Do You Read Banned Books?

When I was young Mad Magazine used to cost a quarter. My allowance was a quarter, which worked out well. I could buy a Mad magazine or save two quarters and buy Famous Monsters of Filmland, which was fifty cents. This left me with one more quarter to save for something more expensive, like a Revell model battleship or submarine. That was always around a dollar. 

Mad was famous for occasional inserts. For example, they inserted a vinyl record in the center that you could play on a record player. Side A was It's a Gas, in which the only lyrics were periodic burps. (Burps are a gas, right?) Side B was She Got A Nose Job, which I can still sing to this day. 

Another time, the magazine inserted full color book covers that could be used to wrap around trade-sized paperbacks. The book covers were intended to shock adults by appearing to be banned books or very adult content. The fake title would be large and in small type the rest of the title. One of the book covers was Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer. Those three words were writ large in white block letters on a blue background. The full title might have been something like Let's go to a TROPIC isle OF no importance and get skin CANCER.

Other scandalous titles included Lady Chatterly's Lover and Fanny Hill. When I took a couple of these fake book covers and put them on my paperbacks, they achieved the intended goal of shocking an adult, specifically my mother. 

As it turns out, when I was in college eight or so years later the movie version of Tropic Of Cancer was playing at the theater. I probably would not have noticed but for the fake book cover I'd used from Mad. Out of curiosity I went to see it and left after about 20 minutes, not because it was vulgar but because it seemed pointless. (My assessment wasn't far afield. On imdb.com it has a 5.5 rating out of 10, which is pretty low.) 

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There was a time when the label Banned In Boston was a badge of notoriety. Perhaps it was Boston's Puritanical roots that resulted in the region's power to censor books, plays and movies, thereby dictating what was acceptable and unacceptable.

In addition to books like Ulysses (Joyce), Leaves of Grass (Whitman) and The Sun Also Rises (Hemingway), the Everly Brothers' "Wake Up Little Susie" was censored.

While perusing the shelves at our local library this past week I discovered the 2014 edition of Banned Books, a catalog of books that have stirred the ire of people in various parts of our country over the years. It's a large book with more than 325 pages of listings, identifying books and the causes of their being barred, or recommended to be. Here are some of the more surprising entries.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury surprised me. It's about book burning. Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles was also banned by one school district because the N-word is used in one of its stories. The book was reprinted without that sentence and is OK now. 

One of my favorite Bradbury stories is The Veldt. It's a short sci-fi story that was included in his The Illustrated Man. I went through a sci-fi stage once, reading a lot of Asimov short stories as well as Bradbury. I had to scratch my head as to why The Veldt would be criticized. Fortunately, Banned Books included the reason people were upset with these various books. In this case, the parent who complained felt the story failed to show any consequences for the children's actions. That's getting pretty picky. 

Various school districts and communities took umbrage with six of Richard Brautigan's books, most of which I read in college.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was banned in the USSR because of references to occultism and spiritism. A Study in Scarlet was pulled in one county school district because it portrayed Mormonism in a bad light. The surprise for me is that Sign of the Four doesn't seem to have received any complaints even though it begins with Holmes rather enjoying the effects of shooting cocaine. 

Upton Sinclair's Oil! was banned in Boston because of its criticism of the Harding administration. Harding was no longer president and his cronies already dispersed by the time the book was published. It was also banned in Yugoslavia and burned in Nazi Germany, the latter because of its socialist views. The film There Will Be Blood, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, was loosely based on this book.

John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men was banned in dozens of localities for language and in some municipalities because it used the N-word. I've read this book a few times since first reading it in high school. I remember the characters and the power of the prose, not these language matters which passed faster than a speed bump.

Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels was banned in Ireland.

Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn received dozens of challenges and has been pulled from countless reading lists because it was deemed to "undermine the self-esteem" of black youth, and the N-word is used in the book a number of times. 

Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird suffered the same fate, despite it being a story that shines a light on the evils of racial inequality. Some school districts rejected it because of racial slurs used in the story and does "psychological damage to the positive integration process." Ironically Harper Lee was showing the ugliness of people who demean other simply because of the color of their skin. 

Several Kurt Vonnegut books made the list including Slaughterhouse Five and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. 

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There's much more that can be said here on this topic, but it's nuanced and I don't have time to detail all the distinctions as regards this issue. I agree with those who believe there is an age appropriateness to be considered when recommending books to younger audiences. Then again, that's a much longer discussion. 

This book, Banned Books, caught my attention when I saw it, and I decided to check it out. The subtitle is Challenging Our Freedom To Read.

The Maltese Falcon

Dashiell Hammett has been called "the father of the hard-boiled detective novel" and creator of one of the 20th century's most famous sleuths, Sam Spade. Last week I found and finished one of his most well known works, The Maltese Falcon. Within a dozen years of publication it had already been made into three motion pictures, the most famous featuring Humphrey Bogart as the personification of Sam Spade.

Hammett purportedly worked for seven years with the Pinkerton detective agency, so he brings realism to his stories in a first-hand manner that conveys a believable jadedness. Even so, when I initially read The Thin Man years ago, it failed to make a deep impression. And I can't say I found this book compelling either. Maybe it was the story itself, or maybe Spade didn't hook me like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes.

Perhaps Hammett's significance is that of creating a genre, the tough guy detective who is his own man, in cahoots with no one, the modern existential hero solving life's problems against the backdrop of a murder mystery setting. Evidently someone considered his work significant enough to have him listed among the greats (501 Great Writers) and there are critics who rave over him, but this Amazon.com review by a typical reader seemed to adequately capture my mood on finishing it.

"The Maltese Falcon is nothing to write home about. It's a good book, and I recommend it, but it is nothing discernibly 'special.' You don't finish it and go, 'Wow!'"

On the heels of completing the book I decided to track down and revisit the Bogie film of the same name. I perked up when I saw that John Huston (The African Queen, Moby Dick, Under the Volcano) directed the film. The casting was pretty much perfect, even if Bogart is not blond. But to be honest, I don't know what all the fuss is about.

Yes, there are a lot of raves about this film. It's considered by many critics to be one of the top one hundred of all time. And many of the reviews at imdb.com support this claim. Still, there are naysayers such as Jake, who wrote, "After having heard so much about this movie over the years I was surprised to find it so dull and so poorly executed."

This review, by someone named dogspit, also indicates disappointment. "I tried to like The Maltese Falcon, but it didn't quite do it for me. Bogart & Astor each were plastic in their roles, and the rest of the cast fared little better. The film lacked ANY character development and tried to push the pace too much to be very enjoyable. Watch it for the nostalgia of it, but do not expect a lot."

Actually, I don't entirely agree with dogspit. I found the opening section compelling. Bogart does reek with an aura of smooth cool. But the noir style has so pervaded the Hollywood atmosphere I just can't get past the caricature. Whereas the setup drew me in, the story made me tired.

Though more can be said, for now I let it pass. What's your take?

Case of the Gilded Lily

Why are mysteries so fascinating?

One of the most popular shows on television today is CSI, a.k.a. Crime Scene Investigation. Essentially, it’s about the realities involved in solving murders. Though I’ve never seen the show, I know it must be popular because it’s on nearly every night of the week now.

CSI is, of course, only the latest in a long line of mystery, whodunit types of stories stretching back who knows how far. I remember conversations with my grandmother about the mysteries of the Great Pyramid and all the questions it raised. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote about it twenty-five hundred years ago and it is still unearthing unresolved questions to this day.

What is it about mysteries and puzzles that gets us so engaged? In the realm of literature Edgar Allen Poe made his mark with mysteries such as The Gold Bug and Murders in the Rue Morgue. Suddenly, a genre was born. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes was all about solving imponderables with a searing brilliance. G.K.Chesterton’s Father Brown was a contemporary to Holmes with an equally rabid following. Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot became a household name through the murder mystery genre as well.

When television culture emerged the short mystery tale became a staple in the nation’s diet for diversion. The Rockford Files, Columbo, Murder She Wrote… The shows made for good fun as audiences attempted to solve the crimes faster than their heroes.

With regard to solving murders the literary character, and television show, that most strikes a chord with me is the one and only Perry Mason, created by Erle Stanley Gardner and later played by Raymond Burr. Having just watched five episodes (on DVD) of Perry Mason Season 1, it’s easy to see why this was such compelling television back in its day.

There were probably two things that made Erle Stanley Gardner’s books so engaging. First was the air of authenticity in the manuscripts. Gardner himself had been a trial lawyer. He did not have to research courtroom proceedings as a journalist. He lived them. His pugnacious hero Perry Mason no doubt mirrored his own real and imagined courtroom achievements. Second, his terse contemporary writing style continuously moved his stories forward. He didn’t waste time on tedious backgrounds and family histories. The books strode through the story, both revealing and concealing, leaving the reader illuminated yet in the dark as Perry Mason persisted through to victory, and victory again.

The Mason team included his personal detective Drake, and the ever efficient Della Street who provided a perfect counterweight to the granite and steel Mason. Raymond Burr brought Perry Mason to life ever so perfectly, the tough yet considerate counsel, who never seems to lose his cool, or his client’s case.

Erle Stanley Gardner’s own story is especially inspiring for young writers because he purportedly never published his first novel till in his forties, yet completed 82 Perry Mason novels before passing on. Yes, he had been writing pulp fiction for years before “making it” so it is not like something magical happened overnight. As was recently pointed out somewhere else, the only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary. Gardner paid his dues before reaping his rewards.

Mysteries, puzzles, mind games, concealed identities, disguises, surveillance, cryptography, encryption and decryption, decoding secret messages… these diversions can become almost obsessive at times. But they sharpen our minds by teaching us how to observe better, how to gather information and “see” in new ways. Applied thinking and problem solving are valuable skill sets in the real world. Leaders need these skills, and strive to develop them in others. Whether in the workplace, the community or the home, we really don't want or need a nation of sheep.

But let’s save that discussion for another time and give our attention to… The Case of the Jaded Jogger. Was it suicide, or was it murder?