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By
Jim Trelease
© 2001,
2007 Jim Trelease / updated:
7/23/08
The
Camel's Nose in the Book
 
 he censor's
initial concern with saving souls too often becomes the
"camel's nose in the tent"—or book. Once
its nose is in there, it's just a matter of time before
it tries to take over your tent. Here are two such cases,
one involving an adult memoir and the other a children's
novel.
Robert Giroux (New
York Times Book Review, October 11, 1998, p. 35)
recalls that when the young Trappist monk Thomas
Merton finished his manuscript of The
Seven Storey Mountain, it was passed through religious
channels for approval. Finally it reached a censor
who thought its "colloquial prose style" unbefitting
a monk and ruled it should be put aside until its author "learned
to write decent English."
Only Merton's personal appeal to the
Abbot General in France won a stay of execution. When
the book became a bestseller in 1949, The New York
Times refused to include it on its list because
of the book's religious nature. Today its hardcover and
paperback copies rank in the millions, ranking it one
of the most acclaimed religious books published in the
20th century, despite one disgruntled, if not obsessive-compulsive,
monk-censor.
Judy Blume, Wagner and T. S. Eliot
The other case involves a national
religious organization that had promoted my work and
book for a decade. Then one day they noticed that the
Treasury at the back of The Read-Aloud Handbook included
a recommendation for Judy Blume's Tales
of a Fourth-Grade Nothing and its sequels. Soon
came a phone call from their headquarters, noting that
a national rebroadcast of my interview was due to be
scheduled but one thing was holding it up: the Judy Blume
recommended listing.
"What do you find objectionable
about Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing?" I
asked, knowing fully well where their angst lay.
"Nothing," the
man replied, "it's Judy Blume's other books
that we find offensive," meaning her more sexually
oriented books for young adults.
I knew
that if I caved in, it would be just a matter of
time before they were back . . .
"I'm aware of
those, but this book I recommend is for very young children.
I don't even mention her other books, which would be
inappropriate for reading aloud anyway," I said.
"Yes, but if
they get started with her books as youngsters, they'll
start to read the others when they get older," he
explained.
"I certainly
understand your concerns, but Judy Blume has been around
for 30 years. Has your organization ever done any research
connecting the reading of her young adult books in a
given community with the teenage pregnancy rate in that
community? If there's a connection between reading those
books and subsequent lascivious behavior, it would show
up in 30 years. Any research?" Of course, the answer
was no.
"As far as banning
all her work because one objects to some," I continued, "would
that also apply to Wagner or T. S. Eliot—one being
a racist and the other an anti-Semite? Can't we separate
Wagner's music and Eliot's poetry from their politics?"
 n the end, the suggestion
was made by my caller that unless I removed any and all
Judy Blume books from my list, there would be no rebroadcast
of the interview. The opportunity to overrule the censor
(to say nothing of pushing the camel's nose out of my
book/tent) was more important to me than selling some
books, so Blume stayed on my list. (to my astonishment,
the organization was back a few years later, oblivious
to the earlier threats, wishing to rebroadcast the interview.
I reminded them of the previous confrontation and refused
to renew the relationship.)
I knew that if I
had caved in, it would be just a matter of time before
they were back—this time to remove all of Shel
Silverstein's books because he once worked for Playboy;
then the novel Mandy by Julie Andrews
Edwards would have to go because the author/actress
once bared her chest in an R-rated movie; and then Johnny
on the Spot by Edward Sorel would
have to go because of the illustrator's fiercely liberal
editorial cartoons in the "leftist" media.
The nose in the tent would be just the beginning.
Now, you may ask,
what's the name of the organization? If I named them,
I'd be guilty of the same errors they are. Just because
they did one stupid thing and exceeded their boundaries,
doesn't mean everything the organization does
is wrong. In fact, they do much good. They, like the
monk-censor, just get a little carried away with their
power and influence. By naming them, it would be too
easy to paint their entire organization with a broad
brush and that I refuse to do. Nonetheless, they serve
as a potent reminder of the need to remain on guard against
those whose fierce sense of self righteousness would
obliterate the personal freedoms of others.
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