'dangerous' books too powerful to read
“I won the Nobel Prize for literature. What was your crime?”
Books carry knowledge. They are pollinators of our minds, spreading self-replicating ideas through space and time. We forget what a miracle it is that marks on a page or screen can enable communication from one brain to another on the far side of the globe, or the other end of the century.
In a summary essay, “the long and ignoble global history of book-banning,” John Self highlights some examples of the expansion of book banning in the 20th and 21st century. 1
China: Edict against books in schools that are "not in line with the [country’s] socialist core values; that have deviant world views, life views and values"2
Soviet Union. Notably Boris Pasternak who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his novel Doctor Zhivago. The award angered the Soviet authorities so much that he was forced to turn down the award. 3
Great Britain. James Joyce’s Ulysses4 and D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover5
United State. Overview of Banned Books Week since 1982 from the Island Trees Decision6 to Most Banned Books in 2021 where “Schools are a particular hotbed of attempted censorship.”7
John Self. September 21. 2022. The 'dangerous' books too powerful to read BBC.
In echo of Mao era, China's schools in book-cleansing drive. Reuters (July 9,2020.)
Benhamin Ramm. The writers who defied Soviet censors. BBC (July 20, 2017). Bill Mauldin castigated the Soviet Union for not permitting Boris Pasternak to travel to accept his Nobel Prize. With the cartoon at the beginning on this post, Mauldin won his second Pulitzer Prize.
Kevin Birmingham. James Joyce’s Ulysses: A classic too sexy for censors. July 19, 2015.
John Self. The book that changed Britain: why the Lady Chatterley’s Lover trial still matters 60 years later. Penguin. October 20,2020.
BOARD OF EDUCATION, ISLAND TREES UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT. Supreme Court 1982.
Banned Books Week. 2022. Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe; Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison; All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson; Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez;The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas; The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie; Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews; The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison; This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson; Beyond Magenta by Susan Kuklin; John Self. September 21. 2022. The 'dangerous' books too powerful to read BBC.
Great books are great, no doubt. And yet it may be sorely underscored the change the author undergoes, and the vibrations they emit for having gained the peak is at very least equally as profound.
To burn books we must already be burning inside.....this error of the way is the signature of our time, try as we might to escape it. One cannot legislate good behavior.