It’s Banned Book Week. Fight censorship and read a challenged book this week!
From the list, here are just a few I’ve read and why I loved them and found them important.
1. Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien. First of all, considering that many credit JRR with CS Lewis’ Christian conversion, it’s beyond hypocritcal for the religious right to attack this book. Tolkien not only writes with lyrical beauty, he writes about deep themes such as friendship, the impact of a single life or a single act of faithfulness, and also the reverberating consequences of a single act of evil. I loved this series and recommend it for the beauty of the language, the importance of the themes, and the sheer awesomeness of his world of Middle Earth. Everybody ought to at least know Lothlorien exists, even if they don’t choose to open the book and visit themselves.
2. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee. Again, sheer power and beauty of language. Read it just for her descriptions, which any poet would weep in envy over. And it’s the story of Scout growing up in a world which is more complicated than she suspected, a world that contains prejudice and bigotry and where justice isn’t guaranteed. Since this is still the world we live in, this is still an important book.
3. 1984, George Orwell. Dude. Not enough people have read this book. The dangers of revisionist history, of spinning language to alter meaning, of surrendering control of one’s thinking to Those Who Know Better (and one of the really interesting things about this book is that it’s pretty much clerks operating in ignorance who decide) are worth thinking about. And reading about. Also, don’t you want to know who Big Brother is and why he’s watching?
4. Lord of the Flies, William Goldberg. One of the most powerful novels I’ve ever read, beautifully constructed, a work of sheer staggering literary genius, and for that alone it should be preserved for the future. But it’s also a very accessible story of Ralph and Piggy and what happens when anarchy reigns. How easy it is to influence herd mentality and sway the majority to acts of evil, step by step. I think it’s also rather bleak in that it didn’t show that the opposite can happen, too; influencing people to acts of generosity and greatness. But still a powerful book, one that says something important about human nature, and even if it isn’t the whole story, it’s a well done story.
5. Catch-22, Joseph Heller. The description of the pilot naked in the tree and the poor chaplain who thought he was having a holy vision alone is worth reading this book for. Like Lord of the Flies, not the whole story, but still an important one.
6. Slaughterhouse Five (or the Children’s Crusade) by Kurt Vonnegut. Everybody should read Vonnegut. He may have been one of the most important American authors to ever hold a pen, and if you don’t read him, you’ll never know why. It’s not my favorite work of his, but I do understand why it’s viewed as one of the most significant. I also recommend Cat’s Cradle, Breakfast of Champions, and Bluebeard; Bluebeard is to art what Slaughterhouse Five is to war.
7. Call of the Wild, Jack London. London captures the soul of the wilderness and why it matters, I really can’t sum it up better than that. Since visitors to national parks have drastically declined, it’s time for more people to read this book. And go visit someplace that isn’t paved and doesn’t have electricity and running water. (I have to note that I liked White Fang better)
I don’t love every book on the challenged list, but I stand by your right to read anything you want to, even if I think it’s bleak, depressing or boring. And that’s what Banned Book Week is all about.
Now I’m off to pen some trashy adventure fluff. Because it’s fun.
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