Last weekend I was touring an exhibit on banned books, in preparation for an upcoming talk I’m giving on obscenity.
Logo for the exhibit, courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center.
One of the banned books was the Grapes of Wrath, and the person with me asked “Do you remember how it ends?”
Total panic. Did I even read that book? I’m pretty sure I did. Everybody reads that book in high school. I know I read East of Eden…that’s the same guy, right?!? But everybody read that one when Oprah recommended it…
“Um, no.” I admitted sheepishly. “It was a long time ago.”
And, my brain added with silent resignation, my former field pushed everything else out. Everything. There’s no facts left from my youth, only eighties lyrics and Classical texts cobbled together in a loose association that Futurama would correctly deem “some semblance of a working brain.”
Years of snark had conditioned me to expect a verbal smiting, but my interlocuter just smiled and reminded me of the ending. It was all very civilized as we speculated on what, exactly, had gotten this high-school classic banned.
Then I started to wonder what else I’d forgotten. I know I’ve read Tropic of Cancer (also included in the exhibit) and I can’t remember ANY OF IT.
Image courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center.
I’ve decided I’d better do penance by reading Grapes of Wrath and some of the other recommended banned books. Currently, Steinbeck’s prose is feeling pretty cozy — but that doesn’t bode well for me remembering it. Maybe the other authors will fare better…
Has anyone else forgotten “shocking” literature? Or at least gotten the feeling that your brain has reached memory capacity, and is surreptitiously dumping old, interesting information for new, boring information?
Reading update: only shocking thing about Grapes of Wrath is that we expect high schoolers to want to read it. If we still do, anyway.
Just fyi, I think the Twitter link is broken. Or maybe my computer just doesn’t want me to goof around when I’m supposed to be working.
I do know that when you said Grapes of Wrath I immediately thought of the ending to Of Mice and Men. Oh! And a few years after I read To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time, I forgot about Bob Ewell’s being left-handed and how that was a big deal in the case. But usually I don’t forget how books end. Crap that happens in the middle, occasionally. But never the end. The stuff I’ve been shocked to realize I don’t remember anymore is, like, Euler’s law or what the derivatives of trig functions are.
And I’ve read disturbingly few of the books on that list. I skipped Native Son because I disliked Black Boy. But I did read The Children’s Hour and it freaked me out like crazy.
Most of the time I feel like I’m not yet at memory capacity, but I do wonder if some day I’ll regret the fact that I still know all the lyrics to all the Spice Girls’ songs.
Grrrr, good to know what’s up with the Twitter — the initial links come from Facebook so maybe that’s it??
I liked Black Boy. I think, anyway, but I remember not liking Native Son. The Children’s Hour is next on my list; if it freaks me out I’ll actually be pleased — I mean, come on, Tropic of Cancer is supposed to be shocking, and I can’t remember a thing!
And yes, you will regret your Spice Girls knowledge someday. When your brain reaches capacity, it still clings to these things, inexplicably.
Forgetting important book endings happens to me all the time. I used to be such a voracious reader and read all those “important classics” from British and American literature, but comps and dissertation quite honestly have destroyed my brain’s capacity to remember those “fun” things I used to read before this life I lead now.
I’m glad someone else said it out loud, though, because it makes me feel a little less crazy. (I recently re-read some of my favorite classics from my younger days simply because I couldn’t remember them clearly anymore: Jane Eyre, Little Women, The Woman in White, etc. It was a nice stroll down memory lane…eventually.)
I know I read Jane Eyre, too, but nope, can’t remember a darned thing about it. And yes, I blame comps and dissertations, they have a way of cramming your head full of junk. Boo that! Keep reading “non-approved” stuff, I say, it will serve you better in the years to come.
I remember reading Tropic of Cancer in college. And it did seem risqué at the time. I mean there was this man who walked around Paris and brought prostitutes — one after the other — to his apartment in France. He had these fancy dinner parties, and I think at one point everyone gets public lice.
Anyway, the point is I remember Tropic of Cancer because I was crushing wildly on the guy with whom I was assigned to do a project about the book. And I thought he was really smart, so I read the book very carefully. Well, the dude turned out to be a dud. But I remember the book. In fact, I remember most of the books on the banned list. In fact, the moment a book is placed on the banned list, I want to go and read them.
And then I usually want to punch someone in the throat.
Because I’d rather have kids read Lord Of The Flies than listen to some 4-year old imitating Rhiana singing “S&M” — which doesn’t seem to get a rise out of anyone.
That sounds about right. And I sometimes think romantic entanglements are the only way anyone ever learns anything. Not so bad, as far as motivation goes. I agree about Rihanna; it’s funny that historical books often get a bigger rise out of concerned citizens, probably because so much of history is left out of in canonical classes, as though centuries before us didn’t do anything shocking. HA!