(copy pasted autocaptions)
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good morning Hank it's Tuesday so according
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to Penn the second most banned book in
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the United States is a novel called
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Looking for Alaska which is weird
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because I wrote that book but especially
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in the last few years the book has been
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removed from hundreds of classrooms and
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libraries and both my work and me have
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been accused of all kinds of horrible
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things including that I groom children
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which is hard not to take personally now
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Looking for Alaska is still taught in a
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lot of high school English classes which
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is amazing that's like the coolest thing
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that can happen to a book uh but it's
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taught in few high school English
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classes because groups like moms for
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Liberty have been extremely successful
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at challenging the book out of curricula
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and in many cases out of libraries
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entirely so let's talk about it now in
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the novel teenagers smoke cigarettes and
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drink alcohol and engage in other
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self-destructive behaviors because books
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don't exist to be like moral screeds
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they exist to be tellers of truths and
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those things are real they're true but
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anyway that's not why the book is banned
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the book is banned because of one
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one-page scene in which two teenagers
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engage in oral sex and what generally
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happens is that a concerned parent
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prints out a copy of this page and hands
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it around and then everyone is duly
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horrified that children are being
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allowed to read pornography and etc etc
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except of course it isn't pornography
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because pornography is designed to
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arouse and this scene is awkward and
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uncomfortable and funny and definitely
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unsexy I know because I wrote it that
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way like the language is cold and
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clinical there is exactly one
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descriptive adjective in the entire
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scene and that adjective is nervous so
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this awkward fumbling unsexy scene is
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meant to contrast with the very next
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scene in the book but of course school
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boards often don't find this out because
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they read only the page that's been
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printed out for them not the text in
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context in the next scene two teenagers
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have a romantic experience that's much
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less physically intimate it's just
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kissing really but the language used to
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describe it is much more like
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sensorially evocative there's a lot of
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talk about how everything feels and
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smells and the thrill of their Kiss And
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The Wonder of her hand on his face and
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so on the whole point of the botched
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oral sex scene is to contrast with this
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much less physically intimate but much
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more romantically and emotionally
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fulfilling kiss intimacy is more
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fulfilling when you're connected and
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communicative and all the other things
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that bot Doral sex scene isn't in short
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the novel is making the somewhat
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old-fashioned argument that romantic
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entanglements are more fun and
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fulfilling when you actually like
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someone and communicate clearly also
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that you don't have to be like super
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intimate for a romantic encounter to be
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meaningful and all of this is especially
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important given what's about to happen
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to one of the main characters in the
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book without those scenes the book
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wouldn't have its Core theme which is
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how you live with grief and how you live
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with guilt knowing that you
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catastrophically failed someone you
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truly love now what I often hear in
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response is that teenagers don't
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understand any of this and they just lap
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up and are corrupted by this sexy sexy
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sex sex except of course one as noted
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the sex is not sexy it's super
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uncomfortable also two more importantly
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this is a huge insult to teenagers who
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of course are perfectly capable of
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reading critically it's not like
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teenagers read the book animal farm and
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are like oh my God we need to watch out
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for these pigs with their por sign lust
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for power because they understand that
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Animal Farm is not actually about an
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animal farm it's about people all right
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so listen in general I am inclined to
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trust the expertise of teachers but if
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some teacher printed out that
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decontextualized single page and handed
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it out to the classroom and said this is
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your reading assignment I would question
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their pedagogical strategy but of course
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that's not what's happening they're
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reading Looking for Alaska as an entire
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body of work which is of course how I
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intended for it to be read and indeed
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how all novels are supposed to be read
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and when read as a novel it's very
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obvious that Looking for Alaska is not
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about sexual arousal or prance it's
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about grief and loss and the idea of
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radical hope that hope and forgiveness
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are available to all people at all times
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it's about whether and how we go on when
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those we love cannot go on and it's
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about how we navigate the Labyrinth of
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human suffering Hank in general I
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believe that we should allow teachers
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and Librarians to teach and curate
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information because they are our experts
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in doing those jobs and so I don't think
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it's up to me to decide which books to
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teach or share in the library if
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teachers or Librarians don't think that
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Looking for Alaska is appropriate for
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their collections or their classrooms
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that's fine they're the experts we train
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and employ to do this work and if we
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don't want them to do it why are we
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training and employing them but in the
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particular case of Looking for Alaska I
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think there's an extra irony to the book
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being so widely banned which is that it
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is almost universally challenged in the
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name of Christianity and that idea of
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radical hope that's at the center of the
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book is a Christian idea that I wrote
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about because of my own Christian faith
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this just goes to show that there is no
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way to appease book banners because even
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if you agree with their professed value
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system any attempt to portray the world
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as it actually exists will inevitably
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lead to censorship ultimately what these
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folks are opposed to is not books it's
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reality it's not books they find obscene
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it's reality they find obscene they feel
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that the existence of lgbtq people is
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obscene which is why they
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disproportionately ban books about them
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and they feel that racial and ethnic
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diversity are obscene which is why they
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disproportionately ban books by and
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about people of color this isn't just
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about what kind of stories we're allowed
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to read it's also about what kind of
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people and realities we acknowledge as
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full parts of the human story and in
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that sense I'm quite proud to be the
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author of a book so widely banned Hank
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I'll see you on Friday