That’s right. And now that Soma is the name of a real drug, who knows what impressionable youngsters might do if allowed to read BNW? They might get an email inviting them to B-UY S0MA CH33P! NO PR.E.SCR.IPTIO.N NEEDED! a09lfn829145 and think “Hey, all the Alphas take Soma. I want to be an Alpha too!”
And why exactly do you think we teach people to read and write? So they can look up names in the phone book?
No, it’s so that they can use those skills to explore the world around them and turn them into decent citizens.
I didn’t put any words in your mouth. I’d quote your own OP back at you, but Miller has already done that. If you didn’t mean what you said then that’s one thing, but I didn’t just dream that you said the Alice books have graphic sexual content, that any artistic merit the books possessed did not outweigh that fact, or that you compared removing such books from school libraries to shielding kids from dimestore porn novels. All without ever having read the books, and now with the additional claim that you don’t even care what’s really in them. Given all that, I’m not at all surprised that you “don’t understand this business about book banning”.
I tried to find out about the situation here in the UK. Without any success so far. Invariably the search engine results refer to US book bannings ( plus one Swedish school which banned a Harry Potter book) … I’m still trying though.
This concerned citizen wants to know why The Bible and Shakespeare aren’t included in the banned list.
I read Brave New World in my late teens, and found it to be a thoroughly nasty book. I wouldn’t recommend that anyone read it, and certainly don’t think it suitable for under-16’s. Its not the grown-up sex that upset me, its the fact that it had very young children having sex. Details of the plot are a little hazy, its years since I read it. IIRC, wasnt there a black character who didn’t even have a name, he was just ‘the primative’ or ‘the savage’ or something similar throughout the book. And wasn’t he treated as subhuman by the author and characters. Even in a society that genetically engineers a worker caste with low intelligence, the black character is less than the lowest worker. And, IIRC, a nasty suicide at the end.
I found it a nauseating book. I read about a third of the way, then skipped through the rest. If adults wish to read it, that’s their choice. But I agree that this book shouldn’t be in a school library.
It’s been many a year since I read Brave New World so my memory may be a bit faulty, but with all due respect I suspect yours is even more so. The book’s not a favorite of mine, but your criticisms are way off base. The character you’re talking about was called “John the Savage”, or just “The Savage”, but he did have a proper name and it was mentioned. He wasn’t black. He grew up on a reservation in New Mexico outside the mainstream futuristic society depicted in the book, but he is not Native American either. He’s not even low caste. His dad was an Alpha and his mom was a Beta.
“The Savage” is treated as a curiosity by the people of the “Brave New World” he enters as an adult, but I don’t remember that they considered him subhuman or lower than a Delta or Epsilon. At least one Alpha woman, fully aware of his background, wanted to sleep with him. And the author clearly portrayed “The Savage” as being the moral superior of all around him and the only person who saw the new world for what it was.
And the paedophillia? Did I get that wrong too?
I could kind of understand why *The Anarchist’s Cookbook * was on the banned list. I sure wouldn’t want the kids in MY neighborhood having access to the thing.
Some of the bomb recipes – and nearly ALL of the drug recipes – are way off base and could cause serious, even fatal accidents.
I’d much rather they were fiddling with The Poor Man’s James Bond, or a similar text, one where the author knew what the hell he was talking about. If children MUST play with explosives, then let them do so as safely and responsibly as possible!
…which still doesn’t explain what kind of insane library would have The Anarchist’s Cookbook on the stacks.
And I cannot help but pity any adult who went through *Where’s Waldo? * long enough to discover that there was a topless bather in one of the crowd scenes.
Yes, you did.
I do not recall any pedophilia in the book at all. What I think you are referring to was mandated sex play between children. And this was obviously portrayed as yet another sign that the future civilization depicted in the book was corrupt, hedonistic, and amoral.
See, another thing you apparently didn’t get was that the “Brave New World” was supposed to be bad. That was the whole point of the book, and it wasn’t exactly a subtle one. I’m surprised you could read even a third of it and fail to notice this.
Brave New World is no favorite of mine, but I’m glad I had the opportunity to read it when I wanted to rather than having it kept from my little hands because someone who merely skimmed it, and failed to understand a bit of it, decided the book was unsuitable for under 16s.
I’m going to state my opinion on book banning in general, and on the Alice books in particular, once and for all, so there is no more of this pointless bickering.
Book Banning in General
When I opened this thread, I thought this whole business of book banning referred almost exclusively to the idea of parents opposing certain books in elementary school libraries. Obviously it does not, so the basic premise of my OP is somewhat flawed. (In my defense, let me state that the only discussions of book banning that I had heard about, prior to this thread, had only dealt with the issue from the standpoint of school libraries.)
I do not believe that any member of the public has the right, whether legally or morally, to demand the removal of a book from the shelves of a local public library because it offends them. I didn’t believe it before I opened this thread, nor do I believe it now. One would hope, of course, that the librarians will exercise some discretion and will keep such things as dime porn novels out, but I don’t really believe that’s an issue at any public library in the US.
As to book banning in school libraries - this is obviously much hairier. There are simply some books that do not belong on the shelves of a library in an elementary (or junior high school); or in the children’s section of a public library. Some will disagree with me, and that’s fine. I’m not a parent, and if I were, I would be a little proactive about what Junior read. I wouldn’t just cut him loose in the library and then harp about what they read when the bring it home. That’s just silly.
The Alice Series
Again, I have not read any of these books. Again, I had not even heard of them until this week.
I mentioned them as an example of books with artistic merit and sexual content simply because they were mentioned on the ALA website as a series of books with sexual content (and presumably artistic merit). Obviously the ALA website was only pointing out that it was challenged on the basis of alleged sexual content. Therefore, I was merely parroting information that uninformed people had stated.
But, let me point out a few things:
Harry Potter was challenged because of witchcraft & wizardry. I’ve read it, and guess what? It really does contain witchcraft & wizardry. Yes, that’s a silly reason to try to ban it, but that’s not my point.
Hucky Finn was challenged because of the word “nigger.” I’ve read it, and that word really does appear in there. Also a silly reason to ban the book, but still not my point.
Cujo was challenged because of violence. Yep, there’s violence in it.
…so I really don’t think I was out of line as stating that Alice has sexual content, since that is the basis on which it was challenged. My use of the word “graphic” was a bad choice of words, and I retract that.
Should the Alice books be in a library where children have access to it? Well, a) it’s not up to me; b) I haven’t read it so I can’t give an informed opinion on it; and c) if it truly does have sexual content, then I would hope that librarians would exercise a little discretion and only make it available to appropriate reading ages.
[LIST:A]
[li]It’s up to everybody that’s involved in their kids’ schools (and shouldn’t all of us be?) to give our informed opinions to the librarian on what would be good books to add to the library, and what books probably don’t belong there. Librarians can’t read everything themselves, and they need input.[/li][li]I wish everyone else had such an elightened view as you, HeyHomie. I am simply astounded how many people protest books they’ve never read and movies they’ve never watched. Our local high school library has a book challenge form, and there’s a place at the bottom where you have to sign to acknowledge that you’ve read the book. If you haven’t read it, you can’t challenge it.[/li][li]That works in small schools. When you have a big school with thousands of kids and one librarian, it’s impossible to see what each of the kids in the library is looking at. Unless there’s actually a separate area, you just can’t segregate them like that.[/li][/LIST]
That’ll teach me to preview first. sigh That should have read:
[LIST=A]
[li]It’s up to everybody that’s involved in their kids’ schools (and shouldn’t all of us be?) to give our informed opinions to the librarian on what would be good books to add to the library, and what books probably don’t belong there. Librarians can’t read everything themselves, and they need input.[/li][li]I wish everyone else had such an elightened view as you, HeyHomie. I am simply astounded how many people protest books they’ve never read and movies they’ve never watched. Our local high school library has a book challenge form, and there’s a place at the bottom where you have to sign to acknowledge that you’ve read the book. If you haven’t read it, you can’t challenge it.[/li][li]That works in small schools. When you have a big school with thousands of kids and one librarian, it’s impossible to see what each of the kids in the library is looking at. Unless there’s actually a separate area, you just can’t segregate them like that.[/li][/LIST]
I’m interested to hear why ‘The Chocolate War’ had complaints. I never read it, likely because we had those damn chocolate fund raisers at my school. There were dozens of kids in my neighborhood, and I could never sell more than 1 or 2 to my family. The neighbors all bought their bars from other kids (or their own) before I got there.
One year I refused to participate, and that was met with bewilderment. But I explained, and they let it go.
But, I can see why they didn’t make “The Chocolate War” required reading at my school…
I wonder, were the complaints related to that type of thing, were they were afraid their own chocolate fund-raisers might rebel?
Could be, but in the book the rebel is punished harshly by his peers. He’s the book’s hero but he’s not portrayed as being especially heroic, and he is ultimately broken. However, from what I know about the times The Chocolate War has been challenged/banned it’s not so much the violence and cruelty that parents object to. It’s the fact that there’s swearing and a scene in which one boy catches another masturbating in the school bathroom.
I think supposed ‘Book bannings’ are actually a great way to get kids to read- kids are more likely to enjoy reading something that feels ‘controversial’.
Click on this link: banned books project - 100 Challenged Books Archives Click on the date-and-time stamp under each book’s title, and it will take you to a page giving a very short plot summary of the book and a brief list of objections that have been made to it – as well as Solonor’s sarcastic take on the same.
Perhaps, but the name of the list (Banned Books) is misleading, as has been mentioned. These are not necessary banned, but have been challenged.
The distinction is interesting, because a truly banned book would never make it into a library and therefore never onto the list. “Little Black Sambo” or “The Turner Diaries” don’t appear, for instance. Have they therefore been “banned”? Is that a bad thing?
Regards,
Shodan
Thanks!
Awwwww, I read too much…I saw ‘Song of Solomon’ and thought that somebody had objected to the gratuitous sexual and violent episodes in the Bible. Turned out to be another book entirely.
Check the list again:
#90 - Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman.
I don’t see The Turner Diaries on there, but the lack of challenges doesn’t mean that you can’t find it in the library. So far as I know, it’s no more racist than Mein Kampf, which you can find in most libraries, and which also isn’t on the list.
I still want to know what horrible thing happens if a child reads a sex scene in a book.