Two Sentence Tuesday -- Read A Banned Book

It's Banned Books Week.  Get subversive and read something they don't want you to.
On the whole I've been pretty lucky. I've read many of the books on the classics list and haven't had to deal with a banned book as such.
However, my one run- in with wanting to read a book that I couldn't happened when I was nine years old and I have no intention of getting over it. It galled me then, it galls me now. Until I find the book in question I will continue to be galled. And if I ever do find it and read it, I will remain galled that it was held from me.
Here's what happened:

We were on our way back from visiting family out in BC. My mom's brother, Rusty, had the most amazing collection of novels ever, the bulk of which were sci fi from the 1940s.  We were given some to take home though I recall only two now. My sister and I could chose between these two for something to read on the way home. I don't normally read in the car, especially while going through the mountains, but I chose.
The books were a double novel Our Man in Space by Bruce W. Ronald and Ultimatum in 2050 A.D. by Jack Sharkey (Ace Books, 1965)  and the single novel The Parasite.
I went with the double novel.
My sister started to read, or maybe even read all of The Parasite and it scared the living daylights out of her.  She handed the book back to our mom and said, in near hysterics, that I was not to be allowed to read it. I don't recall her exact words now, but I know I didn't like them.
Did I fuss? Not that I recall. I may have put up a token argument, but there was no point to wasting energy.  I knew I could find the book when we got home.
I never saw it again.
I have no recollection of asking either though I am sure I did.
A few months later a radio play or the like came on. A man's voice said something to his doctor about a thing growing on his shoulder.
My sister freaked and said, "That's The Parasite. I know it."
Okay, I thought, I finally get to know what the fuss was about.
Instead, my sister, in near hysterics, insisted it had to be turned off.
I've tried to find it by internet search, but all I have is a title. It's not alone.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has a story with this name. I have his complete Sherlock Holmes, but not his complete works. 
If not this, then it is likely something from the grand science fiction era of the 1940s. I don't think I dare ask my sister as I fear she will be rendered hysterical at the mere mention, and has likely long forgotten the author's name.
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In honor of  banned and challenged books here are two sentences from a once-banned book:
"She took off her hat, and shook her hair. He sat down, taking off his shoes and gaiters, and undoing his cord breeches."
-Lady Chatterley's Lover  by D. H. Lawrence (Signet 1959)
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I'm still working on two stories, usually on alternate days. So far this is working for me.
From The Font:
" 'No.' Brundel tried to close her mind to it. Such use of power was forbidden."
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Thanks for being here. For more please see the Women of Mystery.
And if you have the time, read a banned book or five.

Two Sentence Tuesday -- Celebrating Banned Books Week

It's still Banned Books Week so I thought I'd rail (shameless previous blog plug ahead) a bit more.
Here's the list of Banned and Challenged Classics and I'm pleased to say I've read several of them.
Here's why these fine books got picked on.  Some were sexually explicit, others satanic, and some like Gone With the Wind and To Kill a Mockingbird were for uses of a word common to the day they were written or era in which they were set.
Sigh.
Writers deal in real life, even when we're making things up. In fact, especially when we're making things up. If we all set our books in Happy Fuzzy Bunny Universe where everyone loved everyone else, but at a respectable distance, then there would be no point to writing or any other kind of artistic expression. And if Happy Fuzzy Bunny Universe reflected real life, then we wouldn't have much to express anyway.
I live in a free country and can write what I want and read what I want and say what I want and so can everyone else here.

Freedom of expression is black and white: it's there and it's for everyone on all sides, or it ain't there at all.

This includes the right to complain and to try to get books banned. Fortunately, it also means we have the right to fight back. Repugnant as it is I'd rather hold my nose and let the right to attempt to ban a book stand because if we start dictating what we can't do, then we will soon start dictating what we can do.
In honor of the banned classics:
" 'Ah's sceered of cows, Miss Scarlett. Ah ain't nebber had nuthin' ter do wid cows. Ah ain' no yard nigger. Ah's a house nigger.' '
-Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind (Avon, 1973)
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I've managed a bit of writing though nothing that will get my WIP, The Legend of Shallal, banned. Dammit.
Here's a taste:
"She bent down and met the wide eyes of a six-legged rodent. One of its tiny claws clutched the bottom of her robe."
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Thanks for being here. For more or to get in on the fun please see the Women of Mystery.

I’m It! I’m It!

Michael at Avatar Lore tagged me for a most interesting meme the other day. The object of the game is to take a book of more than 123 pages then turn to page 123 and quote the first five sentences of same.
The only quandary is what book to choose.

My husband likes to read me a bedtime story. It’s a tradition we’ve had for 18 years and currently we’re about half-way through Treasure Island. I considered quoting it except we’d just finished what is now my favorite book ever, To Kill A Mockingbird.
I read it way back in high school when the Earth was young and the continents had barely settled. I thought it was okay.
Today I think the book is magnificent. I did not want it to end.
It’s been challenged. It’s been banned. It won a Pulitzer Prize.

Here are the first five complete sentences of page 123 of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird.

"She seemed seven feet high.
I felt Calpurnia’s hand dig into my shoulder. ‘What you want, Lula?’ she asked, in tones I had never heard her use. She spoke quietly, contemptuously.
‘I wants to know why you bringin’ white chillun to nigger church.’ "

I rather like being tagged for memes and I am grateful Michael thought to include me. I find them fun. Under the rules of engagement for memes I am to challenge, entice, rook, bamboozle, or otherwise induce five others to play. Why not join the fun? Consider yourself tagged.

Oh, and Happy Spring everyone.

Thought Banned

It’s Banned Books Week.

Virginia Lee, over at her amazing blog wrote about it and included a few links like this one to the Forbidden Library.

It was fascinating, in a chilling way, to read the titles of books that have been banned or challenged.

The Nazis burned Jack London’s The Call Of The Wild. I really don’t know what to say about this beyond book burning is never right. I haven’t read it, but I don’t believe I’ve ever heard it was a danger to any society.

Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell was banned at a California High School. It was challenged in Illinois due to its use of the word “nigger.”

Much as that word makes me shudder, it was in use when Mitchell wrote it and certainly in the time period in which her book is set.
It is reflective of the times and not using that word in proper context is a lie, plain and simple.
We can’t go around sanitizing everything because that's a lie, too. You can argue that fiction is lie if you like, but don’t bother doing it around me. The greatest truths are disguised as fiction.

Using the words appropriate to the times, especially those that make us cringe, shows us how much we’ve grown as a society.
If it doesn’t, then it shows us that we need to grow.

And in a lovely bit of irony Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury had its cuss words blacked out for school use.

Perhaps whoever did it was making a point as the book is about censorship and book burning. Somehow I don’t believe it’s the case.

At the top of the post I wrote about a book not being a danger to society. No book is a danger to any free and open society that is a democracy in practice as well as in name.

The only danger to society presented by books is they create and foster a society of thinkers. Who would want a world of intellectually curious critical thinkers?