Top 20 Banned and Challenged Books For Banned Books Week

Top 20 Banned and Challenged Classics

By Julie Sara Porter Bookworm

This week, September 24th-30th is Banned Books Week in which libraries and readers honor books and authors that have been frequently challenged or banned either by schools, religious groups, or parents’ groups. I have compiled a list of the top 15 Challenged Classics from ALA List of Banned and Challenged Classics and the Radcliffe Publishing Course List of 100 Best Novels. All reasons for bans or challenges can be found on the ALA List of Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century.

1. http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/classics/reasons

Now more than ever, it is important to recognize how important books are and how censorship especially banning books should never be tolerated. These books allow the freedom to see the world through other eyes. Those eyes aren’t always pretty. Sometimes they are sexy. Sometimes they are violent. Sometimes they are destructive. But we can gain wisdom, knowledge, and a deeper understanding through them.

Now I am going to give a fair warning, since this list is not mine but ALA’s list I do not by any means like all the books on the list. Many I do, but a few I find “only okay” and some I downright don’t like at all. The reason that I am using the exact list from ALA’s List instead of say, selecting my 20 favorite books from the list is for three reasons:

1) I like to challenge and stretch myself. I am reading many of these books for the first time, so it’s a new experience. There’s nothing wrong with an old favorite like a comfortable pair of slippers. But there is also something thrilling about going on a new adventure, even if you didn’t particularly like the journey. Sometimes you have to break in the new slippers before you find whether they are a good fit.

2) While I may not like the book, often I am brave enough to recognize its influence. I acknowledge the impact it had on other people and other authors and readers. They may have started a literary trend or the protagonist may have become an archetype for that character. I understand its placement in the history of literature even if I would rather never read it again.

3)  I want to show the difference between personal opinion and censorship. Personal opinion means “I don’t like the book and this is why.” Censorship means “I don’t like the book and I don’t think anyone should read it.” I personally dislike a book does not mean that I would forbid others from reading it. In fact usually just the opposite, I encourage it. They usually find something in that book that I didn’t see.

As always spoilers are to be expected and if you know of any other challenged or banned books that you would like to discuss then please let me know here or on Facebook.

1.      The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)

   They say: Challenged at the Baptist College of Charleston, SC in 1987 because of “language and sexual references”

I say: The Great Gatsby is about the illusion of fame and celebrity and how the rich and famous look to the people underneath them. To them, they look attractive, carefree, and cannot possibly have anything wrong with their lives. The countless suicides, public meltdowns, and o.d’s of celebrities have shown otherwise. Inside every celebrity is a frightened suffering person that has to hide that suffering under the spotlight.

Jay Gatsby, the eponymous protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel is someone who has an illusion of a rich and famous, but lonely existence. He is a wealthy mysterious man who throws the wildest parties that are attended by the best and brightest of the Roaring Twenties: gangsters, politicians, actors, producers, and scores of flappers.

The people drink, dance and have a great time and wonder about their mysterious host who throws the parties but is rarely seen at them. Is he a bootlegger? Is he a distant cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm? Did he kill a man? No one knows, but still they go to his parties. All they know is he is the  man who seems to have everything, wealth, splendor, fame, and the masses can’t help but enjoy themselves.

To them Gatsby is the embodiment of the Jazz Age: Live free, live rich, live large, and have fun. In this liberated freedom of the Jazz Age, many people felt free to experiment. Women in particular were free from corsets, wore short skirts, smoked in public, and were allowed to embrace their sexuality and that often involved having affairs. Fitzgerald captured that carefree and sexually liberated milieu that surrounds Gatsby perfectly.

Gatsby’s life is recounted by Nick Carraway, the naive narrator and Gatsby’s next-door neighbor. At first, Nick watches bemused at all the people who attend Gatsby’s parties. He watches the events next door with a detached admiration and perhaps some slight envy at his neighbor’s carefree seemingly easy adventurous lifestyle. Until he realizes that he has a closer connection to Gatsby than he realizes. This connection comes in the form of Daisy Buchanan, Nick’s second cousin and her husband, Tom an old friend of Nick’s.

While getting reacquainted with the Buchanans and their friend, Jordan Baker whom Daisy wants to “fling together” with Nick, Nick learns that Tom has a mistress in the city and that Daisy and Gatsby are former lovers. Nick becomes a go-between as Daisy and Gatsby are reunited and rekindle their love affair.

By far the most intriguing character in the book is Gatsby, whom Nick describes as “worth the whole damn bunch put together.” At the very least, he is a much better character than the narcissistic Daisy and the bad-tempered Tom whom Nick describes as “careless people. They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they made.”

 As Nick gets to know his wealthy friend, he little by little pieces together the events in his life that shaped him. He learns about Gatsby’s impoverished background and his drive to improve himself and his situation. Nick also learns how Gatsby obtained his wealth through his military service and making good connections with wealthy sometimes shady characters. In learning about Gatsby’s back story, Nick saw a man who was constantly trying to look upwards and always trying to achieve happiness.

Even when he has found wealth, success, and is surrounded by the “Bright Young Things,” Gatsby still isn’t happy. He purposely chose the mansion on West Egg, Long Island, because it overlooks the lake surrounding the East Egg where Daisy lives.  Jordan confides to Nick that the only reason that Gatsby began the parties in the first place was so by chance that Daisy would wander into them. It’s no surprise that once Daisy is back in Gatsby’s arms that the parties cease. Through all of his wealth, connections, and fame Gatsby still yearns for his lost love, “The One That Got Away.”

What makes Gatsby’s story sadder is that Daisy is not really worth the attention Gatsby gives her. He is still caught up in his romantic juvenile fantasies of the young innocent girl that he remembers, not the vapid flirt that she has become. She is less interested in loving Gatsby than she is fascinated by his big house and shiny things and wants to get even with her husband and his mistress, Myrtle Wilson. Even when Gatsby forces Daisy’s hand by confronting Tom with their affair, she still can’t summon the courage to decide between them playing both men at once. Even after a violent occurrence which puts all matters upfront, Daisy avoids Gatsby entirely and poor Gatsby still believes that somehow someway Daisy will come rushing into his arms.

Like the real-life celebrities who have come to violent ends, Jay Gatsby’s life is sadder and lonelier than anyone realizes. This is shown particularly in the final crushing scenes when despite all of the countless people that attended his parties, despite the love he held for Daisy, the only people in attendance at Gatsby’s funeral are a permanent house guest, Gatsby’s estranged father, and Nick, who is revealed to be Gatsby’s best, truest, and only real friend.

      2.  The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1945)

They say (among many): In 1963, a delegation of parents of high school students in Columbus, OH asked the school to ban the novel for being “anti-white” and “obscene”; Removed from Selinsgrove, PA suggested reading list in 1975 for “language and content”-the book was later reinstated; Banned from English classes at Freeport High School in De Funiak, FL in 1985 because it is “unacceptable and obscene;” Challenged at the Jamaica High School in Sidell, IL in 1992 because it contained “profanities, depicts pre-marital sex, alcohol abuse, and prostitution;” Removed by a Dorchester District 2 school board member in Summerville, SC because it is “a filthy, filthy book”; Challenged in Big Sky High School in Missoula, MT in 2009.

I say: There is a reason why many teenagers like Holden Caulfield, even if I don’t always. He is the archetypal teenage narrator. He hates his parents, hates his school, ridicules everyone around him, affects an attitude, constantly thinks about girls and sex, but occasionally shows some vulnerability.

Holden Caulfield has been expelled from his third private school. Before his parents receive the notice, Holden decides to take a weekend trip to New York City to live freely, without parents, rules, and regulations. There isn’t much plot to this book. Most of it is Holden’s point of view about how he feels about his family, the city, the girls and women around him, and life in general.

This point of view can be rather grating as when he insults a woman’s appearance  and mentally calls her son (whom he knew in school) names even though she was just trying to be nice to him. He also contacts an old girlfriend with hopes of starting a relationship with her. When he meets her he becomes irritated with her use of words like “marvelous,” her fascination with Broadway theater, and her rejection of running away with him to Greenwich Village. She points out the obvious fact that they are “children,” much to Holden’s derision.

If you ever get bored with Holden’s complaints, count how many times he describes something as “phony.” He uses that word 25 times. Apparently, everything is “phony” to Holden.

Holden’s narration does not always make him likeable. But that’s what makes him a compelling narrator to many. While he can be super annoying and irritating, many Readers (including this one) will remember the time, or maybe are still living in the time, when they thought that everyone in the world were complete morons and they were the only ones who made any sense. It is a part of growing up to have that attitude of superiority and confusion, mocking the world around you as a defense mechanism in trying to understand it.

While Holden shows an arrogant side, he also displays some vulnerability and kindness especially when talking about his siblings. He still mourns the death of his brother, Allie and treasures a baseball glove in which the creative sensitive Allie used to compose poems instead of playing the game.

His softest spot is for his little sister, Phoebe. When he returns home to see her again and tell her that he’s running away, Phoebe begs to go with him. Holden, movingly tells her that she can’t but takes her on a merry-go-round ride to cheer her up. His closeness with Phoebe is apparent, as though Holden almost considers Phoebe an innocent soul, not yet filled with her older brother’s cynicism. Holden probably wants to keep her that way.

Holden and Phoebe’s bond hearkens to the closeness shared between two other Salinger siblings, Franny and Zooey Glass of Salinger’s short stories like Seymour: An Introduction, A Fine Day for Bananafish, and (my favorite Salinger work) Franny and Zooey. Both the Caulfield and Glass siblings have a sweet more emotional younger sister and a sarcastic cynical older brother that compliment and try to help each other. In both cases, Holden and Zooey try to make their sisters face reality: Zooey in trying to get Franny to stop reciting the “Jesus Prayer” and choosing a life of solitude, and Holden in convincing Phoebe that she can’t come with him when he leaves and that she has to stay to remain a child.

Then there’s Holden’s older brother, D.B. whom Holden both mocks and admires. Holden mocks him because he is a screenwriter in Hollywood “prostituting himself” and his talents, but he also considers him the best writer that he knows. Holden treats D.B. almost like a disappointed son that learns the father he had long held up as a hero is flawed. He admired D.B.’s talent but also is appalled that he is using it to make movies.(which Holden uses his favorite word “phony” to describe them.)  However, he never stops loving and respecting him and that love is clearly reciprocated when in the final chapter, Holden is hospitalized. (They never specify the reason. Earlier Holden hinted that he has tuberculosis. Some have also theorized that Holden had a breakdown or others believe he did, and was institutionalized. Either way, Salinger purposely makes it unclear.) D.B. is Holden’s most frequent visitor and the narrative implies that when Holden is released, he will be put into his older brother’s care and custody.

Perhaps Holden will find someone who understands him or he will find another “phony” to mock. Either way, Holden like most of his Readers will no doubt grow up and be relieved of some of that cynicism. Maybe he will use his sarcastic sense of humor for positive purposes to maintain his individuality and point out society’s flaws. At the same time, Holden may grow into a better more thoughtful adult and person.

3.      The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939)

They say (among many): Burned by the East St. Louis, IL in 1939 and barred from the Buffalo, NY Public Library in 1939, because it “contained vulgar words;” on Feb, 21, 1973 eleven Turkish publishers were charged for “publishing, possessing, and selling books and “for spreading propaganda unfavorable to the state” Eight of the booksellers had Grapes of Wrath; Challenged as required reading in Richford VT in 1981 High School English students due to the book’s language and “portrayal of a former minister who recounts how he took advantage of a young woman;” Challenged at the Cummings High School in Burlington, NC in 1986 as an optional reading assignment because it is “full of filth….takes the Lord’s Name in vain and has all kinds of profanity in it.” A formal complaint demanding the book’s removal was not filed; Challenged in the Greenville, SC schools in 1991 because the book “uses the names of God and Jesus in vain and profane manner along with inappropriate sexual references.”

I say: John Steinbeck was an expert on writing about the impoverished during the Great Depression. He recounted the fates of migrant workers, ranch hands, transients, and families who moved west to leave the Dust Bowl. Their lives weren’t always pretty and they weren’t afraid to say so. One of the gifts to Steinbeck’s writing is how he captured the working class people he wrote about through their appearance, their character, and the way they spoke and thought. Yes that included profanity. Yes that included characters who cursed their hearts out. But in a time when there was little employment, not much food, and constantly changing addresses, people had every right to express themselves as angrily as they could.

What is considered his greatest novel, The Grapes of Wrath, features Steinbeck’s gift.

He shows the people during the Great Depression through all their frailties, their weaknesses, and their strengths particularly their strength in family and in faith.

The Joad family are in the middle of the Dust Bowl and see times only getting harder. Their eldest son, Tom, is on parole, released after being charged with murder in self-defense. He returns home to see his family getting prepared to leave for California. The family includes Tom’s parents, particularly his strong-willed mother, his sister, Rose of Sharon who is pregnant and leaving with her fickle husband, Connie, and his elderly grandparents. The grandfather in particular isn’t thrilled about leaving. He is so caught in his own memories of fighting Indians and having his own land that it is not surprising that he is the first in the family to die immediately after they leave. It is as though he wanted to be buried where he belonged.

Tom also brings  Rev. Jim Casy, a defrocked preacher who after an illicit affair with a younger woman, is removed from the pulpit. While Casy questions his own faith in God, he becomes a spiritual light for the rest of the family as they come to him for advice and guidance. He proves that even though the pulpit has been gone from him, he is still a man of God in his own way.

Faith is a strong theme in this book: Faith in family, faith in a Higher Power, faith that things will get better. The faith in family is best exemplified by Ma Joad. She will not let the family be parted no matter the cost. During a tight spot, when Tom suggests that the family split up so some can arrive in California quicker, Ma quickly turns down that suggestion. She says that the family is all they have now and if they separate what else is left?

Sometimes that faith isn’t always rewarded particularly with the character, Rose of Sharon (called “Rosasharon” by her family). When Connie abandons her with her family, Rose of Sharon is filled with tears, blubbering how she wants Connie to return but he never does. Unfortunately, she loses the baby. However, in the final pages she is able to feed a starving family in a most unusual and very heroic way. This moment demonstrates that her own faith was never gone, just misplaced, and she retains a desire to continue and provide inner strength to someone else.

That misplaced faith continues to come to the family even after they arrive in California. The Joads move from camp to camp looking for work and come up short. Local Californians call them “Okies” as an insult to anyone who emigrated from the other states. They are almost treated like illegal immigrants when locals treat them with suspicion, contempt, and refuse to give them jobs because they take “the jobs away from native Californians.”

The Joads also come under ruthless police officers and strike breakers who use the camps as means of controlling the poor people, something that infuriates Tom more and more. Even when they move to a camp where they feel welcome, make friends, and the residents are their own police, there still isn’t enough work. The family has to move again despite feeling the  closest thing to home they have had in some time.

Tom also gets himself in trouble as well. When he and Casy get involved in a fight between the campers and police, Tom returns to his violent ways. After they leave for another camp and Tom’s reputation follows him, he realizes that he cannot jeopardize the family any longer. So he tells his mother that he has to leave them with her consent.

In the end Tom gives his mother faith as well, faith in humanity and that there are good people that will always fight and persevere in the face of antagonism. He quotes the famous line that best sums up the book’s theme of true faith, “I’ll be ever’where-wherever you look. Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people, can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there.. ..I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an’-I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready. An when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build-why, I’ll be there.”

4.      To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1961)

They say (among many): Temporarily banned and challenged in Eden Valley, MN in 1977 due to words “damn” and “whore lady.”; Challenged at Warren, IN Township schools in 1981 because the book “does psychological damage to the positive integration process” and “represents institutionalized racism under the guise of good literature.” After unsuccessfully trying to get the book banned, three parents resigned from the township human relations advisory council; Challenged at the Santa Cruz, CA schools and removed from Southwood High School Library in Caddo Parish, LA in 1995 because of “racial themes and the book’s language and content were objectionable”; Challenged at the Brentwood, TN Middle School in 2006 because it “contained profanity and sexual themes such as sexual intercourse, incest, and rape, as well as the racial slurs that promote racial hatred, division, separation, and promotes white supremacy;” Removed from St. Edmund Campion Secondary School classrooms in Brampton, Ontario, Canada in 2009 because a parent objected the use of the word “nigger.”

I say: Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird shows the best and worst of humanity. It shows that people, even those who seem the kindest and seemingly moral can be swept up in racism and bigotry. It also shows that there are many people with good hearts, that act according to their consciences. These people are often the best humanity has to offer. These views are seen through the eyes of a young girl, who is exposed to the best and worst behavior of humanity for the first time.

Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, the younger child of defense attorney, Atticus Finch, recounts the time her father defended Tom Robinson, an African-American man who was accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a white girl. This case puts Scout at the forefront of encountering the racism that is so embedded in her town, that as soon as Atticus takes the case, he knows that he is going to lose.

So why do it? Scout asks. Atticus, who is looked upon by his children as a wise and good role model, tells him that he would never expect his children to mind him ever again. He defends Tom Robinson, because he knows that it’s the right thing to do. That Tom is a human being who deserves justice as much as anyone else in the town of Maycomb, Alabama.

The rape trial and her father’s involvement in it turn the worlds of Scout and her brother, Jem around and also change the narrative of the book. The book begins as a series of nostalgic reminisces of small-time life including school days when first-grader Scout surprises her teacher by already knowing how to read, when Scout, Jem, and their new friend “pocket-sized Merlin” Dill Harris (based on Lee’s childhood friend writer, Truman Capote) scheme to make town recluse, Boo Radley come out, and when a rabid dog approaches ever so closely to the Finch home and Atticus displays some hidden talents to get rid of the dog. These little incidents are the stuff of childhood memories: cozy, warm, and loving and help the Readers see Maycomb and its residents through the eyes of a child; where most people are friends and there is nothing that couldn’t be solved by a bit of advice from Atticus Finch.

While these incidents take away from the seriousness of the second half of the book that deals largely with the Robinson trial, this strange separation of tone is no doubt intentional. In the first section, we are introduced to the world through a child’s eyes where everything is okay and everybody is treated equally. It is only as the book continues and the kids age, that they see their world as grayer and the people around them as more dark-souled than they originally believed.

Racism is noted in various scenes where the Finches are insulted by members of Maycomb’s white community: Kids make fun of Scout and Jem in school. Atticus’ domineering sister says that her brother is bringing disgrace on the family. In one horrifying scene, a lynch mob is formed in front of the jail to attack Atticus and Tom and the kids recognize some of the mob members as parents of their schoolmates.

If Lee had revealed white Maycomb’s racism from the beginning, it would have been effective but it also would have been predictable. Instead as the Reader sees the community’s behavior change because of these events, they are as blind-sided as Scout that people who once kindly visited the family would later turn against them.

The trial brings out the best and worst in Maycomb behavior. Atticus bravely defends Tom Robinson and reveals through evidence that Robinson could not have hurt Mayella because of an injured hand. He is also able to poke holes in the testimonies of Mayella and her father to bring to light the possibility that it was Mayella’s father, Bob Ewell, not Tom, who hurt and may have raped her himself.

Tom also displays his own honesty in describing what happened, his kindness in

how he entered the Ewell home to help Mayella because he felt sorry for her living with an abusive father and wild younger children, and his courage in that he speaks clearly at his trial to say that “he did not hurt (Mayella).”

However despite the evidence and Tom Robinson’s testimony, the all-white male jury displays their own racial bias by declaring Tom guilty just as Atticus thought that they would do. Unfortunately, Jem, Scout, and Dill are exposed to the sobering and depressing reality that sometimes even when people like Atticus Finch and Tom Robinson act according to their consciences, they can’t change minds that are already made up. These minds are locked by decades even centuries of prejudice.

 Luckily, the Reader is also treated to kindness that exists and is genuinely pleased to see that there are residents of Maycomb that are as wise as Atticus and as honest as Tom Robinson. Characters such as Miss Maudie Atkinson who defends Atticus when Ladies in the Sewing Circle insult him. She reminds the ladies that they ate the food that belonged to the man that they mocked for defending a black man.

Another example is Link Deas, Tom’s former employer who after Tom’s imprisonment and subsequent death hires his widow, Helen to work for him and defends her when she is frequently attacked by the Ewells on her way home from work. There is also Sheriff Heck Tate who has as strong a moral compass for justice as Atticus, such as when he refuses to charge a mentally disabled man for the self-defense murder of a violent man deciding instead to “let the dead bury the dead.”

Another character with as strong a moral compass as Atticus comes in the surprising form of Boo Radley, the town recluse and by far the most fascinating character in the book. He is almost never seen until the final chapters but is the topic of much derision and stories. Some believe that he attempted to kill his family and believe that he is insanely waiting in his house for a chance to kill again. However there are little signs throughout the book that he is much kinder than anyone, especially the Finch children, realize.

Scout and Jem find little gifts such as soap dolls, string, gum, a medal, and an old pocket watch inside a hole in a tree that is ferociously filled with cement by Boo’s mean older brother, Nathan. One time as Scout rolls in a tire and stumbles onto the Radley home, she hears laughter. She also hears it again when she, Jem, and Dill reenact a play based on the town legends of Boo Radley. Another time as Miss Maudie’s house is set by fire, Scout suddenly notices a blanket that she doesn’t recognize, covering her shoulders. She looks to the direction of the Radley home. Could Boo have wrapped it around her?

  Despite his secretive nature in cheering up and helping the Finch children, Boo shows his greatest displays of courage and kindness when after he attacks a drunken towns person who attacks the Finch children. He considers Scout and Jem as close to him as though they were his children by blood, even though he never spoke to them, just observed them.

While To Kill a Mockingbird, explores the cruelty of racism and the unfortunate reality of living under such prejudices, it also shows people like Atticus Finch, Tom Robinson, and Boo Radley that commit the greatest acts of kindness, honesty, and courage not for recognition or because they think they will succeed. They act because they know that it is the right thing for them to do.

5.      The Color Purple by Alice Walker (1982)

They say (among many): Challenged as appropriate reading for Oakland, CA High School honors class in 1984 because of the book’s “sexual and social explicitness, troubling ideas about race relations, man’s relationship to God, African history, and human sexuality.” After 9 months of haggling and and delays the divided board of education gave approval for the book’s use; Challenged as a reading assignment at the New Burn, NC high school because the main character is raped by her stepfather,; Retained after months of controversy in a Junction County, OR high school in 1995 after “inappropriate language, graphic sexual scenes, and a negative image of black men;” Challenged on the curricular reading list at Pomperaug High School in Southbury, CT in 1993 because “sexually explicit passages aren’t appropriate high school reading,” Challenged in Burke County schools in Morganton, NC concerned “about homosexuality, rape, and incest.”

I say: While the sexual descriptions in this book is rather frank, at heart it is the story about an African-American woman who finds love and the chance to be herself.

The first positive influence Celie has in her life is her sister, Nettie. They often looked after each other during a traumatic childhood in which Celie is impregnated by her father. Later the two are separated when Nettie joins a missionary couple to Africa and Celie is practically sold to in marriage to Mr.- a cruel abusive man.

Celie's life is told in a series of letters to God (later to Nettie). Celie describes the graphic details of her unhappy marriage including the physical and emotional abuse she endures from the hands of Mr.-.
He constantly belittles her, insults her cooking and housekeeping skills, and encourages his friends and family to mock her by calling her "a mouse" and "a morsel."
 He proves to be a terrible influence on his son, Harpo. When Harpo starts having troubles with his wife, Sofia, Mr.-suggests that Harpo beat her to force her to mind. All this does is give Harpo a black eye and a busted lip.
The worst thing that Mr.- does, Celie later discovers is that Mr.- purposely hid Nettie's letters to her to let her know that she's safe, in Africa with the missionaries, and reveal some family secrets. This discovery prompts her to understandably and bravely attack Mr.- and curse him with all the hurt he gave her all those years.

Celie's discovery of Nettie's letters become the final reason for her break with Mr.- But it is an unusual romance , with her husband's mistress, that allows her to find the courage to be herself. Shug Avery, a blues singer, proves to be a study in contrast with Celie. Where Celie is timid and shy; Shug is more brazen and bawdy. Celie strives to be more lady-like and the perfect wife and mother; Shug is described as "more like any other man than (Celie) has known." After a rough life, Celie begins to doubt God's love and existence (exemplified in switching the recipient of her letters from God to Nettie); Shug deeply reveres God "whoever he or she might be." Despite their differences the two women become a compatible couple whose romance brings out the best in each other.

Thanks to Shug, Celie becomes stronger and more assertive particularly in her dialogue with Mr.- when she curses him before she and Shug leave him.
Shug also encourages her creativity in designing pants for women and provides her money to start her own business Folkspants Limited, where she makes and sells pants.
Celie also changes Shug as well by giving her a home and acceptance. When Shug has a brief affair with a younger man, she instantly pines for her true love: Celie. She returns to the only person who gave her real love, not just a good time in bed.

Instead of looking at Celie and Shug,'s relationship as a lesbian romance, the Reader instead should focus on their love as being one of completion, sacrifice, and transformation in each other and themselves.What a perfect love relationship should be.

6.      Ulysses by James Joyce (1922-in its entirety)

They say: Burned in the U.S. in 1918, Ireland in 1922, Canada in 1922, England in 1923, and banned in England in 1923; Center of a very infamous trial in the U.S. in which the book was charged with “obscenity” in 1933.

I say: Well I love what James Joyce was trying to do! There is a reason why many academics spend their whole lives studying this book and why it’s difficult to understand the full scope in your first reading: It is hard to follow with its stream-of-consciousness writing and Joyce’s experimentation with the narratives. It’s not a bad book. It’s definitely original, creative, and was the inspiration for many writers who practiced stream-of-consciousness writing including Samuel Beckett, Salman Rushdie, and Irvine Welsh. However, a first-time Reader (like this one who considers herself rather intelligent and well-read despite having a fondness for Hollywood Babylon) can become mired in the various literary techniques that Joyce threw into his book.

The plot such, as it is, takes place over the course of one day June 16, 1904, a day which now lives in infamy in Dublin, Ireland as Bloomsday. One thing I will say for the book Joyce captures Dublin marvelously and brings its setting to life. He displays realism in his portrayal of Dublin with its real people, particularly the two protagonists, intellectual professor, Stephen Daedalus and the earthier advertising agent, Leopold Bloom. Bloom and Daedalus spend their day doing various things like going shopping, teaching class, drinking alcohol, and various other mundane things.

Throughout the day, Bloom and Daedalus encounter various Irish characters: pub crawlers, students, revolutionaries, single mothers, children, young lovers, and prostitutes.

The duo take part in various conversations from the ordinary, finding employment, spousal infidelity (including Bloom’s wife) to the intellectual such as analysis of Shakespeare’s plays and the portrayals of early Irish and Greek heroes to the spiritual such as the existence of life after death. It’s a book that is less read and better listened to as though you were eavesdropping on the various conversations.

Apart from being a slice of daily Dublin life, Joyce makes his story a modernist variation of The Odyssey with some slight differences. Instead of committing heroic deeds, these characters encounter real life with all of its trivialities and hardships. Leopold Bloom is supposed to be Odysseus encountering various characters and situations that are mirrored in the Greek mythological tale. Similar to the Greek Hero encountering Hades in the Underworld, Bloom enters a funeral carriage with three other people including Dedalus’ father. During this funeral, Bloom meditates on death and burial customs and grieves for his deceased son, Rudy.

Instead of a one-eyed Cyclops, Bloom meets a Fenian revolutionary and Anti-Semite called The Citizen. Fed up with the man’s remarks, Bloom, whose father was a Jewish immigrant, tells The Citizen that Jesus technically was a Jew. The enraged Citizen starts a fight with the man.

Daedalus, younger than Bloom, is compared to Telemachus, Odysseus’ son.

 He is less self-assured and more questioning than Bloom. He often starts to contemplate larger issues instead of taking action. In one instance, he sits on Sandymount Strand thinking about his mother’s death, his life as a student in Paris, and some philosophical concepts. Daedalus is like Telemachus who is more cerebral than his father, finding less adventures and more indecision on how to encounter them.

Finally, when the two meet, Bloom and Daedalus form a surrogate father-son relationship as Bloom guides the young man on their various adventures including encountering their version of The Sirens, prostitutes in a brothel.

Like Odysseus, Bloom has a Penelope waiting at home in his wife, Molly. However, this Penelope is not patiently and demurely waiting for her Odysseus. In fact while Bloom and Daedalus are engaging in their adventures, Molly is engaging in adventures of her own.

A singer, Molly is having an affair with her concert manager, Blazes Boylan. In fact the final pages goes into Molly’s first-person point of view as she recounts her various lovers including Bloom, Boylan, and other former lovers. (This contrasts with Penelopes’ faithfulness to Odysseus turning down over 20 proposals from various suitors while waiting for her husband’s return).

Molly’s narrative is probably the most graphic as it describes openly her sexuality. She is seen as a woman with strong needs and desires that perhaps she isn’t sure that she feels in her marriage. However her memories of Bloom’s proposal and how she responded “Yes I said, I will yes” suggests that despite her constant search for sexual satisfaction, she never doubts Bloom’s love for her. Also in her own way, she loves him too.

The transition between Bloom and Dedalus’ third person point of view to Molly’s first-person isn’t the only narrative trick that Joyce played on his readers. This is what makes the book a quite often difficult read. Even reading every single word and paragraph doesn’t always help when a character goes from describing a building to thinking about themes in Shakespeare’s tragedies rather quickly.

Perhaps it shows how people can go from one thought to another unable to concentrate on one. Maybe it’s a reflection of when people are trying to uphold a boring conversation or get through a dull day and their thoughts are somewhere else. Either way, it can be difficult to follow. Even experts who have spent their whole lives studying Ulysses can get lost in the constant changes in subject.

Joyce also had some fun with his writing that was less fun for the Readers. In fact it probably sent them into double takes of confusion. Bloom and Dedalus’ encounter with the prostitutes is recounted like a play, complete with stage directions, and is filled with various hallucinations and allusions so not only are the protagonists confused about the events, but so is the Reader.

Bloom’s reunion with his wife and introduction between her and Daedalus is read like a series of questions and answers. The book asks questions from “What temperaments did the two represent?” (The scientific and the artistic) to “What supererogatory marks of special hospitality did the host show his guest?” ( Bloom gave a larger portion of drink to his guest and a reduced measure for himself.) It seemed as though Joyce practiced a free writing exercise in which he asked questions about his characters and wrote his own answers. He obviously enjoyed it so much that he invited his Readers to enjoy it too.

Ulysses is a hard read, but it has many admirers and helped bring about the Modernist novel. It brought new ideas to narrative structure, literary allusions, and characterization. If nothing else for that it should be recognized.

7.      Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)

They say (among many): Retained on the Round Rock, TX Independent High School Reading List after a challenge that the book “was too violent;” Challenged in the Sarasota County, FL schools in 1998 because of sexual material; Pulled from the senior Advanced Placement English class at Eastern High School in Louisville, KY in 2007 because two parents complained that it contained “antebellum slavery depicted the inappropriate topics of bestiality, racism, and sex."

I say: My favorite book on this list, Beloved is one-third a Gothic ghost story about a spirit that haunts the people around her literally and figuratively; one-third a family drama about a mother who escapes from slavery with two small children and makes the ultimate sacrifice to save them from a fate worse than death ; and one-third a feminist tale about the solidarity of women and the men who support them. 

Sethe and Denver, an escaped slave and her daughter suffer from figurative and literal ghosts. The figurative ghosts come in the forms of nightmares about lives of slavery, the stories that Sethe tells Denver about her escape, and her guilt over the death of her daughter.

The literal ghost comes at first in the form of the poltergeist of a baby destroying their home. The poltergeist drove Sethe's sons away and many of their friends. When Paul D., a friend from slavery days arrives and shouts for the poltergeist to be gone, a  mysterious young woman arrives She is dressed all in white, calls herself Beloved (the same word that appears on Sethe's daughter's tombstone.) and is oh about the age that Seth's daughter would be if she lived. Despite the objections from Paul D. and the apprehension of Denver, Sethe takes Beloved in.

As soon as Beloved arrives,  she strikes a sinister appearance in the house. She asks questions about things that only Sethe knows such as what happened to a pair of diamond earrings Sethe's former mistress gave her. She also asks various questions about Sethe's past in a way that indicates that she already knows the answers. Most disturbingly Beloved grows larger and resorts to violent outbursts and tantrums while Sethe becomes smaller and weaker. Above all Beloved's very presence opens up Sethe's guilt and confronts her past decisions.

The family drama aspects emerge when Sethe confesses what she did in one of the most heartbreaking passages ever. After moving in with her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, a group of men from the ironically named Sweet Home,  the former plantation where Sethe worked, arrive to reclaim Sethe and her children. Sethe makes her fateful decision: to cut her daughter's throat. She is about to kill the other children and herself before she is caught and arrested.
This aspect of Beloved was based on the true story of Margaret Garner, an escaped slave who actually did kill her children. Even though both the real Garner and the fictional Sethe were acquitted, their actions reveal the cruelty in the institution of slavery that someone would rather see their children die by their hand than see them return to it.

The Feminist aspect to Beloved lies in the relationships between the female characters starting with the God-fearing strong-willed Baby Suggs. In Ohio,  she heads an African-American community consisting largely of escaped slaves and free blacks. She accepts Sethe and her children into the community without a even a moment of hesitation. Baby leads her community with a strong work ethic, motherly affection,  and words of advice. This advice resonates even long after she dies,  particularly from Denver who often quotes from the older woman such as "I should always listen to my body and love it" and thinks about what "Grandma Baby" would tell her if she is at an emotional crossroads.

Denver takes Baby Suggs' words to heart when Beloved joins the family. Denver plays and dances with her,  fills in the blanks about her mother's past,  and when she realizes that Beloved may be the ghost of her dead sister (long before their mother does) bonds with her like a sister. Sethe also draws the confused ghostly young woman and looks Sethe, Denver, and Beloved play off each other with their affection as well as the guilt and buried anger within. Sethe feels guilt about the death of her daughter and filters that in her relationship with Denver and Beloved. Denver finds a connection with the sister that she never know and Beloved finds some answers to her own identity.

The female connections aren’t just limited to the members of Sethe’s family but are found in the society at large. During her escape, Sethe gets assistance from Amy Denver, a street-smart white woman who helps Sethe escape and give birth to her daughter whom she names her for.A group of local women give Denver a job when she is frustrated with living with Sethe and Beloved and they also work together to remove Beloved's spirit from the house. These connections reveal the strong circle of communication and love between the female characters.
They are also found within the male characters as well, particularly Paul D. Paul D. begins as an old friend of Sethe's but he longs to be something more. At first, he is shocked and dismayed at Sethe's murder, so he leaves. But when another friend tells him that "she was trying to out hurt the hurter," he returns to help Sethe. His greatest gift towards Sethe is to help her forget the past and to finally accept being in the present and having a new family.

A ghost story, a family drama, a feminist story, and a romance all make Beloved one of the greatest books of all time and make it greater than any of the challenges that had thrown at it. 

8.      The Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954 )

They say: Challenged at the Owen, NC High School in 1981 because the book is “demoralizing inasmuch as it implies that man is little more than an animal;” Challenged at the Olney, TX Independent School District in 1984 because it contained “excessive violence and bad language,”; Challenged in Waterloo, IA schools in 1992 because of “profanity, lurid passages about sex, and statements defamatory to minorities, God, women, and the disabled.”

I say: The Lord of The Flies is about what happens when people, particularly in this case young boys, are taken away from what are  their tenets of civilization. Once they are deprived of such things as morals,laws, ethics, and reduced to their basic instincts, they then are forced to resort to their violent angrier sides and will turn on each other.

A group of schoolboys evacuating  an atomic war become stranded on a deserted island. Ralph, one of the oldest  boys is elected as leader and wants his society to be

one of rules and regulations. For example, he holds up a conch shell and grants  anyone holding up the conch shell permission to speak. He also is good at delegating responsibility such as who will hunt for food and who will send smoke signals to approaching ships to be rescued.

Ralph is met with hostility from some of the other boys most notably Jack, a bully and head of the boy's choir. He turns his fellow choir members into hunters. When arguments between Jack and Ralph become more heated Jack and his hunters form a separate tribe one that is bent on destruction and murder to achieve their means.

While Jack and Ralph are on opposite sides of leadership, neither is written as wholly good or evil characters.  Ralph cares about many of the Islanders and concerned for the "littleuns" when they are scared of a beast they imagine lurks on the island and defends the more bookish and shy characters like the asthmatic Piggy and the logical Simon. He is also naively concerned with being rescued believing that his Daddy who is in the Navy will come for them. Since it is an atomic war, until the end of the book it, is unclear whether anyone is alive to rescue them.  Ralph can also be a snob and at times verbally abusive towards the boys such as telling Piggy to shut up when he's holding the conch.
Jack is abusive and aggressive towards the other boys such as during a confrontation, Jack bashes a boy over the head with a rock just to prove he could do it. However he is revealed to be a skillful hunter when he and the choir boys capture and kill pigs for food.

In writing about both Jack and Ralph's light and dark sides, the two prove to be more alike than different and the boys should have balanced each other as co-leaders with possibly Simon who represents the creative more scientific side of humanity or Piggy who shows the most compassion towards others.The boys might have remained a unit longer. To use Freudian terms, Jack is the Id full of violence, pleasure, and basest emotions. Ralph is the Superego closely connected to ethics and morals. Simon and Piggy are the Egos able to mediate the two. Separated from each other, these components would turn on each other until they ceased to function.

Another passage that shows how alike Ralph and Jack, indeed all of humanity are, is the disturbing hallucination that Simon has of a talking dead pig's head. The head dubbed, The Lord of the Flies by Simon, says there is no need to hunt The Beast that is on the island because the "beast is in all of us." That anyone could become violent, murderous, and bring about destruction on others and oneself.

9.      1984 by George Orwell  (1948)

 They say: Challenged in Jackson County, FL in 1981 because the novel is “pro-communist and contained explicit sexual matter.”

I say: George Orwell’s vision of the future is probably among the most frightening. Anyone who reads it could hardly accuse Orwell of being “pro-Communist.” In fact, most would see him as anti-Totalitarianist and that it could take an average person, in this case Winston Smith, a mousy member of the Records Department, to recognize the holes in a government that operates on fear and altered facts to create their own truth.

Winston  lives in Airstrip One, Oceania, formerly known as London, England which is now under the rule of Big Brother, an all-powerful entity that keeps the residents under constant surveillance. The government recruits people: friends, co-workers, and family members to spy on each other and report activities. There are no more loyalties to each other.

Winston’s neighbors have two children that play ruthless games where they facetiously say that they will report Winston and their parents. Winston knows that in a few years, their parents will be in fear because these children will soon report their parents for real. In fact later when Winston encounters the father, he is grateful that his children reported him.

As can be expected in a world where lovers are suspicious towards each other, such things as romance and sexuality are dim memories. Winston has a crush on a woman with whom he works, but cannot tell her because he is consumed with thoughts that she could be a spy. Sex is only used for purposes of procreation and adults are encouraged to take medicines that lower their drives. Winston feels guilty for even having fantasies of his co-worker, Julia, and confuses his desires for her as hatred. It is only after Julia passes him a note that says, “I love you” does he begin to pursue her.

Besides surveillance, using accusations called Thought Crime and departments called Thought Police, Big Brother’s government implies that they can tell what people are thinking that they can tell when someone is acting like a good party member on the outside and thinking subversive thoughts underneath. This fills Winston with fear as he journals his real feelings against Big Brother by writing phrases like “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER,” “I understand HOW; I do not understand WHY,” and “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two is four. If that is granted, all else follows.”

The freedom to say that two plus two is four. These words reveal one of the strongest means of control that Big Brother has over its people. That they can control the past and the present. They create a language called Newspeak which combines words such as “Ministry of Peace,” the government body that handles war is called “Minipax.” Newspeak also dumbs down dialogue by inserting prefixes like “un” or suffixes like “-ly” instead of using different adjectives. For example something would be “ungood” instead of “bad.”

One of the members of the government implies that creating Newspeak controls the residents' thought process so they wouldn't have complex beliefs. Instead the citizens would be shallow and more accepting of the world around them. (In other words, Big Brother likes its people to be “unsmart.”)

The government also has the ability to remove people and events from history which is part of Winston’s job to rewrite people and events so they no longer exist or are considered an enemy regardless if the people remember them or not considering them "unpeople. "

 Big Brother institutes a Two-Minute Hate Display against a revolutionary called Emmanuel Goldstein in which Goldstein’s image is shown on screen inviting people to insult, yell, throw things, and hurl expletives at the image. Winston does not even remember what Goldstein did and many don’t even know who he is or even if he really exists. They just know that if Big Brother tells them to hate him, then By God, they are going to.

Three rebels were forced to confess to conspiring with Goldstein and plotting to kill Big Brother. However, Winston remembers seeing a photograph that proves that the men had an alibi for the time in which their presumed meeting with Goldstein would have taken place. Even though the photograph was destroyed, only Winston’s memory insists that it existed and only Winston knew that the men were innocent.

It is almost a hilarious, but darkly disturbing running gag about how the government is capable of altering current events such as whether Oceania is at war with the countries of Eurasia and Eastasia. Each time the Oceanian government makes peace with one side they insist that they are at war with the other country and that they have always been at war with them.

One passage starts out humorous as during a parade in which the Oceanians celebrate a recent victory over Eurasia, the speaker is interrupted in mid-speech and quickly changes his speech to Eastasia without missing a beat. The passage becomes even more disturbing as the citizens scream just as loud over the victory over Eastasia without any confusion over the change in country or any grumbling over changing what at that time had been five years worth of Records to prove that Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia and never Eurasia.

Oceania is like one gigantic cult in which all its members are incapable of any independent thought beyond what Big Brother wants them to. The shy thoughtful Winston Smith seems like the most unlikely of revolutionaries.

However, he proves that in a government which controls language, history, the present, and has the power to turn friends and families against each other, that even the smallest actions, such as writing in a journal or mentally arguing with what is being told could be considered courageous and revolutionary.

Winston engages in an affair with Julia in which the two flaunt their sexuality and trust in each other as well as their hatred for Big Brother. Both realize that their affair could end at any time, but all they want are the moments that they have together and some proof that the rebellion against Big Brother, the Brotherhood, actually exists. Winston and Julia’s relationship and their interest in the Brotherhood are the only freedoms that they know which makes their exposure particularly heartbreaking when they are deprived of even those freedoms and are betrayed by people that they thought that they could trust.

Winston’s interrogation in the ironically named Ministry of Love (or Miniluv in Newspeak) is nightmarish as his interrogators alter his thought process and visions so he sees what they want him to see. For example an interrogator shows four fingers and then shocks and tortures Winston so that not only does he say that he sees five fingers, he thinks and actually believes he sees five fingers.

The Miniluv continues to alter Winston’s thinking so that he abandons his belief in whether the Brotherhood exists, whether Big Brother can ever be defeated, and whether Winston can trust his own memories and mind to know whether there are any contradictions to the Party lines.

The piece de resistance of their interrogation is to ensure that Winston has “won the victory over himself” to show him Room 101 where he is hit with the “worst thing ever,” and will betray those that he loves the most, in his case Julia. In their minds, he can’t love anyone else but Big Brother.

While the ending is among the most pessimistic in dystopian future novels where it appears that Big Brother has won, that they have finally broken Winston and created yet another loyal Party member, there are a few things to consider. As the book has shown us many times, the Party is more than capable of altering truth and changing facts to fit their needs. So, anything that Winston’s interrogators tell him-such as that no one could ever defeat Big Brother, that the Brotherhood may or may not exist, or that the anti-Big Brother literature was actually written by Party members-may not be the actual literal truth.  They may have only said those things to make sure that Winston believed whatever they told him, believed that their lies were the truth.

Another sign that Big Brother was defeated, possibly from within, is that the final section the Appendix explains the history of Newspeak. However, it is written entirely in regular English (or Oldspeak to use the book’s term). It is also written in past tense as though Newspeak was once the norm but at the time of the Appendix’s writing is considered obsolete.

Also, the writer of the Appendix appears to have a condescending attitude towards the language subtly mocking it as they are describing the smaller words used to cover up larger words and concepts. This indicates that not only has the Appendix’s author lost its fear of mocking Newspeak but of openly mocking Big Brother in published writing.

It is possible that as the old way of speaking returned, the indication could be that the yoke of Big Brother’s dictatorship was finally thrown over. That maybe their interrogation over Winston was only their supposed victory over one dissident. That eventually somewhere, somebody or a lot of somebodies, maybe inspired by Winston Smith’s subtle subversive actions, also became aware of the holes in Big Brother’s government and were able to fight against them and ultimately become the victors.

10. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955 )

They say: Banned as obscene in France from 1956-1959, England in 1955-59, in Argentina in 1959, and New Zealand in 1960; Challenged at the Marion-Levy Public Library System in Ocala, FL in 2006. The Marion County commissioners voted to have the County attorney to review the themes “of pedophilia and incest,” to determine if it meets the state laws’s definition of “unsuitable for minors.”

I say: Make no mistake about it Humbert Humbert is a pervert. He lusts after an underage girl, kidnaps her, manipulates her, and psychologically abuses her. If he lived nowadays he would, and should, be listed as a Registered Sex Offender. He is a character who is so terrible that even his author, Vladimir Nabokov didn't like him calling him a "lustful lecherous creature. (And I definitely approve of this message.)
So why, you may ask am I defending this book even though I heartily dislike the main male protagonist? Well because Lolita is a masterpiece of the Unreliable Narrator. To understand how someone commits loathsome and illegal deeds, an author has to get in their heads wondering what they thought, what motivated them in their lives, and how do they interact with characters? While Humbert keeps insisting that he did nothing wrong and his love was pure and innocent, the Reader can look beyond Humbert's words and get into the minds of a pedophile and abuser. One who insists everyone else is to blame except himself.

Humbert accepts a professorship at a small college town. When he first encounters Dolores Haze, his landlady's daughter he becomes instantly attracted to her. That may be all well and good except that Dolores (called Lolita by Humbert as a private nickname) is 12 years old! At first content with journaling about his lustful thoughts and playing the role of stepfather, Humbert marries Charlotte, Lolita's mother. However Humbert's plans change when Charlotte is killed, accidentally Humbert claims. (As accidentally as Charlotte discovering her husband's journal that details his lust for her daughter and runs out to the road to be hit by a car. You know that kind of accident.) Humbert decides instead to give up on his father impression and go on the road with her where they become lovers before he informs her of her mother's death. (Stay classy, Hum, stay classy.)

Nabokov is excellent at getting into the psychological mindset of Humbert where in his eyes he did nothing wrong. He cites a youthful infatuation with a girl who died very young. He also cites other examples of older men seducing younger girls conveniently omitting the fact that most of his examples were earlier times the 18th and 19th centuries when the lifespans were shorter and people were forced into marriages at young ages. (He conveniently leaves out two famous figures: Lewis Carroll and Charlie Chaplin perhaps because they were too obvious particularly Chaplin. His second wife, Lita Gray who was sixteen years old when she and Chaplin married, had the first name of Lilita. I'm sure that the irony was not lost on Nabokov.) Humbert keeps insisting that society is to blame in keeping him from the girls of his dreams.

Humbert even puts the blame on Lolita's shoulders. He becomes controlling and manipulative towards Lolita  while insisting  that Lolita controlled him. In his mind, she is a provocative sex kitten who had many previous lovers. So he can do the old "she led me on" defense. However in reality, she looks and behaves like typical 12 year old with a body going through adolescence and a penchant for using slang. Also most of her "lovers" were boys her age and while she did have a previous affair with another older man, he was just as manipulative and controlling as Humbert.

When they are on the road, Humbert displays many of the classic signs of being an abuser. He isolates Lolita from others her age by not allowing her to go to school until they run out of money and he has to take a job. He jealously monitors her movements and insists on reading her class lists so he knows the names of her fellow students. He ridicules and insults her when she says she doesn't understand his erudite diction, uses slang, or behaves in an immature way. (Gee, it's almost like she's a 12 year old.) When he catches her talking to someone, he pesters her with questions and threatening to contact the drug store she visited to find exactly what she ordered and who she was with. Towards the end of the book, Humbert accuses a former lover of being a child molester unwilling to admit that if he hadn't taken Lolita away from her home and molested her himself she wouldn't have been in the path of another molester. Through it all, Humbert is still unwilling to take responsibility. Nabokov describes the signs of an abusive relationship (the isolation, the making fun, the possessive jealousy, and the constant willingness to accuse the victim of deserving the abuse) that Nabokov would have done very well for himself today as a criminal psychologist.

 Unfortunately this perception of Lolita as being a sexy young plaything has not only come through Humbert but has infected public consciousness. Who hasn't heard the term "Lolita" to describe a sexually active young woman? Many critics have bought into Humbert's narration (such as Edward Albee who wrote a play version of the story) that they insist that Humbert was the weak one and that Lolita was the one who took advantage of him. Filmmakers and other artists have made Lolita much sexier and more attractive in their works. Most notably Stanley Kubrick who raised Lolita's age by two years and purposely hired a fully developed young actress, Sue Lyon, to play the role. Lolita herself almost becomes a Rorschach test on exploring how people feel about youthful sexuality and sex crimes.

Lolita is great at giving us the Unreliable perspective of a pedophile. It's interesting to explore that mind set but much better to get out of it. Now if only we could hear the story through Lolita's voice.

11. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (1937) 
    

They say (among many): Challenged in Vernon Verona Shill, NY School District due to “profanity and using God’s name in vain;” The Knoxville, TN School Board in 1984 vowed to have “filthy books” removed from Knoxville’s Public Schools and picked this book as the first target due to its “vulgar language;” Challenged as a summer youth reading program reading assignment in Chattanooga, TN in 1989 because “Steinbeck is known to have had an anti-business attitude and was very questionable in his patriotism;” In Mobile, AL in 1992 a coalition of community members and clergy requested that local school officials form a special textbook screening committee to “weed out objectionable things.” This novel was the first target because it contained “profanity” and “morbid depressing themes;” Challenged as an appropriate English curriculum assignment at the Mingus, AZ Union High School in 1993 because of “profane language, moral statement, treatment of the (mentally disabled) and the violent ending;” Challenged at the Normal, IL Community High Schools in 2003 because of “racial slurs, profanity, violence, and does not represent traditional values;” Retained in the Olathe, KS ninth grade curriculum in 2007 despite a parent calling the book “a worthless profanity-riddled book which is derogatory towards African-Americans, women, and the developmentally disabled.”

I say: Yes, Lennie Small one of the two protagonists of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is developmentally disabled. No, he is not always in control of his actions and yes, he commits accidental violent acts particularly in the final chapters. But the most important aspect of the book is that it is a beautiful story of friendship between two men who are thrown into the world together and look out for each other.

Lennie and his friend, George Milton are two migrant farm workers in Soledad, California going from one farm to another trying to make enough money so they can have a farm of their own. (Their story was based on Steinbeck’s own experience working in various farms and ranches in the 1920’s. In fact Lennie was based on a fellow worker that Steinbeck knew who was institutionalized after accidentally killing a foreman.)

However something always goes wrong for George and Lennie, mostly because of Lennie’s impressive physical strength and limited intelligence in controlling it. Their most recent job ended because Lennie felt a woman’s red dress, but others accused him of raping her. This accusation sent the duo on the run. Now the two find themselves in another farm with another beautiful woman that could cause trouble.

Steinbeck’s portrayal of the friendship between George and Lennie is the highlight of the book. The most touching dialogue is the “Bedtime Story” that George always tells Lennie about how they are going to get their farm, live off the fat of the land, and that

there will be rabbits at their farm that Lennie will tend. This moment reveals why the two men move on and much about their characters in how much they love and care for each other. George, the smarter of the two, makes the plans of where they are going  and is able to speak to the potential employers. Lennie, larger and stronger, does much of the hard labor that make them qualified for farm work.

Besides their physical needs, the two complement each other mentally and emotionally. George constantly assures his friend that most men like them have no one to look out for but he and Lennie are different: “We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us.”

 Lennie’s need for George is apparent, that he needs George to take care of him, keep his strength under control, and explain things to him. George’s need for Lennie is more subtle. Without Lennie, George hints that he would be a broken, lonely, bitter alcoholic living only for the next drink or a night with a prostitute. Lennie needs someone to take care of him and George needs someone to look after. In some ways it seems that George needs Lennie more than Lennie needs George (which makes the ending all the more heartbreaking.).

Many of the other farm hands and people around them don’t understand the duo’s friendship or their dreams. Most of the hands in the latest farm that the duo work with are more interested in earning a quick buck and going out for a night on the town rather than preparing for a future beyond the next moment. The Boss’ cruel son, Curly, for example, abuses Lennie because of his large size and disabilities until George orders Lennie to break the other man’s hand.

Only two hands come to understand and empathize with the duo. Candy, an older hand, offers money to help them start their farm provided he can work with them as well.

Crooks, an African-American hand who is isolated from the others because of his skin color, at first mocks Lennie by saying George will abandon him the first chance he gets. However, Crooks understands that Lennie is trapped in a metaphorical prison because of his limited intelligence the same way he is because of his race. He begins to understand the friendship that George and Lennie have for each other, a friendship that unfortunately he is without.

Another outsider on the farm is Curly’s unnamed wife. (Though in the 1939 film, she is given the name, Mae.) She often flirts with the hands mostly to get on her jealous abusive husband’s nerves and to release frustrations that she has over her failed dreams of becoming a movie star. While George warns Lennie to stay away from her, saying she’s a “rat trap” and knows what trouble beautiful woman can bring, Lennie can’t resist.

In an unguarded moment when Curly’s wife reveals her vulnerabilities and loneliness, Lennie sympathetically wants to touch her hair. However things go very wrong for Curly’s Wife, Lennie, and George leading to a heartbreaking ending in which George realizes that those plans and dreams that he and Lennie had will never come to fruition. George then realizes that he has to make the ultimate sacrifice to save his friend from permanent institutionalization or death.

12. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1955)
    

They say: Challenged at the Dallas, TX Independent School District High School in 1974 and Snoqualmie, WA in 1979 because of its description of several women as “whores.”

I say: Even the most Conservative war-hawks often question military protocol and find plenty to scoff at over their superior officers. Many question rules and regulations that don’t make any sense. That’s why many of the fans of military satire like M*A*S*H and Good Morning Vietnam are current or former military personnel. Joseph Heller’s brilliant satire, Catch-22 captures the arbitrary rules and regulations handed down from officers to enlistees,  how these soldiers question rules that get changed over and over, and also how they retain a dark sense of humor when they are surrounded by violence and death around them.

The protagonist, Captain John Yossarian, a bombardier of the 256^th Bombardment Squadron of the Army Air Corps, is ready to get out of Air Corps and his assignment in WWII Italy, so he could go home. He is sick of the brutality, violence, and deaths of many of his fellow airmen. Above all, he is sick of the brass’ rules, particularly how they keep raising the amount of missions that Yossarian needs to make before he goes home. (Originally it was 40, and when Yossarian reached that number, they raised it to 50 and so on until he has to reach 80 missions.)

The best way out is to feign insanity, but that leads to the titular paradox, the Catch-22. It states that airmen who are mentally unfit to fly do not have to do so. However, anyone who applied to stop flying was showing a rational concern for his safety and was therefore, sane, and therefore required to fly. (“Catch-22” has since led to many other unsolvable logic puzzles that are described “as Catch-22” situations such as “you can’t have experience without a job, but you need a job to have experience,” etc.)

However, that doesn’t keep Yossarian from trying to get out and for him and his fellow airmen to find some humor in their situation, as black as the humor and situations are. Each character is introduced along with their eccentricities.  Clevinger, is Yossarian’s closest friend. Clevinger, an optimist that Yossarian considers a “dope” often takes part in Yossarian’s schemes such as becoming part of a strange trial in which he is charged for insubordination.

Milo Minderbender, the Mess Hall officer uses his time in the military to run his own “syndicate” in trading goods. He seems to care more about the syndicate than he does in his military service and is looking forward to the end of the war when he can embrace capitalism and become the businessman of his dreams.

Of course the officers over the enlisted men are particularly brutally satirized by Heller’s words. Lieutenant Sheisskopf seems particularly obsessed with parades and doesn’t trust Yossarian and Clevinger always questioning their behavior to the point of paranoia. He would do anything to give the Air Corps a good face and doesn’t trust people like Yossarian who step out of line.

There is the unfortunately named Major Major Major, who was named by his father and then allegedly promoted to major “by an IBM machine as a joke.” However, he keeps to himself and chooses to remain isolated from the other men because of his too-early promotion.

Finally, there is the sinister almost sadistic Col. Cathcart and his assistant Lt. Col. Korn. Cathcart is the one who keeps raising the number of Yossarian’s missions.

He is obsessed with getting promoted to general and appearing on the Saturday Evening Post and not necessarily in that order. Cathcart’s reputation is more important to him than the men under him and he makes no secret about it.

The characters make Yossarian’s term of service seem like a madhouse but no more so than many of the situations that he and the other airmen are made to go through. In making a plan, an officer puts a string on a map representing the front line and says they won’t be able to fly if the string (i.e. the front line) moves beyond the target. While the airmen watch the string obsessively, clever Yossarian moves the string and the mission is cancelled. However the officer is not amused and assigns him a particularly dangerous mission in retaliation.

Another satirical moment is during Clevinger’s trial when he is ordered to not to interrupt and to say ‘sir” when he speaks. (Clevinger: Yes sir. Major Metcalf: Weren’t you ordered not to interrupt? Clevinger: But I didn’t interrupt, sir. Metcalf: And you didn’t say sir either!)

At times, the book’s situations seem like Yossarian and his colleagues aren’t in the U.S. military and instead are part of the Wonderlandian Brigade where insanity is the order of the day and the rules make no sense.

Heller also was not afraid to show the darker more violent side of the American military. In one passage, Yossarian discovers that one of his fellow airmen, Aardvark AKA Arfy, had raped and murdered a sweet young Italian woman who had served as a maid to the airmen. Horrified at Arfy’s actions and his nonchalance at the actions over the encounter. (Arfy claims that he didn’t want a prostitute because “Old Arfy never paid for it in his life.”. So in Arfy’s twisted mind, sex with a prostitute is wrong, but rape and murder are perfectly okay.)

This encounter suggests that in war, no one can has claims to the moral high ground. Violent actions are not only to be found in the so-called enemies that the Americans encounter, that violence can be found anywhere and by anyone.

The final passages describe the ultimate brutality and violence of war in a way that slaps the Reader in the face after all of the satire and dark humor presented before. In the final passages, an air strike claims the lives of many of Yossarian’s fellow airmen particularly Snowden who is severely wounded. Caught without any medical assistance, Yossarian believes that he has dressed Snowden’s wounds successfully. However, he misses one and this wound is what ultimately kills his friend.

Snowden’s death continues to haunt Yossarian and when he finds out that another colleague, Orr, managed to escape to Sweden, Yossarian is filled with hope. The last time we read about Yossarian, he is escaping and making his way to Sweden hopefully to a life free from war and the insanity that had surrounded him.

13. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1939)
    

They say (among many): Removed from classrooms in Miller, MO in 1980 because it makes “promiscuous sex looks like fun,” Challenged as required reading the Corona-Norco, CA Unified School District in 1993 because it “centered around negative activity, Specifically characters’ sexual behavior, opposes the health curriculum which taught sexual abstinence before marriage”. The school offered alternatives; Removed from Foley AL High School Library in 2000 pending review because a parent complained that its characters showed “contempt for religion, marriage, and family;” Challenged but retained in the South Texas Independent School District in Mercedes, TX in 2003 because parents “objected to the adult themes-sexuality, drugs, suicide.” The board voted to give parents more control over their children’s requiring principals to automatically offer an alternative/

I say: Brave New World is often mentioned in the same breath as 1984. While yes, both are well-written books that portray dystopian futures (in fact it’s hard to tell which is the better since they are both great), their approaches couldn’t be more different and yet more frightening in their own separate ways. Someone online described “1984 says what we fear will ruin us, while Brave New World says that what we love will ruin us.”

Instead of being deprived of various freedoms as Oceania’s citizens are, the London citizens of Brave New World have almost too much freedom. They are encouraged to have sex with as many partners as possible and to start as young as possible. There are no unnecessary complications such as unwanted pregnancies or childbirth, since babies are created and processed inside factories in assembly line fashion. So the residents can follow the process created by Henry Ford, who has been revered to the point of deification to the point where people say “Praise Ford” or “My Ford” as though they talked about God. In fact their timeline begins with the year the first automobile, the Model-T, first exited the assembly line.

Along with creating children in a factory, everyone is conditioned for their lot in life through sleep hypnosis and subliminal suggestions. From birth, the citizens are told that they will fall in various categories based on mental level: Alphas the upperclass intellectuals, Betas the middle class and so on down to the Epsilons, the working class. No one shows any desire to go beyond their lot in life or to take on the activities of any other class because the messages say things like “I’m glad I’m an Alpha,” or “The Alphas don’t do anything but think, the Epsilons work with their hands. I’m glad I’m not an Alpha.” No one revolts because no one desires to revolt.

For fun the citizens have group orgies or go to the “feelies,” plotless non-stop action films which have scenes which film goers can smell or feel what the characters experience. People are given surgeries and health medicine so no one ages or at least doesn’t look like they are aging. Of course if anyone is unhappy, they can always have a gram of soma at night to put them in a blissful state. (Huxley’s criticism of a drug-addicted society became ironic 20 years later when he wrote essays in which he experimented with L.S.D. and how it opened “the doors of perception.”)  

A society that encourages frequent sexual activity, rampant drug abuse, and creates and conditions children in assembly-line fashion is one that is certainly extremely shallow and deprived of deep love, thought, and affection. Words like “family,” “mother,” and “father,” are considered dirty words and not to be spoken in public. No one reads anything beyond pamphlets that are government approved. No one has romantic feelings or exhibits real love for each other longer than a night and people are encouraged to be extremely social to each other. In fact, people who like their solitude are held under suspicion and thought of as “malcontents.”

One of those malcontents is Bernard Marx. (Huxley liked to play with names, giving characters familiar first or last names like Marx, Benito, Lenina, Henry and others). An Alpha, Bernard is rumored to have had alcohol accidentally put in his “blood stream.” To most people that explains why he prefers to be alone instead of with others, gets offended when his friends make sexual comments about women (particularly Lenina Crowne a woman with whom he is infatuated), and thinks that many of the shallow thoughts of the people around him as idiotic. However, Bernard

 is not above attending the occasional group orgy or showing little loyalty to his director when he threatens to have him deported to Iceland because of his anti-social nature.

Bernard and Lenina take a trip to “the Reservations”  which are areas outside London where people don’t follow the regulations that Londoners do: They live in family units, can grow to an old age (which horrifies Lenina as she sees people wrinkled and toothless for the first time), and can read whatever they want. One of the residents of the Reservation is John, a young man sometimes referred to as “The Savage” or “John the Savage.” Obsessed with the works of William Shakespeare because they were among the first works he learned to read, John is curious about the world from which Bernard and Lenina came. He also is protective of his mother, Linda, who came from their world and still carries some of those ideals.

Linda, a former Beta, was exiled because of her affair which resulted in a pregnancy. However, Linda still has the sexual urges that she remembered in the Old World, which she engages with various men on the Reservation much to John’s chagrin. She also longs for the bliss of soma once again.

John, inspired by his love of Shakespeare, longs for the adventure of seeing the world of his mother’s youth and is enamored with Lenina, so he wants to go to London to spend more time with her.

However, the world that John encounters runs contrary to everything that he has ever believed. He is visited by curious onlookers almost like a circus sideshow attraction who do not understand the emotions that are found in Shakespeare’s works. (They can’t understand how Romeo could feel such emotion for one woman as Juliet and chose marriage and suicide instead of getting involved with other women). They mock Linda’s appearance and overdose her with soma basically to keep her out of sight and out of mind. In one of the emotionally hardest scenes to read, John sits over his dying mother while a group of visiting Betas show no sympathy and only make fun of Linda’s aged appearance and John’s grief over his mother’s death. In this society, John sees only shallowness and vanity.

John also sees shallowness and vanity in his new-found friends, Bernard and Lenina, once they return to London. Bernard gains some second-hand popularity by introducing John to the public and revenge when Linda confronts her former lover, and Bernard’s director, with the existence of their child, John. For Bernard, John’s appearance increases his ambitious stance in a world that is always looking for the next big thing.

John is treated like a fad. People come to see him out of curiosity, but he falls out of favor when he questions society’s standards and tries to destroy an arrival of soma after his mother’s death. When John falls out of public interest, then so does his “handler” Bernard, who gets exiled to Iceland where it is implied he will live in his once longed-for solitude.

Lenina tries to seduce John, but even though he is in love, he refuses to have sex with her. Lenina is confused by this and her growing affections for John. She weeps to her friend, Fanny, and tries to avoid many of her other lovers. However, Lenina

cannot truly understand the depths of her feelings because she never experienced them before. Instead she retreats back into her soma and tries to have her way with John once more, only for him to become infuriated, whip her, and call her “strumpet.”

Among the strongest passages that separate Brave New World from 1984, is revealed in John’s conversation with the President Mustapha Mond. Instead of the terrifying Big Brother that keeps people under surveillance, Mustapha Mond almost seems like a benign grandfather-type. In some ways that makes him as, and sometimes more,

frightening than Big Brother. Even though Mond has many of the things that are forbidden, such as books, he doesn’t allow the public to have them because it would only confuse them he believes. He believes he is protecting them for their own good.

 He claims that all of the society’s standards: the drugs, the conditioning, the sex, all of the basic instincts that his society encourages are meant to keep everyone child-like and happy. Mond doesn’t want his citizens to think beyond their one-night stands, grams of soma, or their feelies because he doesn’t want them to question society. If they do that, it could lead to discontent, unhappiness, and ultimately rebellion.

John however realizes that he doesn’t want what Mond and his society have to offer. He wants the deeper emotions of love, romance, anger, and even sadness. John realizes that a society without those emotions has no real thought, ideas, art, or creativity. He realizes that ideas and art can’t be created without pain and thought.

That to feel real happiness people must feel real sadness first. That to feel a genuine connection with someone, a person must have love and commitment with sex. That connection is what makes the person truly a part of society, not how many partners they have.

“So you want the right to be unhappy?” Mond asks.

“Yes,” John says after some thought. “I want the right to be unhappy.”

John does get his solitude, which ultimately leads to his death. However, he makes his point clear to this society and to the Reader that this world can’t exist without love, real emotion, and real thought. A world that claims to be free of restrictions like Brave New World can in the end be just as destructive as the constantly restricted one found in 1984. That in the end, both societies will crumble as long as there are people that question them.

14. Animal Farm by George Orwell (1945) 
    

They say: the John Birch Society challenged it in 1963 because of the phrase “the masses will revolt;” Some New York State English classrooms objected to the material in 1968 because “George Orwell was a Communist”; Suppressed from being displayed at the Moscow, Russia International Book Fair in 1977; Banned from Bay County’s four middle schools and three high schools in Panama City, FL by the superintendent in 1987. After 44 parents filed a suit against the district claiming that the removal denied constitutional rights, the book was reinstated along with 64 other banned material; Banned from schools in the United Arab Emirates in 2002 because it contained written or illustrated material that contradicted Islamic and Arabic values-“alcoholic drinks, pigs, and other indecent images,”

I say: Before Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus depicted the Holocaust as anthropomorphic animals with Jews represented by mice, Nazis represented by cats, Polish people represented by pigs, and so on, there was Animal Farm. Far from promoting Communism as it was accused of in 1968 and 1963, it was the opposite.

      While Orwell was a socialist, he brilliantly satirized Totalitarianism under Stalin.

The animals of Manor Farm are tired of being treated as slaves by their alcoholic human master, Nicholas Jones (named for the Russian Czar Nicholas II. Sometimes Orwell was about as subtle as a blunt hammer upside the head.) An old boar, Major tells his animals of a dream he had in which animals will revolt against their human masters. One day, the animals led by the pigs, Napoleon and Snowball, rebel and create their own farm, Animal Farm. At first the animals believe that they are free from tyranny and they set up seven commandments which are to be followed forbidding animals to take on human characteristics such as wearing clothes, drinking alcohol, sleeping in beds and to treat animals fairly as friends and to never kill another animal. Above all that all animals are equal.

Orwell skillfully portrayed the animals and their actions as allegorical symbols of the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the Soviet Union. Teachers could and have used this book to educate students about the history of the Soviet Union, because all of the major players are to be found in this book. Orwell’s writing tells of these events in a way that is clever, informative, and gripping.

Major who tells the animals about his dream of animals overcoming humanity and becoming free is based on Karl Marx whose book The Communist Manifesto inspired many revolutionaries and intellectuals before revolution became a reality in Russia in 1917.  Joseph Stalin is mirrored in the character of  Napoleon, a quiet but intelligent leader who uses his cult of personality and ability to manipulate events to become a tyrant to the farm. (One example of Napoleon’s rule is to raise the dog’s puppies in secret to become his secret police to attack and kill any animal that conspires against him similar to the KGB).

Snowball, Napoleon’s co-hort turned rival is a composite of Vladimir Lenin, who led the Russian Revolution and put Marx’s theories into actions and Leon Trotsky, a co-revolutionary of Stalin’s who became exiled, was branded a traitor, and later written out of Soviet history similar to Snowball. In the book, Snowball after his exile because of Napoleon’s ambitions, goes from being declared a hero by the animals, to accused of being a spy covertly working for humanity, to accusations that he actively led the human’s war against the animals, according to Napoleon. (So in 1984’s Newspeak he became an “unpig.”)

Squealer, another pig who serves as Napoleon’s mouthpiece is comparable to Pravda, the Soviet Union’s propaganda newspaper in how he uses manipulative verbal tricks to make the animals think that Napoleon is always right. The most fascinating passages are when Squealer changes the commandments ever so slightly every time the pigs are caught violating them. For example when Napoleon orders mass executions of animals that he believes conspired with Snowball, Squealer changes the commandment to “No animal shall kill another animal without cause.” Since many of the animals on Animal Farm cannot read very well and are easily manipulated, Squealer is able to convince them that the commandments were always the same or that the pigs had just cause to change them.

Not just the pigs but other animals represent different aspects of the Soviet Union thanks to Orwell’s masterful writing. Boxer, a kind-hearted horse is symbolic of the working class in Russia who believed that the Revolution worked for them. Boxer’s maxims “Napoleon is always right” and “I must work harder,” are all he lives for and sadly become his downfall as he is worked into injury and exhaustion, to be sold to a knacker in one of the most moving scenes in the book. (Similar to workers who rebelled against their new Soviet leaders and were either forced into exile to Siberia or executed and buried in unmarked graves.)

Another horse, Mollie, is representative of the former Russian nobles who refused to give up their fine living and voluntarily exiled themselves to other European countries or the U.S. Mollie goes to live on a nearby human farm where she is petted, rode, spoiled, brushed, and draped in her fine ribbons once more.

Moses, a raven with his non-stop talk about the Sugar Candy Mountain (i.e. “The Next World”) represents the Russian Orthodox Church, once exiled by the agnostic Soviet Union and later welcomed back in an attempt to make the Soviet people believe that their work on Earth would lead to better rewards in the Great Beyond. Similarly, Moses becomes an unknowing part of Napoleon’s tyranny by convincing the animals to focus less on their starving bellies and the ever-changing commandments and believe that they will instead get their rewards after death.

The most interesting character and probably a stand-in for Orwell himself or the older intellectuals is Benjamin the Donkey. He is very sarcastic with his seen-it-all attitude offering quips about any situation. When he is asked if he is happier with or without Jones, Benjamin answers, “Donkeys live a long time. None of you have ever seen a dead donkey.”

However, Benjamin is highly intelligent as he is one of the few animals that can read and is able to understand the original and altered commandments knowing that they were changed but offers no opinion. He is also very warm-hearted in his friendship with  the simple minded Boxer and when Boxer is taken away by the Knacker cart, Benjamin yells for the others to rescue him. (Of course by then the other animals are too afraid of the pigs and dogs to save their friend). Afterward it is not a surprise that Benjamin is only described “as morose and taciturn as ever,” probably finding no real comradeship on the Farm, only hurt and betrayal.

As the animals lose more and more of their freedoms to the pigs, by the end they are not surprised to see the pigs walking on two legs, wearing clothes, and whipping them, restoring the farm’s original name to Manor Farm. They are also not surprised to see only one commandment: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

In fact many of the older animals who had fought the Revolution had died and none of the younger ones remember any other life. They only see another dictator overpowering them. It is frightening to read how little by little the animals surrendered their values and beliefs before they are aware that they are completely gone and there is no difference between their new masters (the pigs) and their old ones (the humans).

Since the book was published in 1945 at the height of the Soviet Union and start of the Cold War, Orwell saw no end in sight. Luckily two subsequent films gave the animals of Animal Farm happier endings. In an animated version, produced by the CIA in 1954, the animals overthrow Napoleon in a second revolution. In a TV film version from 1999, Animal Farm is destroyed from within after Napoleon and the other pigs sicken and die and the animals vow to work alongside the new human owners of the farm for a better future.

15. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (1926)

They say: Banned in Boston, MAS in 1930, Ireland in 1953, Riverside, CA in 1960, and San Jose, CA in 1960; Burned in th Nazi bonfires in Germany  in 1933

I say: One thing that many people are aware about Ernest Hemingway, even if they have never read a line of his works, is that he loved bullfighting. He even put that love of the sport in his writing, most notably in The Sun Also Rises, which features a group of British and American expatriates encountering various events in Spain including fiestas, the Running of the Bulls (I believe this book popularized this event on an international scale), and of course bull fighting. Lots of bull fighting.

The book deals with a circle of friends who are part of the “Lost Generation,” people in their twenties and thirties after the end of WWI, many of whom were veterans, who spent a great deal of time traveling and struggling with mental and physical illness that resulted from the war. They were also a part of the Roaring Twenties Jazz Age and explored their sexuality, danced to jazz music, and partied hard. If this gang had been in New York they would have received engraved invitations to Jay Gatsby’s parties. (Since their authors were best friends, it’s entirely possible that they would have accepted)

The main protagonist, Jake Barnes, a WWI vet and expatriate living in Paris, travels with his friends from Paris, where they were part of the Cafe Society to Spain where they experience the fun and joy (end sarcasm) of the bull fights. Jake is also suffering from his war experience as a wound has rendered him impotent. Much of the book goes into great detail describing Jake’s war wound and the after effects. Because of it, he considers himself incapable of maintaining any relationships and reluctantly accepts being merely friends with Lady Brett Ashley, a divorcee and female friend that Jake longs to become more than friends.

Many of the other characters are as wounded in one way or another as much as Jake, particularly the two most fascinating: Lady Brett Ashley and Robert Cohn.

After her divorce, Brett hops from one bed to another usually engaging in affairs that mean very little to her. She has a regular fiancee, Mike Campbell, but that doesn’t stop her from pursuing affairs with other men, including a 19-year-old toreador with whom she runs away and fizzles out just as quickly.

Brett is never portrayed as a slut who enjoys the multiple affairs. Instead she is written as a 33-year-old woman who is desperate to hold on her beauty and behavior as long as they can last. Also as shown in the aftermath of her relationship with the toreador which leaves her broken and tearful, she engages in the affairs perhaps as a replacement for love and tenderness and because without her affairs, she feels empty.

Another character who is filled with hurt and emptiness is Robert Cohn, unfortunately that emptiness is increased because of Jake’s narration. Robert a Jewish writer is often held up for ridicule by his friends and Jake makes no secrets in informing the Reader how much he mocks Robert (leading to accusations that Hemingway was Anti-Semitic.) He has a brief affair with Brett which results in the end of his friendship with Jake. The affair leads to Brett returning to her fiancee Mike and Robert becoming heart broken and somewhat obsessed with Brett.

Robert is in the process of a divorce and when his soon-to-be ex-wife reunites with him solely to belittle and verbally abuse him in front of his friends. Instead of being sympathetic, Jake just wonders why he doesn’t man up and stand up for himself.

This passage (along with Jake’s impotency) shows what Hemingway really thought of masculinity and what makes a man. Some modern readers may have issues with this, comparing Robert’s situation to that of domestic abuse towards men which at the time was unacknowledged or discussed. (Domestic abuse towards women was barely discussed at the time). Also, Hemingway’s attitude, while unhealthy to many including himself (which a lot of his behaviors were major factors leading to his suicide) made Hemingway and by extraction his characters products of their time. They believe these things because society told them to.

The emotions of the characters simmer and burn out. They are like many groups of travelers that spend most of their time together with out-of-whack schedules, and become irritated with one another by the time the trip ends. In their case of course, the relationship histories and personal struggles also leads to their animosity towards each other. However they quickly lose their tempers and just as quickly remain friends and traveling companions. Things naturally move ahead to the point of breaking off the friendships during (when else?) the bullfight.

The passage describing a bull get captured and slaughtered, as well as the potential harms that the bull can bring like goring those around him, become a symbol of the emotional breaks that occur within Jake and his friends. Many of his friends have arguments during the bull fight particularly Robert who is told by Mike, that no one likes him and they want him to leave. It also leads to shifts in relationships since Brett’s 19-year-old toreador boyfriend participates in the fight and she is turned on by him. It is as though the violence in the arena spills out onto the violence within the group of friends and brings open secrets, urges, and ill feelings to the point of ending them giving the friendship a metaphoric death as the bull got a physical one.

16. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (1930)
    

They say (among many): Banned in Graves County School District in Mayfield, KY in 1986 because it contains “offensive obscene passages referring to abortions and used God’s name in vain.” The decision was reversed after intense pressure from the ACLU and considerable negative publicity; Challenged as a required reading assignment in an advanced English Class of Pulaski County High School in Somerset, KY in 1987 because the book “contained profanity and a segment about masturbation;” Challenged but retained in Carroll County, MD in 1991 because two school board members were “concerned about the book’s coarse language and dialect.” Later it was retained.; Banned at Central High School in Louisville, KY in 1994 temporarily because the book “contained profanity and questions the existence of God.”

I say: If The Grapes of Wrath is the story of a rural family held together by tragedy  and finds their faith restored, As I Lay Dying could be its polar opposite. Instead of the rural family being drawn together by tragedy this family, the Bundrens are pulled further apart and instead of finding faith and working towards their own Heaven on Earth, this family instead sinks into their own personal Hell.

Addie Bundren, the family matriarch is ailing and will soon be dying. The family waits over either filled with their own greed and vanity or more concerned with their own personal problems. Either way this is a family that is already threatening to crumble and it takes Addie’s death for them to come completely apart.

To honor Addie’s wishes, the family takes her body to Jefferson County, Mississippi to be buried. Faulkner compiles multiple narrators so each family member’s and some friends’ individual voices are used to tell the story from their points of view. The narratives are widely varied as each character reveals his or her true thoughts and personalities. They range from the logical eldest son, Cash, who uses precise reasoning and diction to reveal how he made Addie’s coffin to Cora Tull, their neighbor, a God fearing woman who is constantly on the lookout for sin. These narratives make each character unique and moves them far beyond Southern redneck stereotypes.

Then there are the other Bundren family members. Anse, Addie’s widower who has financial problems and seems not to miss his wife all that much since he quickly remarries before they even head for home. Jewel is Addie’s quick-tempered son by another man. Only Addie knows this (though at one point his half-brother Darl implies that he suspects it) but Jewel begins to piece it together on the trip and in the end separates himself from the rest of his family by leaving them. Finally there’s Vardaman, the youngest child in the family who is trying to come to terms with his mother’s death by thinking such things as “My mother is a fish.”

Among the best narratives that make the characters stand out are those provided by Dewey Dell and Darl Bundren. Dewey Dell is on this journey, not just to honor her mother whom she has little concern for, but to solve a problem of her own. The dim teenager was conned into losing her virginity and ends up with an unwanted pregnancy. She goes on  the trip because she is trying to get an abortion. The chapters in which a druggist and a doctor recount their involvement in Dewey Dell’s story reveal Dewey Dell to be a confused and desperate young woman easily swayed by the words and actions of others. Her naive personality is shown when the druggist says he will not give her any aborticants for moral reasons and the doctor is turned on by this poor girl and seduces her.

Darl provides the majority of the book’s narrations over 20 of the movie’s 59 chapters. In his chapters, Darl is shown to be someone who is quite intelligent and observant (such as when he hints that he suspects Jewel does not have the same father as the rest of the Bundren children). But Darl also reveals himself to be a character that is slowly losing his sanity. One of the eeriest chapters is one provided by Vardaman where Darl puts his ear on Addie’s coffin and swears he can hear their mother’s voice. So it’s no surprise that in the final chapters, Darl sets his mother’s coffin on fire and is institutionalized leading to another eerie chapter in which Darl keeps mentally referring to himself in third person as he is taken away. He says things like “Darl is going on a train” as though he had Dissociative Identity Disorder.

By far the most compelling narrator is Addie herself. As the coffin gets swept away in a flooded river and the family struggles to retrieve it, Addie mentally recalls her life story. Addie’s chapter pokes holes in the whole “loving wife and mother” stereotype. Instead she reveals that she had no love for her husband, Anse, whatsoever and refers to her children’s conceptions as times when Anse “tricked (her).” She also shows little love for her children except maybe Jewel, because she considers them evidence of her unhappy marriage by existing. (Even technically Jewel because he reminds her of the time when she strayed and later had two more children to “negative” this lapse in her fidelity). Addie’s chapter is an example of the darkness that this book shows within families with the only link being that they share the same name rather than people who stick together because of love and loyalty.

As the book continues, the Bundren Family is shown to be the causes of their own destruction and in the end with a dead mother, an institutionalized brother, a departed brother, and a sister who may or may not still be pregnant, and a brand new stepmother. In the end, the family ends up trapped in an endless cycle of unhappiness, misery, and Hell that they put themselves in and can’t pull themselves out.

17. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway ((1929)
    

They say: The June 1929 issue of Scribner’s Magazine which contained the novel was banned in Boston, MA; Banned in Italy in 1929 because of its “painfully accurate account of the Italian retreat from Caporetto, Italy”; Burned by the Nazis in Germany in 1933; Banned in Ireland in 1939; Challenged at the Dallas, TX Independent School District high school libraries in 1974; Challenged at the Vernon-Verona Sherrill, NY School District in 1980 as a “sex novel.”

I say: If Catch-22 is the ultimate anti-WWII book then A Farewell to Arms is the ultimate Anti-WWI book. (Another candidate for that honor would be Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo-a novel told from the point of view of a soldier who has all of his limbs and most of the rest of his body blown off so he lays in the hospital an anguished wreck that can’t speak, see, hear, walk, or communicate. Johnny and its movie were the inspiration for the Metallica song and video, “One.”)  A Farewell to Arms is a novel that brilliantly captures the horror and violence of war and the romances that result between people who are under stress, and only live for a loving relationship that will break through the ongoing violence and allow them to connect on a personal level.

This book is based largely on Hemingway’s experiences in the ambulance corps during WWI. The book’s main protagonist, Frederic Henry, is an American serving in the Italian army. (He explains he lived in Italy when the war began and speaks Italian fluently). Like his author, Frederic is also in the ambulance corps and is often called “Tenente” (which is Italian for “Lieutenant”) by his colleagues. Frederic’s friend and roommate, Rinaldi introduces him to Catherine Barker, a pretty English nurse.Their flirtation and romantic small talk becomes deeper when Frederic is wounded in the knee by a mortar and Catherine is his attending nurse. During Frederic’s convalescence in Milan, their romantic feelings increase and the two officially become lovers However, all is not pleasant and when Frederic is caught with alcohol and sent to the Front, but not before Catherine informs him that she is three months pregnant.

The book is filled with violent scenes and lines that demonstrates the futility of war. When Frederic talks to some of the Italian locals and even some of the soldiers, many of them don’t understand how the war began and don’t care who wins just as long as all soldiers go home, even the ones who claim they are fighting “for them.”

Frederic also is involved in the Battle of Caporetto, a battle in which Austrian soldiers broke through the Italian lines and the Italians were forced to retreat. The battle is graphically described with shootings all around and soldiers running to get away from them. The situation becomes worse when Frederic and his men are taken to the “battle police” and are interrogated. The most heartbreaking moment is when Frederic learns that the other men are killed during the interrogation and he must swim into the river to escape or he’s going to be next. This passage exemplifies one of the painful realities of war in which you could lose the people around you, all of them, and you could be left the only one alive.

The only antidote to the non-stop violence is the love between Frederic and Catherine, a love that they hope will see them through the dark times into a brighter future. However, Fate has one more trick to play on Frederic and Catherine goes into premature labor. Catherine’s labor and the after-effects of this scene show that the brutality of war does not end on the front lines. That sometimes that brutality carries over onto family unit. What Frederic thought would be a safe harbor ends up being another deep loss so in the end he is left just as he is in Caporetto, alone, broken, bitter, and defeated. The final passage where Frederic is contemplating his loss is as moving to show how awful war is, as any speech by an activist could be. That in the end no matter what the soldier did during the war, in the end he could still be left alone, with no friends and no family, just himself.

18. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (originally published 1937; Republished 1978)
    

They say: Challenged for sexual explicitness but retained on the Stonewall Jackson High School’s academically advanced reading list in 1997. A parent objected to  the novel’s language and sexual explicitness

Zora Neale Hurston’s brilliant short novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God is about a woman’s journey through three troubled marriages to find her own inner strength and independence and also her experiences with love and sexuality which lead to that independence.

Janie Crawford is an African-American woman who begins life unsure of herself, even her own skin. As she relates her life story to her friend, Pheoby, Janie is raised solely by her grandmother who works for a white family named Washburn. Janie is raised in virtual innocence as a friend to the four Washburn children unaware that she is different from them until she sees a photograph of herself with the other children. While the other children joyfully point out themselves, Janie is confused. She doesn’t recognize the dark-skinned child as herself and says that she doesn’t see herself. This childlike outburst becomes the subject of derision and mockery and opens up how different Janie is from the other children. This little moment opens up the constant pattern in Janie’s life as always the outsider always somehow different from the people around her, even the people who share her skin color.

Janie at first tries to gain control in her life, by making love with a local boy, Johnny Taylor. Her grandmother furious about Janie’s burgeoning sexuality and fearing that the girl will never be free from her hands arranges Janie’s marriage to Logan Killick, a much older man. Janie meekly acquiesces to the marriage thinking that her grandmother knows best.

Janie is reluctant at first to marry, but is determined to make Logan love her, despite his short temper, unattractive appearance, and his love for his first wife whom he compares to Janie who always comes up short. What Janie finds, however, is a man who is never satisfied and Janie finds herself living a lonely existence where she feels urges that she can’t understand and her grandmother tells her to keep to herself if she wants to maintain a happy home.

When a well-dressed man, Joe Starks, comes into town, Janie finally finds an outlet for her urges. Joe (called Jody sometimes by Janie) is a wealthy man who is practically the mayor of his small town. At first, he appears romantic, kind, and charming, everything that Logan isn’t. It doesn’t take too long for Janie to gain a bit of independence to tell Logan that she is leaving him, wants a divorce, and wants to marry Jody instead. She marries Jody and becomes the First Lady of Jody’s town of  Green Cove Springs.

Jody however is not the husband material that he originally advertised. Instead of becoming Cinderella married to Prince Charming and living Happily Ever After in the wealthy palace, Janie is once again pre-Ball Cinderella. This time she is under the thumb of yet another controlling husband. He uses manipulation and command to control the people in his town and make them obey him. He kicks people out of town who disagree with him and forces them to do hard physical labor. It gets to the point where when the people refer to Jody as “Our Beloved Mayor” they say it sarcastically. “It was one of those statements that everybody says but nobody actually believes like ‘God is everywhere,’” Hurston writes.

Jody also believes that he has such control over Janie. He forbids Janie from talking to most of the locals, saying “He didn’t want her talking after such trashy people.” Jealously visualizing other men lusting after Janie, he forbids her from working at their store without a head scarf. He also forbids his wife from being involved with the people for public events, wanting her to be with him only. He also resorts to slapping and beating her until he gets his way. Janie endures this long marriage while inside boiling with rage to the point that when Jody becomes sick, Janie actively wishes for him to die. Instead of a tearful good-bye at his deathbed, Janie instead calls him out on the over 20 years of hurt he gave her.

At 40 years old, Janie goes through her most reckless love affair which also results in marriage. She becomes involved with a much younger man, Vergible Woods AKA Tea Cake. Janie’s feelings become overpowering and she feels a longing to be with Tea Cake. Her emotions show her as a woman who had repressed her own personal happiness during her two previous unsatisfying marriages and now they are falling all around her. Tea Cake returns those emotions and eventually proposes to her. Because of her previous hurts, Janie harbors no illusions towards her feelings for Tea Cake. She even questions his proposal, pointing out their age difference and other realities. She eventually agrees because after all the years of one arranged marriage and then one of love that disappointed her, Janie goes because she wants to feel free from all previous restraints. She also doesn’t want Tea Cake to give her any false pretenses. Agreeing to her terms, Janie and Tea Cake run away to the Florida Everglades to marry.

If this were a fairy tale or a straight love story, this is how the book ends. However, the truth about the difficulties in marriage are revealed long after the two make their romantic journey to be with each other. Their marriage while largely happy and filled with love and devotion, is not free of troubles. There are huge arguments about money and other issues. There is also bad weather with a hurricane approaching in which Janie and Tea Cake struggle to escape. There is also illness, one which affects Tea Cake in the worst way possible turning him into a complete stranger to Janie. However, finally Janie emerges as a stronger more independent woman able to stand Tea Cake down and defend herself. Instead of cowering like she did at her first and second husband, Janie is able to fight back against Tea Cake’s violence that reveals she will not take abuse from anyone ever again.

As interesting as the story of Janie Crawford, the story of her book and author, Zora

Neale Hurston is equally interesting. While Hurston died in an unmarked grave in 1960 and largely forgotten, she was rediscovered by many African-American authors. Among them was Alice Walker who in 1972 wrote an essay for Ms. Magazine called “In Search of Zora Neale Hurston.” This revamped interest, particularly from Walker, gave new light to Hurston’s life and work.

In 1977, University of Illinois professor Robert F. Henneway wrote

a biography called Zora Neale Hurstson: A Literary Biography  and advised his author that it would be a good idea to acquire the rights for Their Eyes Were Watching God. The University of Illinois republished the book in 1978 and Their Eyes Were Watching God has not been out of publication since becoming an important work in African-American and Women’s Studies Literature. Like her fictional protagonist, Janie Crawford, Zora Neale Hurston had to wait some time to be known and recognized for herself.

19. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (1952 )

They say: Excerpts banned in Butler, PA in 1975; Removed from the high school English reading list in St. Francis, WI in 1975; Retained in the Yakima, WA schools in 1994 after a five-month dispute over what advanced high school students should read in the classroom. Two parents raised concerns about “profanity and images of violence and sexuality” in the book and requested that it be removed

What a difference an article makes. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells is about a Caucasian scientist who learns how to create a light substance to make him invisible to people so he can commit crimes and create his own “reign of terror.” The deeply analytical and thought-provoking, Invisible Man (No The) by Ralph Ellison is about an African-American man who learns about his own metaphoric invisibility as a victim of racism, social conflict, and by the manipulations and judgments of others. The unnamed narrator lives in an underground room in Harlem in which he steals electricity from the local power grid. As he recounts his life story, he tells of his journey from an innocent naive boy who let people walk all over him to a lonely embittered man betrayed by a society that has made him socially invisible.

His first memory is of the death of his grandfather. As the old man lays dying, he tells the narrator, “Son after I’m gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days….I want you to overcome ‘em with yeses, undermine ‘em with grins, agree ‘em to death, and destruction, let ‘em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open.” His grandfather’s words confuse the Narrator until he realizes his first taste of the society around him and is haunted by the older man’s words his whole life.

The opening chapter is among the cruelest which shows the narrator, filled with dreams about becoming the next Booker T. Washington and is so excited to give a speech, is made to participate in a game called the Battle Royale. He and several other African-American men are supposed to participate in their own Fight Club with rich white businessmen cheering them on and mocking them. The naive young man fights, never realizing that he is being made a fool and only wants to make his speech. By the time he gives his speech, he is so bruised and bloody that his words are unintelligible. In a strong moment of foreshadowing on the night after the Battle Royale, he dreams that his grandfather laughs at him. The older man knows that his grandson has become an invisible pawn in others’ games.

It’s almost heartbreaking as the Narrator goes from moment to moment in his life wanting to find some satisfaction, some chance of success only to find that he has been manipulated, ridiculed, or made a fool of by other people’s actions. The Narrator’s life is one Mobius Strip of anticipation ending in rejection and failure.

When he is accepted into an all-black college, he encounters antagonisms and struggles inside and outside his race. He is hired as a driver to Mr. Norton, a condescending white man who is among the richest trustees at the school. He constantly talks down to the young narrator and believes he has supernatural powers like determining Norton’s fate.

The Narrator takes Norton on a detour where they encounter some poor African-Americans, including an incestuous farmer and a bar with patients from a nearby mental hospital which shocks and disturbs Norton.

The school’s president, Dr. Bledsoe is horrified over what Norton experienced and blames the Narrator solely. He is upset that the Narrator showed Norton the worst of “their people” even though the detour was Norton’s idea in the first place. Bledsoe

sends letters of recommendation which he say will ensure the Narrator will return to school, until one of the recipients show the Narrator the letter that states that he has been expelled.

The Narrator spends some time working in a paint factory symbolically making white paint until he has an argument with his boss that becomes physical. The Narrator is admitted as a mental patient, given shock treatments, and is fired, once again finding himself out of place.

Afterward, The Narrator is introduced to the Brotherhood, a mixed-race organization that seems to embrace a composite of Socialism and Anarchism. At first The Narrator thinks that he has finally found a group that accepts him. He speaks out in Harlem defending some of the locals who are about to be evicted, becomes a voice for the people, and embraces the Brotherhood’s concepts whole-hearted. He is so enamored of this group and his reputation as a Harlem spokesperson that he refuses to listen to some who say that he is simply being used and that they just want him to create the idea that they are a mixed-race organization, that they don’t consider him an equal just a token. The Narrator probably should have listened.

The Narrator begins to question The Brotherhood’s motives when after a slight disagreement, he is removed from Harlem and is accused of putting himself ahead of the organization. While the Narrator tries to defend himself, the heads of the Brotherhood refuse to listen. The book implies that if the Narrator were white, they would have forgiven him citing that many of the other members have broken various rules. (Not to mention that the Brotherhood’s leader, Brother Jack has no problems with putting himself ahead of the organization.)

The breaking point between the Narrator and the Brotherhood begins when another African-American member, Brother Clifton, disappears and shows up later selling dolls in the form of Sambo, an African-American stereotypical character. After Clifton’s death, shot while resisting arrest, The Narrator makes a rousing speech about the rights of African-Americans which the Brotherhood argues against.

The Narrator’s disillusionment with the Brotherhood becomes hatred when riots begin in Harlem and he realizes that the Brotherhood wanted to happen all along. They were only using him to create unrest, making African-Americans angry enough to riot so The Brotherhood, particularly Brother Jack, can further their aims.

Unlike Wells’ Invisible Man who embraced his invisibility, Ellison’s Invisible Man realizes that he has been invisible long enough. He had been ignored, manipulated, and treated as a second-class citizen or a token for others’ ambitions long enough. Ellison’s Invisible Man uses his story to make himself visible even challenging the Reader with his final words, “Who knows but that on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?”

19. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (1977)
    

They say: Challenged but retained in Columbus, OH schools in 1993 after complaints that the book “contains language that was degrading to blacks and is sexually explicit;” Removed from require reading lists and library shelves in Richmond County, GA School District in 1994 after a parent complained “the book was filthy and inappropriate;” Removed from the St. Mary’s County. MD School’s approved reading text list in 1998 over complaints that the book was “filth,” “trash,” and “repulsive.”; Reinstated in the Shelby, MI school Advanced Placement English curriculum in 2009 but parents are to be informed in writing and at a meeting about the content. Students not wanting to read the book can choose an alternative without academic penalty. The superintendent had suspended the book from the curriculum.

I say: While  the superior Beloved is a darkly Gothic story that has supernatural elements, like literal ghosts to tell the story of solidarity among women, Song of Solomon uses figurative ghosts of the past to tell the story of one man’s journey to explore his family history and look towards his future.

There is one oddly bizarre supernatural element that happens on the day of the birth of Macon “Milkman” Dead. A man named Mr. Smith jumps out of the hospital window on the day Milkman is born and some eyewitnesses swear that the man flew out the window. The story of Mr. Smith is analogous to an old folktale told during slavery in which the people of Africa had wings and when they were shipped to America as slaves, they forgot about them. So when slaves escaped their masters some said that “they probably flew back to Africa.” Mr. Smith, The Flying Man becomes a symbol throughout the book of history and oral stories that reveal connections to the past.

Besides the Flying Man, Milkman is surrounded by ghosts of the past of family members who are estranged from each other, too close to each other and some unknown questions about his ancestry. Milkman is the son of Macon and Ruth Foster-Dead, a completely mismatched couple. Macon is the descendant of freed slaves and carries his family name both first and last (Reportedly when Macon’s grandfather registered as a freed slave, the clerk misunderstood his claim that he came from “Macon, Georgia” and “his family was dead,” as him revealing his name, so the men of the family have been called “Macon Dead” ever since). Macon is also a self-made millionaire who came from an impoverished family to gain wealth. However, he refuses to acknowledge them, even cutting surviving members from his  life, particularly his eccentric possibly mentally ill sister, Pilate who lives in a poorer area of the black community.

Macon so detests his sister that he forbids Milkman from ever hanging out with her. However, the rebellious Milkman fed up with his father’s self-centerdness, his insistence that Milkman work in his father’s office, and his irritation about Macon’s lack of acceptance of his family, that Milkman visits Pilate anyway. Milkman befriends Pilate, her daughter, Reba, and Reba’s unstable daughter, Hagar who develops an obsession with Milkman.

Pilate carries a  family burden, literally. She has buried bones of what she believes is a white man in a cave and may have some gold that she never has told anyone about but Macon wants a piece. Macon is so obsessed with that gold that he orders Milkman to look for it during his visits, which Milkman refuses because he cares too much about Pilate.

Ruth is the daughter of a wealthy local doctor that had a reputation of being a kind hero to many African-Americans in the community, one that judging by his personality was not deserved. Dr. Foster was critical, snobbish, judgmental to the people around him including Macon, his son-in-law and if said son-in-law’s account is to be believed, the doctor may have had more than a close relationship with his daughter. While Macon’s account is not necessarily to be believed since he is already established as someone who doesn’t hesitate to sling mud against people he doesn’t like including family, it is proven that Ruth breastfed Milkman until he was a toddler (this is what gave him his nickname, “Milkman”) . So there may be something to Macon’s accusations.

Throughout his life, Milkman is caught between his father’s family’s incomplete past, his mother’s family’s snobbishness, and his great-aunt’s family’s instability. All of his immediate family made a mark on the childhoods of Milkman and his sisters, Magdalena Called Lena and First Corinthians. Milkman in particular grows up to become a confused, neurotic, sexually active but socially confused, rebellious, and constantly questioning adult. While he takes various lovers, he does not settle down with any of them. He shamelessly flirts and does more with Hagar which results in her instability. Then after she begins to frighten him, Milkman attempts to cut off all ties with her causing her to become even more irate, reaching Stalker proportions by the end of the book.

Milkman also has few close friends except Guitar, a sociopath who is pretending to be an activist. He is less involved in the Civil Rights Movement for the ideals to change things than he is because he wants to kill every white person he sees. Guitar is also as obsessed with Pilate’s family’s gold as Macon to the point that in one passage, he holds Milkman up believing that he hid the gold and held out on Guitar.

Surrounded by snobbish estrangement from his family and instability from his closest friends, Milkman decides to take a trip down South to answer some of his ongoing questions about his family history. In some of the most interesting passages, Milkman reunites with various relatives and family friends who tell him little bits and pieces of his grandparents and his father’s youth. While many of the accounts are contradictory, a fascinated Milkman is able to piece together the accounts to create a linear story about his paternal relatives.

As Milkman gets more answers to his ancestry, more questions pop up particularly about his great-grandfather Solomon, an enigmatic character. Many questions arise about the man. How many children did he father? (The theoretic number is up to 21) Was that his gold that is buried and what did he do to get it? What ultimately happened to him? Did he die and if so how? Did he, like Mr. Smith, the Flying Man at the beginning of the book, fly back to Africa?

Curious and eager to solve his mysteries to his family, Milkman continues to question his family until he finds some resolution to his past. While the answers appear anti-climactic and may result in a feeling of “So what?” from the Reader, Milkman’s journey is the real story. Like anyone researching their family history, he begins with many questions about where he came from and uses the information he is given to continue his search.

The other more important result of Milkman’s journey than the answers that are provided is the emotional resolution that Milkman and his family experience after his answers. Milkman becomes more aware of his family past and for the first time feels real acceptance from them. His Great-Aunt Pilate is able to bury her past burdens and accepts living in the present. The strongest change is from Milkman’s father, Macon, who finally accepts his sister, his son, and his family legacy. Milkman Dead’s journey allows himself and his family to let go of the ghosts of their past and become a stronger, closer, better family in the present.

In case anyone’s curious the list of books of my personal favorites in descending order are:

20. The Sun Also Rises 19. Lord of the Flies 18. Ulysses 17. Lolita 16. The Catcher in the Rye 15.  Song of Solomon 14. Catch-22 13. A Farewell to Arms 12.  As I Lay Dying 11. The Grapes of Wrath 10. Invisible Man 9. Animal Farm 8. Their Eyes Were Watching God  7. . The Great Gatsby 6. To Kill a Mockingbird 5. Of Mice and Men 4. The Color Purple 3. Brave New World 2. 1984 1. Beloved