“No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing…. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?” – Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Library Hogwash
Thanks for Dan Kleinman for pointing out Thomas Sowell’s criticism of Banned Books Week. Sowell is quoted saying:
If the criterion of censorship is that the objection comes from the general public, rather than from people who run schools and libraries, then that is saying the parents and taxpayers have no right to a say about what is done with their own children or their own money. . . . No one calls it censorship if the collected works of Rush Limbaugh are not put into libraries and schools in every town, hamlet and middlesex village. It is only when the books approved by the elite intelligentsia are objected to by others that is it called censorship. Apparently we are not to talk back to our betters.
The NY Sun Ceases Publication
Today, readers will see the last edition of The New York Sun. “Under the leadership of the hawkish Lipsky and managing editor Ira Stoll, the Sun forcefully defended Israel, repeatedly sounded the alarm about Iran and backed President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. The paper also took political and socio-economic stances that were unpopular in a city teeming with Democrats. . . . Many readers also found its arts section sophisticated and accessible.” (via ArtsJournal)
The Writing Life or Lack Thereof
Mr. Ravenhill suggests artists are essentially setup by the time they are thirty; afterwards they refine their vision or prove their inability. “Great artists such as Bacon and Beckett distil; lesser artists become self-referential and self-conscious as their work goes on. A personally defined landscape can easily become an enclosed and introverted prison, referring only to itself.” When he picks up a novel that begins with a writer struggling over his novel, he pitches it. (via ArtsJournal)
A Thorny Issue
David Ulin says Banned Books Week is a little difficult for him because it focuses attention on a good topic and trivializes it at the same time.
It’s foolish, self-defeating even, to pretend that books are innocuous, that we don’t need to concern ourselves with what they say. If that’s the case, then it doesn’t really matter if we ban them, because we have already stripped them of their power.
Books do change things: Just think of “Common Sense,” which lighted the fuse of the American Revolution, or “Mein Kampf,” which laid out the blueprint for Hitler’s Germany.
This reminds me of an essay I saw in a homeschooling magazine/catalog. It referred to parents who feared the Harry Potter books were dangerous and thus should not be read. He said they were dangerous, and that’s why they could be read along with many others. He urged parents to understand that reading only a few books was far worse than reading many of them, because with more reading comes more experience with ideas, words, and images.
Ideas are especially dangerous when taken in small amounts, but when you see or think about many ideas, you have more opportunity to spot the ridiculous ones at first blush and test the good ones against popular bad ones. (link via Books, Inq.)
Top Ten Books for Banned Books Week
“Free access to information is a core American value that should be protected,” said Judith F. Krug, director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom. “Not every book is right for each reader, but an individual’s interpretation of a book should not take away my right to select reading materials for my family or myself.”
This quote comes in an article headlining the fact that “And Tango Makes Three” was the most challenged or “banned” book last year, and I think this may highlight our argument for Banned Books Week. How does “free access to information” apply to children’s stories or any story for that matter? If parents believe a book, which the librarian believes with worth reading, should be placed in a somewhat restricted access section in order to guard young reader, do that bar anyone from access to whatever information is in it? Of course not.
But as readers of this blog have said before, the best parental guard against children reading inappropriate material is parental involvement and moral instruction. Children can understand a good bit with loving instruction. Where “And Tango Makes Three” is concerned, it may be a good idea for children to read it, ask questions about what makes a family, and receive thoughtful answers from their parents. Perhaps a book like this makes the top of the challenged list because some parents don’t want to face uncomfortable issues.
I believe we live in difficult times, and I don’t think Christians and god-fearing people will gain any ground by trying to shut out bad ideas or “information” from their libraries. We have to know the truth, love our neighbors, and speak appropriately about issues wherever we can–to speak as a humanist. To speak as a Christian, we should love our Lord with all of our heart, soul, and mind, and then know the truth, love our neighbors, and speak appropriately.
Why not Minot?
What a week to leave town, spend my days in a Viking camp, and (presumably) get my news mostly second-hand!
Next year, when I go to Høstfest in Minot, I expect I’ll share the roads with thousands of refugee Minnesotans, all their earthly possessions jammed into and strapped onto the tops of their Priuses. They’ll abandon this state once the high taxes and the economic downturn drive what’s left of the jobs out, and head west to North Dakota, where a favorable industrial environment will spark a sudden boom. Thugs will be stationed at the border to keep the “Minnies” out.
I’ll have a legitimate entry authorization from the Høstfest Committee, of course. Maybe I’ll never come back, though.
I commented, on Phil’s post below about historical naming practices in Europe, on a passage I recalled from an old book I own. I’ve found the passage now. It’s from Our Roving Bible by Lawrence E. Nelson, published by Abingdon-Cokesbury in 1945, long out of print. It’s a book on the influence of the Bible on English-speaking culture. My mother gave me her copy sometime in the mid-60s. I have no idea how she came to acquire it in the first place. Looking at it now, I’m amazed that I read it in high school, since I’m pretty sure I didn’t understand ¾ of it. Continue reading Why not Minot?
How Suffering Changed Children’s Names
Delancy Place has a fascinating quotation from Susan Squire’s book, I Don’t, which looks like a dreadful book on the history of marriage perspectives, on how The Great Plague changed the way parents named their children.
“The centrality of religion in medieval European life is impossible to overstate. … If you want to pray, you go to your parish and submit to the direction of a priest. If you want to confess, you sit in the confessional and [tell] your sins to the man on the other side of the partition, who pronounces judgement and penance. …
“Then along comes the Black Death, mowing down the sinful and the sinless indiscriminately. … You can be healthy on Monday, infected on Tuesday, and a corpse on Saturday, leaving precious little time to wipe the sin slate clean by confessing and repenting in preparation for your personal judgement day. The biggest hurdle of all might have been luring the priest, any priest, to one’s deathbed of contagion in order to perform last rites, the final cleansing. If a cleric does show up, he might charge an outrageous price for mumbling a few prayers. Stories of deathbed fee-gougers also abound, adding to the popular perception that extravagance and greed motivate more often than not. …
After that, people apparently drifted away from the church proper and clung to the mercy of the saints who were associated with pain and suffering.
A New Moby Dick Movie
Also from The Week, Universal Studios is working on a re-imagining of Moby Dick. I read elsewhere that Ahab will not be an obsessed sea captain, but a bit more stable though dynamic, and the perspective will allow the film to depict more of the terror of the great white whale.
Maher’s Favorite Books
Bill Maher has leaked his list of favorite books to The Week. On the list is Moby Dick, a book Maher has not read. In the vein of Banned Books Week, I think you’ll agree with me that this is a scandalous violation of Maher’s privacy, even if he did give them the list himself. I’m shocked. I mean, distributing photos of celebrity nursing (that’s baby feeding) by a well-meaning Wal-Mart employee is one thing. This book list is quite another.