Ruralite Cafe: Published 11/07/02

By Lisa Majors-Duff - News Editor

Banning books beyond belief

In other words, if asked their feelings on censorship, most people will gladly give you their opinion and rarely will it come from atop a fence post. They'll either tell you in no uncertain terms that there's no way on God's green earth they'll ever allow their children to read Harry Potter books, which do nothing but advocate witchcraft.

Or just the opposite, they'll tell you they loved the books so much they are planning to allow their children to play hooky from school so the whole family can venture together to Asheville to catch the first viewing of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," the second movie in the series.

A project taken on by students in the university's history club, the exhibit encouraged passersby to "Celebrate Freedom: Read a Banned Book!"

"This was a real learning experience for the students," said Nan Watkins, who has coordinated exhibits for the library during most of her tenure there. "I think they were shocked to find out that in a democracy someone could ban a book."

The exhibit was inspired by the American Library Association's recognition of Banned Book Week, Watkins said. "But we turned it into 'Banned Book Month' because a week is just not enough time," she said. "Every year we pull out this issue to remind people."

Not to mention, she said, that every year WCU becomes a home away from home to a new crop of freshmen who are encouraged to use their stay in Cullowhee to expand their thought processes and form opinions through a greater understanding of the world around them.

While she may not be a freshmen anymore, junior Ashley Rood said she made some startling discovering while working on this project. With Watkins's help, Rood learned that the ALA recognizes four categories of banned books: Social, political, religious and sexual reasons have all been used to attempt to prevent people from reading.

I say these were "attempts to prevent reading" because each and every case of censorship throughout history has failed miserably. I know this is true because the list of banned books I found at Hunter Library looked strikingly similar to required reading lists from both my high school and college years.

Which brought to mind yet another trait of human nature not to be denied, the one that makes most of us want desperately that which we are told we cannot have. Knowing a book has been banned quite naturally makes us wonder why, agreed Rood, whose job it was to research censored European works of literature. "When I found out about a particular banned book, it just made me want to read it more," she said. "I would never advocate banning books because censorship stalls progress."

Rood pointed to "Oliver Twist" as an example of a banned book that has continued over the years to contribute to our understanding of the world at the time Charles Dickens wrote it.

"Sometimes the challenges to books are so far-fetched," Watkins said, "but people become passionate about their own beliefs."

Opposition to a book starts with individuals, parents in many cases telling the members of a board of education that a book in the school's library is not appropriate, said Watkins. From there, a fever has been known to start, steadily working its way up to infect various organizations.

"It starts with the common citizen," she said. "Then you have groups like 'the church,' 'the state' or even the Society for the Suppression of Vice in New York, but you just can't tell people what to think."

Watkins, Rood and every freedom-loving journalist like me have the same reaction to censorship - wide-eyed, slack-jawed amazement that anyone would tell us what we can and cannot read. Take for example these familiar titles:

Banned for social reasons - "Catch-22," "Elmer Gentry," "Fahrenheit 451," "Gone With the Wind," "The Canterbury Tales," "A Farewell to Arms," "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Anne Frank's Diary," "The Sun Also Rises," and two Twain classics "Huck Finn" and "Tom Sawyer."

Banned for sexual content - "Arabian Nights," "Clan of the Cave Bear," "From Here to Eternity," Stephen King's "Christine," "The Kama Sutra" and "Madame Bovary."

Banned for religious reasons - The Bible, Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason," "Don Quixote," "The Hidden Faces of Eve," "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Aristotle's "Metaphysics" and Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species."

Banned for political content - Both George Orwell classics "Animal Farm" and "1984," "Black Boy," "Born on the Fourth of July," "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," "Dr. Zhivago," "The Grapes of Wrath," "Gulliver's Travels," "The Jungle," Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

So if you're looking for a good book to read by fire light this winter, just pick any of the above works of art and enjoy it as you would any forbidden fruit, which in reality is good for the body and soul.

Back to Archive: 11/07/02.