It is wonderful. For the past few years I've been one of those people who only reads three or four substantial books a year, and that's it. Life is too busy with work, school, outside activities, relationships, pets, friends, and of course, TV. All excuses that keep me from being the voracious reader that I was as a child.
All that is no more. Somehow, I've been able to attend to all of my commitments and still finish a few books for the project. I'm still going to hold the release of all the essays until Banned Book Week, but I am not going to be able to keep my lips sealed about what has been on my radar until then.
So far, I've read And Tango Makes Three, Are You There, God? It's Me Margaret, and Fahrenheit 451.
I love this project. And Ray Bradbury is a genius. More about that in a moment.
What a great book! As you can clearly see by the cover art, we are dealing with highly subversive subject matter here. Certainly not a book about a sweet baby penguin, and the parents who love her very much.
I want to adapt this into either a staged reading, or a play and see if there's some room for mind opening in Baltimore. I borrowed a copy of this from the library, but it's clear that I must own it. So, once my very own copy arrives in the mail I'll start in on Banned Books Week Sub-Project: Gain acceptance for adorable cute little baby penguin chicks who just happen to have two daddies.
All together now: Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
Now, onto the other books: Are You There, God It's Me Margaret? This book is banned? Seriously? This one was the title that I looked forward to re-visiting the most in my list, because it was essentially my bible in Middle and some of High School. I thought I had it memorized, but all those readings way back when didn't allow me the understanding that a few years has given me. Margaret's grandmother, Sylvia is 60 years old. That's all. In my mind she was an old lady. A grandma. She knitted sweaters for Margaret, which clearly made her ancient. Now, at the ripe old age of 26, my friends knit (amazingly, btw) and sixty doesn't seem so old at all. One of the plays I was just involved with included a woman who was of that age who is one of the most intelligent, gorgeous, poised women I have ever ever met. I would go to synagogue and Lincoln Center with her in a heartbeat if she was my grandma. I didn't get that 60 could also be vivacious back then.
Also, Margaret's family starts the book out with a move from NYC to New Jersey. That never meant anything to me before. They were just places. Sure, her parents talked about gardening, which they never had to do in NYC. I had been to NYC on a number of occasions, but my favorite place there (still, to this day) is Chinatown and Margaret never mentioned Chinatown. Therefore, as far as I was concerned she lived in a house exactly like I did, on a street just like mine, in NYC. Then (because I am the center of my own universe) she moved to a house like mine, in a new place, that just happened to be New Jersey. Would you also believe that no one in the book mentioned poofs, tanning, or any kinds of Situations, it was so weird! She didn't move to Jersey, the stereotype, she just moved.
I think one BIG thing that I've taken away from just these few books has been that it's imperative to take into consideration when a book was written and what was going on in the world. For Are You There... it's invaluable to know that it's the year 1970 (because you really wouldn't know from the text - Judy Blume's writing is universally accessible and timeless) to understand why it's such a huge issue for Margaret's parents to be of differing religious backgrounds. They got married in the 1950's and as a result only one set of parents accepted their relationship. Margaret's maternal grandparents disowned her mother. When you read that today you immediately assume that they're two religious zealot wackos, which is only a little true. The important part to realize is that they were born in the very early 20th century, when you just didn't mix those traditions. Hell, my maternal grandparents were Catholic and Presbyterian and that degree of religious difference had to be addressed very delicately prior to their wedding in 1947. Thank heavens for progress.
Brilliant.
Whether or not I've read this before is irrelevant. I needed to read it again. I've spent the last few evenings with this book (maybe 30 minutes to an hour at a time) with tears streaming down my face for the better part of my leisure time. It's beautiful and horrific, and it gets right to the heart of the matter. I was grabbed by the violent disregard for human life, the plastic people, and the passionate awakening of our protagonist. I was also proud that the first person Guy approaches for help was a former professor of English at a now shuttered Liberal Arts college. Yea Liberal Arts! This book shivers with humanity, and demands your attention. I'd forgotten how Bradbury can do that. In sixth grade we read his short story All Summer In a Day and the impact of that brief story has never left me. You can read it online in a few minutes. I understand that Fahrenheit 451 creates a strong emotional reaction in its reader, and that that can be disturbing for some. That's no reason to ban it.
I've learned some interesting things while addressing this title. One of the things that amazes me is that people have tried to present this book in an edited, essentially censored format. Bwhaaa? What? How? To edit/censor it you have to have read it, and if you've read it and still feel the need to censor it, then I believe you have missed. the. point. Twenty-one years after the book's initial publication it was to be included in an anthology for school readers with 400 or so stories in the same collection. In the coda to the story (added in 1979) Bradbury writes:
"How do you cram 400 short stories by Twain, Irving, Poe, Maupassant and Bierce into one book?
Simplicity itself. Skin, debone, demarrow, scarify, melt, render down and destroy. Every adjective that counted, every verb that moved, every metaphor that weighed more than a mosquito - out! Every simile that would have made a sub-moron's mouth twitch - gone! Any aside that explained the two-bit philosophy of a first-rate writer - lost!
Every story, slenderized, starved, bluepenciled, leeched and bled white, resembled every other story. Twain read like Poe read like Shakespeare read like Dostoevsky read like - in the finale - Edgar Guest. Every word of more than three syllables had been razored. Every image that demanded so much as one instant's attention - shot dead.
Do you begin to get the damned and incredible picture?
How did I react to all of the above?
By firing the whole lot.
By sending rejection slips to each and every one.
By ticketing the assembly of idiots to the far reaches of hell.
The point is obvious. There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches."
I have a crush on Ray Bradbury right now. The man is astounding. He's really lit a fire under me (pun intended) for this whole project. I'll leave you with one last little tidbit that I find amusing. You're familiar with the saying that one reads Playboy for the articles. Turns out that The Fireman, Bradbury's short story that became Fahrenheit 451 was serialized in the March, April, and May 1954 issues of Playboy magazine. Maybe I should go pick up a copy and educate myself on the next big thing in literature.
