For #ThrowbackThursday, here's a Banned Books Week repost:
In honor of Banned Books
Week, I have a confession: I ban books. Sometimes I do it regretfully,
sometimes I do it with enthusiasm. Here are ten reasons why:
10. Brain Ache – This occurs when a story is so convoluted,
I need the ghost of Stephen Hawking to get me through the first two chapters;
9. Ridiculous Character Names – I’m sorry, but I
can’t read 300 pages about the adventures of Duffy von Winklesnout;
8. No Story – If a story arc is flatline, my
interest is, too;
7. Adverb Abuse – When the characters smile
happily, glare menacingly, skip gleefully, ogle lustfully, I put the book down.
Hastily;
6. Deus ex machina (“god out of the machine”) –
No plot should need the equivalent of divine intervention to reach resolution,
unless it’s in a book about…well, divine intervention;
5. Weird Formatting – This includes lack of
punctuation, phonetic spelling of dialects, anything that makes me overly conscious of the
act of reading;
4. Overpopulation – I’m from a small family.
I’ve never taught a freshman-level course or directed a Broadway production. Too
many characters overwhelm me;
3. Apathy – If I don’t care about the plot or
characters by page 100 (max), I’m out;
2. Envy – When a mediocre book makes it big
(huge! colossal!), I know that reading it will make me yank on my hair and eat
too many carbs. (This ban is often trumped by curiosity, but not always.); and
1. No Payoff - Frank
Conroy said: "The author makes a tacit deal with the reader. You hand them
a backpack. You ask them to place certain things in it - to remember, to keep
in mind - as they make their way up the hill. If you hand them a yellow
Volkswagen and they have to haul this to the top of the mountain - to the end
of the story - and they find that this Volkswagen has nothing whatsoever to do
with your story, you're going to have a very irritated reader on your
hands." Hear, hear.
My point is—yes, I do have a point, and thank you for asking—I have the freedom to ban any book from my personal library for whatever reason I choose. But I would never presume to do the same for someone else.
For more information, here's a recent NPR article about Banned Books Week.
Take care friends, and I hope you're reading a good book this week, banned or not.
