I got some books today that are too hot for our Christian college library.
Last semester, I had some students asking me about Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club. On request, I lent Fight Club to one of them. Moreover, all the non-Christians I knew were reading Fight Club. (Admittedly, most all the non-Christians I know are professional or amateur cage fighters.) Since Fight Club has been made into a major movie with Brad Pitt, and since three other Palahniuk novels are being made into movies, I thought it would be good for our library to add them to the shelves.
Today I get a call from one of the librarians that read a little in a couple of the books and was concerned that there would be a controversy. Well, yes. I completely admit that there is a lot in Palahniuk's books that is disgusting, even obscene. For instance, a brief sample from Fight Club:
". . . his head pinched between the concrete floor and the knee of a two-hundred-pound stock boy who kept slamming a fist into the bridge of [his] nose again and again in flat hard packing sounds you could hear over all the yelling until [he] caught enough breath and sprayed blood to say, stop."
And the books get worse from there.
The librarians felt that putting these books on the shelves would cause needless controversy. Now, this same library has copies of the Kama Sutra (ancient Hindu sex manual) on the shelves, and covers itself by putting a small sticker on the cover saying, "The views expressed in this book are not necessarily those of this college." I thought that would suffice for the Palahniuk books. While librarians may be organized, rational, and fair, though, the general reading public is not -- and the librarians have to worry about what (for lack of a better term) could be called our "constituency" -- those who are enrolled here, send their children here, and send us donations -- and the constituency is not necessarily consistent in their literary evaluations.
The end result (which they suggested) was that they give me the books to "keep in my office," so that I could give warnings about the books before I lent them out, and make sure the contents of the book are actively contextualized in a Christian worldview. On their end, they would not enter the books into the school's computer system, so they won't come up on an online card catalog search.
I was satisfied. Basically, I just got five books for free. I understand the position the librarians are in, and I'm a little sorry they spent some of their (very limited) budget on books they feel they can't put on the shelves. I'm also sorry we can't simply all act in a mature manner and not read books we are not emotionally or spiritually capable of handling. (There are plenty of books that fall into this category for me. One of them is the Kama Sutra.) On the other hand, this school is small enough that if there are any Chuck Palahniuk fans on campus, I'm sure they'll eventually find their way to me.
Last semester, I had some students asking me about Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club. On request, I lent Fight Club to one of them. Moreover, all the non-Christians I knew were reading Fight Club. (Admittedly, most all the non-Christians I know are professional or amateur cage fighters.) Since Fight Club has been made into a major movie with Brad Pitt, and since three other Palahniuk novels are being made into movies, I thought it would be good for our library to add them to the shelves.
Today I get a call from one of the librarians that read a little in a couple of the books and was concerned that there would be a controversy. Well, yes. I completely admit that there is a lot in Palahniuk's books that is disgusting, even obscene. For instance, a brief sample from Fight Club:
". . . his head pinched between the concrete floor and the knee of a two-hundred-pound stock boy who kept slamming a fist into the bridge of [his] nose again and again in flat hard packing sounds you could hear over all the yelling until [he] caught enough breath and sprayed blood to say, stop."
And the books get worse from there.
The librarians felt that putting these books on the shelves would cause needless controversy. Now, this same library has copies of the Kama Sutra (ancient Hindu sex manual) on the shelves, and covers itself by putting a small sticker on the cover saying, "The views expressed in this book are not necessarily those of this college." I thought that would suffice for the Palahniuk books. While librarians may be organized, rational, and fair, though, the general reading public is not -- and the librarians have to worry about what (for lack of a better term) could be called our "constituency" -- those who are enrolled here, send their children here, and send us donations -- and the constituency is not necessarily consistent in their literary evaluations.
The end result (which they suggested) was that they give me the books to "keep in my office," so that I could give warnings about the books before I lent them out, and make sure the contents of the book are actively contextualized in a Christian worldview. On their end, they would not enter the books into the school's computer system, so they won't come up on an online card catalog search.
I was satisfied. Basically, I just got five books for free. I understand the position the librarians are in, and I'm a little sorry they spent some of their (very limited) budget on books they feel they can't put on the shelves. I'm also sorry we can't simply all act in a mature manner and not read books we are not emotionally or spiritually capable of handling. (There are plenty of books that fall into this category for me. One of them is the Kama Sutra.) On the other hand, this school is small enough that if there are any Chuck Palahniuk fans on campus, I'm sure they'll eventually find their way to me.
posted by Mark at 9/28/2005 04:17:00 PM
1 Comments:
It sounds like a decent solution to me.
You've raised several interesting points.
People's perceptions of books are... interesting. I think in Biloxi Blues there's a statement somewhere about people giving so much power to the written word. In many ways it has more strength than the spoken word.
Then there's the issue of self-protection. Most people have little problem realizing that a wrestling match might involve pain, and find it relatively simple to stay out of one. Few people care whether or not someone else wrestles. For some reason it's more difficult to say, "That book might cause me pain; I don't want to read it."
It may be linked to open-mindedness: it's supposed to be a good thing. When someone decides not to read a book out of self-protection, it's often misinterpreted as being closed-minded. "It's just a book! What are you afraid of--ideas?" Well, yes! There are some ideas that cause me pain and give nothing beneficial in return. As I have no use for pointless pain--physical, emotional or otherwise--I try to keep away from pain-promoting activities, including wrestling and certain books and movies and even certain conversations. On occasion, the benefits (for myself or others) may outweigh the pain-potential, then I reassess and perhaps choose differently.
Then there's the question of protecting others. It's part of our responsibility as fellow humans to care about our brothers and sisters. But sometimes it's hard to know in which ways others need protecting. There needs to be a balance between self-protection, open-mindedness, and looking out for others.
I may not understand why my brother accepts physical pain in exchange for fighting and wrestling. I make it my business to be certain that he knows how to choose self-protection, then I allow him make the choice. If he seems to be making consistently unwise choices, then I give voice to my concern.
For many students, that is the point of college: to learn how to make choices for yourself; to find the balance between self-protection, open-mindedness, and protecting others. To learn how to guage the potential positives as well as the potential pain.
I don't know why a sticker serves as sufficient instruction in some cases, and other cases merit a preliminary discussion with a professor. But at least the effort is being made to meet the needs.
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