I've never read the book and haven't really had any inclination to do so, but in December 1986 when I was editor of the Lamar Democrat, the book, already on the shelves at that time for 35 years, became the center of a controversy that split the Lamar community.
The book was available in the Lamar High School library at that time. I don't know how long it had been there. That's a question that should have been asked, but for some reason I never thought of asking it.
I never was able to quite found out how the situation blew up, but apparently it happened after a parent glanced through the book after a student checked it out and couldn't believe the language being used by the novel's main character Holden Caulfield.
Since my journalism philosophy has always been "nothing succeeds like excess," page one of the next Democrat was completely devoted to Catcher in the Rye.
The controversy came at an opportune time for the newspaper, just a few weeks after we were able to put spot color on our pages for the first time, so we had an illustration of the Catcher in the Rye book, similar to the picture that accompanies this post, on the top left hand corner of page one, done in bright red.
Five articles were placed on page one, two advocating for the removal of the book, two defending it and my article describing the discussion on the subject that took place at the Lamar R-1 Board of Education meeting.
Following that discussion, the board reached a compromise. The book remained in the library. Students could check it out, but they had to ask for it. It was not on the shelf.
It wasn't much of a compromise for those who were arguing against censorship and I always thought it was kind of stamping a scarlet letter (another classic I haven't read) on anyone who had to ask the librarian if they could check out that book.
A couple of students told me later that the first person to ask the librarian for The Catcher in the Rye was the son of a board member who advocated forcefully for the book's removal.
He survived the experience and from all evidence his mind wasn't warped.
1 comment:
This occurred two years after the movie “Footloose” was released, showing the books being burned. It seemed to recycle the theory that children and teens had to be guarded against smut. That they would have too many questions for their age, that parents didn’t feel comfortable answering. It is one thing to allow children to have a childhood but it’s another thing to try and keep them dumb. Children will always have questions about where babies come from and etc. Giving them the freedom to ask these questions with appropriate responses, without the clutching of pearls, makes communication open without fear. All of us children and teens who read these and many other books at an early ages do not have warped minds. It’s the people who wish to control others that have a warped view and understanding.
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