Like with most things I’m going to take a unique approach at answering this question. I guess it’s not actually that unique then, at least not for me, and I’m well on my way to becoming a sort of unwitting parody of myself. So allons-y and way we go. Step One. Take the moral high ground.
“What are examples of books you’ve thrown across the room with force? Why did you throw them?”
WTF (saying that makes me feel sick) you throw books? What kind of disgusting barbaric animal are you, disembodied narrative blog voice? What has possessed you that has given you so much disrespect for these powerful symbols that arguably well… symbolise all the nice good things about human existence? Did you grow up with wolves? Where your wolf parents cold and unfriendly? I can’t even believe what I’m reading! *sigh*
“If you have never thrown a book across the room with force, then describe a couple books that you almost did because you were so furious about a disappointing ending, horrible characters, grammar, etc. I’m sorry if this only applies to me because I have a book in mind that angered me so much I almost threw it out the window. I ended up chucking it against the wall where it nearly missed my lamp but… that’s a story for my post…”
Most books I read are good books. I don’t finish books I don’t like, and like a cold yet charming cad with his plethora of women folk, once a book has lost my interests I simply leave it spread open on the floor, and take the bus to the public library in search of yet another luscious untouched volume to soil with my hot little hands. There’s no violence involved. I could rip it apart, use it for toilet paper, try and eat it, throw it in the ocean, or burn it, but I don’t. I can’t. It’s just… wrong.
What’s the first thing you think of when someone mentions book burning? For me it’s either Nazis or Fahrenheit 451. Burning books is synonymous with dictatorship and repression, because book burning is destroying knowledge, and like that vacant often repeated cliché states “knowledge is power”. Basically, by burning books the burners are destroying part of the individual’s means of getting power and challenging the status quo. Book burning is tyranny in all its burny flamey hideousness.
Another thing to think about is cultural history. Before the invention of the printing press in 1953 by Marilyn Monroe and her three unnamed brothers, books were damn valuable. Monks had to copy them out by hand. Well they had quills in their hands, so really it was by quill. I mean using their actual hands, like fingerpainting, would be kind of stupid. You’d never get any sort of the fancy calligraphy that people expect and your hands would always be covered in sticky ink, meaning those monks would never pull any chicks.
Speaking of monks and holy things, the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Islam and Christianity are often referred to collectively as the children of the book, because they all have books. The reverence of one book, perhaps even the only book many people would ever own or see, meant all books figuratively speaking might be imbued with that same respect. I’m not an historian (see what I did there), I just like to speculate.
So that’s the end of my ramble. Hope you found it enjoyable and informative and fuzzy and not offensive. But that’s OK if you did, controversy is cool. No. It’s not. I’m sorry. XOX
Disclaimer: Second paragraph is mock outrage/sarcasm satirising bourgeois sensibilities. No offence intended to book throwers, the bourgeois class or any other virtuous readers.
Participating Parties In Order
Want to follow our blog tour? Here are the participating parties, day by day
January 5 –
http://weirdalocity.wordpress.com/—
From My Head
January 6 –
http://correctingpenswelcome.wordpress.com
— Comfy Sweaters, Writing and Fish
January 7 –
http://laughablog.wordpress.com/
— Laugh A Blog
January 8–
http://taystapeinc.wordpress.com
— Tay’s Tape
January 9 –
http://estherstar1996.wordpress.com
— Esther Victoria1996
January 10–
http://thewordasylum.wordpress.com
— The Word Asylum
January 11–
http://kirstenwrites.wordpress.com
— Kirsten Writes!
January 12–
http://delorfinde.wordpress.com
— A Farewell to Sanity
January 13 –
http://greatlakessocialist.wordpress.com
— Red Herring Online
January 14–
http://herestous.wordpress.com
— Here’s To Us
January 15–
http://incessantdroningofaboredwriter.wordpress.com–
The Incessant Droning of a Bored Writer
January 16–
http://teenscanwritetoo.wordpress.com
–Teens Can Write Too! (We will be announcing the topic for next month’s chain)
