Some cool things, and a rant.
I did really well on the essay which we got back yesterday, so I'm going to allow myself to relax a little today. Still got tons of reading to do, but still...
These two cool litte things have been posted on my flist the last couple of days:
BBC Autumn/Winter Trailer:
Makes me want to leave my life here to go watch TV in Great Britain! So much of this looks great, it's almost ridiculous.
Also:
The Tempest Movie trailer:
This looks equal parts awesome and deranged! Will be worth watching though, certainly.
On another note, appearently it was Banned Books Week last week, I had no idea. Anyway, it was an attempt to raise awareness of books being challenged and actually banned from libraries even today, and the threat against freedom of speech and choice that forms. It's not a matter that is discussed much here in Sweden, maybe because it's rarely an issue that libraries or institutions ban books here. But still, we actually have a government who is AGAINST public libraries, that makes me want to just sit down and cry. Is there really any worse kind of censorship than shutting a library down?
I digress. What I wanted to talk about was this list: Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books 2000/2009
Sure, I expected Harry Potter to wind up as nr 1. All that dangerous black magic twisting the heads of the young... But oh, the absurdity of it, since the Harry Potter series probably is the books that have made the most kids who otherwise would have never picked up a book to start reading.
But what the HECK is the Kite Runner doing on that list? What's dangerous about that book?! Sure, it broke my heart, then pieced it together in a new beautiful way, and filled me with a wondrous happiness about life, about being Alive. How, how can that be bad? But maybe it's just that, maybe it's all that dangerous FEELING, that might rattle us awake and start question things...
And then it's exasperating, sordidly amusing and completely expected that books like Brave New World, the Handmaid's Tale, and Fahrenheit 451 is on a list of banned books - all three books about opression and fundamentalism. But yeah, Fahrenheit 451, a book about a society where all books are banned being itself banned... it should be funny if it wasn't so tragic.
Yeah, if there is a general theme about the various books on this list, it's probably that that they are all (maybe not the Gossip Girl books, but who knows? :)) books that makes people think, and feel, a bit more than your average book. From what I can tell, the 'argument' for banning books seems to be "protecting people". But from what? Thinking? Feeling? Let me as final words give you a favorite quote of mine, It's Mr Franz Kafka, who puts it so much better than I ever could:
'I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? Because it makes us happy, as you write? Good God, we would be happy even if we had no books, and such books that make us happy we could, if need be, write ourselves. We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be an axe for the frozen sea within us. That's what I believe.'
These two cool litte things have been posted on my flist the last couple of days:
BBC Autumn/Winter Trailer:
Makes me want to leave my life here to go watch TV in Great Britain! So much of this looks great, it's almost ridiculous.
Click to viewAlso:
The Tempest Movie trailer:
This looks equal parts awesome and deranged! Will be worth watching though, certainly.
On another note, appearently it was Banned Books Week last week, I had no idea. Anyway, it was an attempt to raise awareness of books being challenged and actually banned from libraries even today, and the threat against freedom of speech and choice that forms. It's not a matter that is discussed much here in Sweden, maybe because it's rarely an issue that libraries or institutions ban books here. But still, we actually have a government who is AGAINST public libraries, that makes me want to just sit down and cry. Is there really any worse kind of censorship than shutting a library down?
I digress. What I wanted to talk about was this list: Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books 2000/2009
Sure, I expected Harry Potter to wind up as nr 1. All that dangerous black magic twisting the heads of the young... But oh, the absurdity of it, since the Harry Potter series probably is the books that have made the most kids who otherwise would have never picked up a book to start reading.
But what the HECK is the Kite Runner doing on that list? What's dangerous about that book?! Sure, it broke my heart, then pieced it together in a new beautiful way, and filled me with a wondrous happiness about life, about being Alive. How, how can that be bad? But maybe it's just that, maybe it's all that dangerous FEELING, that might rattle us awake and start question things...
And then it's exasperating, sordidly amusing and completely expected that books like Brave New World, the Handmaid's Tale, and Fahrenheit 451 is on a list of banned books - all three books about opression and fundamentalism. But yeah, Fahrenheit 451, a book about a society where all books are banned being itself banned... it should be funny if it wasn't so tragic.
Yeah, if there is a general theme about the various books on this list, it's probably that that they are all (maybe not the Gossip Girl books, but who knows? :)) books that makes people think, and feel, a bit more than your average book. From what I can tell, the 'argument' for banning books seems to be "protecting people". But from what? Thinking? Feeling? Let me as final words give you a favorite quote of mine, It's Mr Franz Kafka, who puts it so much better than I ever could:
'I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? Because it makes us happy, as you write? Good God, we would be happy even if we had no books, and such books that make us happy we could, if need be, write ourselves. We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be an axe for the frozen sea within us. That's what I believe.'