Summary: The Study in Scarlet gave us, then unlikeable, Sherlock Holmes. It is not a great mystery, but is a significant one. Recently it got banned, want to guess why?
Can you guess why A Study in Scarlet was banned?
BLOT: (03 Sep 2011 - 12:16:38 PM)
Can you guess why A Study in Scarlet was banned?
This will have the flavor, though I would not say an especially piquant one, of a spoiler, so if you are really adverse to them in the slightest degree, and a nearly 125 year old book is not exempt from that stance, then you might want to look away. And I know the article to which I am about to link is now in its third week of age, which makes it past old and approaching ancient in Internet terms, but it is about a library matter, and as everyone* knows, libraries are practically the opposite of the Internet. A three week old article is possibly so new as to be precognitive.
The article is about
If the definite+plural of a certain Utah-centric religious group caught you off guard, then you have probably not read the novel, maybe not even seen a proper screenplay of it [Project Gutenberg has got your back, in many formats]. I assure you, when I read it, I said, with punctuation approximating the quality of the thoughts since this was not aloud: "MORMONS!?"
Which is to say, the complaint is not invalid, as much as it does contain them. Whether we should consider the potential of banning a book over their negative description is another debate, but this is sixth grade so I will not hand wave or rant much. I have to say, just once, as an irascible ass, "They came first for my negative depiction of black people, and I didn't speak up since I was not a negative depiction of black people. Then they came for my negative depiction of Mormons, and...yadda yadda." Next thing you know, they'll tell us to stop describing women in a negative way, and then how will any kid read any book written by an American male writer prior to 1970?**
* By "everyone", I mean everyone who knows nothing about libraries.
** Ok, fine, it wasn't that bad. There were entirely believable women who did great things like [Motherhood] and [Sexual object] and [Sexual object who takes payment to be one] and [Died trying to give birth after being a sexual object so they kind of got motherhood, too]. And the answer, by the way, was, "They will just have to read Henry James! Whose up for a rousing read-through of
OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: September 2011
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Written by Doug Bolden
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