Free Will and Dystopia

Although it seems pretty obvious to me now, I realized last week for what I think was the first time that a common theme in dystopian literature, especially young adult dystopian literature, is the principle of agency, or free will. Someone, usually the government, hinders the basic right to choose for one's self, sometimes masking the restrictions under the guise of a greater freedom. But personal agency is still hindered and the novel's protagonists come to realize that their society isn't as well ordered, kind or ideal as they've grown up believing. And our protagonists become reluctant heroes in the overthrow of their oppressive regimes, or at least in waking people up to the fact that things aren't so grand.

Wikipedia hosts a no-doubt incomplete list of dystopian literature by decade from the 18th century forward. Does it say something about our current society that there are listed a dozen novels in the entire nineteenth century, and every decade since the 1930s had at least that many per decade? That in the first decade of the twenty-first century there were over four dozen dystopian novels published? Or that in our current decade there are nearly three dozen so far (and we're not halfway through)? Or -- perhaps the biggest concern of all -- that in this century the vast majority of those bleak futuristic societies were written for teens and preteens? Why the increase? Is it just a fad? A look though Amazon.com will yield a far greater number of these tales than the Wikipedia list, if one counts all the free or dollar priced ebooks. Still, the numbers are increasing so I don't think this trend can be written off as merely a fad.

Last year I read a couple of different articles pondering the question of how much violence is too much violence in young adult literature - and the movies which eventually are spawned by these books. It's not exactly a new question. I grew up on Saturday morning cartoons and I remember hearing that debate as a child. No matter how many Road Runner cartoons I watched I never had the desire to drop an anvil on some poor bird's head, and although I might have sometimes wished to bop the noggins of various bad guys, I knew Batman and Superman never bopped anyone who didn't deserve it, and they didn't continue hitting once the bad guy started seeing stars.

There's no doubt the violence of The Hunger Games is extreme and no one seriously claims that children killing children is not, at the very least, unsettling. Is it "right" to write about such things for children? Do these types of stories increase aggression and desensitize our youth to the value of human life? I don't think such questions have simple yes-or-no answers. Nor do I think it is easy to say how much art imitates life or life imitates art. We live in a violent world, and we always have. These stories aren't simply visions of horrific futures, either the blatantly obvious horrors or the thinly disguised "more enlightened" societies they pretend to be. One of the characteristics of dystopian literature is social commentary on the time in which is is written. That thought truly makes me wonder about the plethora of these tales; have we become so cynical we can only see the bad in our society and imagine all the ways it can get worse? Or are we becoming more aware than ever before, and more willing to discuss the ills which we see?

One of the reasons I enjoy young adult fiction more than most adult fiction is the honesty with which it is written. Another reason is the hope with which it is written. Perhaps I've read the wrong books - but of those I've read, the characters in "adult" dystopian novels end up giving up -- and society is no better at the end of the tale than at the beginning. I don't need sunshine and lollipops in the books I read, but if I read a murder mystery, I expect the killer to have been caught and brought to justice when I close the book. And I expect there to be at least a glimmer of hope for the future when I close the book of a dystopian novel, even the first part of a trilogy, such as Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games trilogy or Veronica Roth's Divergent trilogy. 1984 and Brave New World ended as bleakly as they began, with the adults protagonists losing their battle with their oppressive societies (and in the case of 1984, being happy about it.) Oh, Fahrenheit 451 and The Time Machine ended on the upbeat, but those are it for the adult fiction I've read in that genre. (I'll happily take any suggestions.) What I like about the bleak fiction of the young adult market is simply it's not so bleak. Despite the violence, despite the visions of society gone wrong, there is reason to hope that things are going to get better -- because the heroes in these tales -- kids -- don't capitulate like their adult counterparts do.

The world Veronica Roth draws in her Divergent series, is, as many dystopias, the post-apocalyptic result of possibly well-intentioned attempts to rebuild society after we screwed it up. Humans being as they are, they still didn't get it right. A hundred years after a war, the city of Chicago is fenced off from the rest of the world -- it's unclear how much of a world there is outside of Chicago (perhaps that is shown more in the sequels; I do not know and have resisted researching too much in case I wish to someday read those sequels). The society is divided into five "factions" -- which I saw as mini societies within the larger society -- and each of these factions is structured to think and perform according to set patterns based upon the virtues they define themselves by. At age sixteen an aptitude tests is administered to determine where each individual is best suited to remain for the rest of their lives. Regardless of the aptitude test results, people are -- supposedly -- free to choose their new faction or remain in the one they were born into. But once the choice is made, you're stuck with it, unless you fail the tests given by your new faction, and are cast out into the "Factionless", i.e., dregs of society, the grunts, the poor, the unwanted. Free will only goes so far in this society.

The five factions are Abnegation, or the Selfless, to which Tris and her brother are born into but both turn away from on Choosing Day; Amity, the Peaceful; Candor, the Honest; Erudite, the Intelligent; and Dauntless, the Brave. Tris joins the Dauntless, who originally were intended to be society's protectors, but they've grown cruel under current leadership. Her brother joins the Erudite, whose seeking of knowledge has turned them arrogant and power hungry under their current leadership. It shouldn't be a plot spoiler (and I apologize if it is) that Tris falls in love with her instructor, a boy only two years older than she, who sees the flaws in not only his own faction but in the others, and dreams of a greater unity. He also discerns Tris's secret, and he's not the only one to do so. Tris's aptitude test reveals she is Divergent, which means that she has a greater capacity to exercise free will than most people do. And the government doesn't like that.

Divergent is, for the most part, a believable society, although I do wonder what's outside of Chicago and wonder if I need to read the next two books to find out. And some of the dialog I found was too present-day and did not gel with how I believe this society would think and speak. Nothing major, but those bits were still a distraction. Taken as a whole, I can believe a society set up with the intention of the betterment of all by separating people into their factions according to there inherent gifts and dispositions. But human beings are creatures of free will and taking that away is going to cause problems, and I think the author develops those problems at a believable pace and with flawed characters the reader can grow to love and villains the reader doesn't feel necessarily guilty for hating.

The violence in the worlds of both the Hunger Games and Divergent is about equal, portrayed differently and for different purposes, but about equal. Whether it is too much for either the adult or the teen reader is a great deal up to the reader's tolerance for violence and acceptance of how it tells the story. As I've said, dystopias are part social commentary. I don't think we should sell short today's youth; they see real life violence around them every day and like us adults, often feel powerless to do anything about it. And one more thing I like about young adult dystopian fiction: the protagonists understand their choices have consequences, and they learn and grow by making those choices, both good and bad. And maybe the readers of these tales can take those lessons their fictional heroes learned and apply them to real life situations -- and possibly prevent these dystopias from becoming reality.


 Divergent 

 The Hunger Games 

The Long Winter -and- The Long Winter

Winter is here. The air is gelid, the wind is brumal.  I have a good coat, hat, gloves, scarf and boots which protect me from the worst of the weather as I commute to work via public transportation, which requires a great deal of walking and waiting in single digit and subzero temperatures and a couple of days with wind chill thrown in just for kicks. Protected from the elements or not, I don't much care for winter, even the mild ones Colorado typically has. After a fairly mild, if wetter than usual December, January turned cold, warmed a little toward the end, and then February came in determined to show January a thing or too. In my memory, February is generally colder anyway, March and April wetter. I know the routine. But I still don't like it.

I don't mind reading about it, however. Last year, when it was supposed to be springtime, we had one snow after another. They weren't horrendous snows. Just one after another, and springtime didn't seem interested in making an appearance. And I was probably more acutely aware of it because I had picked up Laura Ingalls Wilder's 1940 novel The Long Winter. Wilder herself admitted the novels based upon her childhood were historical fiction, and in the interest of storytelling, she combined characters and moved events around. The Long Winter, however, is considered by historians and biographers to be less fiction than her other books, with only a couple exceptions, one of which being the duration and frequency of the storms described in the book.

Laura is 14 in the fall of 1880 and winter arrives early to the town of De Smet, Dakota Territory. There were a higher than usual number of blizzards that season and winter lasted through April 1881. Wilder describes the events of that winter through the eyes of a fourteen year old and the relentless winter becomes as much a character in the tale as she herself, her family and the townspeople. Some storms lasted for days, snow went up to rooflines, cattle froze to death standing in the field. Fuel and food became scarce when trains couldn't get in to town. Laura and friends get lost in a blinding blizzard and would have walked out of Main Street unto the open prairie and perished had Laura not bumped into the last building. Pa and other men from town travel a great distance in an unsuccessful attempt to dig out a train, and the railroad eventual shuts down all trains. Later, when already meager food supplies have run so scarce many of the townspeople would probably starve, Almonzo Wilder, whom Laura would grow up to marry, and his friend Cap Garland set out inbetween blizzards in search of a store of wheat rumored to be an arduous twenty mile journey across a landscape blanketed with snow obscuring familiar landmarks and hiding deep holes and other dangers.

Snow, cold, dark, hunger, worry -- but the survival story is more than the family's will to survive; it is the family's will to do so in a happy, cheerful manner; encouraging and lifting up one another, telling stories, making a meager Christmas the best it could be. The "Long Winter", or the "Snow Winter" as it is called in some historical accounts, did happen, and whatever liberties Wilder may have taken with its duration and intensity (and the local and oral history doesn't agree, so perhaps Wilder's memories are the truer account after all) -- the story itself is a satisfying yarn, best read from inside a comfortable abode with modern amenities, and perhaps large mugs of hot cocoa, with gratitude for global warming.

John Christopher wrote a very different novel in 1962, entitled The Long Winter (US title; The World In Winter in the UK). Christopher's novel is part post-apocalyptic, part political satire. Set in an unspecified future, a natural event in the decline of solar radiation brings a new ice age to earth. The winter grows harsher, food becomes scarce, economies go south. And people migrate south to more temperate climates, specifically Nigeria. And here the long winter takes second place to real story: society's mores being turned on their heads. As Europeans flee south into Africa, Black becomes the dominate, majority race, and White becomes the oppressed, the minority. I think the tale works better in world of 1962 in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, but there is still much food for thought for today. Our attitudes towards others, whether based upon race, religion, economics or whatnot - could change in an instant, given a different set of circumstances.

Christopher, perhaps better known for his children's book series The Tripods, wrote disaster novels for all ages. Although most of his adult novels are now dated, I think it would be nice to see them back in print, for with that dating comes historical significance. I read the Tripods (set centuries after Earth's inhabitants have been enslaved by alien entities) books 35 years ago, along with Empty World (a plague causes rapid aging and death and nearly decimates the Earth's population) and then about ten years ago, No Blade of Grass (a plant disease kills off wheat, corn and other edible grass-like grains). Although The Long Winter was written for adults, when I read it five years ago at the height of widespread discussions about global warming, it brought back my childhood: I grew up in an era where the scare wasn't rapidly rising temperatures and melting polar ice caps, but rather the fact that we were long overdue for the next ice age. It was in this context I read John Christopher's The Long Winter; the political commentary didn't really register until I was nearly finished reading. Overall, though, Christopher spins a good yarn. His characters are flawed individuals, and to this reader, not particularly likeable in some of the decisions they make. The ugly side of humanity comes out quickly when disaster strikes, and it comes out in a matter-of-fact way, as if circumstances dictate morals more than inherent beliefs. Still, his primary characters are basically good, eventually choosing the right over the self serving. And although, like all good disaster tales, the senses of gloom and despair prevail through much of the book, in the end, a glimmer of hope is present; not a neatly tied happy ending, but a hope, just as springtime is hope for new life after long winters.

The Long Winter

Waste of Money?

Yesterday a friend posted on my Facebook page a picture of a wall of books with the caption "Of course anyone who truly loves books buys more of them than he or she can read in one fleeting lifetime. A good book resting unopened in its slot on a shelf, full of majestic potentiality, is the most comforting sort of intellectual wallpaper."

My friends know me well.

The post originally came from Random House Publishers, and it was interesting to read the comments about this phenomenon, mostly from people who are guilty of it. There was one person who while admitting he was probably being pragmatic believed buying books with no intention of reading them is pretentious and wasteful. Someone, not impolitely, although unnecessarily, suggested he must not be a reader, and he took exception to the assumption. I can understand why he did; however I thought it was rather assuming on his part to assume book collectors have "no intention of reading" the books we buy, and a bit pretentious to point out that everything in his home must have a purpose; just because we cannot see what that purpose is in someone else's life, doesn't mean there is no purpose present. I didn't post these observations there because such postings tend to result in flame wars and I understand his opinion even if I do not agree with it. For the same reason I am not intending to flame this stranger here, but rather wish to use the remarks as a jumping off point.

For the next few comments in that stream, a portion of them were addressed to this man, each saying in one way or another that we do indeed intend to read every book we purchase. One person wisely pointed out that we tend to think we are purchasing the time to read them along with the book itself. That struck a chord for me!

I have bought books before because I liked the author or the series and wanted the set, later discovering I only liked that particular book. I sometimes went to great trouble and expense procuring the set before I realized I no longer wanted it. Was this a "waste of money"? Perhaps, to the pragmatist it is - but then again, pragmatically, if the action helped me define my tastes and refine my collector's skills, it wasn't a waste at all, but rather pragmatic. Was it pretentious?  Well, since my intention was never to show off, I'd have to say "no", even if it appears that way to some. Some of my acquaintances have wondered why I have bought leather bound volumes of some of my favorite tomes when I already own perfectly servicable copies. Well, my favorite books I enjoy lending out, so I like multiple copies of them anyway, and, may my vegan friends forgive me, I like the feel and smell of high quality books. But any desire to show off my library isn't to show off my vast knowledge, eclectic tastes or income; it is to show people That I Have Books! And they can borrow them! The paperbacks, the hardcovers, the beat-up ones, the pristine copies (as long as they promise to be gentle); the fiction and non-fiction, adult and children's books... because... I Have Books! Books! Do you understand? BOOKS! Well, book lovers understand what I mean; book likers shake their heads in consternation.

Why do I have two bookcases filled with nothing but dictionaries? Because I like dictionaries. I like how different dictionaries define words differently over the decades. I like how they describe a word differently in the same year of publication but one defines it descriptively and another prescriptively.  No, I'm not being pretentious and trying to show how much smarter I am than everyone else. In fact the more I read, the more I learn how much I do not know. No, I haven't read every single word in every single dictionary, nor do I intended to; just the ones I am curious about at any given moment in time.

I have not read every single book I own, although I have read enough of each to know that I would like to someday, or at least I felt that way when I bought it. Perhaps when science figures out cloning so my clone can go to work for me and I can stay home and read, or when science figures out how to double or triple our life expectancies. Every now and then I glean my books and find new homes for those which I intended to read at one time but do not intend to now. Every now and then I put the book back on the shelf because it still whispers "Read Me!" And every now and then, it's a good thing that pragmatist didn't chuck that book years ago, because although I probably could retrieve a new copy of something I gave away, when the time to read something is Now! it is nice to have the book Right There. Such was the case with "The Phantom Tollbooth", which I read last year after it sat on my shelf for fifteen years, patiently waiting for me to be mature enough to comprehend it. Was it "pragmatic" to keep it there for so long? I'll answer that question with another: Would it have been pragmatic to get rid of it before I'd discovered the marvelous treasure that book is?

Some of my friends think I spend too much money on books I don't read. From a strictly financial viewpoint they might have something. They are generally the same people who don't quite understand why I spend a bit more money on premium root beer, chocolate and cheese rather than the cheapest (translate: "inferior tasting") generic stuff at the store. They cannot understand why I think it's worth the money, why I will make sacrifices elsewhere to buy what I deem the "good stuff". I cannot understand their "smart" phones when my "dumb" phone allows me to make phone calls for a fraction of the cost, nor their $150 cable bills when not having any cable TV at all allows me to buy, um, a lot of books.

So I don't think it's impractical or wasteful to spend money on books. The enjoyment I garner from books goes beyond the escape into other worlds and the procurement of knowledge. I will allow things should have a purpose, but I think it unwise and unkind to assume the value we place on things or the purpose we ascribe to them ourselves holds true for everyone. However I have found in my current decluttering that there's a definite purpose to being organized enough to know what I own and have at least a general idea where it is located so I don't continue to run into duplicate copies which I'd forgotten I had or had previously been certain I'd bought but had been unable to locate before replacing something that wasn't lost after all. Then again, duplicate copies make nice gifts, and what can be more pragmatic than that?

Speaking of pragmatism, older dictionaries defining "pragmatic" include the now-considered-archaic definitions "officious" and "meddlesome". In other words, a pragmatist is a busybody. A little bit of practical (some might say "pretentious") information I would not have known if I had decided it was impractical to keep an "old" dictionary on my shelf.

Books I Am Thankful For

On Thanksgiving i am thankful for many things. I have a good life. I have been blessed with much. But as this is a blog about books and food.... well, at this moment, I am thankful for books and food! Specifics, you ask? Well, when it comes to food, you can pretty much stick it on a plate and place it in front of me. When it comes to reading material, stick it in front of my nose and chances are I'll give it at least a quick perusal.

I am thankful for books. I don't know how my parents instilled such a love of reading in me. Certainly they loved to read themselves. And although my siblings all learned the love of books, somehow with me they became as important as air. And still are. I have many times recommended books and authors to family and friends, coworkers and even strangers on the bus, and given them lists for themselves and for their children. The lists are always incomplete, for how do you, how can you, possibly make a list of recommended reading, even for yourself, that will ever be complete, when people's tastes change, when our own tastes change? When our political viewpoint and philosophical worldview change, sometimes returning to their roots, sometimes into new paths never before explored? What I read and enjoyed as a kid, I don't now. But on the other hand, I do. And I have recently discovered how much I missed as a kid.

So I present the following list of books - title, series, authors - that I am thankful for today; listed as they come to mind or as I glance through my bookshelves for memory jogs, and not in order of importance, because if I were to make this list tomorrow, I might think of them in a different order, but that won't make them any less important. They are books which I return to every five years or so and books I read once and might never read again but which I remember fondly when seeing them because they influenced me for good at the time I read them which may have been last year, five, ten, fifteen, twenty... whoops, starting to date myself here -- many years ago. They are books which first turned me on to a new author, even if it wasn't that author's best work or their first work or even the first in that series. They are fiction and nonfiction, mystery and fantasy and science fiction and religious and scientific; they are uplifting or silly, thought provoking or mental pablum. They are recent discoveries and recent rediscoveries. They are new and old in their publication dates; they are books which were better than the movies based upon them and books which had little to do with the movies they supposedly inspired. They are books I first read in beat up paperbacks, or leather bound hardcovers, or electronic format; they are books I purchased on a whim knowing nothing about them or books which were gifts or books borrowed from the public library or lent by a friend or assigned in a high school English class due to that long standing and somewhat sadistic program of forcing children to read books which have no relevancy in their lives and suck the joy of reading out of children's minds and hearts (but somehow an occasional good book slips through.) These are the books which occupy much  wall and floor space in every room of my home but which also occupy the corridors of my soul. The only categorization I file them under is somewhat loose themes, but sometimes those themes overlap much as my reading does, for although I have but one nose, it sniffs multiple books throughout every day.

The Bible. The Book of Mormon. Doctrine and Covenants. The Pearl of Great Price. The Screwtape Letters. Mere Christianity. Even As I Am. Infinite Atonement. Great Shall Be Your Joy. Lighten Up. Act In Doctrine. Standing For Something. Prophecy In Modern Times. The Broken Heart.

A Wrinkle In Time. A Wind At the Door. The Dark is Rising. So You Want To Be a Wizard. Deep Wizardry. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The Magic Thief. Peter Pan. Rose Daughter. Inkheart. Dragon Slippers. Treasure Island. Time Stops For No Mouse. Larklight. Heartlight. The Secret of Platform 13. Amulet. Escape To Witch Mountain. The Forgotten Door. The Phantom Tollbooth. Five Children and It. Breadcrumbs. Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos. The Illyrian Adventure. The Book of Three. Taran Wanderer. Westmark. House of Stairs. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Airborn. Bedknob and Broomstick. The Ordinary Princess. A Hidden Magic. Over Sea, Under Stone. Unicorns In the Rain. Coraline. Wizard's Hall. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Charlotte's Web. Stuart Little. The Great Brain. Mary Poppins. The Lost Island. Dragonsong. Hugo. Kidnapped.

The Outsiders. To Kill a Mockingbird. Jane Eyre. Joy in the Morning. Pride and Prejudice. It's Like This, Cat. The Penderwicks. The Penderwicks on Gardham Street. A Ring of Endless Light. Saffy's Angel. Dolphin Luck. A Christmas Carol. The Christmas Box. The Long Winter (Wilder). Shane. Old Yeller. The Devil's Arithmetic. Jacob Have I Loved. Holes. Dear Mr Henshaw. From the Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler. A Mustard Seed of Magic. A Door Near Here. My Side of the Mountain. It's Nothing To a Mountain. Johnny Tremain. April Morning. Speak. Dreamland. Just Listen. The Four Million. Rainbow Valley.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Fahrenheit 451. The Time Machine. War of the Worlds. Iron Rain. But What of Earth. Pilgrimage. Empty World. No Blade of Grass. The Long Winter (Christopher). The White Mountains. The Third Level. The Last Oasis. Uglies. The Giver. Life As We Knew it. Z For Zechariah. Whispers From the Grave. Among the Hidden. House of the Scorpion. Stonewolf. A Spell For Chameleon. The Folk Of the Fringe. Seventh Son.

The 39 Steps. The Haunted Bookshop. The Face of A Stranger. The Cater Street Hangman. The Unexpected Mrs Pollifax. Chasing Vermeer. The Arm of the Starfish. The Secret Ways. The Victoria Vanishes. Aunt Dimity's Death. Murder At the Vicarage. Jar City. Gambit. A Stranger is Watching. Don't Talk to Strangers. Nightfall. The Callender Papers. No 1 Ladies Detective Agency. Crocodile on the Sandbank. Evans Above. Defend and Betray. The Anodyne Necklace. A Sunless Sea. Hardy Boys Mysteries (the older books). Nancy Drew Mysteries (the older books). Judy Bolton Mysteries. Trixie Beldon Mysteries. A Christmas Promise. A Christmas Garland. Mystery of the Strange Traveler. the Moon-Spinners. The Young Unicorns.

Winnie-the-Pooh. The Red Book. The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. Ellen's Lion. Harold and the purple Crayon. Caps For Sale. Imogene's Antlers. A Hole Is to Dig. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day. CDB. One Was Johnny. Where The Wild Things Are. The Jungle Book.

One's Company. There's An Adult In My Soup. Gift From the Sea. Father to Son. I want To Grow Hair, I Want To Grow up, I Want To Go To Boise. All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten. Things I Overheard While Talking To Myself. Random Acts of Kindness. Letters To Karen. The Five love Languages. Love Must Be Tough. Change Your Brain, Change Your Life. Reviving Ophelia. A Thatched Roof. Three Cups of Tea. Abraham. West With the Night. The Endless Steppe. Mr God, This Is Anna. The Hiding Place.

Whiskers and Rhymes. Out In the Dark and Daylight. Now We Are Six. You Read To Me, I'll Read To You. A Light In the Attic. The Dragons Are Singing Tonight. A Child's Garden of Verses.

What am I forgetting? Probably a great deal! In going through my books and thinking, Oh, I remember that! or I know that touched me, but I don't remember why; maybe I should read it again?  it is pretty easy to understand why I have more books than I can plug into shelves. even after working at it for a year. Some books are relatively easy to pass on, others not so much. I can tell myself, "If it touched you or entertained you ten years ago but doesn't move you now, let someone else enjoy it" - but there's a part of me that wonders, "What if I want to revisit it again, maybe even soon?" When I started listing the books i am thankful for, I did not expect the list to be quite so long. Many of my favorites are already on dedicated shelves for that. Many of what I have listed here tonight were favorites when I read them, but for some it was twenty or even thirty years ago. Were I to reread those books today, would they move me in the same way, even if they make my smile now to look at them?

Perhaps I ought to pay attention to the depth, to the degree, of emotional response when I see that book I've not touched for one, two, three decades - is it immediate; is it intense? Do I really want to relive it again?  Do I need to, as my needs have changed? Or can I consider their missions fulfilled and release them? Can I be thankful for what they meant then and let someone else enjoy those treasures now?

Curious questions to ask myself. Perhaps the best way to show gratitude for all these reads is to let someone else own them. Or at least borrow them.

Banned Books Week 2013

My thoughts on the matter of banned books haven't changed much since I posted about it a couple years ago. I don't like it. But the same freedom of speech that gives people the right to write and speak the things I find offensive gives me the right to object. Sometimes those standing up for freedom of speech and freedom to write whatever they want forget that.

Banned Books Week is a bit of a misnomer anyway, and has been for years. Books are very seldom pulled from shelves. Yes, they are often challenged, and sometimes by people who are acting from what they think they heard from someone who heard from someone else who read the back cover of the book ten years ago - rather than read the book themselves - but that's a different animal. It's short sighted, but it's not inherently evil of them, nor inherently stupid, unenlightened and uncivilized of them, as those who challenge books are generally portrayed. Generally, they are objecting because they have beliefs every bit as strong as those who write the things they object to. And that's wrong? I think not. It's wrong to say "You can't write that, you can't think that, you can't publish that." But you know what? The vast majority of the challenges every year are simply people - usually parents, vile creatures that parents tend to be - saying, "I don't want my child to read that. I don't want them to be forced to read that." But under the guise of protecting free speech, people come along and say, "How dare you object! Get with the program and think the way we do!" Poppycock. (Whoops, I shouldn't have written that - anyone who knows the literal translation of that word will surely be offended and have my blog banned!)

Too many people are interested in freedom of speech only if it's their own speech that's free. Everyone else is wrong. I am glad the American Library Association fights for freedom of speech. I hope they do for many years to come. But I get annoyed when snide remarks are made about not the challenges to the books themselves, but rather the challengers. In doing so, they are - intentionally or unintentionally a moot point - denying the right to object. I find that every bit as scary as having some of my favorite reads some day become unavailable. It's the exact same narrow minded thinking which leads to challenging and banning in the first place.

The very fact that challenges continue to happen tell me our freedoms are still vibrantly healthy. Nobody is disappearing following their speaking out and the populace is not being told they never existed in the first place, as in George Orwell's 1984. No one is having their homes raided and all their books burned by the Firemen, like in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. I think I can understand why people are afraid of the slippery slope which could lead to such dystopian societies. But just because something could conceivably happen, doesn't mean it already has. It doesn't mean that if they believe a school library should have such a book, that they have the nefarious intent of undermining society. Nope, they only have the nefarious intent of protecting their own families. Educate them. Tell them why you think the book is important, even what merit you think it has. Even if they think their rights trumps yours, explain why that isn't so. But to tell people they don't have the right to object? Uh-uh. You do. They do. Simple as that.

Another thought. I've read a number of blog posts and editorials suggesting we all "should" read banned books - even providing suggested reading lists - as if doing so carries some sort of badge of honor. Pfft. Myself, I read the books I want to read. Occasionally someone has said I shouldn't, but they usually say so off stage, and I read it in utter ignorance, only learning of my folly when the ALA release the next "Most Frequently Challenged Books" list. Sometimes the controversy has lead me to a book I wouldn't have known about otherwise, but even then, I read it because it piqued my curiosity. Many of those books I'm "not supposed to" read I don't want to read anyway, because they have no appeal for me - not because I'm unenlightened or afraid of having my beliefs challenged.

It's downright silly to read a book you don't want to read because someone else didn't want to read it either.  This proves.... what exactly? Read to enlighten your mind, to learn new viewpoints, even to see what all the hullabaloo is about. But most of all, read because you enjoy reading, and read what you want to read. Read Huckleberry Finn. Read The Adventures of Captain Underpants.  A Child Called It. To Kill a Mockingbird. The Chocolate War. Lord of the Flies. Lord of the Rings. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Of Mice and Men. A Wrinkle In Time. The Catcher In the Rye. Breakfast At Tiffany's. The Great Gatsby. A Separate Peace.

Some of those in the list above I have read a half dozen times and I love them. Some I have read and personally loathed. Some I have never read and do not plans to. Read them anyway. Because I told you to! No, seriously, read them. Or don't.

Pick up a book everybody loves, read a few pages, decide it's not for you, and burn--- I mean, calmly put it back on the shelf for the next person to read. Pick up a book everyone hates and read a few pages and decide that that everyone is correct, the book actually does indeed suck. Or buy it because you fell in love with the first page.

If someone wonders why you didn't like a book, tell them. Maybe doing so will offend them. People sometimes take it personally if your tastes don't match theirs. Apologize and buy them a hot cocoa. If you think it's inappropriate for your child to read an assigned book, call the school and ask for an alternate title. If someone else in your community objects, support their right to exercise their right to do so - even if you disagree with them. Support their freedom, even if you don't support their viewpoint.

Because freedom of speech shouldn't be limited to the printed word, nor to a bestseller list, or a banned books list or any list at all. It shouldn't be confined to the recommendations of talk show hosts and Hollywood shills or political pundits. Nor should it be dictated by controversy. Freedom of speech - indeed, all of our freedoms, carry with them the responsibility to protect those freedoms, not just for ourselves, but also for those we disagree with. The minute we attempt to silence those whose opinions we disagree with - and those disagreeing with us - we grant permission to others to silence us.

Festival Food

Summer and Autumn -- time for community fairs and festivals. Time for wall-to-wall people (sans walls, of course, as these festivals are generally held outdoors) many of whom are walking around in a half stupor, stopping suddenly or reversing direction like a human pinball. It pays to keep one eye on all the sights and another on all the people keeping both eyes on all the sights. Time for really bad "art" and "crafts"; time for really good but exorbitantly priced arts and crafts; seven dollar soaps, twenty dollar lotions, twelve dollar salsas and mustards.

In years past I caught nearly all the community festivals, but the last couple of years my planning has been poor and I have missed out. I'm pretty much a hermit by nature and because of this I generally avoid crowds. Yet there's a peculiar energy present at these community festivals; one that somehow rejuvenates me rather than zapping me as crowds usually do.

If the energy of the crowd doesn't do it, every festival is replete with energy-giving food. To paraphrase the orphans in the musical Oliver! :

Food,  glorious food! Fat, sugar and chol-es-ter-ol!


Okay, so it's overpriced. If you eat before attending you might be able to stave off the hunger pains until you leave and find an actual restaurant three blocks from the festival, and get twice the food for the same amount of your hard earned money. However, you probably won't find dill pickles on sticks, roasted garlic, homemade root beer, deep fried Oreos, or deep fried alligator bites.

Tonight I made a last minute decision to stop at the Arvada Harvest Festival. I was on my way home but not ready to go home and I hadn't been to a festival since the Chocolate Affair (also in Arvada and one of my favorite annual events) in February. Having not initially planned to stop, I had already drunk the water I carry with me on my daily commute, so of course I was thirsty when I got there. I could either buy a generic two dollar bottled water or wander about until I found the two dollar fresh squeezed lemonade -- which was tart, as lemonade is supposed to be. Well, that was an easy decision. If I'm going to pay too much, I might as well support my dentist while I'm at it.

Thirst quenched, it was time to eat. Check my pockets. I had enough for the lemonade. Oh, but look - the nice festival people have conveniently placed an ATM directly in my path. They are not altogether altruistic for doing this. Despite displaying every banking network logo on the planet -- usually a sign there will be no fee, but not so at festivals and performing arts centers -- there is a higher-than average fee to which my financial institution will tack on another for using a "foreign ATM" (funny, the instructions were in English). Ah well, I just saw the sign for fried alligator bites and so I succumb.

I learn tonight that my sense of humor is both a blessing... and a curse. I step up to the counter and ask if the alligator bites are from domestic or wild gators. Either I can't tell a joke properly or I can tell one very well -- the poor lady looks confused and repeats my question to the others. The teenage girl doesn't appear to know nor particularly care. The man informs me that they bought the alligator meat from a firm out in Florida and tells me it is FDA Approved. I am not certain if he really was trying to assure me or if he simply delivered his line as deadpan as I did mine.

The alligator, by the way, was very tasty, and although not as large a portion as a third pound hamburger or "foot long" hot dog with all the trimmings, infinitely more satisfying. Last year at the same festival I'd had some very tasty catfish and sweet potato fries. The man ahead of me tonight had purchased a Gyros for himself and corn dogs for his four boys. He pointed out to them that with what he was spending tonight, he could feed them for two weeks at home. The children fell to their knees and thanked their father profusely. Actually, they simply ate their corn dogs in a silence, but I am certain that silence was pensively grateful.

I needed a veggie so I bought an ear of roasted corn. Yes, I know, corn is a cereal grain, not a vegetable. But I couldn't find the booth selling pickles-on-a-stick. Close enough. And oh, oh, oh, how sweet it was. Where did they find such sweet corn? Must be festival magic. Corn in the store sure isn't this sweet.
 
And for dessert: a deep fried Oreo. More because my curiosity was piqued than because I thought (which I didn't) such a thing would be tasty (which it was, surprisingly) and although I could have eaten Oreos for two weeks on that same dollar (okay, only one week) -- well, it's festival food.

Sue Grafton's Kinsey and Me

I've only read two of Sue Grafton's famous "alphabet mysteries", maybe three, but two that I actually remember elements from. For the record, they are "K" and "C", in that order, and I seem to recall reading "B", but thumbing through the book just now, nothing truly leaps out at me, so perhaps I read it while half asleep, and it's time to read it again.

After reading "Kinsey and Me", a collection of short stories, I think perhaps it is time to again pick up one of her novels. This lady can craft a mighty fine story.

In case you don't know, Sue Grafton's heroine is 30-something year old, divorced twice, ex-cop turned private eye, Kinsey Millhone. We the readers are told this, in some variation of those words, at the opening of every story, and this collection of short stories originally published in magazines and anthologies, is no exception. Each novel takes a letter of the alphabet and ties it to a crime: "A is for Alibi", "B is for Burglary", "C is for Corpse"etc. The series was begun in 1982, and the stories have remained in the eighties. Kinsey solves the crimes without the aid of the Internet, GPS tracking, or anything else but brains, guts, perseverance, wit, and no small amount of luck.

I found the book while browsing and decided that while I had enjoyed the novels, it wasn't enough to work my way through the entire alphabet. The ones I had read I hadn't read in order, and with each new novel, the task of "catching up" seemed more daunting, as "W" is being published this fall. But a collection of short stories? Sure, I could do that, and if I didn't finish all the stories before the public library respectfully requests the return of their book because other patrons are waiting (this happens to me a lot), I'll still have enjoyed a mystery or two and not have to wait another two or three months for it to be my turn again (also something that happens often).

Many writers have said it is harder to write a short story than it is a novel. I believe this. You don't have time to flesh out a character. Dialog and plot must be concise and you have to win your reader over in 5, 15, 35 pages - not 200, 300, 1100 (nothing against Victor Hugo!) This collection of Kinsey Millhone stories does that, superbly. Dead and disappearing bodies, guns with a history of disappearing and reappearing years later in other crimes, and dysfunctional families are some of the plot lines. My favorites were the slightly creepy ending of "Falling Off the Roof" and the poetic justice of "Full Circle".

the last Kinsey story was commissioned by Lands End for a 40th anniversary catalog in which she plugged one of their jackets. I've read some reviews in which the reviewers were not amused by this story. Myself, I thought it was funny, taking the rapier wit of the character and throwing in product placement for a very nice jacket which I myself used to own. It wasn't intended to be a serious story and I didn't take it as such. Its lightheartedness I felt was a nice segue into the second half of the book.


The second half is actually less than half the book, although it contains half again as many stories. The character in these stories is Kit Blue which the author states is a younger version of herself, in stories she wrote in the years following her mother's death. They are somewhat autobiographical. And they are heartrending. I read the book front to back, although I was tempted to skip ahead, for the knowledge of the inclusion of these stories is what prompted me to put myself on the waiting list for the book. I was curious to see how the author writing about growing up in a household with alcoholic parents might have affected her writing.  I didn't really get that question answered.

What I did see in these stories were people I know. Not necessarily those with addictions, unless loneliness and despair can be considered addictions. If you have lived on this planet for more than a decade and you haven't been living under a rock, you know people like Kit Blue's mother and father. You know people who the more you love them, the more they wilt. And you've probably wondered what more you can do for them, and agonized over the fact that your love for them is not only rejected but it somehow inexplicably hurts them. And you've had to struggle to believe what is obviously the truth even though the evidence apparently contradicts it: that their pain is not your fault.

I'm not sure that's what the author intended in combining the two very diverse sets of stories. It's what I got out of it, however. Reading these stories, you probably won't get any answers as to how to help the hurting. But as the stories progress you will journey with Kit past anger and chaos to hope and love. as the author writes, "I wish life could be edited as deftly as prose... what I've noticed, though, is that any attempt to trim out the dark matter takes away some of the good that was also buried in the muck. The past is a package deal and I don't believe there's a way to tell some of the truth without telling most. Wisdom comes at a price."

I'll be honest. Even though I checked the book out for the "and Me" stories, I enjoyed the "Kinsey" stories more. Both, however, make for compelling reading, blending well that can't-put-it-down-edness we readers crave with short segments which allow us to put it down. Both Kinsey and Kit are very likable heroines: kind, smart, courageous and persevering.

Kinsey and Me: Stories

"C" Is for Corpse