Ah...America.
Home of the Free. Home of the Brave.
Home of the "We know better than you so we are going to deny you your constitutional rights to read this book. Trust us--it's for your own good!"
Why do we allow others to think for us like this? You know what other countries banned books?
Nazi Germany
North Korea
Communist Block Countries
USSR/Russia
Um. Last time I checked, we were a Republic, so, yea.
Back off people who think they know everything (Yes. I'm talking to you super, super scary people who think dinosaurs and people walked the earth at the same time.)--and let me enlighten some of you with a list of my all time favorite banned books; enjoy!
1) The Great Gatsby--by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Who doesn't love a story about drunken socialites, LOTS of marital infidelity, and suicide?? This story just reaffirms money doesn't buy happiness. People have the same emotional problems no matter how much money they have in the bank.
2) To Kill a Mockingbird--by Harper Lee.
Probably, no--I'm going to say it--this IS the best American novel of the 20th century. There. I've said it. Can't take it back. If you haven't read this? Leave the country. Now. You don't deserve your citizenship.
3) Lolita--by Vladmir Nabokov.
The genius of this book is, a friend once told me, that you feel sorry for Humbert. You know--the pedophile? He likes girls of a certain age, well, because he's a pervert. And young Lolita? Lolita takes him for everything he's got. You dislike both of them equally....Nabokov is brilliant, no?
4) A Farewell to Arms--Ernest Hemingway.
Again, this was banned because there's S-E-X in it. Not blatant pornographic sex, but when you have an unmarried nurse carrying on with a patient, and then she gets pregnant? Oh the humanity! Actually--this is my favorite Hemingway..I think he captures quite poignantly the innocence he fully lost while serving as an ambulance driver in WWI (and falling in love with a nurse on the battlefields). His later work is misogynistic and not very nice towards women. It's nice to know that at one time, he had the capacity to fully love.
5)Gone with the Wind--by Margaret Mitchell.
I will admit, this is totally a guilty pleasure for me, but it also contains my alter ego (well--let's just say who I really do aspire to be in some ways)--Katie Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler. Oh, she's a real bitch..and I love every single second she's on the page. What's she going to do next? Survival of the fittest never looked so damn good! It's also a fantastic reminder that in the good old days? People were NOT more moral, more Christian, more nice, or even had better manners. It's just human nature wanting to gloss over the ugly parts of the past and pretend that they didn't happen. Kudos to Margaret Mitchell for laying it all out there--you see Old Dixie all right--warts and all.
6) Slaughterhouse Five--by Kurt Vonnegut
Indianapolis' Native Son, a real pioneer of the later half of the 20th century. A humanist with a real soul, if you want my opinion. Who else could really make you feel the plight of Billy Pilgrim? Time traveling prisoner of war? What else can I say to you but READ THIS BOOK. You will be a better person for it. Truly.
7) Lady Chatterly's Lover--D.H. Lawrence.
This is not a "smutty book"! Well--okay. It's kind of smutty, but not in the way you're thinking (get your mind out of the gutter pervert). It's a tragic story. She loves her husband, but then he's paralyzed and becomes emotionally dead to his wife. She's young, she's fairly attractive--she's a physical being who craves the love of a man. The mind alone cannot keep a person satisfied...this is why we have bodies. It's a real warning to those of us (like me), who tend to think we don't need affection or love from another to be fully satisfied souls. Guess what? We really, truly do.
8) An American Tragedy--Theodore Dreiser
Another Indiana boy--and one of my favorite writers, period. It's the story of a street missionary who flees his parents and the uber religious life only to fall in love with the wrong girl. Well, the right girl, actually--he just happens to get another girl pregnant first. Girl number one ends up dead in a lake. Girl number two? The beautiful and rich Sondra--who happens to love Clyde as much as he loves her. His great plan to get rid of Roberta goes horribly wrong..and well. I think you know how this story ends. One of the best book to screen movies ever made, A Place in the Sun, with the ethereal Elizabeth Taylor (so young--so heartbreakingly beautiful), Montgomery Clift, and the superb Shelley Winters, is worth checking out if you come across it.
So there you have--a mere snippet of the literally hundreds of books (which, FYI are mostly young adult and kids novels--Hunger Games, Harry Potter, and Beverly Clearly books have all been banned by countless school systems) that are banned in somewhere in the United States. A little crazy, huh?
Actually--it's a lot crazy.
So read on--and enjoy!
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