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Banned Books
3 years ago  ::  Jun 17, 2009 - 1:55PM #20
Ironhold
Posts: 8,208

Jun 17, 2009 -- 9:38AM, Don't_Be_Captious wrote:


Ha, 1984 can easily be deemed anti-Communist or pro-Communist, depending on who wants to do the spinning.  Essentially he was writing against all big governments, left or right.  I always took it to be anti-Communist, though, so the allegations of its pro-Communism seem completely ludicrous to me.




It was anti-Communist.


 


Orwell volunteered for the Marxist faction during the Spanish Civil War, and actually suffered a near-fatal throat wound during the fighting.


Unfortunately for him, however, the political infighting between Stalin and his rivals bled over into the Marxist forces. Orwell, his girlfriend, and a fellow writer found themselves on the wrong side of Stalin's wrath when the purges started, as the unit they were with was labeled "traitorous" because they followed the wrong Commie figurehead. As a result, the three went from "valiant heroes" to "wanted criminals" overnight, and only just barely made it back to England.


The whole experience left Orwell so furious at the notion of Communism that he produced "1984" and "Animal Farm" in response, his way of warning people what was in store if they didn't fight the mentality.

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3 years ago  ::  Jun 17, 2009 - 12:49PM #19
Pfred
Posts: 256

This reminds me of something I read in Denis Leary's book "Why We Suck". He said in Catholic school, they would use the banned books list as a reading list. He then proceeded to say something to help ensure that the book got banned :).

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3 years ago  ::  Jun 17, 2009 - 9:38AM #18
Don't_Be_Captious
Posts: 1,035

Ha, 1984 can easily be deemed anti-Communist or pro-Communist, depending on who wants to do the spinning.  Essentially he was writing against all big governments, left or right.  I always took it to be anti-Communist, though, so the allegations of its pro-Communism seem completely ludicrous to me.

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3 years ago  ::  Jun 16, 2009 - 12:12PM #17
Agnosticspirit
Posts: 9,253

Jun 15, 2009 -- 11:31AM, Pfred wrote:


I am curious who banned 1984, because I think it is one of the best books ever written.



Found a link from the American Library Association that provides the reason why many books have been either banned or challenged.


According to this link, which I assume will be very reliable, 1984 wasn't  banned; instead it was challenged. Pasting  text from the link above related to 1984 below.


Challenged in the Jackson County, FL (1981) because Orwell's novel is "pro-communist and contained explicit sexual matter." Source: 2004 Banned Books Resource Guide by Robert P. Doyle.


Also from the ALA --- the difference between Banned and Challenged books:


"A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others."





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3 years ago  ::  Jun 16, 2009 - 4:47AM #16
Don't_Be_Captious
Posts: 1,035

Jun 15, 2009 -- 12:40PM, golden_eagle wrote:


I thought you asked for books that where banned, not challenged.  There is a difference.




Where'd you get that from?  afaik everything discussed so far has ostensibly been banned.  No matter.

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3 years ago  ::  Jun 15, 2009 - 12:40PM #15
golden_eagle
Posts: 28

I thought you asked for books that where banned, not challenged.  There is a difference. 


Here is a list I found on the internet by doing a google search.


Books Banned at One Time or Another in the United States


A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time
by Madeleine L'Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

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3 years ago  ::  Jun 15, 2009 - 11:31AM #14
Pfred
Posts: 256

I am curious who banned 1984, because I think it is one of the best books ever written.

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3 years ago  ::  Jun 15, 2009 - 4:43AM #13
Don't_Be_Captious
Posts: 1,035

The only one I remember reading & (thinking I) knew at the time had been once banned was Johnny Got His Gun.  Back then I enthusiastically supported it (the book, that is, not its banning).  Now when I think back to some of its passages I'm not as sure I could so unequivocally support it anymore.  But of course I couldn't condone banning it at all.


If Bill O'Reilly & all the whack-job American right-wing domestic terrorists can go on spewing their hate speech freely, I sure can't see why Johnny Got His Gun should possibly be banned.

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3 years ago  ::  Jun 15, 2009 - 2:32AM #12
bevdavey
Posts: 273

I have probably read all of the books mentioned - but didn't know any of them had been banned.   The only banned book I can think of is D H Lawrence's classic Lady Chatterley's Lover and I well remember the court case in he early 60's which eventually allowed this work to be published.

Bev
Bev Davey, England
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3 years ago  ::  Jun 08, 2009 - 1:49PM #11
appy20
Posts: 10,165

Okay, I looked at the list again. Harry Potter and Catcher in the Rye are on it.  I counted 172 titles (and I was intererrupted twice so the count may not be accurate) and I counted 69 that I had read.  So, I have not read the overwhelming majority as I thought.  Many I have never heard of.  I am 69/172.

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