Would you knowingly write a potentially ‘banned’ book?

I have been thinking more about the writing process, since NaNoWriMo is coming up in November and I probably will participate in that. I have been reading more, too, and you will see the updating of ‘my “have read” book list’ page.

In wondering about banned books and those that are challenged – the hope of the challenger being that the book will be banned – I posted a list that I found of some of those classics:

Banned and Challenged Classics:

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Ulysses by James Joyce
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
1984 by George Orwell
Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Native Son by Richard Wright
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Rabbit, Run by John Updike

I would think that books with that reputation would get an increase in sales, thanks to the curious. What do you think? Have you read any of those books, and if so do you understand why the book is on this list? Do you agree?

Let’s take this a little further. Have you ever written a book that has been challenged when it was not your intention for it to receive that kind of publicity? Or, do you have a subject burning in your soul that you want to write about, but you know it could be challenged or even banned? Would you write it anyway?

I hope to hear from many of you on this topic.

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

2 responses to “Would you knowingly write a potentially ‘banned’ book?”

Laura Best | August 23, 2010 at 7:51 PM | Reply

I didn’t know I’d see the Great Gatsby on that list. I seem to recall reading that book in high school. To Kill A Mockingbird was read to us in sixth grade by our English teacher. I’ve also read Beloved and The Colour Purple. I don’t let this type of thing influence what I read. I understand completely why books are banned. It is what happens when people react out of fear to something that feel strange to them and something they do not agree with. Do I agree? I’m not in favour of anything done out of fear.

Would I write something that I knew would be banned? If it was, as you say, burning in my soul, I would have no choice but to write it.

Good questions, Lynn.

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- Lynn | August 23, 2010 at 9:07 PM | Reply
  
  What good points you make, Laura. I understand the feelings and indignation when reading something that goes against what a person is comfortable with. I am still reading Gone With The Wind, and its racial labels in the characters’ natural conversations make me wince, but I understand better now that an author writes the way it works best for the story and time.
  
  Thank you for lending your great comments to this post. 🙂
  
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