My own experience with (near) book banning

Spring semester, 1982. My senior year. For English class, we read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Somehow, word of this subversive event escaped our school, and a conservative activist—from another state, no less—decided to make us his primary example of youth being led into decadence.

Yes, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Somehow, apparently because of the swearing and harsh language, Solzhenitsyn’s novel of oppression and threadbare survival in the Soviet Gulag warranted banning from schools.

Our teacher smartly took a proactive approach to the problem, and invited the would-be banner (his name escapes me) to visit our classroom for a discussion of the book. He joined us, and brought along a reporter from his local paper. Over the course of a genial but illuminating debate on the merits of the book, he admitted—yes, you guessed it—that he’d never actually read it.

His crusade fell apart after that meeting, and we finished the semester—and the book. And to this day it remains on my list of all-time favorites.

This week is the American Library Association’s celebration of Banned Books Week, September 25 – October 2, 2010.

Have any stories of book-banning or censorship that you’d care to share?

A six-sentence version of this story is posted at, oddly enough, Six Sentences.

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§ 3 Responses to My own experience with (near) book banning"

• Maine Character says:

  September 30, 2010 at 9:21 pm

  That’s a great story. I bet the guy was swearing all the way home.

  Reply
• adam says:

  October 5, 2010 at 7:18 pm

  I can only hope so.

  Reply
• Benoit Lelievre says:

  October 11, 2010 at 2:27 pm

  It’s a smart move from your teacher. I have hard time to believe books are getting banned for such shallow criterias. Wasn’t it Beloved who was banned for racism? I mean, c’mon, the of the novel is to denounce racism. It baffles me that people still sweep things under the rug like this.

  Reply