120 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature

569 Pages·2.38 MB·English

by  Karolides Nicholas J.

120 banned
Books,
s e
econd dition
CENSORSHIP HISTORIES OF WORLD LITERATURE
N J K
ICHOLAS . AROLIDES,
M B
ARGARET ALD AND
D B S
AWN . OVA
T
o the University of Wisconsin–River Falls Chalmer Davee Library staff
—N. J. K.
F
or Jonathan, André and Daniel
—M. B.
T
o my son, Robert Gregor
—D. B. S.
120 Banned Books, Second Edition
Copyright © 2011 by Nicholas J. Karolides, Margaret Bald and Dawn B. Sova
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by
any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the
publisher. For information contact:
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Karolides, Nicholas J.
120 banned books : censorship histories of world literature / Nicholas
J. Karolides, Margaret Bald, and Dawn B. Sova. — 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8160-8232-2 (acid-free paper) 1. Censorship—United
States—History—20th century. 2. Prohibited books—United
States—History—20th century. 3. Challenged books—United
States—History—20th century. 4. Censorship—History. 5. Prohibited
books—United States—Bibliography. 6. Challenged books—United
States—Bibliography. I. Bald, Margaret. II. Sova, Dawn B. III. Title.
IV. Title: One hundred and twenty banned books. V. Title: One hundred
twenty banned books.
Z658.U5K35 2011
363.6'1—dc22 2011013099
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Text design by Cathy Rincon
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Book printed and bound by Sheridan Books, Ann Arbor, Mich.
Date printed: August 2011
Printed in the United States of America
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This book is printed on acid-free paper.
C
ONTENTS
Introduction vii
LITERATURE SUPPRESSED ON
POLITICAL GROUNDS
All Quiet on the Western Front The Manifesto of the Communist
Erich Maria Remarque 3 Party Karl Marx and Friedrich
Andersonville MacKinlay Kantor 8 Engels 105
The Appointment Herta Müller 13 Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler 112
Areopagitica John Milton 18 My Brother Sam Is Dead James
Black Boy Richard Wright 22 Lincoln Collier and Christopher
Burger’s Daughter Nadine Collier 123
Gordimer 31 1984 George Orwell 126
Bus Stop (Chezhan) Gao Xingjian Novel Without a Name Duong
35 Thu Huong 131
The Corpse Walker: Real Life The Prince (Il Principe) Niccolò
Stories, China from the Bottom Machiavelli 137
Up Liao Yiwu 38 El Señor Presidente Miguel Angel
Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak 44 Asturias 142
The Fugitive (Perburuan) Slaughterhouse-Five: Or, the
Pramoedya Ananta Toer 49 Children’s Crusade, a Duty-
Girls of Riyadh Rajaa Alsanea 53 Dance with Death Kurt
The Grapes of Wrath John Vonnegut, Jr. 146
Steinbeck 57 Snow Orhan Pamuk 156
The Gulag Archipelago 1918– Spycatcher Peter Wright 160
1956 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 71 The Things They Carried Tim
I Am the Cheese Robert Cormier 78 O’Brien 166
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse Peter Uncle Tom’s Cabin Harriet Beecher
Matthiessen 86 Stowe 169
Johnny Got His Gun Dalton A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in
Trumbo 98 The Conquered City Anonymous
Kiss of the Spider Woman Manuel 175
Puig 102
LITERATURE SUPPRESSED ON
RELIGIOUS GROUNDS
The Age of Reason Thomas Paine Infallible? An Inquiry Hans Küng
186 251
The Bible 190 The Jewel of Medina Sherry Jones
The Cartoons That Shook the 254
World Jytte Klausen 196 The Koran (Qur’an) 262
Children of the Alley Naguib Lajja (Shame) Taslima Nasrin 265
Mahfouz 204 The Last Temptation of
Christianity Restored Michael Christ Nikos Kazantzakis 270
Servetus 208 The New Testament William
Church: Charism and Power: Tyndale, translator 274
Liberation Theology and the Ninety-fi ve Theses Martin Luther
Institutional Church Leonardo 277
Boff 211 Oliver Twist Charles Dickens 282
Concerning Heretics Sebastian On the Infi nite Universe and
Castellio 214 Worlds Giordano Bruno 285
The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown 217 On the Origin of Species Charles
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Darwin 288
World Systems Galileo Galilei 223 The Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie
Essays Michel de Montaigne 226 295
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic
Stone J.K. Rowling 229 India James W. Laine 304
The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in The Talmud 311
the Arab World Nawal El The Witches Roald Dahl 314
Saadawi 236 Women Without Men: A Novel of
His Dark Materials Trilogy, Book Modern Iran Shahrnush
I: The Golden Compass Philip Parsipur 320
Pullman 240 Zhuan Falun: The Complete
Impressions Reading Series Jack Teachings of Falun Gong Li
Booth, gen. ed. 245 Hongzhi 324
LITERATURE SUPPRESSED ON
SEXUAL GROUNDS
Always Running—La Vida Loca: The Clan of the Cave Bear Jean
Gang Days in L.A. Luis T. Auel 347
Rodriguez 331 The Epic of Gilgamesh Unknown
Bless Me, Ultima Rudolfo Anaya 336 348
The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison 340 Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman
Candide Voltaire 345 of Pleasure John Cleland 351
Flowers for Algernon Daniel Keyes Rabbit, Run John Updike 395
355 The Rainbow D. H. Lawrence 397
The Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs du Sanctuary William Faulkner 400
mal) Charles Baudelaire 357 Snow Falling on Cedars David
Forever Judy Blume 359 Guterson 402
Gossip Girl Series Cecily von Song of Solomon Toni Morrison
Ziegesar 363 406
The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Sophie’s Choice William Styron 409
Atwood 366 Tess of The D’urbervilles Thomas
How the García Girls Lost Their Hardy 412
Accents Julia Alvarez 369 Their Eyes Were Watching
Lady Chatterley’s Lover D. H. God Zora Neale Hurston 415
Lawrence 374 This Boy's Life Tobias Wolff 420
Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 378 Twilight Series Stephenie Meyer
Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 423
382 Ulysses James Joyce 427
Native Son Richard Wright 384 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence 431
The Perks of Being a Wall-
fl ower Stephen Chbosky 391
LITERATURE SUPPRESSED ON
SOCIAL GROUNDS
The Absolutely True Diary of a The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey
Part-Time Indian Sherman Chaucer 473
Alexie 435 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 477
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn The Catcher in the Rye J. D.
Mark Twain 441 Salinger 480
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer The Color Purple Alice Walker 484
Mark Twain 448 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 487
And Tango Makes Three Justin A Farewell To Arms Ernest
Richardson and Peter Parnell 451 Hemingway 489
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist
Girl Anne Frank 455 Explores the Hidden Side of
The Autobiography of Benjamin Everything Steven D. Levitt and
Franklin Benjamin Franklin Stephen J. Dubner 493
457 Gorillas in the Mist Dian Fossey 497
The Autobiography of Malcolm X The Great Gatsby F. Scott
Malcolm X, with Alex Haley 460 Fitzgerald 499
The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath 462 Heather Has Two Mommies Leslea
Beloved Toni Morrison 465 Newman 502
Brave New World Aldous Huxley I Know Why The Caged Bird
470 Sings Maya Angelou 504
The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini A Separate Peace John Knowles
506 529
Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman 515 The Sun Also Rises Earnest
Lord of the Flies William Golding Hemingway 531
518 To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee
Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck 534
521 Welcome to the Monkey House Kurt
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest Vonnegut, Jr. 537
Ken Kesey 526
Index 541
Introduction
For centuries, books have been banned, suppressed, and censored because
of political, religious, sexual, and social reasons, according to the tastes and
beliefs of a particular era or a locale. As times change, formerly banned
books become acceptable or even “classic,” while once-acceptable books are
challenged, as the appearance of James Joyce’s Ulysses and D. H. Lawrence’s
Lady Chatterley’s Lover in college courses as required reading and the roller-
coaster history of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn attest. In many
cases, the same book has been banned at different times for different reasons,
as is the case with Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front,
Voltaire’s Candide, and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. The books do not
change, but the social climate does.
This updated edition of 120 Banned Books contains entries covering more
than 2,000 years of censorship. Entries new to this edition range from best-
selling works of popular fi ction, such as the young-adult Twilight and Gos-
sip Girl series, to highly acclaimed works of undeniable literary value, such
as Beloved by Toni Morrison, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, and The
Appointment by Herta Müller, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in literature.
Entries from the past edition have been updated to refl ect new challenges.
Each week brings new reports of challenges to books. In 2011, that may
seem diffi cult to believe, but the reality remains. Parents and librarians are
often shocked to hear that books in the Harry Potter series have been chal-
lenged in such diverse regions of the country as Massachusetts, California,
and Georgia, yet some suggest that other books would be better banned,
according to their own beliefs, biases, and prejudices. In some cases, readers
who defend controversial works by academics, such as Stephen J. Dubner and
Steven D. Levitt’s Freakonomics, are quick to condemn Philip Pullman’s tril-
ogy His Dark Materials as unacceptably anti-religious.
vviiii
120 BANNED BOOKS
As readers of the censorship histories in 120 Banned Books will realize, the
reasons for which these books have been banned, suppressed, and censored
are often highly subjective, and the success or failure of efforts to ban, sup-
press, or censor books depends more upon how vocal the challengers are
than upon the merits of the book. All books by an author who has offended
in one book might be condemned, as was the case for Honoré de Balzac, or
an author’s lifestyle or politics may result in the banning of works, as occurred
for Oscar Wilde and Dalton Trumbo. Threats to parental authority also drive
challenges, as they have in regard to such diverse books as J. D. Salinger’s The
Catcher in the Rye and J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Although the major-
ity of challenges today in the United States occur in schools or public libraries,
they are not limited to these venues.
120 Banned Books contains comprehensive information about books that
have been banned, suppressed, or censored for political, religious, sexual, or
social reasons across 20 centuries and in many nations. Each entry contains
the author’s name, original date and place of publication, and literary form, as
well as a plot summary. A separate section of each entry provides details of the
censorship history of the work, followed by a list of further readings for more
in-depth examination of the challenges. The entries feature books in numer-
ous genres, including fi ction for children and adults, as well as nonfi ction
in the forms of biographies, autobiographies, political and religious tracts,
philosophical treatises, histories, and books of science. In short, no one book
or no one writer is protected from would-be censors.
—Dawn B. Sova, Ph.D.
viii
Literature Suppressed on
Political Grounds
The phrase suppressed on political grounds casts a shadow of a heavy-handed
government blocking its citizens from receiving information, ideas, and opin-
ions that it perceives to be critical, embarrassing, or threatening. This image,
unfortunately, is too often reality. It is not, however, limited to dictatorships
such as those of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Joseph Stalin’s Communist
Soviet Union, Suharto’s Indonesia, Augusto Pinochet’s Chile, and Sani Aba-
cha’s Nigeria. The political turbulence of the 1990s dismantled several of these,
establishing more open government in Indonesia, Chile, Nigeria, and Russia.
The governments of democracies, however, also participate in attempts to cen-
sor such critical material in order to protect their own perceived state security.
Indeed, repression of freedom of expression has been a signifi cant operative
factor in South Africa of the apartheid era, in pre-1990 South Korea, in Turkey,
in postcommunist Ukraine, and recently in Russia. It is a factor, as well, in the
United Kingdom and the United States today.
Further, the impression that censorship for political reasons emanates
only from national governments is mistaken. Another common source of
such activity, notably in the United States, is at the local community level,
generated by school board members or citizens, individually or in groups,
who attack textbooks and fi ction used in schools or available in school librar-
ies. In contrast to censorship challenges at the national level, challenges at
the local level are aimed at the political values and images that children are
receiving. In past decades, the chief targets were socialism, communism, and
the portrayal of the Soviet Union. A companion concern was the portrayal of
the United States. At the center of such objections was the fear that the Soviet
Union would be viewed too positively or the United States too negatively.
Continuing in the present, examining fl aws in American society is deemed
unpatriotic to critics, who become concerned when past and present policies
of their government are questioned in school textbooks and library books.
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