Fire and Flapdoodle

A few days ago I noticed a Washington Post op-ed titled “Do we really still need Banned Books Week?” My silent-yet-adamant reply: “Oh hell, yes!” (followed instantaneously by the inevitable ear worm and holiday favorite, “It’s the mosssst wonderful time of the year!”).

The author of the quasi-provocative article is Ron Charles, book critic at WashPo. His dismissive opening paragraphs perturbed me. He described his annoyance with the whole week-long thing, labeling it an “annual orgy of self-righteousness” promoted by the American Library Association (ALA), claiming that the observance appears to “exaggerate a problem that’s largely confined to our repressive past.” Um, what? Does Mr. Charles live in a bubble wherein he sees no repression in the present? I could point out a couple of examples for him, say, our current administration’s litigious attempts to ban entire populations from entering the country based on their Muslim identity or its flirtation with a ban on LGBTQ military service.

Books aren’t the only targets and book banning is certainly not confined within U.S. borders. Only six years ago we were horrified by the news that young Malala Yousafzai nearly lost her life in Pakistan at the hands of the Taliban for defiantly pursuing her education. It’s too bad Mr. Charles didn’t have an advance copy of Rod Nordland’s unflinching New York Times article about book banning on the other side of the Persian Gulf in Kuwait, published a few days later on October 1st. Yes, we are far removed geographically from the ultraconservative forces in the Middle East but the Internet makes that physical distance disappear. Information and dis-/misinformation know no borders.

A very informative read, if you like: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/world/middleeast/kuwait-ban-books.html#click=https://t.co/SNnYOr2Kd1

My favorite quote from Nordland’s article? I’m so glad you asked because I’ve discovered a useful new word pairing: Literary Scofflaws, as in, “Underground banned-book dealers are already doing a brisk business serving literary scofflaws.”

Maybe you agree with me that “Literary Scofflaws” would make a totally excellent indie band name. Probably a stereotypical angry girl band featuring lots of flowery book quote tattoos, large-rimmed glasses, and songs about female protagonists. You get the point. Censorship is censorship, everywhere on the planet. Book people will always find a way.

***

As for my beef with Mr. Charles’ “repressive past” comment, I should give him props for doing his journalistic due diligence in an interview with James LaRue from the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom. Here’s one of the tough “gotcha” questions he asked Mr. LaRue: “Who are we kidding?…Books aren’t ‘banned’ in this country anymore. The Supreme Court has made that impossible.” I don’t recall Mr. LaRue’s response to this STUPID question because—”Who are we kidding?”—by this point in my reading I was beyond annoyed and had decided Mr. Charles was playing his audience.

He’s no Sacha Baron Cohen “Who Is America?” prankster but, as self-appointed Banned Books Week devil’s advocate, Mr. Charles did elicit some predictable ALA counterarguments from Mr. LaRue. Your basic First Amendment stuff—libraries as places for finding common ground, places where a person has “the right to investigate the choices” and make an informed decision.

Short version: Stay in your lane. If you don’t like a book, you don’t have to read it but you’re not the boss of my reading choices.

Here’s the WashPo link if you’re interested (and/or sleep-deprived): https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/do-we-really-still-need-banned-books-week/2018/09/26/80e924be-c0fd-11e8-90c9-23f963eea204_story.html?utm_term=.4bda6421b117

***

When I taught Advanced Freshman English I did have some memorable encounters with naive rule-breakers and scofflaw wannabes—nothing serious, especially with www.turnitin.com as a backup. I shamelessly took advantage of the adolescent trait I’ve unofficially labeled The Outrage Reflex. It’s an utterly non-scientific classification but whatever. The trigger of this angst-y outrage can be great or small, maybe a new dress code rule or the fact that I didn’t allow chewing gum in my classes. Of course there were violators who managed to keep their gum literally squirrelled away in their cheeks during class; it was their minty-fresh breath and the occasional “pop!” that gave them away.

Manifestations of The Outrage Reflex include but are not limited to:

· vehement eye rolls

· “but whhhyyyyy”

· heavy sighs

· “that’s just stupid,” “that’s not fair,” etc.,

· and perhaps a sleepy “WHAT?!?!?” from the guy in the back of the room—you understand.

How did I tap into this bountiful natural resource of negative energy? To counter the simmering dread over the required year-long grammar immersion, I kept a large stash of sidewalk chalk and we diagrammed sentences on the asphalt in the parking lot, weather permitting.

Teaching intransitive/transitive verbs was super easy using pop culture news headlines, e.g., “Kanye interrupted,” vs. “Kanye interrupted Taylor,” following his notorious music awards show mic-grab. It’s interesting—and baffling—to see the Kanye vs. T-Swift political headlines popping up this week. She says, “Vote.” He says, “Got this magic red hat.” Perfect metaphor for 2018.

To lighten the rule-bound atmosphere in the typical high school world of “don’ts,” we always observed Banned Books Week. We shared our disbelief at the annual ALA list of Most Challenged Books. We laughed at the idea that someone could find Captain Underpants offensive. We researched national news articles about parents who proposed banning books (some they hadn’t even read) at local school board meetings.

It was all fun and games until I asked my students to choose a favorite book—[pausing for a pedagogical moment of silent “think time”]—then I told them to imagine their favorite book had been challenged by a parent who probably hadn’t read it. The assignment: Prepare a defense using the guidelines in a school policy document we’d found—maybe from Texas?—doesn’t matter. What followed was a revealing exercise in how much books really mean to us as literate, sentient human beings. Some of my students found it quite difficult to choose a single favorite book. My evil plot worked well.

As defenses were presented to the class, favorites followed a predictable path—lots of Harry Potter titles, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, etc.—with one stunning exception: The Dubliners by James Joyce. How many 14-year-olds do you know who’ve read James Joyce? For that matter, how many adults? (I count myself among those who can claim multiple failed attempts at Ulysses, so there’s that. Dubliners was no problem.)

There are two primary reasons I will forever remember young Michael Perry, Defender of The Dubliners.

1. His poignant, intelligent, impassioned defense of a beautiful literary work.

2. His bushy full beard wherein he habitually stored his pencil horizontally at his chin.

***

My own book banning initiation occurred when I was in elementary school. Apparently we (girls) were totally distracted by and subsequently forbidden to read the wildly popular Nancy Drew series at school, as I recall. Some of us made lame attempts to conceal the bright yellow covers behind other books. We weren’t fooling anyone.

My favorite Nancy Drew title: The Clue of the Leaning Chimney. I have no idea why. What I do remember is that we didn’t DARE try any funny stuff in the school library. Our librarian, Miss Carolyn Nicholson, would have none of it. When it was time to line up to go back to the classroom, no one was allowed to leave until every library chair had been pushed back into place at every library table and Miss Nicholson had given us the nod.

To. This. Day. Decades later The Nicholson Rule holds. I still push the chairs back whenever I’m in a table-and-chairs situation—meetings, restaurants, offices, you name it. I’m the one lagging slightly behind to make sure it’s all good for a safe exit. You never know when some literary scofflaws might show up and move the chairs around. Life lessons, people.