Read! Because "They" Say You Shouldn't.

It's Banned Books Week again, folks, so let's consume some of that evil literature! Take the coming week to enjoy a book that "they" - whiny parents, mostly - successfully or unsuccessfully challenged. See what that book's all about, for yourself, before you make a decision about it one way or another. Read. Think. Learn. It's fun. Trust me.

Some of my favorite banned books include:

"1984" by George Orwell. Big Brother, the Thought Police, total government control...it's all here. On a related note, you might like Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" - another novel about oppressive government.

"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain, a.k.a. Samuel Clemens. Apparently, writing a realistic novel set in a time when people dropped N-bombs and owned slaves is...bad. Heaven forbid we keep American history in our minds by reading about it, right? That might, you know, offend someone.

"The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger. Yes, Holden - the main character - is an antisocial, swearing twit...but that's what makes him so likable if you're the right age when you pick it up for the first time. I loved this novel when I was in my early teens, and still enjoy rereading it every now and then.

"A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess. Yeah, the film was all right, but the book is a lot better - as is typically the case.

"A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams. Seriously...this was challenged? I can't even begin to understand why that would be the case, but whatever.

The "Harry Potter" series. Say what you will about the series or the author, but you can't deny that J.K. Rowling convinced an entire generation of people all over the world to put down the video games, DVDs, and computers and READ.

Oh, and Stephen King novels tend to receive challenges. Even though I'm not a big fan of most of his latest work, his older books are still great reads. I'd give "Dolores Claiborne" and "The Stand" priority if you're trying to get into King, but you might also like "Carrie" as it's classic Stephen King.

Enjoy the reading!

Ripoff!

My $130.00+ math book does not, in fact, speak the answers to me...or come with a built-in calculator, even. Ripoff! The good news is that, because this edition is brand new (it's copyrighted 2010, if you can believe it), I can pass on said textbook to one of my brothers should he decide to take the same course. (He might...he has to have math classes to fulfill his degree plan, and this would be a free book to him.)

Another ripoff of late: Scrabble Slam. This card game sucks. You have to use both sides of the playing card, for starters, because there's either a letter or a blank printed on each side. Also, you have to deal out all of the cards at the beginning of the game. That would be fine if you had at least four players but, with fewer, there are just too many cards to hold AND see clearly.

Oh, and the basic premise is to change the current, four-letter word to some other, four-letter word, and do it quickly - you race against the other players instead of taking turns like civilized adults. Mom and I are in complete agreement that this was a big, fat waste of my five dollars. Too bad, because I was really hoping to be able to kick Mom's butt at SOMETHING even LOOSELY related to Scrabble.

On the other hand: the dice version of Phase 10 is a lot of fun. If you like Yahtzee! and Phase Ten, consider this to be their unholy lovechild. A lovechild with a mostly-useless score pad (the sections are really, really tiny), but a fun lovechild nonetheless.

Fart Jokes

You know...I might be 27 years old, and I might be a somewhat-conservative female but...I really, really like a good fart joke. Maybe it's because I have three brothers, and grew up trying to out-fart them after Mom made beans or cabbage for dinner. Perhaps it's because I'm a fairly-flatulent person by nature, and figure that I might as well find humor in the affliction. Or maybe I'm just a typical human being.

However, I spent last week in British Literature class, discussing a fart joke in Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales." As it turns out, the flatulence in "The Miller's Tale" is not merely some dude letting one rip. Oh, no. There's symbolism...literary meaning...a deeper point...behind farting, at least in that instance.

It's discussions like this one that make me not hate school so much.

I Blame The Van.

One theory about Stephen King is that his writing was a lot better before a reckless driver's van nearly killed him back in '99.

I'm in the middle of Just After Sunset: Stories - an eagerly-anticipated collection of his shorter work - and am really starting to agree with this theory.

Stephen King is one of my very-favorite authors, and I really enjoyed most of his older work. But On Writing was the last truly-good thing that he put on paper. Almost everything that he's put forth since that was published has been disappointing in one way or another.

Cell had potential, but fell short. From a Buick 8 was just stupid - the whole concept blew chunks. And I didn't even finish Lisey's Story. I've never failed to finish a Stephen King book in my entire life, and I've been reading his books since I was seven years old.

Oh, I don't expect any writer to have a perfect batting average, so to speak. I mean, I didn't forsake the dude after I finished Thinner - which was, by the way, a horrible novel, with an ending that made me want to get all stabbity with the pen that was clipped to my t-shirt at the time. I understand the occasional dud, and I'm not going to give up on a writer just because one or two books out of, oh, more than fifty, suck hard.

Man, I was even okay with the little bad streak that King had when he was sucking up cocaine and chugging beer faster than his agent could count the bucks that he was bringing in. Writers are only human, and have problems, which I understand to a certain extent.

But...this slump of King's is...certainly dragging on and on.

I totally blame the van.

Stuff That Rocks

Tonight, let's talk about Stuff That Rocks.

One: Sonic has a dollar menu. The Jr. burger? Worth a dollar plus tax. Yay! Now I can afford to grease up my arteries a little more often. Thank you, Sonic, for making your killer burgers more affordable to us po' folk.

Two: I just picked up another David Sedaris book (not his latest, but that will come soon enough, I'm sure). If you like creative nonfiction, you should read this guy's collections. He's hilarious.

Three: Japanese people trying to teach other Japanese people how to speak English. This video...oh, man. I had to capture the audio and make a ring tone, because it makes me laugh so hard every time I see or hear it.

Book Censorship Sucks

I love reading. Literature and I get along fantastically, especially when I’m reading something that’s controversial, or even banned. The book's usually a pretty-good read when a large group of people are offended by it, for some reason.

Why do we ban books? Censorship isn’t the American way of doing things now, is it? Since when have we put our personal liberties into the hands of a few shrieking protesters?

I completely support a parent who wants to know what his or her children are reading. This is good parenting, and I’m not going to suggest that anybody interfere with it. Children might not be able to handle some of the things that my favorite writers have addressed in their books, so their parents should have full control over what their kids read, and when. You know your children best, so you’re the most-qualified judge of when they’re ready for Harry Potter, or whatever other books are on the shelves, right? Right.

However, parental censorship begins and ends at home. No parent has the right to tell the school or public library, or the local book stores, what can and cannot go on the shelves. That type of censorship – the attempt to make everyone else in the community adhere to one person’s standard – is unacceptable.

By all means, require an adult library card to check out Stephen King novels. That’s fine and dandy, because children are their parents’ responsibilities. This system was in place at the library that my Mom and I visited every week when I was a child. She would check out the books for me, or give the librarian permission to check them out to me. I had to have Mom’s authorization, which gave her the parental control that she needed.

That’s fine by me. But had a protesting parent challenged the Stephen King collection, and removed his books, I would not have been able to check them out. That isn’t fair at all, because I have just as much of a right to my favorite books as anybody else does to his or hers. Parents who don’t want their kids to read Stephen King, or J.K. Rowling, or whatever else, are free to prevent their kids from reading those books. But they don’t have the right to make the literature inaccessible to anybody else.

If one person has the right to challenge a book, and then have it removed, then we all have that right. Eventually, there won’t be any books on the shelves at all, because every single piece of writing out there is capable of offending somebody. If one person has the right to remove an offensive book, then everybody has that right, which eventually empties the libraries and bookshelves. Then everyone’s miserable.

The worst part of all this censorship crap, I think, is the fact that people like to go on shrieking tangents against certain books without knowing what the literature is really about. Look: if you’re too thick-headed to see the anti-slavery message in “Huckleberry Finn,” just be quiet. You embarrass yourself when you go on your “This promotes slavery!” tangent, which is so far from the truth about this literature that it makes me sick to my stomach.

Go read the book, then think about the characters and their actions. You should, if you think about this hard enough, realize that Twain/Clemens was writing anti-slavery messages. This is a fairly-easy concept if you think about it for a few minutes. The next time you want to shriek about a book that bothers you, go read it and ponder its contents for a little bit. You might surprise yourself.

When Students Encounter New Words

If you don't know a word that you encounter while reading, or while conversing, then please do yourself a big favor and look up that word. Trust me when I say that you'll be better off for making a little effort to learn something new - instead of whining, outside of class, that the professors are a bunch of a-holes because they dared to assign challenging reading, or used those big words in their lectures.

I'm tired of hearing students whine about the academic standards. If we're in a senior-level English class, then the odds are good that we will encounter words we do not know. This is true even if we've devoted a good bit of our lives to vocabulary, to reading, to learning about literature and language. The English language is, to put it mildly, farkin' huge. None of us know every word, or every variation of every word.

As English majors, we've deliberately chosen to study English. We devote obscene amounts of time to the literature, to the words, to the conversations about these things. When we declared this major, we agreed to meet the challenges that it presents: not to run away, whining and complaining about how hard our professors are on us.

Make a note of the word that's new and confusing, consult the dictionary and/or Google, and learn something new. We're in college for the various challenges that it offers. Trying to convince the professors to lower the standards so that we will not have to work to clear the bar is just stupid.

Dumbledore Was Gay - So What?

“Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling recently revealed that beloved Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore was gay. And I recently revealed that I don’t give a rip one way or the other.

I’m a Southern Baptist (read: evil fundie jerk). I don’t agree with the homosexual lifestyle. But even though that’s my belief, I don’t try to shove it up somebody else’s nose. All I ask is that I receive the same courtesy. Don’t try to force me to accept something – and I won’t try to force you to change.

As far as I can tell, none of the seven Harry Potter books gave any indication that Dumbledore was gay. And even if there had been strong hints (or outright proclamations), this particular subject had nothing to do with the storyline. Dumbledore’s persona lifestyle did not affect Harry’s quest to save the world; Voldemort’s plan to eradicate Harry, or everyday life at Hogwarts. Dumbledore’s orientation did not affect the books one way or the other, so it’s utterly and completely irrelevant as far as I’m concerned. I don’t care. So he was gay. Big deal. Nothing is different – including my love of the books – because of this trivial bit of information.

But even though this has nothing to do with anything, people are wondering why Rowling revealed this information. Why, after the books were finished, did she feel the need to drop this big old secret on the fans?

This is not about publicity. She’s got more of that than she can handle. Her books are still selling almost as fast as the presses can print them. The films are still being made and released (and the DVDs are moving, too). Rowling has speaking engagements, autograph signings, and tentative plans to write a Hogwarts encyclopedia to satisfy the most curious of fans. Any time she wants HP-related attention, she’s got it. She doesn’t have to drop surprises on fans, the media, or anti-Harry crowds to make the news.

I don’t think that Rowling was trying to give the metaphorical bird to the religious right, either. She doesn’t really have to work to tick off my fellow fundies. The fact that the books use words like “magic” and “witch” is enough to turn otherwise-civilized people into shrieking, babbling masses. And even though all seven books have been published, the anti-Potter crowd can still complain about the upcoming films. And they can always buy copies of the encyclopedia, should Rowling write and publish it, and have yet another bonfire. It’s not like the religious right will run out of things to complain about.

My best explanation for the “Dumbledore confession” is that Rowling always imagined this character as a gay man. I’m a writer, myself. I know how that sort of thing goes. When a character comes to mind, you really can’t do much to change things up. You can put a different suit on your dentist, or you can give him red hair instead of black, but he’s still a dentist. You can’t change your guy or gal’s essence. If you try to give your dentist a different profession, he or she will keep circling back to the teeth and gums. You can’t help that – and if you try, your character will be a cardboard fake that not many readers will believe.

I think that, when Rowling began planning the HP series oh so many years ago, Dumbledore was already a homosexual wizard. This is not something that’s vital to the storyline, but it’s part of that character’s identity. Even though there aren’t any obvious (or even subtle, if I recall correctly) hints about this part of Dumbledore’s lifestyle, it’s still part of Dumbledore.

And how I feel about Dumbledore doesn’t change just because Rowling told the world that he was gay. He was the ultimate good guy, which I love about him. He was wise, kind and always ready with the right answer to the other characters’ endless questions and needs. Even when people dumped all over Dumbledore, he kept his composure – and at least a small measure of compassion.

None of that changed just because Rowling announced that Dumbledore didn’t dig the ladies. The guy was still Dumbledore. And if this character were a real person – a man I actually knew – I would feel the same way. I wouldn’t dump a good, kind friend for being gay.

So: what’s the big deal? I don’t really see it, to be honest. Some might claim that Rowling is trying to sneak in a “tolerance and acceptance” message, but that’s not a new thing for her. All of the Harry Potter books address tolerance in one form or another. “Mudbloods” versus wizards, for example. Poor versus wealthy. Squibs versus talented wizards.

There’s nothing wrong with being tolerant of other people. I don’t mean that we have to say, “Okay, homosexuality’s fine and I don’t have any problem with it.” What I mean is that, even though we don’t necessarily agree with the lifestyle, there’s more to other people than just that one thing. You and I can love the real-life Dumbledores without compromising our faith or beliefs. In fact: that’s what Jesus taught us to do.