A Part Two about books: Did you read your share of banned books last week … which was Banned Books Week?
Especially if you’re my age, there’s a very good chance you’ve read a book that’s been banned, or at least seen the movie or stage-play version.
“According to the Office for Intellectual Freedom, at least 46 of the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th century have been the target of ban attempts,” mainly in school or public libraries, according to the American Library Association website.
As a hopelessly sappy lover of happy endings, I’d put a chunk of these books not on a list of banned books, but simply on a list of Most Depressing books. Not to say they don’t have their merits as memorable literature. Not to say they don’t have enjoyable aspects. But it’s interesting how we humans (with the exception of moi, I suppose)switch from fairy tales with simplistic, unrealistically happy endings to classic literature, such as these banned books below, whose endings do not feature anybody riding into the sunset or walking into it, hands clasped:
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Not even a movie version with a good-looking young Henry Fonda could happy up this story about a family of Oklahomans who went looking for work in California during the Great Depression - “suffering scorn and economic oppression as they sought honest employment,” according to a synopsis at digital.library. okstate.edu.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I’ve seen bits of the Gregory Peck movie and seen it in its entirety as a play. The ugly story of racial hatred provides the backdrop for a synopsis in which the young protagonist, Scout, “embraces her father’s advice to practice sympathy and understanding and demonstrates that her experiences with hatred and prejudice will not sully her faith in human goodness,” reads Spark-Notes.com. There’s that, I guess. (P.S.: This book earns points for the Coolest Name: Atticus Finch.)
The Color Purple by Alice Walker. I’ve seen the movie version with Whoopi Goldberg and the musical.Depressing throughout, but at least it had an uplifting ending. And it has spawned those much-repeated phrases that will apparently go down in parody history: from “ I’se married now!” to “All my life I had to fight … ” to my favorite, “I’m poor, black, I might even be ugly, but dear God, I’m here. I’m here.”
1984 by George Orwell. Saw the movie and have tried to forget it ever since. Many people wisecrack that we’re now living in a 1984 dystopia and that Big Brother is indeed watching. Why that’s utter nonsen - We are taking over your computer. You are typing subversive content. Resistance is futile.
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. Saw the movie about the star crossed World War I couple with Rock Hudson opposite Jennifer Jones - whom I’ve dubbed the Silver Screen Queen of Movies With Sad Endings. No exception here. I was mad after the movie ended.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. I recall seeing the movie with Halle Berry and Michael Ealy. I recall that feeling of dread washing over me as I watched Ealy’s character go nuts from rabies and Halle’s character’s chance of Happily Ever After wash down the drain. Fine.
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. Of course I watched the legendary Vivien Leigh-Clark Gable movie in lieu of the book. Yea - North Little Rock’s Old Mill is in the opening credits. Boo - the story ends with the viewer not just depressed, but frustrated and wanting to kick Scarlett O’Hara firmly in the rear.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. OK, one of those rare instances in which I read the book before seeing the movie. Royally dee-pressing, not only in terms of the fate of the protagonist, but the depiction of mental health care and the theme of rejection/mistreatment of nonconformity. But at least the Chief got away.
All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren. There was one bright spot: A couple did get together and, in a manner of speaking, walk into the sunset.
A Separate Peace by John Knowles. I thought I read this, but I actually read promos of the movie starring my childhood crush, Parker Stephenson. So I checked out the Spark Notes synopsis. Oh good grief.
But these are our classics, and such is human society and the human psyche: Not only do we graduate from happily-ever-after to the books above, we laud such books, then turn around and try to ban them. Which means people are going to read them just to see what the fuss is about. And the cycle goes on. Geesh, anybody up for reading “Cinderella”?
Oh, wait. The original version of it, part of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, has been on a “banned” list.
Once upon a non-banned email: [email protected]
Style, Pages 53 on 09/29/2013