Book burning.

[invision]

What does everyone here think about book burning?

Personally, I don't really see a problem with it, depending on why you do it. (Me and my sister burned two of the Twilight books in a bonfire, because she didn't want them anymore and it was fun.).

If it's for censorship, it's horrible and destructive. Otherwise, in my opinion, it's your book, and you can do whatever you want with it. I mean, it's not like there aren't a million copies of [x book], right? One burned won't hurt a damn thing.

On the other hand, I can see why burning something like a bible would evoke anger in people (hell, anger in me). So, again, it depends on your reasoning.

Also, I think it'd be awful to burn a rare book, just because ... it's rare. You're not destroying the physical object, then, you're destroying the story inside it.

I think that that is what is important about books. The story - what they can tell us. I don't book-worship or story-worship or anything, and I think it's silly that some people do.

James

[tastyink]

Honestly, if you're just burning your own personal book because you didn't like it, I don''t see the big deal. Of course if the book happens to be rare or a religious text, that can be a problem.

[johnnybb]

Not that I'm going to go out and have a ceremony to burn books or flags or anything, but I see it as no more abominable than burning a flag, or an effigy, etc.

A book is an object like any other, and any object can be infused with symbolism.

I can see a point when it comes to rare texts and so forth, but if a bunch of people threw copies of Slaughterhouse V or the Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook on a bonfire, there are hundreds of thousands more copies in production.

Naturally, systematic confiscation of a work in order to eradicate it is a bit different. That falls under the same category as say, the destruction of rare texts during the Conquista or the Reconquista. The Spanish really loved that sort of thing for a century or so.

[Marina]

I personally would never burn a book, I don't care if it's a book I hate, I'd rather sell it.

However, I have a slight problem with people burning Twilight. I'm not picking on you because you gave your own explanation, but those who burn it because they think it's a horrible book. Isn't that a type of censorship?

[onlyaworkingtitle]

In eighth grade, we read The Grapes of Wrath for English class.

I hated it.

I hated the stupid turtle scenes, hated the family's ignorant optimism, hated the teacher's insistence that JC was Jesus Christ, hated that John Steinbeck took a simple story and made it last 600 pages.

I hated it for the whole two months we were forced to pick it apart.

So at the end of those two months? I burned it. I used my family's old, discarded grill, ripped pages out, crumpled, lit, and shoved inside. Closed the lid of the grill and watched the cover melt through the window -- until the heat of the fast-burning paper made the window implode.

It was immensely satisfying.

Now, would I recommend this to anyone who hates a book? Probably not. But to a thirteen-year-old with a lot of pent-up rage that she's decided to store within a book she sees as a torture device, yes. Do it. Watch it burn. You'll feel better later.

Then write your own book to make up for it.

[Silva]

Jun 3, 2011 14:34:26 GMT -5 onlyaworkingtitle said:

So at the end of those two months? I burned it. I used my family's old, discarded grill, ripped pages out, crumpled, lit, and shoved inside. Closed the lid of the grill and watched the cover melt through the window -- until the heat of the fast-burning paper made the window implode.

I am now dying to use these sentences in a novel. I'm not sure why.

[onlyaworkingtitle]

Jun 3, 2011 14:43:41 GMT -5 Silva said:

Jun 3, 2011 14:34:26 GMT -5 onlyaworkingtitle said:

So at the end of those two months? I burned it. I used my family's old, discarded grill, ripped pages out, crumpled, lit, and shoved inside. Closed the lid of the grill and watched the cover melt through the window -- until the heat of the fast-burning paper made the window implode.

I am now dying to use these sentences in a novel. I'm not sure why.

DO IT. But mention me somewhere in there, because plagiarism is a sad, sad thing (and plagiarizers need burning more than any book ever).

[Silva]

Credited to onlyaworkingtitle on English Major Armadillo forum... haha I'll find a way to use it somewhere.

[onlyaworkingtitle]

Jun 3, 2011 14:51:15 GMT -5 Silva said:

Credited to onlyaworkingtitle on English Major Armadillo forum... haha I'll find a way to use it somewhere.

If you actually do it, I'll send you my Real Person Name. Might be a bit more... natural? that way.

[Silva]

I'll tell you if I do.

[Olive]

Jun 3, 2011 14:34:26 GMT -5 onlyaworkingtitle said:

In eighth grade, we read The Grapes of Wrath for English class.

I hated it.

I... I read Grapes of Wrath for fun in sixth grade. And, honestly, I loved that book. Though it was so long ago, I can't remember why.

[onlyaworkingtitle]

Jun 3, 2011 16:44:24 GMT -5 Olive said:

Jun 3, 2011 14:34:26 GMT -5 onlyaworkingtitle said:

In eighth grade, we read The Grapes of Wrath for English class.

I hated it.

I... I read Grapes of Wrath for fun in sixth grade. And, honestly, I loved that book. Though it was so long ago, I can't remember why.

I glanced at it again for an American Lit class my... sophomore? junior? year of college, and figured it probably wasn't as awful as I recall. Doesn't change the fact that I still think of it as "The Raisins of Rage."

[nickusp]

I don't burn books, but if you do it makes no nevermind to me. I burn my papers in an annual bonfire at the start of summer; friends have come with books in the past and I just look the other way and let them whack them in because they obviously feel very strongly about the books they're burning.

For myself, I taught myself how to read when I was four. I went through some rough times as a kid and books were always there for me when I needed to escape. I read indiscriminately, finding lots of books I liked and similarly some I disliked. But I always had books. So now, regardless of how much I dislike a book, I could never burn one. It would feel too much like a betrayal.

[thestrangewinston]

I could never burn a book. Even the worst stuff I ever read(I lost a bet and was forced to read the twilight series...) is impossible for me to burn

[andy]

Jun 3, 2011 13:12:42 GMT -5 Marina said:

I personally would never burn a book, I don't care if it's a book I hate, I'd rather sell it.

However, I have a slight problem with people burning Twilight. I'm not picking on you because you gave your own explanation, but those who burn it because they think it's a horrible book. Isn't that a type of censorship?

It's not censorship because censorship is systematical and more often than not institutional. If somebody made a law making it illegal for Twilight to be published, then it would be censorship. One individual burning one copy of the book is not censorship.

I think book burning is pretty pointless. If you don't want a book, give it to charity shops or at the very least recycle the paper.