Before we exit this year’s Banned Books Week, I want to draw your attention to a list—compiled by the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom—of mysteries “that have been challenged or banned at some point.”
It’s pretty incredible what works short-sighted scolds will take against. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Telltale Heart”? Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River? Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time? Even Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, has come under criticism from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is apparently offended by “a flashback Holmes has to 1847 Utah” that it has “deemed derogatory.”
Come on, people, get a frickin’ life!
READ MORE: “Banning Books: Protecting Kids or Erasing Humanity?” by Harry Bruinius (The Christian Science Monitor); “Adults Have a Lot to Say About Book Bans—But What About Kids?” by Elizabeth Blair (All Things Considered); “Michael Connelly, Nikki Grimes, Judy Blume and Other Authors Unite Against Book Bans,” by Isabella Gomez Sarmiento (National Public Radio).
Friday, October 06, 2023
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2 comments:
A matter of old slights (hence the LDS reproving Doyle this belatedly but still) and general resentment for the suggestion that views other than their own should ever be entertained.
What's frightening is that the book police think they are doing a good thing and the fact that they are allowed to get away with it. It's called history, folks, and when it's taught in context, we can maintain both our literary tradition as well as how it is reflected in today's society . . . such as it is.
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