Banned Books Countdown: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Freedom to Read Week (Feb 24th-March 2nd) is fast approaching. As everybody knows, there's nothing like noteriety to get people interested. So if you want a good book to read to mark the occasion, now's the time to start placing holds. By "good book" I mean of course one that is naughty enough to motivate some busybody somewhere to try and squelch your enjoyment of it. This countdown is not like a radio countdown where I save the best for last. I'm starting with my third or possibly fourth favourite Kurt Vonnegut book, but the one which oddly enough is the most challenged of his works
Of Vonnegut's work I would say Cat's Cradle is easily more blasphemous, and a certain short story in this collection is much more scatological. But for whatever reason the Vonnegut book that gets the noses of the sanctimonius most out of joint is Slaughterhouse-Five, which goes to show you how would be censors often take their cues from one another in lieu of actually reading widely.
Slaughterhouse-Five is such a perennial favourite target of those who know your reading preferences better than you that it made a big splash as recently as summer 2011. A professor at Missouri State University managed to get it pulled from the local school board's libraries and curricula. "This is a book that contains so much profane language, it would make a sailor blush with shame. The "f word" is plastered on almost every other page" he complained.
Having read this book many years back I just had to scan'through it again over lunch to jog my memory. And indeed the f word did appear here and there (every 30 some odd pages, a mere 15 fold exaggeration but hey, who's counting?)
But the best part of this story is the Vonnegut Memorial Library's response.
Sources
2 thoughts on “Banned Books Countdown: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut”
We had a situation like this where Margaret Lawrence’s The Diviners was being targeted in Canada by our School Boards for removal from the list of approved novels for curriculum use at high school levels. This was twenty some years ago, maybe more. The issue was before our gov’t adopted their umbrella terminology “multi-culturalism”. Obstensibly the issue could be classed as
‘heavier’ than a PG-13 level of censorship – using the Film Board’s scale … there was a scene of sexual (& consensual contact) between a native Cdn male and woman (who some critics said was a prototype for Lawrence herself). Not gritty at all; i believe the situation was ‘solved’ by ommitting the scene; Scholastics Cda re-published the book & it was not banned. Lawrence has now passed on; and frankly, all i can remember is what those same critics said after her death: “well wouldn’t we just have LOVED another book from Lawrence”!!
May God rest her grave. In my opinion, Margaret Lawrence was one of Canada’s great literary treasures!!
Thanks Melissa, and stay tuned! I have plans for the Diviners for my countdown.