WORK

It was a pleasure to burn.

It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.

—Ray Bradbury
—from Fahrenheit 451

WORD(S)

biblioclasm. noun. The destruction or burning of books or the Bible. See also: libricide.

“Modern biblioclasm takes on a painfully real existential dimension in the lives of both liberal and conservative Christians.” (Telford Work)

“Surely a Kindle is biblioclasm by another name, a simultaneous sexing up and dumbing down of the quiet, introspective pastime of picking up a book and read it?” (Judith Woods)

“The First Emperor, we are told, approved the measure. This was the notorious ‘Qin biblioclasm’…” (Kenneth Hammond)

“May these bishops expiate their crimes in the purgatory of biblioclasts!” (Athenæum)

WEB

1. We’re most of the way through Banned Book Week. You might be surprised by the map of where books have been banned in the US…Not the geographic distribution I expected.

2. Find some weekend reading from the Top 10 lists of most banned books. Or the list of frequently banned or challenged classics. Or banned or challenged comics. Or 12 banned books every woman should read. Or go global with some books banned by governments or suppressed or censored by legal authorities.

3. The New Republic has reprinted some excellent pieces from its archive on being the “East Coast Censor in 1930”, the many bannings of (the genius) Lolita, and D. H. Lawrence’s different endings—all banned—for Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

4. The ►Banned Book Weeks YouTube channel has brief interviews and readings by Jeff Bridges, Sherman Alexie and manymore. Edutopia has produced a ►Five-Minute Film Festival related to banned books.

5. Today in 1888, T.S. Eliot is born. I don’t care what anyone says, his poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is in my top ten all time. Listen to some readings of Prufrock by Eliot himself, by Anthony Hopkins and by Tom O’Bedlam.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader B. wrongly questions his erudition given some responses reproduced here, then goes on to prove me right, saying: “This newsletter is a regular dose of delight in my day. Thanks for doing it.” — Thank you! I don’t post all kudos here, but Reader B. is important to me, being one of those “readers in my head” I’m always thinking about when I compose these newsletters.

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