A weblog devoted to spurring a conversation among those who use words to varying degrees in their daily work. Hosted by John Ettorre, a Cleveland-based writer and editor. Please email me at: john.ettorre@gmail.com. "There comes a time when you realize that everything is a dream, and only those things preserved in writing have any possibility of being real." --James Salter
Take the Banned Books Quiz
I'm a Cleveland, Ohio-based writer, editor and writing coach, with more than 25 years of experience, including stints in Chicago and Washington, D.C. My work has appeared in more than 100 print and online publications, from the New York Times and the Christian Science Monitor to local and regional publications. My work has been recognized by awards (including an Emmy) from four journalism groups.
6 Comments:
I did poorly, I'm afraid. On the other hand, I'm not a publishing news junkie, I'm a reader, so the ones I got right were from books I'd actually read. I don't follow the censorship news or history closely enough for some, I gather. I have to say, some of those questions were rather obscure, too; you'd really have to be a publishing insider to get them.
The quiz was rather insulting about it, afterwards, too, which seemed unnecessary. This strikes as one of those things created by someone who likes to demean others so that they themselves can feel superior. It had that tone to it.
I am strongly anti-banning and anti-censorship, but frankly who can remember all those books who have been banned? The list is huge, because the blue-nosed busybodies have never slacked off.
Or I'm just making excuses for my poor performance on a rather arbitrary quiz. You decide.
I doubt I'll get more than one right when I do take it, and that perhaps might be more by guessing than knowing. That's no big deal--it's just good to support librarians and all they do for turning people on to the appreciation of reading. If they challenge some book-banners in the process, all the better.
To me, their bigger contribution, and the one that made them even more heroic in my view, was their staunch resistance as a profession to the outrageous "Patriots" Act, which tried to deputize them as police by forcing them to turn over citizens' reading lists to the feds. They simply refused to comply with this flatly unconstitutional & un-American provision, and the feds had to forget about that part of the law. The big bad superpower federal government was defeated by a bunch of resolute librarians. Somebody should make a movie about that chapter of history.
That episode spoke to me as well. What a terrific model of civil disobedience in the face of tyranny and proto-fascism. It was simply brilliant.
Do I have to say that some of my best friends are librarians? Would I be believed, at this point, if I did? :)
Civil disobedience is the phrase I meant to use. It's one of the coolest examples of it: librarians standing up against the might of the federal government, armed only with their moral authority. It's not unlike the single Chinese guy standing in the way of the line of tanks. Only in this case, the guy won, rather than the tanks.
Censor is such a dirty word, I remember well attending Catholic schools and being given a list of authors we were forbidden to read, they were at the "Index"
Reading Zola made me feel very defiant but unfortunately I was too young to understand it and it was not till later when studying Germinal that I saw that the Churh was politically trying to contain socialism and worker's power against the bourgeoisie.
I took the test and did not do that well but then I am not testing for "A" levels.
Danielle
In most contexts, trying to ban any book only makes it that much more interesting and alluring to readers. It's kind of like bringing your kid to the refrigerator and pointing out some banned foods they should stay away from. It only makes it more likely they'll eat it.
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