Heather Cass White, Books Promiscuously Read
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| Joyce Carol Oates |
The novel tells of a high school student who is punished for being smart. For reading books. For asking questions. For thinking independently. The story may be set in the future, but as White suggests, something similar could happen at any time, past, present or future. Social systems, political systems, religious systems can all, at their extreme, seek to control information.
This happened during the COVID epidemic. It happened in Hollywood during the Hays era. It happens at so many colleges and universities today where diversity and inclusiveness are celebrated, at least until someone says something or reads something that might be considered conservative. It happens when Amazon makes certain books difficult to purchase. Reading, especially the reading of fiction, is frowned upon by many parents.
White cites an example in Jane Austen's novel, Northanger Abbey, where one woman interrupts another, "'And what are you reading, Miss —?'" The other replies, "'Oh, it is only a novel!'" She then "lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame."
In Austen's story, the prejudice against reading a novel is at least subtle. Nobody is seizing the book or burning it or preventing its circulation.
Reading, White says, can be viewed as a "crime" in two ways. First, it is an independent act — one person voluntarily reading something, whatever it might be. Second, "it removes that self from circulation, from its possible use as the property of others."
Systems, at their extreme, want to own you. They want to control you. They want to dictate what you read and, therefore, what you think.
