May 9, 2018 • 35 mins
Where's Waldo isn't allowed in prisons, Winnie the Pooh can't set foot in China, and Brown Bear, Brown Bear is forbidden from schools in... Texas?! From Ulysses to sinful Bibles, Will and Mango dive into the story of banned books to tell you all about the titles they don't want you to read.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what mango with I will So I can't remember
if we've talked about this on the show before, but
but you know what the Wicked Bible is, right, definitely,
it's the Bible with that printing error that says, uh,
thou shalt commit adultery instead of thou shalt not commit auldulter. Yeah,
that one word. There's a slight difference in the meaning there.
But I've always wanted to see one of these, and
(00:20):
there are actually only a few left in the world
right now, and it it took about a year for
people to realize the error. But when King Charles the
first caught on, he was livid. He decided to find
the printers something like three hundred pounds. He had their
printing licenses revoked and basically shame them out of their positions.
And of course the book was immediately banned. There was
(00:42):
this massive bonfire to collect and burn every copy of
these so called Wicked Bibles, but somehow, I think ten
or eleven copies managed to get through, and there of
course insanely valuable now. And actually, there's one other thing
I didn't realize about the book, that the adultery mistake
wasn't the only air in the book. What else was
wrong with it? According to the Washington Post and Deuteronomy five,
(01:05):
it's supposed to say, behold, the Lord hath showed us
his glory and his greatness, but instead it says, behold,
our Lord has showed us his glory and his great arts.
I mean, that does seem problematic and just like a
little bit different than what it actually says, but it
points to a bigger theory. So Biblical scholars used to
(01:27):
think the Wicked Bible got its name because of one
unfortunate printing air, But with this second mistake, it actually
brings up the idea of sabotage. And there's all these
great conspiracy theories about who could have caused it and
who wanted to get these royal printers in trouble, and
it it makes the Wicked story even more fun. So
today's episode is about all the stories of banned books,
(01:49):
you know, from political exposes to Ulysses two, Where's Waldo
and how it got banned from prisons? So let's dive
in m hei their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius.
(02:21):
I'm Will Pearson and is always I'm joined by my
good friend Man guesh Ticketer and sitting on the other
side of that soundproof glass proudly displaying his first edition
Captain Underpant's book. That's our Palin producer, Tristan McNeil. So,
I mean, I know, it's a cute gag from Tristan
showing off how many Captain Underpan's books he has. But
did you realize that in two thousand twelve, Captain Underpant's
(02:43):
was actually the number one band book in America? No? Really, yeah,
apparently the a l A or the American Library Association
releases this annual list of the titles that were most
challenged or banned at libraries and schools and um that year.
Captain Underpan's actually beat out Fifty Shades of Gray for
the time, as well as books like Thirteen Reasons Why,
which you know some say glorified suicide. It also beat
(03:05):
out classics like Brave New World and To Kill a Mockingbird.
That said, I I do have to say the book
does come with a warning on it that warns readers
and parents of readers from the outset. It's a sturgeon
General's warning, and he reads some material in this book
might be considered offensive by those who don't wear underwear.
(03:26):
That's a helpful warning. I mean, you can see how
the word underpants might set off some alarm bells for parents,
and it seems like it's going to be this rude
book instead of actually a very sweet one. But you know,
on the other hand, the word underpants is exactly why
kids get excited to read the book. I mean, the
only movie my parents banned me from watching was Ferris
Bueller's Day Off, which I know, you know, but I
(03:47):
still think it's weird. And obviously it's because my dad
went to college at like thirteen or something and then
failed out because he was working on this underground newspaper
and playing in the Rolling Stones cover band and entering
Jitterbug contest apparently, but ovisually he was doing everything except
going to school. But my mom didn't want me to
get any ideas from the movie. So did you ever
(04:09):
actually get to see Ferris Bueller's Day Off? Yeah? I
saw it like the weekend after it came out on
VHS at my uncle's house. You know, it immediately became
my favorite movie. Yeah, and it is a great movie.
So I'm glad you finally got to see it, and
I like that. We've already talked a little bit about
Captain Underpant's one of my kids favorites, of course when
they first discover it. But let me read you a
few other children's books that have been banned that that
(04:31):
actually kind of surprised me. And I'm going to kick
it off with Winnie the Pooh, which oddly has been
banned in a lot of countries. So is this because
the piglet, Because I know Miss Peggy was banned in
Saudi Arabia for I guess for just being a pig um.
But actually, you know, before I let you go, I've
got this tangent about pigs. Did you see that Pepper
Pig was banned in China? Which is just so sad?
(04:53):
But I did see this. This was just last week, right,
I didn't actually see why it was banned. So friendly.
The cartoon character has been, as those say, with like
laziness and slackers and also gangsters for some reason, like
people who are getting Pepper Pig tattoos, which makes no sense.
But the countries instead asking its citizen institune into the
government created alternative. It's called Little Pig Dodo. But I
(05:17):
got you off, so tell me a little bit more
about Winnie the Pooh. Well, you were right with one
of the guesses, and that that's that Some Muslim nations
have banned the book because of Piglet. But you know,
according to the book's enthusiast site, Bookster, it has this
long history of being banned. And when Winnie the Pooh
first came out, some American and Polish leaders were outraged
because talking animals can, I guess, be seen as an
(05:40):
insult to God. But the more interesting thing, and something
I hadn't thought about, was that the books are often
banned in communist countries, and that's for a different reason.
It's because the animals are seen as representing the seven
deadly sins. So if you think about it, poo is
a glutton, owl is too proud. I guess you've got
Piglet who's in he is and or is of course slothful.
(06:02):
Rabbit gets a little too angry or wrathful, and who
does that leave? I guess that leads us with Tiger,
who is I don't know, bouncy is that one of
the seven deadly sent But the books are read as
trying to inspire religion, which is of course problematic in
communist nations. So I mean that makes sense. But what
are some of the other surprises you found? All right, well,
(06:24):
let's see the other ones that have on the list.
Are you got Ferdinand the Bull that was banned for
being too pacifists and Gandhi and Franklin Roosevelt loved it,
and of course Hitler called it degenerate democratic propaganda. I mean,
I feel like those quotes should be on the book jacket, right, like,
if it's not part of Hitler's Children's book club, that
feels like it's a good thing. But what else that
(06:46):
idea of Hitler's children's book club? All right? Well, the
one that surprised me the most. And you'll remember this
from reading it to your kids as as like babies,
even as brown Bear, brown Bear, You remember this book, right, yeah, definitely.
Well that this was a rare case where a book
was banned by accident. Yeah, I mean, I was about
to say, it's hard to imagine it being banned for
introducing colors and animals to kids. Well, the story is
(07:09):
that someone on the state Board of Education in Texas
was doing their research and googled the author's name. His
name is Bill Martin and confused him with a different
Bill Martin who had written a book called Ethical Marxism.
So that's why there's not quite the juicy story behind it.
I was hoping they had been offended for some ridiculous reason,
but they're just so many interesting ones on this list. Also,
(07:31):
one of our favorite authors or kids authors, Shel Silverstein,
his book A Light in the Attic, was banned in Wisconsin.
So this is confusing to me because I mean, it
would make sense to me if The Giving Tree was banned,
because you know, the hero of that book is so selfish,
but a lightened attics just so good. Oh, no kidding it.
And I you'll remember this poem when you hear it.
(07:52):
But this is the offending poem, and and you can
decide for yourself. It's called how not to have to
dry the dishes. It goes like us, if you have
to dry the dishes, such an awful, boring chore. If
you have to dry the dishes intead of going to
the store. If you have to dry the dishes and
you drop one on the floor, maybe they won't let
you dry the dishes anymore. So basically, you know, parents
(08:14):
were worried about kids breaking their china, I guess, or
having kids manipulate their way out of chores or something.
It's just so weird that this was banned for that.
I mean, it's ridiculous, right, Like, don't we want mischievous kids,
like not too mischievous, but you want a little Zanian
nous and creativity and the kind of kid who laughs
at poems like that. Also, I do think if you're
(08:34):
gonna take things so literally, shouldn't we be stopping kids
from fables about like mice taking thorns out of lions
pause because you really shouldn't be touching lions pause, Or
from like watching things like Honey, I shrunk the kids
because shrinking your kids isn't great parenting. You're right, it's
really not a good idea if you're a parent. I'm
glad that we've learned that now that we're both parents.
(08:55):
But it feels like, you know, when you look at
the breakdown of the types of books that have been banned,
especially kids books that have been banned, you can break
them down in a couple of ways. Some of the
bands are about the type of kid that you want
to raise. Obviously, a good communist who's banning Winnie the
Pooh is trying to protect future generations from what they
see as the shackles of religion, I guess. And it's
(09:16):
the same with Shell Silverstein or Captain Underpants. And you know,
whether right or wrong, their parents who want to raise
a certain kind of good kid who's never exposed to
any rude ideas. But then there's another type of book
that gets banned, and that's a little bit more about
these difficult conversations. So how do you mean, Well, there
was this interesting article in the Atlantic and it was
(09:37):
written by Paul Ringel, who's a history professor, and this
from back in two thousand and sixteen. But he was
talking about about fifty two percent of books that were
banned or challenged in the ten years prior to two
thousand and sixteen were what you'd label as diverse content.
Now these are books like The Hate You Give or Wonder,
which you know about race, or religion, or gender, sexual orientation,
(10:00):
many cases, even disabilities. But you know, he points out
that this isn't a new issue. Parents have always been
wary of having difficult conversations with their kids. In the
eight hundreds, there was this magazine called Juvenile Miscellany, which
I guess was kind of like the highlights of the
Cricket magazine of its time, and it was filled with
stories for children, and it was distributed mostly in New England.
(10:22):
But you know, then started running these anti slavery stories
which really worked to humanize the slaves. And this was
in the eighteen thirties, and immediately the readership dropped. Then
the magazine folded about a year or so after that,
I think, and as he puts it quote, the outcome
had a chilling effect on other publications. Everyone was scared
(10:43):
of talking about issues of slavery, even though this audience
is actually in the Northeast. But his point was that
the publishers have always had this divide. You know, do
you write to please your kid readers while encouraging them
to think about the larger world, or do you please
the parent and stay in this comfy, rble safe zone.
And then the case of something like shel Silverstein, isn't
(11:04):
having a conversation about how to read. You know that
you don't just trust something because it's imprinted. It seems
like that's a good conversation to have pretty early in
a kid's life. Yeah, it's a good question, and I've
actually heard a similar argument that the reason it took
so long for books like Corduroy or Ezra Jack's Keith
Snowy Day to break the color barrier and children's books
with African American heroes was that publishers had actually been
(11:27):
hesitant to publish anything that made parents feel uncomfortable. But
during the era of civil rights, those worries were breaking down. Yeah,
and actually, while we're talking about race, let's let's take
a second to talk about Huck Finn, which, of course
you know we've known has been on the band Books
list over the years. And it's funny how this book
caused controversy from the very beginning, and for very different reasons.
(11:49):
At first, Mark Twain's classic was banned for being too
progressive and humanizing slaves, and it was also banned for
having low class language and conquered Massachusetts librarians called the
trash and said it was suitable only for the slums.
Then people in Missouri thought it showed them as backwards
talking as well, and then, you know, you fast forward
later in the fifties, then Double A CP raised the
(12:11):
issue of how many times rachel slurs are used in
the book, and eventually it got banned for being racist.
So I love The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin. I I
think when I read it, I was just so taken
with this idea of um, I don't know, like an
unreliable and mischievous storyteller and who just pulls you through
an adventure. And it was just so funny and unpretentious
to me and totally different from everything else I'd read.
(12:34):
But I just saw this thing in g Q. They
put out a list of twenty one books you don't
have to read, and it's kind of a read this
not that for classic literature. And Katie Weaver, who we
love from our mental flast days and is one of
my favorite writers. She she made a really smart point,
she writes, quote, the worst crime committed by the Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn is that it makes first time Twin
(12:56):
readers think that Twain wrote tedious meandering stories. He did,
as is evidenced by this his book of Tedious Meandering Stories,
but he also wrote a lot of richly entertaining meandering
stories that are not constrained by the ham fisted narration
of a fictional backcountry child or suffused with his sweaty
imitation of a slave talking. Alternatively, read Frederick Douglas's firsthand
(13:18):
account of slavery, which is equal parts shocking and heartbreaking.
While Jim, the affable slave friend of Huck Finn exclaims
things like lawsy as mighty glad, Frederick Douglas makes observations
like I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ.
I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding women, whipping cradle plundering,
partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. I mean, I
(13:41):
condenced to writing some And she goes on to talk
about how amazing the plot of narrative of the life
of Frederick Douglas is. But uh, it's a smart point
that we too often tell this like slave with the
smile type story to kids and our cultural reference point
for a slave who's escaped as Jim from Huck Finn,
instead of this unbelievably eloquent and really powerful Frederick Douglas. Yeah,
(14:02):
that's a great point, and I do love Katie's writing.
That's a that's a really really powerful quote from that.
But I actually want to talk about an equally important
book and one that might be seen as as powerful
and that not surprisingly mango, it's Where's Waldo? So, but
before we chat about why you can't read it in prisons,
let's take a quick break. Welcome back to Part Time Genius.
(14:35):
We we're talking banned books and specifically Where's Waldo? Now? Well,
I do have to confess. One of my favorite little
stories from our friend Jake Rosson is on the Where's Waldo?
Topless beach scandal? And every time I see a Where's
Waldo book, I think about that. But I don't think
this is what you were talking about when you said
Waldo was banned to prisons. Now that the Walldo that
got banned at prisons was Where's Waldo? Santa Spectacular? But
(14:59):
tell me what is this topless candal? It's really delicious.
So apparently it started when some kid in East Hampton,
New York got a Waldo book out of the library
and found that one of the tiny women in this
big beach scene was topless. She's a sunbathing on her
stomach and lying on top of her top and this
kid with an ice cream cone kind of touches the
cone to her back, so in the pic she's captured
(15:21):
arching her back up in shock. Yeah, I can see
why parents might have been a little concerned by this,
but I'm curious to know how much breast is little
Johnny seeing here. Well, from my initial reading, I thought
it was just a little side boop, but apparently there's
definitely some nipple in there as well. And according to
Jake's reporting, the kid was quote as quote being disgusted
(15:43):
and upon finding not Waldo, he kind of immediately ran
to tell his mom, but not before showing it to
his younger brother first. But anyway, the mom got the
book banned from American libraries and bookstores, which is reasonable,
I guess, but I had forgotten this. The books are
actually from or Oh, that's right, He's what's he called? Here?
Is Where's Wally? Right exactly? And you know, nudity and
(16:07):
topless sunbathing isn't exactly controversial there. So while Where's Waldo
was on the top of this books list throughout the nineties,
right next to Howard Stern's Private Parts, Where's Wally actually
got to keep hanging out with the topless woman on
the beach, And of course it wasn't long before she
covered up for American audiences. But tell me about this
Santa Spectacular because I'm super curious. Well, I'm glad you
(16:27):
took us on that on that tangent. I never thought
the word side boob would be said on Part Time Genius,
but we managed to to pull that off. But when
you talk about this one, actually the band in Texas
prisons was based less about a war on sand and
it was more about the fact that the book came
with stickers. Apparently, stickers are banned in prison for a
number of reasons. First, you can you can make band
(16:48):
aids with them, which is a problem because jails want
to know about injuries, both major and minor, that are
going on there. And also, stickers are an easy way
to cover up a camera or a glass, and that
might keep the guards from looking at you, So it
makes sense for the prison to ban them. But the
author was partially pointing out the absurdity of the fact
that books like mine comp and The Holy Book of
(17:08):
Adolf Hitler they're considered acceptable literature while being seen with
a copy of Where's Waldo Santa Spectacular will land you
in solitary. I love that you could be a badass
in jail for just smuggling in a copy of Wear's
Waldo And speaking of smuggling, uh, I know, we wanted
to talk about my favorite story of all time, how
Ulysses by James Joyce got to the US, and this
(17:30):
involves one of our favorite publishers, Bennett Surf. That's right.
So Bennett Surf is the publisher who founded Random House,
and we've talked about him a couple of times. He's,
of course the guy who bet Dr Seuss that he
couldn't write a book with less than fifty words. We
mentioned that before and that the book ended up being
Green Eggs in Ham, But actually before we talked about
this anymore, can I tell you my favorite Bennett Surf fact? Definitely?
(17:53):
So Bennett Surf loved writers and he liked hanging out
with them and talking to them about literature, and he
actually liked make edits. He once pleaded with iron Ran
to cut the John Galt speech, and I love her
response to this, She said, would you cut the Bible?
Which is just kind of like peaque iron Ran. But
my favorite fact is that he loved Gertrude Stein and
(18:13):
he would publish her books just a kind of be
in her orbit. And Surf enjoyed big personalities and challenging authors,
and he even admitted in his introduction to her book
the book was called Geographical History of America or the
Relation of Human Nature to the Human Mind. It's quite
a long title, but this is how his intro to
the book starts. I must admit, frankly, I do not
(18:36):
know what ms Stein is talking about. I do not
even understand the title. That's ridiculous. Apparently she was fine
with it, and they had this relationship that was pretty playful,
and when he asked her to explain the line arose
as a rose as a rose, she just responded, Bennett,
you're a very nice boy, but you're rather stupid. And
(18:56):
I just always kind of was amused by that quote.
But let's talk about the Ultimate band Book, which is
of course Ulysses definitely. So this telling is based on
a story I worked on in Metal Flass with my
pal Lucas Adams. But I'm gonna try to keep it
as quick as I can. So Surf, as you listeners
have probably figured out by now, is this charismatic and
savvy and really energized character and he's trying to make
(19:19):
a name for his new company, Random House, and Ulysses
has been around for a while, but it gained a
reputation for being obscene. A Harvard professor at the time
it claimed that the work showed that Joyce was quote
in an advanced stage of psychic disintegration, and places like
Quarterly Review talked about the book like it was trying
to destroy Western civilization. And of course all of this
(19:40):
baffled James Joyce right like he was a little irritated
that he had written this masterpiece and poured all his
effort into this and he just couldn't make any money
off it. When it was being serialized in the US,
the courts banned it on similar obscenity grounds. The New
York Society for the Suppression of Vice had actually set
up this court case against it, and it made it
so that just owning a copy of the book was
(20:01):
this arrestable offense. I mean, this is crazy, right for Joyce,
it was just this book that he couldn't get anyone
to take on anyway. In the famous indie bookstore in
Paris called the Shakespeare Publishing Company starts publishing the book
in this light blue cover, and to be seen with
these books was kind of a thing for the literarty.
So if you wanted to read the book in the US,
(20:23):
you'd have to go there or sneak a copy over.
And it was kind of fun and illegal. But if
the Postal Service got their hands on the book, they
were under strict orders to burn it immediately, and you
could actually get arrested for owning a copy if you
really flaunted it. So it progresses like this for a while,
and then about ten years later in two and this
is when Surf is really launching Random House. He's hanging
(20:45):
out with this brilliant lawyer friend of his name, Morris Ernst,
and Ernest is talking about how disgusted he is with
censorship and the censorship of this book in particular, and
Surf immediately hatches a plan. He really smells opportunity for
his little company, so he thinks, what if he can
get Earnest to represent him in court. He paid the
court fees, and if Ernst wins, he gets a cut
of the royalties. So he proposes this to Earns and
(21:07):
Earns degrees and now he just has to get James
Joyce on for so he writes this letter on why
Joyce should take a chance on him, and of course
Joyce is delighted because he hasn't made a cent off
this thing in England or in the US. And just
one little detail here that's just so funny to be
When Surf meets Joyce in Paris, Joyce shows up in
a sling and foot and head bandages and also this
(21:28):
eye patch over his left eye, and Surf didn't know
what was going on. He actually didn't realize that Joyce
always wore the eye patch, but the rest of the
injuries were fresh. And apparently when Joyce had heard the
news about this Masterfiees getting published or possibly published in America,
he was so giddy that he accidentally walked right into
traffic and got slammed by a taxi cab. Anyway, he
(21:48):
still somehow makes it to Paris, where Surf makes a
deal with him. He's going to give him dollars and
you know, royalties whether or not they win the court case.
And Joyce is over joyed. So Surf has this Ace
lawyer and he is the blessing of the novelist. But
here's where things get absolutely bonkers. So Surf now has
to do the worst and most important smuggling job in
(22:08):
the world. He and Ernest want to bring the book
back to the US, but they need to be caught
with it so that they can start a court case
over it. And so this is unbelievably planned out like
the book World's Oceans eleven. First, Surf and Earnest look
for a favorable judge, someone with an artsy bent, who
you know, might be in favor of the arts and
would rule and favor of the arts. They need an
(22:30):
intellectual and they find it in this judge named John M. Woolsley.
And then they have to locate the specific port to
get caught at so that they can get that judge.
So somehow they figured that out, but it turns out
he's on vacation, so they actually have to delay till
he's back. But then they don't just want to give
him a book, right, They want to stack the deck
a little. So they take a copy of this light
(22:50):
blue book from Paris and they start pasting in as
much critical praise in the book as possible. Inside the covers,
they actually attached praise from Ezra Pound and Ford Madox
Ward and all these other giants of literature and critics
who loved the book. And as Surf put it, by
the time we were finished, the covers were bulging, and
now all they have to do is find a terrible
smuggler and pay him to get caught with the book
(23:11):
at customs, which sounds easy, but here's where it gets hilarious.
So the smuggler has this book in his suitcase. He's
getting off of the right port, but it's so hot
and there's so many people on this summer day at
customs that the officers are just waving people through. And
this was not the plan. This guy had been paid
explicitly to get caught, and if he goes through customs,
(23:31):
his whole journey to Paris and back would have been
for not so he starts making a fuss. He tells
the inspector, I insist you open the bag and search it,
and the officer is just like, it's too hot, and
so the smuggler starts confessing. He says there's something in
there that's contraband, and I insist that it be searched.
So they just keep bickering, and the officer finally does
it and finds this copy of Ulysses and he sort
(23:54):
of just shrugs him through. And then the smuggler says,
I demand that you sees this book, and while the
officers tell him, look, it's a hundred degrees in here,
and I'm saying, you can just go through some motherlers
going on about what the officers duties are, and what
the officers duties are as an American official and laws,
and finally he just keeps ranting for such a long
time that the manager comes over, and of course, you know,
(24:15):
the supervising official also just wants to get this over with.
He wants the irritating passengers to go through, but uh,
he keeps complaining. And finally they realized this dude isn't
going to stop, and then they impound the book. And
the case was pretty breezy, right, very it took just
two days. And you know this Judge Wolseley read the
book and all the criticism, and then he actually consulted
(24:36):
two of his friends were also fans of literature, and
while he said the book wasn't easy to read or understand,
he wrote, quote, each word of the book contributes like
a bit of a mosaic to the detail of the
picture which Joyce is seeking to construct for his readers.
He also called Ulysses a sincere and serious attempt to
devise a new literary method for the observation and description
(24:57):
of mankind, and you know, in remove this ban on
the book. Welsley's point was that the average readers should
be given access to books like ULYSSI is because it's
only the normal person that the law is concerned with,
which is pretty important, right. I mean, it's often the
squeaky wheels on these extreme ends who get the judgments
and the laws passed. But Wilsey was deciding for the
(25:18):
you know, I guess the normal person. Yeah, I mean,
it's amazing how fast Surf also jumped on this decision,
like he had the printing press raid to kick on
ten minutes after they got the verdict. And the case
actually got appealed, but it one two to one in
circuit court. And Joyce, for his part, was super excited.
You know, the fact that this case one in America
(25:39):
meant that the floodgates would open, and he knew England
wasn't gonna be far behind. In fact, Surf actually said
that Joyce was so excited he thought he might emigrate
to the US, but then it turned out he was
too afraid to get on a boat to make the
journey and as for the case itself, it actually ended
up being this landmark judgment that was cited in future
obscenity cases, including Tropic of Cancer. I mean, that's funny
(26:01):
because I read this New Yorker story about Walter Minton.
He was the publisher at Putnam and he was responsible
for publishing Tropic of Cancer as well as Lolita and
quite a few other important books. And when he was
about to publish Norman Mailer, Bennett Serf actually called him
up and warned him not to publish the books because
he was afraid the censors would come down on everybody
(26:22):
as a result. And of course Minton, who was in
the same mold as Serf, actually took out an ad
for the book that said the book six publishers refused
to bring you. It's kind of funny how cyclical this
stuff is. But anyway, we we've got a few more
stories to get through. But before we do that, let's
take a quick break. Welcome back to Part time Genius.
(26:54):
So Mango, one of the things I've been thinking about
a lot is how would you ban a book you
actually just give it so much more attention. And yeah,
we we did this story a while back on this book.
It was called the Minute Book of the General Council
of the International Working Men's Association, and you know that's
a long title, but it was actually supposedly seen as
this foundational document of Karl Marx and this group. It
(27:14):
ended up somehow getting locked up in this British library,
was protected by this very strict British librarian for years,
and people just kept obsessing over how important this book
was and they couldn't get their hands on it. And
you know, they thought I would actually show you how
to start revolutions and how to turn capitalists into socialists,
and instead, when it was finally revealed to the public,
what was in it, it just ended up being this
(27:36):
like little balanced book of accounts. It was a ledger
for the club essentially, and it was totally anti climatic.
But when the uss are finally published it, you know,
no one paid attention to it. I mean, it's interesting
to hear what's been happening in Hong Kong. I don't
know if you heard this episode about this from from
The Daily, one of our our favorite podcast. I mean,
I love The Daily, but I actually haven't heard this one. Well,
(27:58):
there's this publisher there that have been publishing books on
the sex lives and seedy gossip about ministers, and it
was all nonfiction, I believe, and he had some cover
by operating from Hong Kong, which has of course been
part of China since nine but it has that British
legacy there, so just like Surf, he'd figured out which
ports were important, though he was actually smuggling and was
(28:19):
getting like of the books through. But when he published
a book about the President's extra marital affairs, he and
his colleagues were kidnapped in the mainland for months I
think it was, And it's a crazy story and eventually
he gets out and starts operating again from Taiwan. But
it's just so good and it's also an amazing reminder
of how good we have it here. But anyway, before
(28:42):
we close out the show, I wanted to tell you
one quick story about Judy Bloom. So, I mean, Judic
Boom is my favorite. Like I actually just got my
son hooked onto Super Funch series partially because he was
missing New York City and those books actually talk a
lot about the city and moving and also what it's
like to have a ridiculous and irritating younger. But are
you going to talk about are you there? God, it's me, Margaret, Well,
(29:04):
that's definitely part of it. So so Judy Balloons had
a few books that have been banned, but that's probably
her most famous because it talks about puberty and getting
your period. And I read this story in the Times
where she talked about why she thought the book was banned,
and she said, quote, I think the feeling was if
my child doesn't read this, my child won't know about it,
(29:24):
and it's not going to happen to my child. And
I used to get up there on stage and say,
I have news for you. Your kids are going through puberty,
whether you like it or not, So why not help them.
It's going to happen whether they read my books or
no books or someone else's books. Man, I love that. Again,
it does go back to that difficult conversation, those things
you try to avoid with your kids. Yeah. But the
(29:46):
funniest part is that when people come to visit the
bookstore she founded in Key West, it's called Books and Books.
She takes great pleasure in pushing banned books onto them.
As she told The Times, it's my new thrill as
a bookseller to put that right e book into the
hands of someone who appreciates what it's saying, which is
what she said after she'd sold a couple of book
about two male penguins who hatch and raise a baby
(30:09):
bird together and it's called and Tango Makes Three. I
like that she's still out there fighting for ben books.
What a superhero. Well why don't we end on that note.
But before we go, let's get in a fact off
and instead of just doing it on banned books, how
about we opened it up to all banned things. All right,
let's do it. Well. I think we all remember that
(30:36):
George H. W. Bush hated broccoli. But what I've forgotten
was the statement he made about banning broccoli from being
served on Air Force One. And here's what it said.
I don't like broccoli and I haven't liked it since
I was a little kid and my mother made me
eat it. And I'm president of the United States and
I'm not going to eat broccoli anymore. Also, apparently he
(30:57):
just used to shovel down junk food. I saw this
in the Time Times, but they described the food he
ate as everything that quote can be procured at baseball games,
fast food joints or seven eleven, beef, jerky, nachos, tacos,
chili ree, fried beans, hamburgers, hot dogs, barbecue, ribs, candy, popcorn,
ice cream, and cake. Actually that makes me hungry just
(31:17):
reading that quote. But when Peggy Noonan saw him eat,
she described it like an embarrassed teenage boy. And on
a few occasions he tried to eat something healthy like yogurt,
he'd quote spice it up with butter fingers. That's pretty amazing.
And I had no idea he was such a poor eater.
Slash also my eating soulmate. But exactly, I actually remember
(31:37):
when he said that thing about broccoli, and I feel
like his poll numbers in my fourth grade class just
shut up immediately. So here's one about divis and butt head. Basically,
they got banned early in the show from shouting fire
because people thought the cartoon was leading to arson cases,
so to avoid the sensors, they would shout words like
fryer instead. Oh gosh, that's so ridiculous. Al Right, Well,
(31:58):
according to The New York Or, China has a band
on time traveling books and movies because it quote disrespects history. Also,
if you're in Beijing, you should be where there's a
height limit on dogs, so keep your pets under fourteen inches. Also,
if you don't have permission from China's government, you can't
reincarnate their mango. Just keep that in mind. Got it.
So no hot tub time machine, no traveling with a
(32:20):
great day, and no reincarnation to actually feel it's like
the hot tub time machine part. That's the hardest for me.
So here's what I like. When the Soviet Union was
still a thing, comedians had to run all their jokes
by the Department of Jokes. It was actually called the
Humor Department of the Censorship Apparatus of the Soviet Ministry
of Culture, and they would cut any joke you said
(32:40):
about politics, religion, or sex, which meant that most routines
were based on animal jokes. I just love the idea
that if you're really trying to carve out like a
career as a comedian, you'd have to have like a
tight five on hamsters. All right, Well, here's something else
that I had forgotten. The n C double A at
one point banned the slam dunk basically because they wanted
(33:02):
to keep one player from scoring. It was actually called
the lu al cinder rule, and it was introduced just
to keep Kareem Abdul Jabbar from scoring. There's an article
in Cracked about this, and as they put it, n
C double A officials claimed that they were simply banning
a non skillful shot, while Kareem saw it as a
racist attempt to stop black people from invading the game.
(33:23):
And it's Crack rightly points out that might sound far
fetched until you remember that this was a mere three
years after the Civil Rights Act. Um, and that's interesting.
And you know, I can't beat a Kareem fact I.
I think you have to take home today's trophy. I
think we probably all understand that you really cannot be
a Kareem abdul Jabbar fact. So thanks so much. I
kind of knew that was gonna be my winner today.
(33:44):
But I'm sure there are plenty of great facts about
banned books or anything that was banned in general, and
we would love to hear those from you. As always.
You can email us part time genius at how stuff
Works dot com or call us on our two seven
fact hotline one eight four four PTG Genius. We also
love to hear from you on Facebook or Twitter. But
thanks so much for listening. YEA, thanks again for listening.
(34:18):
Part Time Genius is a production of how stuff works,
and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do
the important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan
McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme
song and does the MIXI mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland
does the exact producer thing. Gay Bluesier is our lead researcher,
with support from the research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan
Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve Jeff Cook gets the
(34:40):
show to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like
what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe, And if you
really really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave
a good review for us. Do we do? We forget
Jason Jason who
Guess what mango with I will So I can't remember
if we've talked about this on the show before, but
but you know what the Wicked Bible is, right, definitely,
it's the Bible with that printing error that says, uh,
thou shalt commit adultery instead of thou shalt not commit auldulter. Yeah,
that one word. There's a slight difference in the meaning there.
But I've always wanted to see one of these, and
(00:20):
there are actually only a few left in the world
right now, and it it took about a year for
people to realize the error. But when King Charles the
first caught on, he was livid. He decided to find
the printers something like three hundred pounds. He had their
printing licenses revoked and basically shame them out of their positions.
And of course the book was immediately banned. There was
(00:42):
this massive bonfire to collect and burn every copy of
these so called Wicked Bibles, but somehow, I think ten
or eleven copies managed to get through, and there of
course insanely valuable now. And actually, there's one other thing
I didn't realize about the book, that the adultery mistake
wasn't the only air in the book. What else was
wrong with it? According to the Washington Post and Deuteronomy five,
(01:05):
it's supposed to say, behold, the Lord hath showed us
his glory and his greatness, but instead it says, behold,
our Lord has showed us his glory and his great arts.
I mean, that does seem problematic and just like a
little bit different than what it actually says, but it
points to a bigger theory. So Biblical scholars used to
(01:27):
think the Wicked Bible got its name because of one
unfortunate printing air, But with this second mistake, it actually
brings up the idea of sabotage. And there's all these
great conspiracy theories about who could have caused it and
who wanted to get these royal printers in trouble, and
it it makes the Wicked story even more fun. So
today's episode is about all the stories of banned books,
(01:49):
you know, from political exposes to Ulysses two, Where's Waldo
and how it got banned from prisons? So let's dive
in m hei their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius.
(02:21):
I'm Will Pearson and is always I'm joined by my
good friend Man guesh Ticketer and sitting on the other
side of that soundproof glass proudly displaying his first edition
Captain Underpant's book. That's our Palin producer, Tristan McNeil. So,
I mean, I know, it's a cute gag from Tristan
showing off how many Captain Underpan's books he has. But
did you realize that in two thousand twelve, Captain Underpant's
(02:43):
was actually the number one band book in America? No? Really, yeah,
apparently the a l A or the American Library Association
releases this annual list of the titles that were most
challenged or banned at libraries and schools and um that year.
Captain Underpan's actually beat out Fifty Shades of Gray for
the time, as well as books like Thirteen Reasons Why,
which you know some say glorified suicide. It also beat
(03:05):
out classics like Brave New World and To Kill a Mockingbird.
That said, I I do have to say the book
does come with a warning on it that warns readers
and parents of readers from the outset. It's a sturgeon
General's warning, and he reads some material in this book
might be considered offensive by those who don't wear underwear.
(03:26):
That's a helpful warning. I mean, you can see how
the word underpants might set off some alarm bells for parents,
and it seems like it's going to be this rude
book instead of actually a very sweet one. But you know,
on the other hand, the word underpants is exactly why
kids get excited to read the book. I mean, the
only movie my parents banned me from watching was Ferris
Bueller's Day Off, which I know, you know, but I
(03:47):
still think it's weird. And obviously it's because my dad
went to college at like thirteen or something and then
failed out because he was working on this underground newspaper
and playing in the Rolling Stones cover band and entering
Jitterbug contest apparently, but ovisually he was doing everything except
going to school. But my mom didn't want me to
get any ideas from the movie. So did you ever
(04:09):
actually get to see Ferris Bueller's Day Off? Yeah? I
saw it like the weekend after it came out on
VHS at my uncle's house. You know, it immediately became
my favorite movie. Yeah, and it is a great movie.
So I'm glad you finally got to see it, and
I like that. We've already talked a little bit about
Captain Underpant's one of my kids favorites, of course when
they first discover it. But let me read you a
few other children's books that have been banned that that
(04:31):
actually kind of surprised me. And I'm going to kick
it off with Winnie the Pooh, which oddly has been
banned in a lot of countries. So is this because
the piglet, Because I know Miss Peggy was banned in
Saudi Arabia for I guess for just being a pig um.
But actually, you know, before I let you go, I've
got this tangent about pigs. Did you see that Pepper
Pig was banned in China? Which is just so sad?
(04:53):
But I did see this. This was just last week, right,
I didn't actually see why it was banned. So friendly.
The cartoon character has been, as those say, with like
laziness and slackers and also gangsters for some reason, like
people who are getting Pepper Pig tattoos, which makes no sense.
But the countries instead asking its citizen institune into the
government created alternative. It's called Little Pig Dodo. But I
(05:17):
got you off, so tell me a little bit more
about Winnie the Pooh. Well, you were right with one
of the guesses, and that that's that Some Muslim nations
have banned the book because of Piglet. But you know,
according to the book's enthusiast site, Bookster, it has this
long history of being banned. And when Winnie the Pooh
first came out, some American and Polish leaders were outraged
because talking animals can, I guess, be seen as an
(05:40):
insult to God. But the more interesting thing, and something
I hadn't thought about, was that the books are often
banned in communist countries, and that's for a different reason.
It's because the animals are seen as representing the seven
deadly sins. So if you think about it, poo is
a glutton, owl is too proud. I guess you've got
Piglet who's in he is and or is of course slothful.
(06:02):
Rabbit gets a little too angry or wrathful, and who
does that leave? I guess that leads us with Tiger,
who is I don't know, bouncy is that one of
the seven deadly sent But the books are read as
trying to inspire religion, which is of course problematic in
communist nations. So I mean that makes sense. But what
are some of the other surprises you found? All right, well,
(06:24):
let's see the other ones that have on the list.
Are you got Ferdinand the Bull that was banned for
being too pacifists and Gandhi and Franklin Roosevelt loved it,
and of course Hitler called it degenerate democratic propaganda. I mean,
I feel like those quotes should be on the book jacket, right, like,
if it's not part of Hitler's Children's book club, that
feels like it's a good thing. But what else that
(06:46):
idea of Hitler's children's book club? All right? Well, the
one that surprised me the most. And you'll remember this
from reading it to your kids as as like babies,
even as brown Bear, brown Bear, You remember this book, right, yeah, definitely.
Well that this was a rare case where a book
was banned by accident. Yeah, I mean, I was about
to say, it's hard to imagine it being banned for
introducing colors and animals to kids. Well, the story is
(07:09):
that someone on the state Board of Education in Texas
was doing their research and googled the author's name. His
name is Bill Martin and confused him with a different
Bill Martin who had written a book called Ethical Marxism.
So that's why there's not quite the juicy story behind it.
I was hoping they had been offended for some ridiculous reason,
but they're just so many interesting ones on this list. Also,
(07:31):
one of our favorite authors or kids authors, Shel Silverstein,
his book A Light in the Attic, was banned in Wisconsin.
So this is confusing to me because I mean, it
would make sense to me if The Giving Tree was banned,
because you know, the hero of that book is so selfish,
but a lightened attics just so good. Oh, no kidding it.
And I you'll remember this poem when you hear it.
(07:52):
But this is the offending poem, and and you can
decide for yourself. It's called how not to have to
dry the dishes. It goes like us, if you have
to dry the dishes, such an awful, boring chore. If
you have to dry the dishes intead of going to
the store. If you have to dry the dishes and
you drop one on the floor, maybe they won't let
you dry the dishes anymore. So basically, you know, parents
(08:14):
were worried about kids breaking their china, I guess, or
having kids manipulate their way out of chores or something.
It's just so weird that this was banned for that.
I mean, it's ridiculous, right, Like, don't we want mischievous kids,
like not too mischievous, but you want a little Zanian
nous and creativity and the kind of kid who laughs
at poems like that. Also, I do think if you're
(08:34):
gonna take things so literally, shouldn't we be stopping kids
from fables about like mice taking thorns out of lions
pause because you really shouldn't be touching lions pause, Or
from like watching things like Honey, I shrunk the kids
because shrinking your kids isn't great parenting. You're right, it's
really not a good idea if you're a parent. I'm
glad that we've learned that now that we're both parents.
(08:55):
But it feels like, you know, when you look at
the breakdown of the types of books that have been banned,
especially kids books that have been banned, you can break
them down in a couple of ways. Some of the
bands are about the type of kid that you want
to raise. Obviously, a good communist who's banning Winnie the
Pooh is trying to protect future generations from what they
see as the shackles of religion, I guess. And it's
(09:16):
the same with Shell Silverstein or Captain Underpants. And you know,
whether right or wrong, their parents who want to raise
a certain kind of good kid who's never exposed to
any rude ideas. But then there's another type of book
that gets banned, and that's a little bit more about
these difficult conversations. So how do you mean, Well, there
was this interesting article in the Atlantic and it was
(09:37):
written by Paul Ringel, who's a history professor, and this
from back in two thousand and sixteen. But he was
talking about about fifty two percent of books that were
banned or challenged in the ten years prior to two
thousand and sixteen were what you'd label as diverse content.
Now these are books like The Hate You Give or Wonder,
which you know about race, or religion, or gender, sexual orientation,
(10:00):
many cases, even disabilities. But you know, he points out
that this isn't a new issue. Parents have always been
wary of having difficult conversations with their kids. In the
eight hundreds, there was this magazine called Juvenile Miscellany, which
I guess was kind of like the highlights of the
Cricket magazine of its time, and it was filled with
stories for children, and it was distributed mostly in New England.
(10:22):
But you know, then started running these anti slavery stories
which really worked to humanize the slaves. And this was
in the eighteen thirties, and immediately the readership dropped. Then
the magazine folded about a year or so after that,
I think, and as he puts it quote, the outcome
had a chilling effect on other publications. Everyone was scared
(10:43):
of talking about issues of slavery, even though this audience
is actually in the Northeast. But his point was that
the publishers have always had this divide. You know, do
you write to please your kid readers while encouraging them
to think about the larger world, or do you please
the parent and stay in this comfy, rble safe zone.
And then the case of something like shel Silverstein, isn't
(11:04):
having a conversation about how to read. You know that
you don't just trust something because it's imprinted. It seems
like that's a good conversation to have pretty early in
a kid's life. Yeah, it's a good question, and I've
actually heard a similar argument that the reason it took
so long for books like Corduroy or Ezra Jack's Keith
Snowy Day to break the color barrier and children's books
with African American heroes was that publishers had actually been
(11:27):
hesitant to publish anything that made parents feel uncomfortable. But
during the era of civil rights, those worries were breaking down. Yeah,
and actually, while we're talking about race, let's let's take
a second to talk about Huck Finn, which, of course
you know we've known has been on the band Books
list over the years. And it's funny how this book
caused controversy from the very beginning, and for very different reasons.
(11:49):
At first, Mark Twain's classic was banned for being too
progressive and humanizing slaves, and it was also banned for
having low class language and conquered Massachusetts librarians called the
trash and said it was suitable only for the slums.
Then people in Missouri thought it showed them as backwards
talking as well, and then, you know, you fast forward
later in the fifties, then Double A CP raised the
(12:11):
issue of how many times rachel slurs are used in
the book, and eventually it got banned for being racist.
So I love The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin. I I
think when I read it, I was just so taken
with this idea of um, I don't know, like an
unreliable and mischievous storyteller and who just pulls you through
an adventure. And it was just so funny and unpretentious
to me and totally different from everything else I'd read.
(12:34):
But I just saw this thing in g Q. They
put out a list of twenty one books you don't
have to read, and it's kind of a read this
not that for classic literature. And Katie Weaver, who we
love from our mental flast days and is one of
my favorite writers. She she made a really smart point,
she writes, quote, the worst crime committed by the Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn is that it makes first time Twin
(12:56):
readers think that Twain wrote tedious meandering stories. He did,
as is evidenced by this his book of Tedious Meandering Stories,
but he also wrote a lot of richly entertaining meandering
stories that are not constrained by the ham fisted narration
of a fictional backcountry child or suffused with his sweaty
imitation of a slave talking. Alternatively, read Frederick Douglas's firsthand
(13:18):
account of slavery, which is equal parts shocking and heartbreaking.
While Jim, the affable slave friend of Huck Finn exclaims
things like lawsy as mighty glad, Frederick Douglas makes observations
like I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ.
I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding women, whipping cradle plundering,
partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. I mean, I
(13:41):
condenced to writing some And she goes on to talk
about how amazing the plot of narrative of the life
of Frederick Douglas is. But uh, it's a smart point
that we too often tell this like slave with the
smile type story to kids and our cultural reference point
for a slave who's escaped as Jim from Huck Finn,
instead of this unbelievably eloquent and really powerful Frederick Douglas. Yeah,
(14:02):
that's a great point, and I do love Katie's writing.
That's a that's a really really powerful quote from that.
But I actually want to talk about an equally important
book and one that might be seen as as powerful
and that not surprisingly mango, it's Where's Waldo? So, but
before we chat about why you can't read it in prisons,
let's take a quick break. Welcome back to Part Time Genius.
(14:35):
We we're talking banned books and specifically Where's Waldo? Now? Well,
I do have to confess. One of my favorite little
stories from our friend Jake Rosson is on the Where's Waldo?
Topless beach scandal? And every time I see a Where's
Waldo book, I think about that. But I don't think
this is what you were talking about when you said
Waldo was banned to prisons. Now that the Walldo that
got banned at prisons was Where's Waldo? Santa Spectacular? But
(14:59):
tell me what is this topless candal? It's really delicious.
So apparently it started when some kid in East Hampton,
New York got a Waldo book out of the library
and found that one of the tiny women in this
big beach scene was topless. She's a sunbathing on her
stomach and lying on top of her top and this
kid with an ice cream cone kind of touches the
cone to her back, so in the pic she's captured
(15:21):
arching her back up in shock. Yeah, I can see
why parents might have been a little concerned by this,
but I'm curious to know how much breast is little
Johnny seeing here. Well, from my initial reading, I thought
it was just a little side boop, but apparently there's
definitely some nipple in there as well. And according to
Jake's reporting, the kid was quote as quote being disgusted
(15:43):
and upon finding not Waldo, he kind of immediately ran
to tell his mom, but not before showing it to
his younger brother first. But anyway, the mom got the
book banned from American libraries and bookstores, which is reasonable,
I guess, but I had forgotten this. The books are
actually from or Oh, that's right, He's what's he called? Here?
Is Where's Wally? Right exactly? And you know, nudity and
(16:07):
topless sunbathing isn't exactly controversial there. So while Where's Waldo
was on the top of this books list throughout the nineties,
right next to Howard Stern's Private Parts, Where's Wally actually
got to keep hanging out with the topless woman on
the beach, And of course it wasn't long before she
covered up for American audiences. But tell me about this
Santa Spectacular because I'm super curious. Well, I'm glad you
(16:27):
took us on that on that tangent. I never thought
the word side boob would be said on Part Time Genius,
but we managed to to pull that off. But when
you talk about this one, actually the band in Texas
prisons was based less about a war on sand and
it was more about the fact that the book came
with stickers. Apparently, stickers are banned in prison for a
number of reasons. First, you can you can make band
(16:48):
aids with them, which is a problem because jails want
to know about injuries, both major and minor, that are
going on there. And also, stickers are an easy way
to cover up a camera or a glass, and that
might keep the guards from looking at you, So it
makes sense for the prison to ban them. But the
author was partially pointing out the absurdity of the fact
that books like mine comp and The Holy Book of
(17:08):
Adolf Hitler they're considered acceptable literature while being seen with
a copy of Where's Waldo Santa Spectacular will land you
in solitary. I love that you could be a badass
in jail for just smuggling in a copy of Wear's
Waldo And speaking of smuggling, uh, I know, we wanted
to talk about my favorite story of all time, how
Ulysses by James Joyce got to the US, and this
(17:30):
involves one of our favorite publishers, Bennett Surf. That's right.
So Bennett Surf is the publisher who founded Random House,
and we've talked about him a couple of times. He's,
of course the guy who bet Dr Seuss that he
couldn't write a book with less than fifty words. We
mentioned that before and that the book ended up being
Green Eggs in Ham, But actually before we talked about
this anymore, can I tell you my favorite Bennett Surf fact? Definitely?
(17:53):
So Bennett Surf loved writers and he liked hanging out
with them and talking to them about literature, and he
actually liked make edits. He once pleaded with iron Ran
to cut the John Galt speech, and I love her
response to this, She said, would you cut the Bible?
Which is just kind of like peaque iron Ran. But
my favorite fact is that he loved Gertrude Stein and
(18:13):
he would publish her books just a kind of be
in her orbit. And Surf enjoyed big personalities and challenging authors,
and he even admitted in his introduction to her book
the book was called Geographical History of America or the
Relation of Human Nature to the Human Mind. It's quite
a long title, but this is how his intro to
the book starts. I must admit, frankly, I do not
(18:36):
know what ms Stein is talking about. I do not
even understand the title. That's ridiculous. Apparently she was fine
with it, and they had this relationship that was pretty playful,
and when he asked her to explain the line arose
as a rose as a rose, she just responded, Bennett,
you're a very nice boy, but you're rather stupid. And
(18:56):
I just always kind of was amused by that quote.
But let's talk about the Ultimate band Book, which is
of course Ulysses definitely. So this telling is based on
a story I worked on in Metal Flass with my
pal Lucas Adams. But I'm gonna try to keep it
as quick as I can. So Surf, as you listeners
have probably figured out by now, is this charismatic and
savvy and really energized character and he's trying to make
(19:19):
a name for his new company, Random House, and Ulysses
has been around for a while, but it gained a
reputation for being obscene. A Harvard professor at the time
it claimed that the work showed that Joyce was quote
in an advanced stage of psychic disintegration, and places like
Quarterly Review talked about the book like it was trying
to destroy Western civilization. And of course all of this
(19:40):
baffled James Joyce right like he was a little irritated
that he had written this masterpiece and poured all his
effort into this and he just couldn't make any money
off it. When it was being serialized in the US,
the courts banned it on similar obscenity grounds. The New
York Society for the Suppression of Vice had actually set
up this court case against it, and it made it
so that just owning a copy of the book was
(20:01):
this arrestable offense. I mean, this is crazy, right for Joyce,
it was just this book that he couldn't get anyone
to take on anyway. In the famous indie bookstore in
Paris called the Shakespeare Publishing Company starts publishing the book
in this light blue cover, and to be seen with
these books was kind of a thing for the literarty.
So if you wanted to read the book in the US,
(20:23):
you'd have to go there or sneak a copy over.
And it was kind of fun and illegal. But if
the Postal Service got their hands on the book, they
were under strict orders to burn it immediately, and you
could actually get arrested for owning a copy if you
really flaunted it. So it progresses like this for a while,
and then about ten years later in two and this
is when Surf is really launching Random House. He's hanging
(20:45):
out with this brilliant lawyer friend of his name, Morris Ernst,
and Ernest is talking about how disgusted he is with
censorship and the censorship of this book in particular, and
Surf immediately hatches a plan. He really smells opportunity for
his little company, so he thinks, what if he can
get Earnest to represent him in court. He paid the
court fees, and if Ernst wins, he gets a cut
of the royalties. So he proposes this to Earns and
(21:07):
Earns degrees and now he just has to get James
Joyce on for so he writes this letter on why
Joyce should take a chance on him, and of course
Joyce is delighted because he hasn't made a cent off
this thing in England or in the US. And just
one little detail here that's just so funny to be
When Surf meets Joyce in Paris, Joyce shows up in
a sling and foot and head bandages and also this
(21:28):
eye patch over his left eye, and Surf didn't know
what was going on. He actually didn't realize that Joyce
always wore the eye patch, but the rest of the
injuries were fresh. And apparently when Joyce had heard the
news about this Masterfiees getting published or possibly published in America,
he was so giddy that he accidentally walked right into
traffic and got slammed by a taxi cab. Anyway, he
(21:48):
still somehow makes it to Paris, where Surf makes a
deal with him. He's going to give him dollars and
you know, royalties whether or not they win the court case.
And Joyce is over joyed. So Surf has this Ace
lawyer and he is the blessing of the novelist. But
here's where things get absolutely bonkers. So Surf now has
to do the worst and most important smuggling job in
(22:08):
the world. He and Ernest want to bring the book
back to the US, but they need to be caught
with it so that they can start a court case
over it. And so this is unbelievably planned out like
the book World's Oceans eleven. First, Surf and Earnest look
for a favorable judge, someone with an artsy bent, who
you know, might be in favor of the arts and
would rule and favor of the arts. They need an
(22:30):
intellectual and they find it in this judge named John M. Woolsley.
And then they have to locate the specific port to
get caught at so that they can get that judge.
So somehow they figured that out, but it turns out
he's on vacation, so they actually have to delay till
he's back. But then they don't just want to give
him a book, right, They want to stack the deck
a little. So they take a copy of this light
(22:50):
blue book from Paris and they start pasting in as
much critical praise in the book as possible. Inside the covers,
they actually attached praise from Ezra Pound and Ford Madox
Ward and all these other giants of literature and critics
who loved the book. And as Surf put it, by
the time we were finished, the covers were bulging, and
now all they have to do is find a terrible
smuggler and pay him to get caught with the book
(23:11):
at customs, which sounds easy, but here's where it gets hilarious.
So the smuggler has this book in his suitcase. He's
getting off of the right port, but it's so hot
and there's so many people on this summer day at
customs that the officers are just waving people through. And
this was not the plan. This guy had been paid
explicitly to get caught, and if he goes through customs,
(23:31):
his whole journey to Paris and back would have been
for not so he starts making a fuss. He tells
the inspector, I insist you open the bag and search it,
and the officer is just like, it's too hot, and
so the smuggler starts confessing. He says there's something in
there that's contraband, and I insist that it be searched.
So they just keep bickering, and the officer finally does
it and finds this copy of Ulysses and he sort
(23:54):
of just shrugs him through. And then the smuggler says,
I demand that you sees this book, and while the
officers tell him, look, it's a hundred degrees in here,
and I'm saying, you can just go through some motherlers
going on about what the officers duties are, and what
the officers duties are as an American official and laws,
and finally he just keeps ranting for such a long
time that the manager comes over, and of course, you know,
(24:15):
the supervising official also just wants to get this over with.
He wants the irritating passengers to go through, but uh,
he keeps complaining. And finally they realized this dude isn't
going to stop, and then they impound the book. And
the case was pretty breezy, right, very it took just
two days. And you know this Judge Wolseley read the
book and all the criticism, and then he actually consulted
(24:36):
two of his friends were also fans of literature, and
while he said the book wasn't easy to read or understand,
he wrote, quote, each word of the book contributes like
a bit of a mosaic to the detail of the
picture which Joyce is seeking to construct for his readers.
He also called Ulysses a sincere and serious attempt to
devise a new literary method for the observation and description
(24:57):
of mankind, and you know, in remove this ban on
the book. Welsley's point was that the average readers should
be given access to books like ULYSSI is because it's
only the normal person that the law is concerned with,
which is pretty important, right. I mean, it's often the
squeaky wheels on these extreme ends who get the judgments
and the laws passed. But Wilsey was deciding for the
(25:18):
you know, I guess the normal person. Yeah, I mean,
it's amazing how fast Surf also jumped on this decision,
like he had the printing press raid to kick on
ten minutes after they got the verdict. And the case
actually got appealed, but it one two to one in
circuit court. And Joyce, for his part, was super excited.
You know, the fact that this case one in America
(25:39):
meant that the floodgates would open, and he knew England
wasn't gonna be far behind. In fact, Surf actually said
that Joyce was so excited he thought he might emigrate
to the US, but then it turned out he was
too afraid to get on a boat to make the
journey and as for the case itself, it actually ended
up being this landmark judgment that was cited in future
obscenity cases, including Tropic of Cancer. I mean, that's funny
(26:01):
because I read this New Yorker story about Walter Minton.
He was the publisher at Putnam and he was responsible
for publishing Tropic of Cancer as well as Lolita and
quite a few other important books. And when he was
about to publish Norman Mailer, Bennett Serf actually called him
up and warned him not to publish the books because
he was afraid the censors would come down on everybody
(26:22):
as a result. And of course Minton, who was in
the same mold as Serf, actually took out an ad
for the book that said the book six publishers refused
to bring you. It's kind of funny how cyclical this
stuff is. But anyway, we we've got a few more
stories to get through. But before we do that, let's
take a quick break. Welcome back to Part time Genius.
(26:54):
So Mango, one of the things I've been thinking about
a lot is how would you ban a book you
actually just give it so much more attention. And yeah,
we we did this story a while back on this book.
It was called the Minute Book of the General Council
of the International Working Men's Association, and you know that's
a long title, but it was actually supposedly seen as
this foundational document of Karl Marx and this group. It
(27:14):
ended up somehow getting locked up in this British library,
was protected by this very strict British librarian for years,
and people just kept obsessing over how important this book
was and they couldn't get their hands on it. And
you know, they thought I would actually show you how
to start revolutions and how to turn capitalists into socialists,
and instead, when it was finally revealed to the public,
what was in it, it just ended up being this
(27:36):
like little balanced book of accounts. It was a ledger
for the club essentially, and it was totally anti climatic.
But when the uss are finally published it, you know,
no one paid attention to it. I mean, it's interesting
to hear what's been happening in Hong Kong. I don't
know if you heard this episode about this from from
The Daily, one of our our favorite podcast. I mean,
I love The Daily, but I actually haven't heard this one. Well,
(27:58):
there's this publisher there that have been publishing books on
the sex lives and seedy gossip about ministers, and it
was all nonfiction, I believe, and he had some cover
by operating from Hong Kong, which has of course been
part of China since nine but it has that British
legacy there, so just like Surf, he'd figured out which
ports were important, though he was actually smuggling and was
(28:19):
getting like of the books through. But when he published
a book about the President's extra marital affairs, he and
his colleagues were kidnapped in the mainland for months I
think it was, And it's a crazy story and eventually
he gets out and starts operating again from Taiwan. But
it's just so good and it's also an amazing reminder
of how good we have it here. But anyway, before
(28:42):
we close out the show, I wanted to tell you
one quick story about Judy Bloom. So, I mean, Judic
Boom is my favorite. Like I actually just got my
son hooked onto Super Funch series partially because he was
missing New York City and those books actually talk a
lot about the city and moving and also what it's
like to have a ridiculous and irritating younger. But are
you going to talk about are you there? God, it's me, Margaret, Well,
(29:04):
that's definitely part of it. So so Judy Balloons had
a few books that have been banned, but that's probably
her most famous because it talks about puberty and getting
your period. And I read this story in the Times
where she talked about why she thought the book was banned,
and she said, quote, I think the feeling was if
my child doesn't read this, my child won't know about it,
(29:24):
and it's not going to happen to my child. And
I used to get up there on stage and say,
I have news for you. Your kids are going through puberty,
whether you like it or not, So why not help them.
It's going to happen whether they read my books or
no books or someone else's books. Man, I love that. Again,
it does go back to that difficult conversation, those things
you try to avoid with your kids. Yeah. But the
(29:46):
funniest part is that when people come to visit the
bookstore she founded in Key West, it's called Books and Books.
She takes great pleasure in pushing banned books onto them.
As she told The Times, it's my new thrill as
a bookseller to put that right e book into the
hands of someone who appreciates what it's saying, which is
what she said after she'd sold a couple of book
about two male penguins who hatch and raise a baby
(30:09):
bird together and it's called and Tango Makes Three. I
like that she's still out there fighting for ben books.
What a superhero. Well why don't we end on that note.
But before we go, let's get in a fact off
and instead of just doing it on banned books, how
about we opened it up to all banned things. All right,
let's do it. Well. I think we all remember that
(30:36):
George H. W. Bush hated broccoli. But what I've forgotten
was the statement he made about banning broccoli from being
served on Air Force One. And here's what it said.
I don't like broccoli and I haven't liked it since
I was a little kid and my mother made me
eat it. And I'm president of the United States and
I'm not going to eat broccoli anymore. Also, apparently he
(30:57):
just used to shovel down junk food. I saw this
in the Time Times, but they described the food he
ate as everything that quote can be procured at baseball games,
fast food joints or seven eleven, beef, jerky, nachos, tacos,
chili ree, fried beans, hamburgers, hot dogs, barbecue, ribs, candy, popcorn,
ice cream, and cake. Actually that makes me hungry just
(31:17):
reading that quote. But when Peggy Noonan saw him eat,
she described it like an embarrassed teenage boy. And on
a few occasions he tried to eat something healthy like yogurt,
he'd quote spice it up with butter fingers. That's pretty amazing.
And I had no idea he was such a poor eater.
Slash also my eating soulmate. But exactly, I actually remember
(31:37):
when he said that thing about broccoli, and I feel
like his poll numbers in my fourth grade class just
shut up immediately. So here's one about divis and butt head. Basically,
they got banned early in the show from shouting fire
because people thought the cartoon was leading to arson cases,
so to avoid the sensors, they would shout words like
fryer instead. Oh gosh, that's so ridiculous. Al Right, Well,
(31:58):
according to The New York Or, China has a band
on time traveling books and movies because it quote disrespects history. Also,
if you're in Beijing, you should be where there's a
height limit on dogs, so keep your pets under fourteen inches. Also,
if you don't have permission from China's government, you can't
reincarnate their mango. Just keep that in mind. Got it.
So no hot tub time machine, no traveling with a
(32:20):
great day, and no reincarnation to actually feel it's like
the hot tub time machine part. That's the hardest for me.
So here's what I like. When the Soviet Union was
still a thing, comedians had to run all their jokes
by the Department of Jokes. It was actually called the
Humor Department of the Censorship Apparatus of the Soviet Ministry
of Culture, and they would cut any joke you said
(32:40):
about politics, religion, or sex, which meant that most routines
were based on animal jokes. I just love the idea
that if you're really trying to carve out like a
career as a comedian, you'd have to have like a
tight five on hamsters. All right, Well, here's something else
that I had forgotten. The n C double A at
one point banned the slam dunk basically because they wanted
(33:02):
to keep one player from scoring. It was actually called
the lu al cinder rule, and it was introduced just
to keep Kareem Abdul Jabbar from scoring. There's an article
in Cracked about this, and as they put it, n
C double A officials claimed that they were simply banning
a non skillful shot, while Kareem saw it as a
racist attempt to stop black people from invading the game.
(33:23):
And it's Crack rightly points out that might sound far
fetched until you remember that this was a mere three
years after the Civil Rights Act. Um, and that's interesting.
And you know, I can't beat a Kareem fact I.
I think you have to take home today's trophy. I
think we probably all understand that you really cannot be
a Kareem abdul Jabbar fact. So thanks so much. I
kind of knew that was gonna be my winner today.
(33:44):
But I'm sure there are plenty of great facts about
banned books or anything that was banned in general, and
we would love to hear those from you. As always.
You can email us part time genius at how stuff
Works dot com or call us on our two seven
fact hotline one eight four four PTG Genius. We also
love to hear from you on Facebook or Twitter. But
thanks so much for listening. YEA, thanks again for listening.
(34:18):
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(34:40):
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