Title: The Great Gatsby

Published: 1925

Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Challenge status:  #1 on  Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century and frequent target of banning attempts according to the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. Book #7 on Summer of Banned Books ’13.

Why: Challenged at the Baptist College in Charleston, SC (1987) because of “language and sexual references in the book.”

First line: “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since”.

Synopsis: As far as challenges go, this book seems pretty tame – but since it’s #1 on the Radcliffe list AND apparently a frequent target of banning attempts, I figured I should finally read it. I somehow successfully avoided it through high-school. It is, naturally, well written and provides an interesting view a fairly romantic set of characters.  Of course the truth of romantic characters – today as in the roaring 20’s – is that they are all full-on “Monets”. Meaning, from afar you can see only beauty – but up close, what you see is a big ol’ hot mess. The book is also a vague coming of age journey for the protagonist Nick Carraway, who is mainly a passive observer through the story. Nick provides a “reasonable man” lens through which we can see the dramatic concluding events – though he couldn’t provide a moral compass to his fellow characters.

And of course the themes and messages are timeless. That fantasies, once built up in one’s mind, made even more elaborate over the years are curiously difficult to obtain in the flesh and will often disappoint. That some people will spend their lives driven by a fear-of-missing-out, and will end up missing out on all the things that matter. That money can’t buy you love – or if it can, someone else can probably outbid you for it. That fans are not friends and will disappear as your popularity fades. That people take what they have for granted until threatened by its absence, or find out what they have is desired by a rival. That some people have a sense of entitlement so deep that they literally don’t see people who cross their paths as anything more than stepping stones. That wealth and power are seductive, but can brutally isolating. That one’s character may be one’s destiny, but it’s what you do (behavior, not beliefs) that defines your legacy.

This book is a perpetual classic; always au courant in the portrayal of an elite social class that glitters but is ultimately hollow. I wonder if that’s the more subversive piece of the book; the language and references to adultery seem pretty PG compared to the graphic evisceration of the American dream.

Round 1! And we’re just getting started.

For those of you following along thus far, you know I’m getting prepped for Banned Books Week 9/22-28. I’ve finished the first sprint (frequently challenged books with titles containing numbers!) and am taking a quick breath before diving into the next set of books. So far I’ve read & updated on:

• Fahrenheit 451 — Sci-fi, Dystopian
• Slaughterhouse 5 — Sort of sci-fi too, but really satire, about war
• Catch 22 — War novel
• 1984 — Dystopian
• And Tango Makes 3 — Kids book
• l8r, g8r — Young Adult

I kind of like this mixing of classics with the newer books, though I feel more enriched drilling-down into great books than into what’s controversial today. (e.g. no, i will not be reading Twilight or 50 shades of grey). So I have the next grouping of books to announce, but first want to say Happy Bloomsday! And Happy Father’s Day!

And so today, in honor of Bloomsday (which commemorates the life of James Joyce and his novel Ulysses), I’m going to read: 1) The decision from US vs Ulysses/Random House (in which U.S. District Court Judge John Woolsey) lifts the ban on Ulysses, and 2) “Penelope”; the last episode of the novel, from the perspective of Molly Bloom.

Most of the books on my list have been challenged or banned from public libraries/schools. But Ulysses is a little different – it was actually prosecuted under obscenity laws in many countries; though written in English, resistance to the material was fierce enough that the book was first published in its entirety in Paris (1922) – and literally banned in the US & UK (there are records of the USPS burning copies) through the 20’s. In 1933 the ban was effectively lifted in the US when  Judge Woolsey ruled that the book was not pornographic and therefore could not be obscene.

James Joyce’s novel Ulysses was published in 1922, and follows the day of main character Leopold Bloom on June 16, 1904. (Joyce’s first date with his then-future wife Nora was on 6/16, and he set the date for his novel accordingly. ) The text, one of the most important works in Modernism, is extremely dense: rich in language, historical references, mythological allusions – and puns. To the reader the book is a chaotic blend of dreams criss-crossed with reality, but the tidal stream-of-consciousness prose does, somehow, reveal meaning. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Ulysses first on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. I read Ulysses myself for the first time during a summer in college, when I was living in Philadelphia – home of the Rosenbach Museum (a book museum!) and one of the many places that celebrates Bloomsday annually.

After this excerpt from Ulysses, I’m going after these frequently challenged books next:

• The Great Gatsby
• The Satanic Verses
• The Adventures of Captain Underpants
• A Farewell to Arms
• Native Son
• To Kill A Mockingbird
• The Jungle

Those of you who are very clever and know me well *might* think I’m procrastinating on something. Yes. I still need to upload my “Games We Play” notes, but actually I am procrastinating equally hard against my homework, also of the game theory variety.

Title: l8r, g8r (from the “ttyl” series)

Published: 2007

Author: Lauren Myracle

Challenge status: Books in this series were #1 most challenged books in 2011 and 2009, #3 in 2008, and #7 in 2007.

Why: Offensive language, religious viewpoint, drugs, nudity, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group.

First line: “zoegirl: maddie!!! i’m so excited, i can’t sit still! i can’t *believe* i’m gonna c doug in 2 hrs!”

Synopsis: I did not like this book.

No, it was no more banal than the Young Adult book-a-month series I read growing-up, and – while it’s true that high-school seniors swear, drink, do drugs, have sex, and engage in stupid shenanigans, I just don’t think this book really went anywhere. And while I know the upcoming generations communicate with each other probably primarily via IM and text messages, there was something a bit artificial and forced – cutesy gone too far – about the rhythm and pacing of the language. Almost 300 pages of it. Was it offensive? Yeah, in a kind of American Pie v6.0 with some additional drug references and swearing, written for 13 year old girls kind of way.

If you want to read something that is going to Freak You Out and also use teenage language like a weapon, check out Jack Womack’s Random Acts of Senseless Violence. If you want something a little more edgy than The Complete Anne of Green Gables for your 12 year old niece, maybe try the The Hunger Games.