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From
the July/August 2004 issue of The Horn Book Magazine Letters to the Editor What an exceptional article by Tim Wynne-Jones (“Tigers and Poodles and Birds, Oh My!”) in the Borderlands issue (May/June 2004 Horn Book)! He’s put his finger on the thin if not nonexistent line between books for “children” and books for “adults” and how the twain may or may not meet. I would particularly recommend his discussion of Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a book my thirteen-year-old son found so compelling that he can’t find another to compare with it. And Wynne-Jones’s argument regarding Haddon’s purposefully gratuitious use of a certain swear word was alone worth the price of my subscription. In the hinterlands, others are not as wise as Mr. Wynne-Jones. Frances Granatino
Regarding Roger Sutton’s Sendak interview (November/December 2003 Horn Book): I have been thinking about the issues raised by Maurice Sendak’s use of the common expletive, as quoted. Should it have been quoted verbatim? In favor: 1) Truth in interviewing: it’s what he said. 2) We all talk that way sometimes, don’t we? I do, for one. 3) The readers of the Horn Book are adults. They can handle it. Opposed: 1) “Expletive deleted” conveys the message just as well, and is just as much a clue (or not) as to the character of the person interviewed as the original term. 2) We are also sometimes civil. Maybe we should be civil all the time, or most of it. Haven’t we had enough coarseness? It’s as tiresome as blandness. 3) Mild incivility, “naughtiness,” can be fun and expressive. Stronger words can be striking; if they shock, even more so. But expletives like these have become expressively useless. As adults, we can do better. I side with the opposition — recognizing, however, that there are indeed two sides to the story. It is not prudishness that compels me to object. Nor is it to look down upon popular culture. It often makes sense to represent popular culture as it is, in its own language. What I object to is popular media culture — the deliberate downgrading of content to shock, titillate, entertain ever more blatantly as we become inured to what’s gone before. I expect those familiar with our historical culture — educators, librarians, editors, politicians — to be its bearers, if also often its critics. Isn’t “expletive deleted” about the same as using the word itself? We all know what word it is, in context. One is reminded of Matthew Arnold: “Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.” But civility is hardly hypocritical, and its opposite is not virtue. Ralph Bertonaschi |
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