Thursday, September 29, 2011

Books that should be banned

Earlier this week, I wrote that I didn't think any books should be banned. So why now am I writing a post on books that should be banned? 

Because there are some books that are so stupid and so horribly dumb that they should be burned, let alone banned. 

The two books I hate with the fire of a thousand suns (that's some Shakespeare for you right there) are Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett.


I first had to read Wuthering Heights in I think the 10th grade. The first thing that makes me mad. Wuthering is not a word. As I type this, blogger is highlighting Wuthering because of that fact. Unless you are Shakespeare, you can't go making up your own words. It's highly presumptuous. Alathea, over at Bridge to Books, makes the point that Wuthering Heights probably never would have gotten published, had Emily's sister Charlotte not had such great success with Jane Eyre. And before you think I just have a distaste for Victorian literature, as my college professor did, Jane Eyre is in my top five favorite books of all time. Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre is my number one literary crush. So, don't think I hate all Victorian literature. Just Wuthering Heights. There is nothing romantic about Wuthering Heights. The main characters are an incestuous group of hicks stuck high up in the moors of England.  Heathcliff is a raving madman who is both sadistic and abusive. Kind of ironic that it was part of Twilight because Edward is also sadistic and abusive. 


Waiting for Godot is supposed to be the great existentialist work of art. It's just not. It's stupid. The two main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, are standing beneath a tree by the side of a road, waiting for Godot. They daydream and a host of characters stray down the road to them. It's all supposed to be very deep and meaningful and be a portrayal of man's attempt to find meaning in meaningless things and BLAH BLAH BLAH. I thought maybe since it was a play, I had to see it in order to appreciate it, rather than just read it. So I went and saw it performed up in Vermont. It was even worse in person. Vladimir and Estragon spend two hours just saying over and over again "we can't leave, we're waiting for Godot" "is Godot here yet?" "He's not very reliable." Those are paraphrases but it pretty accurate descriptions. Before you go saying that I just don't understand the beauty of the existentialist viewpoint of this horse-patootie, you're wrong. I get it. It is just stupid. End of rant.

So that is why I believe these books should be banned. Burned even. Every copy should be burned.

Which books do you think are such disgusting drivel that every copy should be destroyed? 

Ps. I'm just kidding. I don't think these books should be banned, because there are people who genuinely love them. It's not my right to say which books people should and should not read. Besides, if I have to suffer by reading them, then so should you.
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2 comments:

  1. Haha! Thanks for the dose of vitriol to perk up my day :D I think there are books for all kinds of people, and that variety exists so that we can find something that pleases us. Another thing I'd rather not have read in high school was Romeo & Juliet--yes, William Shakespeare's! I'd rather have read Julius Caesar and Henry V ten times over than have to read through Romeo & Juliet once, picking apart every nuance. Blergh!

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  2. I agree. Romeo and Juliet is highly over-rated and definitely not one of Shakespeare's best works. Henvry V is my favorite. I can't even remember which one we read in HS, but I'm assuming it was Romeo and Juliet.

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