Classics vs. "liberal garbage"

It will not come as a surprise to you that we in the newspaper business tend to like to read. Many of us hold degrees in English, degrees that often come from many nights spent reading and analyzing both classic and modern literature.

I am one of those, holding a degree in English and Mass Communication, and, if I had to choose, preferred the English degree to the Mass Comm degree.

So it was with amusement I read a comment on one of the Sentinel's stories. It seems the Winnebago Library got a little bit of a facelift, and a commenter decried the selling of classic literature in order to make room for "Liberal Garbage", chastising the Sentinel for not doing its research.

I am not at all familiar with the Winnebago Library, and can not comment about the changes that took place there.

What I can comment about is classic literature.

I am not sure if cricketdragonfly had any specific work in mind when s/he set up a comparison between classics and "Liberal Garbage", but I wonder if she knows how many classic works were considered trash when they were first published.

Off the top of my head I am thinking Lolita, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Arabian Nights, Awakening, Diary of Anne Frank, Brave New World, Call of the Wild, Catcher in the Rye, The Grapes of Wrath, Gulliver's Travels, and Fahrenheit 451.

There are many, many more. Just because it was written a long time ago doesn't mean it is wholesome, or, for that matter, conservative.

I would encourage cricketdragonfly to be involved with her/his library and help them make decisions about the books offered there. But I would offer a caution to her/him. Modern books aren't bad simply because they are modern, and old books aren't uncontroversial just because they are old.