Writer's Block: Book review

[rebness]

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Infuriating question.

There are a lot of books I dislike and would prefer never to have existed, but it's entirely up to people if they want to be daft enough to read something bad. Who are we to censor other people? There are a lot of hateful texts out there, but if you read Mein Kampf and decide that you now hate Jews, the problem lies with you yourself.

Comments

[mcgarrygirl78.livejournal.com]

I've actually read Mein Kampf, twice. I dont hate Jews but I have a fascination with the nature of hatred so I went to a good source. The first time, in 9th grade, I didnt understand it. The second time, junior year of college, I only made out fairly better.

No books should be banned, you're right, people should make their own decisions. Especially since the powers that be would probably leave Mein Kampf on the shelf and burn Huckleberry Finn, 1984, and Lady Chatterley's Lover.

[rebness.livejournal.com]

My sister has a copy of it. I've tried reading it a couple of times, but never got all the way through it. I probably will one day, given my fascination with that period in history and I don't see why we should ban anyone from reading it. Again, if a person reads it and decides they suddenly hate Jews, they obviously were easily-influenced and had problems in the first place.

Agreed on the weirdness of critics. Banning everything from The Catcher in the Rye<;/i> to nursery stories that they don't approve of. Live and let live.

[annemariewrites.livejournal.com]

Banning books is further proof of how far we / society have not come. Banning means that you fear something you don't understand or something that's different from you, right? And in this day an age when we seem to accept (we've a long way to go, obviously, but we're supposed to be closer now than we were a hundred years ago!!) more and more, it's just a crushing blow that something like To Kill a Mockingbird could be banned.

Do they ban books on the same crazy level in UK as they do in the USA?

If you check out Mein Kampf in the USA, they put you on a list. Just sayin'.

[pandorasblog]

I'm not Becky, but off the top of my head, while I'm not sure about book banning, every so often the media will have a pop at some author who does very explicit or otherwise hard-hitting books for teens.

Like, maybe ten years ago it was Morris Gleitzman, an Aussie YA writer who'd done very frank teen books about (variously) heroin addiction, a girl who turns into a dog and gets laid a lot in that form, and the sex lives of teenage boys. And there were the usual phone-ins and panel show questions about Whether This Should Be Published... he's a good writer, though... I think I'm less aware of any recent imbroglios of that type because I see less telly news than I used to, but I've a feeling Wetlands didn't go down too well....

[annemariewrites.livejournal.com]

So I went to find these books by Gleitzman, guess what? They're not to be found anywhere. So they must not have been published here. Better to nip that in the bud. The girl who turns into a dog to sex0rize the neighbourhood poodle has me intrigued.

[pandorasblog]

Yeeeeaaah, successful though they are, I can't see his books playing well to the American market. I mean, the teens would probably love them, but TPTB, not so much!

Now I'm curious, though - do you get Jacqueline Wilson's books over there? She's probably our biggest children's/teenage author after J.K. Rowling, does a lot of stuff about kids' everyday lives and concerns, and is famous for having had one of our classic teen magazines, Jackie, named after her in the 70s.

What's fascinating to me as a wannabe YA author is how successful her branding is over and above her existing genius for communicating with kids - she's got a very distinctive illustrator called Nick Sharrat, and since they made a TV series based on The Story of Tracy Beaker, there's been merch with the same look, but it doesn't just seem like cash-in stuff. I know you're always studying how YA authors do what they do, so here's her website:
http://www.jacquelinewilson.co.uk/

If I run across another copy of Lady: My Life as a Bitch I'll pass it on to you - appleredhair's got dibs on the one I read! :)

[peregrinuscanus.livejournal.com]

The books described are not by Morris Gleitzman but by Melvin Burgess, a UK writer for later teens. They are in order of description titled -

Junk (about teen heroin users and addiction) - which is a pretty decent book

Lady: My Life as a Bitch - which is possibly the book I would not ban but would sincerely hope that anyone under 15 wouldn't read it. It is well written but it has not a jot of guiding tone about the sexual behaviour of the main character. She has a whale of a time screwing (as a dog) with as many dogs as she can, enjoying it all, with no consequences and the end of the book has her choosing to stay a dog (rather than become a girl again) so she can essentially fuck to her heart's content. Now if there is some way in which it can be read that Burgess is making a comment about freedom and lack of responsibility, fair enough but most teens reading this book are not going to see anything but a book advocating the no-strings freedom and fun of having as much sex as possible with as many people as possible. The book does not close with any sense that the main character made a choice which will have consequences and her family are so ill-drawn and unpleasant that there is no sense of her missing out on anything that way. It is possibly the only moral-free fiction book I can think of that left a really nasty impression (and I've read American Psycho and a range of other controversial books, including a few hundred teen books);

Doing It - is the book about four teens and their sexual adolescence as well as their emotional journey. I found it difficult in part because the objectification of females in it as sexual objects. Obviously it is looking at girls and their sexual appeal and in the language of crude sex-obsessed teens. That boys talk and think of these things is correct (I have teen boys myself) but again, it's pretty graphic in the way it depicts the sex in crude terms and it's not a book I would want my younger teen to read because of the *ways* sex is described - it almost justifies the language and I wouldn't think it was a good thing for 13/14 yr old boys to think that fantasizing about "eating a teacher's wet dripping c*** out" is an actual good way of talking or a normal way of talking.

I think Burgess is a very very good writer for teens but those last two books are not ones I would deliberately offer to them. He is good at depicting a brutal world (his sci-fi versions of the Norse myths - Bloodtide and Bloodsong - are superb and amongst my top teen reads) - in Junk and Sara's Face and his latest, which is, I understand, a re-write of Oliver Twist for today, complete with paedophilic attention in the children's home.

[peregrinuscanus.livejournal.com]

I would add, in case there's any confusion, that I don't agree with banning any book, including the ones above. I have all three books mentioned on my shelves at home but I just don't draw attention to them, and if my kids wanted to read them, I wouldn't stop them but I would give them some advice about them and possibly encourage them to wait a year or two if they were a younger teen. And of all books - including adult books - they are the only two I have ever had any qualms about.

Margo Lanagan's book Tender Morsels is a super read and has been marketed for both teens and adults but I think that is an adult book too, and would think it only appropriate for someone sexually and emotionally mature enough to deal with the ideas of bestiality and incestuous rape. Yet because it is a re-write of the fairy tale SnowWhite & Rose Red, it might be that quite young pre-teens and early teens read it. If it is on the teen shelves, then 11 and 12 yr olds will read it. It shouldn't be banned but shown to be on a shelf with adult books. Then a younger reader can still piick it and choose to read it but has a clue that it is an adult book.

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. I hate that it continues in this day and age. Banning books seems like the most prudish, stupid way of stifling variety. I'm embarrassed for us and how society today will come across to historians of the future. :p

They don't really do that banning thing in the UK, to be honest. As Ang mentions below, the media loves to stir up debate about the filth in some books and I still remember the absolute hysteria when Lolita was filmed, but in general, we're not big on banning, no.

[annemariewrites.livejournal.com]

You have to give us that we were built upon the puritan way of life. It's not our fault. *snickers* The future will look at us as we look at the Victorians. Imagine that!

I've been thinking we need to catch up sometime. It's been ages and even though we're very Aquarian and cool and above all that silly stuff ... well, sometimes, I just need some of your rad doodles. :D

[pandorasblog]

I agree with you. If anything, I'd go towards encouraging older kids to read and debate this stuff, because if there's one thing I'd want them to learn in school, it's the power of words, of books, of ideas, to form societies and events that change people's lives, be it for the better or the worse.

[rebness.livejournal.com]

Exactly. There are a lot of books that have troublesome content, but you know, so many regimes have censored the most innocent stuff and it's best jto just not go there. Debate is far more useful than pretending things don't exist.

[mothergoddamn.livejournal.com]

Mystery in Spiderville

[rebness.livejournal.com]

I'll ban you in a minute!

[jaffacakequeen.livejournal.com]

any book that blatantly tells lies or twists the truth to fit their agenda, everything from medical stuff, religious/culty clap trap and political codswallop.

however, i dont really believe in banning books but i am beginning to wonder at people's inability to read around stuff and taking twitter head line stuff or the say so of a figure head or pop star they like as a final word.