Bonfires, book bannings, caveats and reservations

Bonfires, book bannings, caveats and reservations

I was recently reading Kurt Vonnegut's collection of talks and writings called FATES WORSE THAN DEATH, as well as some of the authorized biography of him by Charles j. Shields. Vonnegut was sensitive to and had a strong and particular view about censorship because one or more of his books were banned from school libraries.

What I want to speak of here is the need for those that have read books and have opinions about them -the need to express those opinions, hopefully IN the book itself, rather than allow that book to continue to exist and influence others without the one who has read it and is passing it along to others including his or her beliefs that disagree with the book itself.

In the history of civilization, books have previously been considered somewhat "sacred" because of the difficulty in the past of manufacturing them; and because they are a public forum. People were not supposed to write in books.

It is interesting to contemplate the value that we unconsciously or consciously put on books because someone thought the information or wisdom or entertainment value of a created work was enough that enough people would purchase the book to pay back the costs of publishing it and pay the author also. Also, . . . the assumption we make (I'm speaking for myself, personally) that because someone owns a book, that one had read the book and endorses the values put forth in that book. Can I tell you what book specifically I'm referring to? It is Gloria Steinem's book *****. I was young then - not yet twenty. I thought I was supposed to learn from it. That book led me in the wrong direction for a number of years. (As an aside, let us also acknowledge that Gloria was beautiful, glamorous and intelligent- looking. She was a good representative for the values she was promoting. Too bad that the values were not good. I do want explore here, now, however, that Gloria and her cohorts were in part extending a belief system that is native to the United States of America: that personal freedom and the pursuit of it are noble good things. That belief system carries with it the implication that "limits" are bad, especially man-made limits.

My perspective on books is that I personally was influenced negatively by some ideas in a book that was owned and displayed by someone whose opinions I valued. In my naive youth, I thought that since this person owned *****, that she endorsed everything in there. I didn't think to ask her if she, in fact, did endorse the thoughts .