Seuss.â€

[Tyrone_Shoelaces]

Potter gets to stay in Georgia. "The kind of stuff in these books — murder and greed and violence." So her Bible has only the happy parts?

[silentbobafett]

I'm confused.... why why oh why why why why

[Wolfpack]

Speaking of Dr. Suess being sickening, what about Green Eggs and Ham?. Isn't it unhealthy to eat that stuff when it's green? E. coli and Salmonella are not something children would find fun and endearing.

[darkjedijaina]

The novel Snow Falling on Cedars has been removed from school library shelves and English class reading lists by an Ontario Catholic school board after a complaint about the book's sexually explicit content.

The Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board is setting up a committee to review the book and determine whether to put it back into circulation.

In the U.S., some schools have removed the book from libraries and curricula because of its sexual content, obscenities and exploration of racial themes.

[Adam Balm]

In the U.S., some schools have removed the book from libraries and curricula because of its sexual content, obscenities and exploration of racial themes.

I can tolerate sexual content and obscenities in the schools, but the exploration of racial themes GOES TOO FAR!

[Chairman Kaga]

In the U.S., some schools have removed the book from libraries and curricula because of its sexual content, obscenities and exploration of racial themes.

I can tolerate sexual content and obscenities in the schools, but the exploration of racial themes GOES TOO FAR!

So are we talking themes lik Isaac Hayes' Shaft or what?

[Lady Sheridan]

[quote="unikrunk"]I'm surprised no one has brought up this subtle yet terrifying subliminal monstrosity; Hop on Pop, by one "Dr." Theodore Geisel “Seuss.â€

[Chairman Kaga]

Tiggers bounce...

[Ribbons]

Bumped! To kick off B4nn3d Books Week, here's the ALA's list of the 100 Greatest Banned Books of the 20th Century

And the 10 Most Banned/Challenged Books of 2006

[Maui]

Bumped! To kick off B4nn3d Books Week, here's the ALA's list of the 100 Greatest Banned Books of the 20th Century

And the 10 Most Banned/Challenged Books of 2006

Interesting list! Funny, I own most of em.

[The Vicar]

People who ban books are assholes.

[DennisMM]

I am always secretly pleased when lists of frequently banned books include Fahrenheit 451.

[Lord Voldemoo]

[quote]“Scary Storiesâ€

[darkjedijaina]

ha. i find this funny.

1984, George Orwell

Challenged in the Jackson County, FL (1981) because Orwell's novel is "pro-communist and contained explicit sexual matter." Source: 2004 Banned Books Resource Guide by Robert P. Doyle.

[DennisMM]

Fascists thought Nineteen Eighty-Four was anti-communist. Communists thought the book was anti-fascist. Orwell was a proud socialist until his death.

[The Vicar]

I am always secretly pleased when lists of frequently banned books include Fahrenheit 451.

Fellow lover of irony, eh?

[minstrel]

This list contains two books by Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison.

Previously on the list was a book by Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck.

Authors like these are widely regarded as among the best in modern literature. Students should be ENCOURAGED to read them.

Who are these fucking assholes who want to ban books like these?

I know this point is obvious and that's why this thread exists, but I HATE HATE HATE HATE the idea of banning books.

If that means I have to tolerate a book I find disgusting (like OJ's) being in print, then fine, I'll tolerate it. I just won't personally read it.

Fuckers.

[TonyWilson]

And I thought the "ban Graham Greene" bit in Donnie Darko was totally unbeliavable and really hurt the films credibility. Turns out it was pretty accurate.

[The Vicar]

This list contains two books by Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison.

Previously on the list was a book by Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck.

Authors like these are widely regarded as among the best in modern literature. Students should be ENCOURAGED to read them.

Who are these fucking assholes who want to ban books like these?

I know this point is obvious and that's why this thread exists, but I HATE HATE HATE HATE the idea of banning books.

If that means I have to tolerate a book I find disgusting (like OJ's) being in print, then fine, I'll tolerate it. I just won't personally read it.

Fuckers.

Welcome to the eternal struggle of the sane v.s. the Lemmings for Jesus.
Trench up, buddy. It's going to be a long, long war.....

[tapehead]

I am always secretly pleased when lists of frequently banned books include Fahrenheit 451.

Fellow lover of irony, eh?

yah - but it's not necessarily about censorship, is it? Bradbury was more worried about television and people's apathy than government censure -

http://tinyurl.com/2lrl7k

http://www.raybradbury.com/at_home_clips.html

I love this story, and Truffaut's movie.

[The Vicar]

I am always secretly pleased when lists of frequently banned books include Fahrenheit 451.

Fellow lover of irony, eh?

yah - but it's not necessarily about censorship, is it? Bradbury was more worried about television and people's apathy than government censure -

http://tinyurl.com/2lrl7k

http://tinyurl.com/25ak6m

I love this story, and Truffaut's movie.

There's never an end to the list of things to be worried about.

Both the story & the movie are excellant.

[magicmonkey]

Yeah, Truffaut's movie is great, he embodied everything about the new wave without the pretension of others and made truly captivating, revolutionary stories.

[DennisMM]

I am always secretly pleased when lists of frequently banned books include Fahrenheit 451.

Fellow lover of irony, eh?

yah - but it's not necessarily about censorship, is it? Bradbury was more worried about television and people's apathy than government censure -

http://tinyurl.com/2lrl7k

http://www.raybradbury.com/at_home_clips.html

I love this story, and Truffaut's movie.

It may be about how people are entranced by television, but television can't dominate as it does in the story without the active suppression of books. A number of characters and, it's implied, most people in the story are mentally dull, but they have spent their lives without print. Also, if I remember correctly, the television is government-controlled. In Truffaut's film TV programming is deliberately vapid, designed to keep the populace happy and dull.

I'm not arguing with Bradbury's explanation of his own story, but there are other interpretations that remain valid.

[tapehead]

Oh sure Dennis, agreed. I do feel like the book gets a bit overlooked because of the obvious implications of 'book-burning", when I think Bradbury's imagining of wall size tv's and whole cultures that consider tv show casts as 'family' is near-visionary.
Bradbury has been complaining about the accepted academic definition of his book since back in the '50's when it was published, and I can see his point. If anything, it's more about self-censorship and emerging political correctness than any sort of 'Big Brother', IMO. You may have a point about government-controlled television - I didn't recall that (andin fact I thought that wasn't the case), which is why I've dug it out of the bookshelf to read it again.

[DennisMM]

My memory is very poor, tapes, so I may be wrong about the government involvement in TV and radio. It's a totalitarian government, so even relative freedom of speech/broadcast seems unlikely. In the film it was rather obvious TV was a soporific that went with the drugs everyone took. I think (guess why) my favorite bit in the film, apart from the spoken credits, is the newspaper we see Guy reading at one point. It's nothing but comics, wordless comics.

A study guide I found online includes a summary of Fire Captain Beatty's discussion with Montag of why books were eliminated.

Beatty then recalls the time when people read entire books. As time passed, all the books were condensed into short digests. Books slowly disappeared, and all anyone read were comic books and sex magazines. Before long, books had entirely vanished. Beatty claims that the government did not make any formal declaration of censorship; rather, advanced technology simply made books useless. Then it was unanimously decided that men should all be alike and equal in intelligence. Since books were "loaded guns" that could give a person extra knowledge, they were all destroyed.

(It's funny that a step on the path to no books is the existence of comic books and sex magazines, as Bradbury had work published in both during the '50s.)

By eliminating books as a form of entertainment or self-education the government not only limits the ideas communicated to the public but the vocabulary of the language. In time, unwanted words will be forced out of existence and the ideas they once represented will no longer have an easy means of expression. Bradbury is approximating the development of Orwell's newspeak and, if one wishes to stretch the notion far enough, the complete perversion of language seen in Rand's Anthem, where the word "I" and the accompanying concept of the individual no longer exist.

So, in a larger sense, the novel is about censorship, but the censorship of the mind rather than of the media.

[tapehead]

Nice insights Dennis. I still enjoy the way that Bradbury has effectively premeditated the role of television in contemporary society (perhaps more accurately than Orwell, not that either were trying to foretell the future), and that's why I like the way Bradbury seems to describe it as a kind of triumph of the 'tele-visual' (which can show all but tells very little)over the written word. But it's really good to read your interpretation.

[DennisMM]

Of course, I could just be talking out my ass.

[tapehead]

It's always a possibility, but not this time.

[unikrunk]

I've never understood the furor over The Catcher in the Rye. What do people find so offensive and objectionable about it? Even considering the time it was written, I still can't figure it out.

I know what you mean... Was it because of the prostitute???

I didn't think too much of it either, it was alright, but i expected more(?)...

I think it has something to do with the ratio of serial killers that own Catcher in the Rye - this can be expressed as 1/1.

URBAN LEGEND TIME! Gather round kids, uncle unikrunk is going to jump headlong into uncorroborated waters...

So, the urban legend for today is, OCD sociopaths that buy copies of Catcher in the Rye whenerver they see them.

There is no real hard proof here, but if you click on the link up there, you will see that there are quite a lot of people out there that think that Catcher in the Rye is the book most owned by criminal sociopaths. The legend goes a little deeper than most, and is topped nicely with the 'if you buy a copy, your name goes into a national DB' legend.

[tapehead]

There is no real hard proof here

Contrary to popular opinion, JD Salinger is an extroverted attention-whore... who loves the cock

[unikrunk]

There is no real hard proof here

Contrary to popular opinion, JD Salinger was an extroverted attention-whore.

He was the unofficial king of socialites and a cad amongst the ladies. He frequented all events of import, and was known to have a secret love of Piano Bars, wherein he would oft times man the piano himself after a few cordials, typically playing out a roughly hewn version of a song that would one day be known as 'Wild Horses'. He never made it past the first refrain, but clearly he sang the words 'Wild, wild horses, couldn't drag me away', repeatedly upon an evening.

[Ribbons]

Robert Cormier was one of the truly great writers of our time. The Chocolate War is a wonderful read, but his best was FADE. Great book.

Fellow author Michael Cart has said: “Robert Cormier is the single most important writer in the whole history of young adult literature.”

I concur. But he writes so well that all ages can enjoy his work.

I just got finished reading The Chocolate War meself. I can "understand" why it was banned in the sense that, well, if you're writing a children's novel and the very first chapter has a gem like this in it:

He tried to hold onto the moment, but it was gone, like chasing ecstasy's memory the instant after jacking off and finding only shame and guilt.

...you're not gonna escape the ire of some groups out there. Which makes it kind of awesome!

I thought the book was pretty good too. My biggest complaint was that it was a little hokey in some places, especially Cormier's profile of "The Goob," and I can't seem to figure out why the Vigils even really existed in the first place. But, almost every chapter had a strong, dynamic opening (first paragraph/sentence of the book: "They killed him."), and although several of the plot threads seemed confusing or out of place when first introduced, they all ended up coming together for a pretty powerful wallop of an ending. It's a great Young Adult book, so it's a shame that a lot of them won't even have access to it.

I tried looking for Fade at the bookstore after finishing this one, but strangely enough it seemed to be the only Cormier book they didn't have.

[Ribbons]

Robert Cormier was one of the truly great writers of our time. The Chocolate War is a wonderful read, but his best was FADE. Great book.

I just managed to get a hold of Fade a few weeks ago. I read The Chocolate War a few months ago and dug the way Cormier wrote (which I mentioned above but it must have gotten fubar in the update ...), so when I saw your post I figured I'd try and grab a copy.

Anyway, it was pretty interesting. I'm kind of wondering/hoping someone else has read it, because I'd love to be able to talk about it. The "fade" was sort of about what I figured it would be about, but at the same time not... it was like it represented several different things at once, or maybe I'm wrong on both counts. What was interesting was how the introduction of multiple "faders" to the book created an almost phantom presence, so that the main characters perceive the rest of the world to be a threat or an alien presence just as the rest of the world perceives them. It's kind of slippery, and I'm wondering if the subplot about the writer's manuscript had something to do with the overall theme of the story or if Cormier just wanted to add an autobiographical touch.

Anyway, good book, especially for YA literature. I don't think I would place it above The Chocolate War personally, but I would recommend it.

[Maui]

So the public library has a display this week, "Banned Children's Books". Glaring at me from the shelf is The Fungus that Ate my School. Is it the title alone that makes this a bannable book, because simply leafing through the pages I wasn't able to come across anything horribly offensive - it's not like the science class is growing hallucinogenic mushrooms. Then there is James and The Giant Peach where there is a sexually explicit lip smacking spider, the word a$$ is mentioned numerous times, and the most horrifying of all, James' parents are killed off in the second paragraph by a pissed off rhino.

/rant over

[magicmonkey]

So the public library has a display this week, "Banned Children's Books". Glaring at me from the shelf is The Fungus that Ate my School. Is it the title alone that makes this a bannable book, because simply leafing through the pages I wasn't able to come across anything horribly offensive - it's not like the science class is growing hallucinogenic mushrooms. Then there is James and The Giant Peach where there is a sexually explicit lip smacking spider, the word a$$ is mentioned numerous times, and the most horrifying of all, James' parents are killed off in the second paragraph by a pissed off rhino.

/rant over

It's the cross-culturalisms... Ass for instance in the UK would have meant Donkey, so an ass becomes someone who is stubborn! Also, in Winnie the Pooh, (not banned in the UK) there is the word fanny which, to any UK'er, would mean VAGINA! Even the fannypack is called a bumbag in the UK. Ah, its the little things...