Growing up,
there was no censorship in our house but auto-censorship—in other words, what
you kept to yourself or hid under your bed. Granted, there wasn’t much trouble
to get into unless Twain and Bronte, Poe and Verne are on your no-no list. My
great grandmother had belonged to a book club and enormous, leather-bound,
mostly red volumes sat heavily behind glass in our living room. Most of them
had never been read; the pleasure of cutting the pages of Jane Eyre as I read was perfectly romantic. Bronte and Verne were
on the fifth and sixth grade menu, by seventh grade I’d headed off in the
direction of my mother’s thick, historical fiction favorites: Desiree by Annemarie
Selinko, The Winds of War by Herman
Wouk, and Gone With the Wind by Margaret
Mitchell. I had an hour-long bus ride to school and I read these leaning into a
steamy window.
It
was on the bus that I first encountered censorship. No, the bus driver didn’t
care what I read, but the Ann did. She was a senior and eldest daughter of a
prominent local English teacher. Ann’s father had strict ideas about good and
proper English for his family, and these romances were not among the choices.
In fact, they were banned, prohibited.
But
there I was, day after day – two whole hours every day -- knees up against the
back of the seat in front of me, weeping for Ashley or accepting violets from
Bonaparte. One day she asked if she could borrow the book when I finished. Of
course. But, she said, I would have to take it home with me in the afternoon,
and return it to her in the morning.
This
we did for a whole year. She would mark her page and slip the book into a
plastic bag; I’d put it away with my homework. Now, both of us were slouched
against the windows reading.
But,
what I want to talk about is the difference between her experience and mine. The
difference being that my mother had also read these books and we could talk
about them. We did talk about them. Sure, Ann and I perhaps chatted about the
stories together, but that could hardly compare with the insights and direction
of a parent. Ann’s father, by censoring his daughter, did not stop her from
seeking out and finding the literature she desired, but he did quash the
opportunity to teach. While censorship may always be a futile exercise, conversation
can never be called a waste.