120 Banned Books

As the title suggests, 120 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature by Nicholas J. Karolides, Margaret Bald and Dawn B. Sova (second edition, 2011) is a comprehensive analysis of 120 books that have been "banned, suppressed, or censored for political, religious, sexual, or social reasons across 20 centuries and in many nations" along with a detailed censorship history of each entry followed by a list of further readings.

The 120 books in the four categories of suppressed literature have been banned over 2,000 years and include contemporary fiction like Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

Most of the banned books are well-known titles and are read to this day.

In India, books have been periodically banned, pulled off the shelves, and pulped—at times by the publishers themselves—to suit political and religious interests. There have been protest marches, acts of book burning, and vandalism. 

The more you ban something, the more people are likely to go looking for it. Nowhere is this more true than in the case of literary censorship. Banning a book is the best way to ensure that more people read it. It draws your attention to the "offending" book which otherwise you might have never heard of or never intended to read. The ban is soon forgotten, but not the book.

Fortunately, the internet has proved to be a sensible counterweight to the uninformed debate on banning of books. You can download and read the victimised books even as those who force censorship on the reading public are arguing about the merits of the ban. Modern writers whose books are banned in some quarters or regions of the world have found a way to get back—they make their books available online and often free of cost—proving the old adage that the pen continues to be mightier than the sword.

The Reader, 2008

Todd Mason has all the links to yet another week of Overlooked Films, Audio & Video at his blog Sweet Freedom.

I have got into the habit of watching the last half-hour of a film on cable and then reading all about it on the internet. The Reader is one such movie I saw by accident last week, and I'm glad I did.

This film is set over three different periods after WWII. In the first period, a young Michael Berg has a short but passionate affair with Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), an uneducated German woman old enough to be his mother. Then, some years later, the law student is shocked to see her in court where she is standing trial for Nazi war crimes and is sentenced to life in prison. Finally, the fully grown Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes) revives his relationship with the ageing Hanna by sending her audio cassettes of classic literature, especially Homer’s The Odyssey, which he used to read out to her during their affair. Michael records each classic in his own voice and soon Hanna comes to cherish and listen to the cassettes in her grey cell. Then comes the day when Hanna is to be released and the jail warden calls up Michael because he is her only contact and relation in the outside world.

I’ll use two words to describe the parts of The Reader I watched and read about—touching and heartbreaking. Kate Winslet is outstanding as the elderly grey-haired Hanna Schmitz, probably in the role of her lifetime—she won an Oscar for best performance—while Ralph Fiennes is dapper and dignified as Michael Berg, the single father of a teenage girl. He inhabits all her three worlds—their affair, the court trial, and her last days. And while he is confused about his feelings for Hanna through much of the film, he doesn't give up on her.

Stephen Daldry directed The Reader which is based on the novel Der Vorleser (1995) by German lawyer and writer Bernhard Schlink. In 1997, Carol Brown Janeway translated the book into English under the eponymous title.

Slow moving, but recommended.

Musings on a moody Monday

There is a crowded place called Irla some 4 km from my home in northwest Bombay (Mumbai) and on either side of the main street are retail stores selling everything from smartphones to electronic gadgets, dry fruits to household provisions, jewellery to saris, and clothes to footwear. Many of these stores are “custom notified” which means the goods (or contraband, in earlier times) are sold at lower rates, though, I don’t see how that matters now that India has opened up its economy, well almost. They only accept cash.

On the pavements outside these air-conditioned stores are a line of hawkers who sell fruits and vegetables, flowers and garlands, and ready-to-eat snacks the city is gastronomically famous for. Their trade is illegal but years of physical presence on the footpaths has earned them the right to stay put and shove pedestrians on to the road.

Beyond the hawkers and along the kerb are cars, two-wheelers, and autorickshaws double parked and causing traffic jams. Tempers and tantrums are traded freely. But man and machine co-exist even as human and vehicular traffic moves at a crawl.

It was into this cacophony of horns and hoots that my family walked into Sunday evening, to visit a bookshop we hadn't been to for more than two years. The shop is located in the back of a depressing mall. Once inside the bookstore, however, my eyes lit up and my spirits soared as I confronted hundreds and thousands of books spread over a vast area. 

Actually, it wasn't a bookshop; it was more like a dumping ground for paperbacks and hardbacks shipped from the West. Many of the books had stamps of their American distributors. There were all kinds of books, including popular and bestselling fiction by the likes of Grisham, Koontz, Cruz Smith, Deaver, Highsmith, Baldacci, Kellerman (husband and wife), Nesbo, Cornwell, King, Patterson, Rice and so on and so forth. The books were sold at Rs.50 (less than a dollar) and Rs.100 (more than a dollar). They were dusty but brand new.

I shot past this humungous heap of novels and made my way to a section that screamed Rs.20 (less than 50 cents) in bold letters. There I picked up my kind of books—five less-than-200-page paperbacks—one each by Ed McBain, John D. MacDonald, E.V. Cunningham (Howard Fast), Don Pendleton, and Robert B. Parker. I was satisfied with my lot but I was disappointed I didn’t find more.

My daughter bought Seabiscuit: An American Legend (2001) by Laura Hillenbrand. The book is loosely based on the real life story of the thoroughbred champion race horse, Seabiscuit. She had seen the 2003 film version of the book starring Tobey Maguire, Jeff Bridges, and Chris Cooper. It was a good choice and I hope to read it in future.

There were lots of books by writers I wasn't familiar with and I hoped that I didn’t leave behind some really good ones that deserved to be read.

Apparently, I did, for on my way out I spotted an espionage novel called Dagger (1984) by William Mason who turned out to be William W. Johnstone, a prolific American author of western, horror, and survivalist novels. You can read about him and his work here and here.

This is what Dagger is about.

The time for project Eagle-Fall has come—and that means that the President of The United States is going to die. The Secret Service is on alert, but not all the President's men can be trusted. Somewhere a traitor is waiting to strike, and when he does, Dagger will be ready. War hero, ladies' man, soldier for hire, Dagger is the one man who knows the meaning of the word survive, the one man who knows the international spy network like the back of his hand. He knows every agent in the world…except the one who is out to assassinate the President!

I could have kicked myself. Hopefully, Dagger will still be there when I revisit the bookshop; hopefully, soon.

Dan Brown to visit India next week

Bestselling author Dan Brown last visited India when he was eighteen years old, probably as a tourist.

“I visited India when I was 18 years old and became captivated by the people's warmth and the mystical beauty of the landscapes. I have always dreamed of returning to India and am very excited to do so now,” Press Trust of India quoted him as saying.

© Penguin India

Thirty-two years later, Brown is coming to India to deliver the eighth Penguin Annual Lecture on November 10 in Delhi and November 12 in Bombay (Mumbai). He will speak on codes, science, and religion.

Dan Brown is one of many western authors who are immensely popular in India, thanks in the main to the film adaptations of his novels The Da Vinci Code (2003) and Angels & Demons (2009).

He is not the only author who became popular in India because of movies based on his books.

Not many Indians knew J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997) till the film version came to the theatres in 2001. Since then, people lined up outside bookstores on day one to grab a copy of the next installment of Harry Potter, like scrambling for tickets to the first day, first show.

The one western author who is much loved in India, and has been for more than three decades, is British writer Jeffrey Archer. He has been a regular visitor to the subcontinent which still reads his novels.

Dan Brown will join an impressive lineup of past celebrity lecturers that include columnist and author Thomas Friedman, diplomat Chris Patten, economist and Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen, Indian historian Ramachandra Guha, Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, former Indian president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, and Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan.

There is considerable excitement over Brown’s visit to India and his lecture at Crossword, a leading chain of bookstores. Facebook and Twitter are agog with the news. I think the lecture is by invitation only in which case a lot of his fans are going to be left disappointed.

His lecture should be interesting in view of India’s ancient history and tradition with symbols, art, science, and religion. I wonder if he’ll speak about them in the Indian context or, better still, announce that his next thriller is set in India.

When books make a fashion statement

Recently, my good friends David Cranmer and Tracy K. reviewed Ray Bradbury’s Death is a Lonely Business on their blogs. The book got me thinking about books that were fashionable to read when I was young, rather halfway through college. It was cool to mention them, like dropping names of famous people you knew. These books set the benchmark for the quality of books you read, didn’t read or should read. They made a fashion statement.

I can recollect twelve such fascinating books.

01. Death is a Lonely Business by Ray Bradbury, 1985

02. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe, 1985

03. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, 1969

04. The World According to Garp by John Irving, 1978

05. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, 1961

06. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig, 1974

07. The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury, 1975

08. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 1960

09. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, 1951

10. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, 1957

11. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, 1957

12. The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis, 1951

I have not read the bottom four books yet. Each of these books has an attractive title and is considered a literary masterpiece, some intellectually entertaining and stimulating. Every one of them is worth reading and in some cases more than once. The stories are as unusual as their titles and written by some of the finest authors in the history of fiction. I have always liked the sound of all the twelve books. Stacked on a bookshelf, they’d really look good.

Which books were fashionable to read in your youth?

The Day Time Stopped Moving by Bradner Buckner, 1940

Another sf entry for Friday's Forgotten Books at Patti Abbott's blog Pattinase which is being hosted by Todd Mason at Sweet Freedom today.

All Dave Miller wanted to do was commit suicide in peace. He tried, but the things that happened after he'd pulled the trigger were all wrong. Like everyone standing around like statues. No St. Peter, no pearly gate, no pitchforks or halos. He might just as well have saved the bullet!

Dave Miller pushed with all 

his strength, but the girl was an 

unmovable as Gibraltar.

Imagine a scenario where everyone and everything has come to a standstill, where nothing is moving, where there is no trace of motion or emotion.

Imagine a place where people are in suspended animation, where fires burn without smoke, where doors don’t open, where liquids have turned solid, where pebbles can’t be kicked, where a blade of grass supports your weight.

Imagine a world where all life, animate and inanimate, is frozen like a statue.

Now imagine yourself in just such a place where you are the only living soul and yet you know you are not alone.

It is in this surreal and terrifying world that drugstore owner Dave Miller finds himself after he “commits” suicide to teach his wife, Helen, a lesson. 

October 1940

This short story by sf writer Bradner Buckner reminded me of a silly game we used to play as kids, where you pointed to a friend and blurted out, “Statue!,” and the friend would freeze where he was until you said “pass” and allowed him to get on with his life. After a while it got on everyone’s nerve.

Dave can’t say “pass” and bring the human statues back to life. Instead, his only hope is fellow survivor John Erickson, an elderly, half-bald, eccentric scientist whose experiment with a time machine has gone horribly wrong, and a friendly police dog called Major.

Like Greylorn by Keith Laumer, which I read and reviewed last week, this story was an easy read although Buckner offers a scientific explanation for the immobilised world as well as the working of the time machine known as impulsor. It all went over my head.

Erickson pursed his lips. We are somewhere partway across the space between present and past. We are living in an instant that can move neither forward nor back. You and I, Dave, and Major—and the Lord knows how many others the world over—have been thrust by my time impulsor onto a timeless beach of eternity. We have been caught in time's backwash. Castaways, you might say.”

The 1956 issue

The premise of the story, where time stands still, has been done before, in books, films, and television including, I believe, The Twilight Zone series.

The Day Time Stopped Moving can be described as science fiction, horror, and supernatural rolled into one. It’s a nice little story although I have no idea who Bradner Buckner is. I didn’t find anything on him online. The name could be a pseudonym for a famous sf writer. I leave it to you to enlighten me. The story appeared in Amazing Stories but there is some confusion over the year of publication, 1940 or 1956, so I have reproduced both the covers.

Illustration source: Project Gutenberg

Reading Habits #15: The bitter taste of my tablet

I didn’t see any movies over the long Diwali weekend, and regrettably, will have to skip today’s Overlooked Films at Todd Mason’s blog Sweet Freedom. But I’ll be heading over there to read other contributions.

© Wikimedia Commons

Meanwhile, my mind is troubled by something else—the grim possibility that I may have to use my tablet sparingly or not use it at all for some time. It all depends on how my fingers and hands behave, on the pain and the stiffness caused by holding the tablet in my left hand and using my right forefinger to flip apps and pages.

The tablet is sleek and it weighs a bit, which I realised only after my fingers started aching. The pain and stiffness goes away if I don't use the tablet for a while. That seldom happens. The lure of the tablet is too strong.

Doctors have a term for pain induced by prolonged use of gadgets and electronic devices like tablets, smartphones, and laptops—RSI or repetitive strain injury. They label everything, don’t they? Like jam bottles. They warn me that if I don’t take preventive action now, then I'm heading for chronic pain—in my hands and fingers due to my tablet and in my neck and back due to my laptop and desktop computer.

Apparently, placing your tablet, iPad or laptop on your lap is no solution for you are still holding the gadgets by your hand, using your fingers, and stretching your neck and back like an ostrich.

The last thing I want to do is carp about my carpal and replace my Samsung tablet with my doctor’s tablet.

So here’s what I plan to do: I’ll go back to reading my yellowed and dog-eared secondhand books. The current ratio is one physical book for four ebooks, which explains my stiff neck and fingers. I’ll try and reverse the order. That way I can keep the orthopaedic away and put off arthritis by a few more years.

But do I hear the ophthalmologist already knocking?