Checking out banned books

Come on. You know you want to. How do you know it’s bad if you don’t try it yourself? Who knows, you many even like it.

If you are thinking about drugs, shame on you. I want you to pick up a book, for heaven’s sake. The trouble is it might be one of “those books.”

Some have been merely challenged. Some have been banned outright.

The American Library Association promotes Banned Books Week each year at this time. The 2008 commemoration runs Sept. 27 through Oct. 4, so there’s just a couple of more days left to go find that ragged paperback copy of “Catcher in the Rye” you picked up at a yard sale but never got around to reading.

J.D. Salinger’s famous coming of age story is one of the most challenged books written in the 20th century. The novel was the most challenged, censored or banned book between 1966 and 1975. “Catcher” has been called obscene and filled with “excess of vulgar language, sexual scenes, and things concerning moral issues.” According to one observer, in the first eight chapters alone, the main character takes the Lord’s name in vain 96 times.

Some books that are challenged have a less obvious drawing card of controversy. Like Lorraine Hansberry’s landmark drama “A Raisin in the Sun.” The award-winning play was the first major stage drama written by an African-American, female author. In the play (and numerous film adaptations) a Chicago family struggles to achieve their part of the American dream, in spite of the prejudice of the times.

But the racial relations or minority authorship of the play has not gotten “Raisin” in trouble. Nearly 30 years ago, Utah’s Ogden City School District restricted access to “A Raisin in the Sun” after pressure from an anti-pornography group.

“A Wrinkle in Time” by Madeleine L’Engle has drawn attention since it first appeared in 1962. A Newbury Medal winner as the outstanding American book of 1963, L’Engle’s novel for young adults combines science fiction, fantasy and a dose of philosophy. The Murray siblings’ quest for their father takes them to fantastic places and begins with the (now clichéd) famous opening line, “It was a dark and stormy night.”

In one of the obituaries for L’Engle, who died September, 2007, Julia Eccleshare offered this assessment: “She was attacked for being too religious by the most secular of critics while also being one of the authors most banned from Christian schools and libraries that regarded her brand of religion as deeply suspect.”

Public schools have also taken issue with “Wrinkle.” In 1990, complainants in an Alabama school district objected to “the book’s listing the name of Jesus Christ together with the names of great artists, philosophers, scientists and religious leaders when referring to those who defend Earth against evil.”

And speaking of Jesus, even the Bible has been challenged. Have you heard of William Tyndale?

Tyndale (1494-1536) was a 16th-century Protestant reformer. He was a gifted linguist who felt called to translate the Bible into the early modern English of his day. He said, “I will cause the boy that drives the plow in England to know more of the Scriptures than the Pope himself!”

Tyndale published his translation of the New Testament in 1525. After attempts to continue and eluding the authorities, he was captured and imprisoned in Belgium. He was tried and found guilty of heresy and condemned to death.

His sentence: Tyndale was tied to a stake, strangled and then burned to death. William Tyndale was martyred for making a New Testament in the vernacular.

In 1611, 75 years later, the authorized King James Version of the Bible was published. Fifty-four scholars, with the blessing of England’s King James, took the existing translations of the day and revised them into one version.

Most of the New Testament in the KJV is based on Tyndale’s work.
Jeff Walker is an independent columnist who lives in Culpeper. He appears Wednesdays in the Star-Exponent. E-mail