Random Thought About Banned Books.

[beccatoria]

So apparently it's banned books week and I got linked to this list of 2007's most challenged books as compiles by the American Library Association.

Two novels on that list really surprised me. The first being The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. I knew there was some controversy regarding its thinly veiled anti-Catholic sentiment but it surprises me it was to the point where it made number 4. I mean that's just...weird. (For the record I haven't read those books. I started reading the first one but didn't like it).

The other novel was The Color Purple by Alice Walker. I suppose, thinking about it, that oughtn't shock me at all, but I studied that novel in high school. It was one of my set texts for my English Literature A-Level. I mean, in 2000 this was on the British National Curriculum. It was a set text on one of the major national exam board's papers (Welsh Joint Education Committee, for info).

I guess it was a bit of a surprise - even though I should have known better - to realise that that book probably wouldn't get taught in American high schools. I still find the conservative aspect of the US catches me off-guard, even though I know it's there. Because my own experience of Americanness via my mother and the people I know and love and the places I've lived and stayed, are all like...the opposite of that.

But the States is nothing if not divided these days.

Also I received my Federal Ballot by email yesterday. I AM ALL VOTED UP, BABY.

Comments

[madenglishbloke.livejournal.com]

im worried at the fact that mark twain is one of the most challanged authors, and huck finn one of the most challanged books.
seeing as twain dealt fairly sympathetically with racial issues, surely the fault is more with the prevailing attitudes at the time he wrote - his black characters are ill-educated, not stupid, and probably in the main more honourable than most of his white characters.
and the racist views of many of his characters accurately reflect the prevailing views in the area he was writing about at that time.
stoopid americans!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

See, here you have the advantage on me - my dirty secret is that I've never actually READ Mark Twain. Though my great-grandmother did work as a maid for his daughter. /randomness.