I keep a list of almost everything I read each year. I do this partly because I like to make lists and it's nice to go back and remember what I read, and I do it partly because my job includes Readers Advisory service, which means recommending books to patrons.
Before I was a librarian, I never really thought about "objectionable content" in books. Even after I started working in libraries, I was working in a jail library, and inmates NEVER fussed at me for giving them books that they couldn't read aloud to groups of preschoolers and nuns.* (In fact, inmates gave me a lot less grief in most areas of my job than the general public does now.) I tend to forget anything objectionable in the books I read. I come by this honestly. When I was about 10-years-old, my mom gave me a Dean Koontz book to read. She told me it was great. I read it all. It was far too old for me. I was scandalized. (I was also scandalized when, at about that same age, I saw my first performance of Romeo and Juliet and I understood all the double entendres and told my mom, shocked, "This is PG-13!") When I reminded my mom of some scenes in the book, she said, "Hmmm. I don't remember that. But didn't you love the dog? I just loved that dog!"
So, now that I work in a public library, I scribble little notes next to the titles of books I read. Notes like language, edgy, never recommend to anyone, and try to convince everyone in the world to read. Because now I know that when a patron asks for a "good" book that doesn't necessarily mean an interesting, well-written book. Depending on the patron, it might mean a terribly-written, didactic, and completely unoriginal book that can be mangled for use as a bad analogy in a Sunday School class at a later date. These patrons generally come to the reference desk and gush about a certain local author who I cannot stand and then ask me if I've read said author and if I don't find her books so fantastic. Librarians have a set response for these women. "Oh, no, I never have, but she's very popular with a lot of our patrons." Tactful, see?
And I never go on to give these patrons that little speech that's raging in the back of my brain that even if you are after uplifting books, there is a world of wonderful literature full of human experience that sheds light on all of the major issues in life--love, betrayal, redemption, fear, faith, family, so many things!--that are not set in a religious community and are not written exclusively by authors from one faith (or of any faith at all). There's a reason that there's a Nobel Prize for literature. Literature is so powerful, but readers will never find the books with the most influence if they never leave the LDS fiction list or even the bestseller list.**
So, I'll just hop down from my soapbox now and you and the rest of the choir can go home, and tomorrow I'll give you my list of favorite books I read this year.
*Just so we're clear, I don't object to readers who want clean books to read. I'm just objecting to a certain kind of poorly-written literature.
**And I recognize the hypocrisy of this post, considering how much time I spend with educators and administrators advocating certain ya books because I can get boys in juvenile detention centers to read those books and those books often speak to the incarcerated boy experience. The same argument could be turned around and used for LDS fiction readers, but I refuse to do it, because Monster by Walter Dean Myers is actually well-written.
6 comments:
"Depending on the patron, it might mean a terribly-written, didactic, and completely unoriginal book that can be mangled for use as a bad analogy in a Sunday School class at a later date."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH.
And you have so aptly summarized the direction our enrichment book review group, my neighborhood book group, and my other book group have taken. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Will you talk about my books with me? Because last time I recommended one our RS counselor told me that author was going to hell for trying to destroy the church.
Makes me wonder what those LDS fiction loving people think of Orson Scott Card. Do you think The Lost Boys or Ender's Game could qualify as LDS Fiction?
I was going to say something about how I feel the exact same way about the artsy film movies I try to get everyone to watch vs. the boring hum-drum mainstream fare... but it just seemed so shallow by comparison.
MB, I've taken control of the new ward book group. Join me in my reign of terror. With me you will become more powerful than you could ever imagine.
Stephanie--I'm sure they don't. I don't think of most well-written literature by LDS authors to be LDS Fiction, because the best LDS authors (and there are lots!) don't write books aimed at a small segment of Mormons in the Rocky Mountain West. They write books like Mississippi, 1955 and Goose Girl and Eclipse, that get, deservedly, national attention. They just write good books that anyone might want to read. The only book by an LDS author about Mormon characters (and, admittedly, I haven't read many) that I've enjoyed is Kimberley Heuston's The Shakeress.
Alyssa--I think you could certainly draw valid and worthwhile parallels between this rant and film. Or any art, really. And I have the same beef with LDS filmmakers. Why not just make a good film that may or may not have LDS characters?
Rebekah--I trust you completely. Remind me to tell you about a disconcerting conversation I had with someone in our ward about Twilight, though. I still fear such a book club.
Amen. I am so glad that I am always able to find friends in that wacky Mormon culture that are actually real people. I am not going to say that LDS literature doesn't have its place because it does but I also feel that people really do shelter themselves by being narrow. And really, Mormons are not the only group of people who do this to themselves either. Thanks for being you and helping the world understand that they must get out there.
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