The Dissident Library of Uncle Arthur

Books and Rebellion

[sovietpostcards]

[dissidentlibrary]

Like superficial spirituality, looking on the bright side of things is a euphemism used for obscuring certain realities of life, the open consideration of which might prove threatening or dangerous to the status quo. Last week I read a letter from a doctor in a medical magazine which said that no truly happy person ever gets cancer. depsite my knowing better, and despite my having dealt with this blame-the-victim thinking for years, for a moment this letter hit my guilt button. Had I really been guilty of the crime of not being happy in this best of all possible infernos ?

Audre Lorde, Breast Cancer: Power vs. Prosthesis (1978)

[dissidentlibrary]

The acceptance of illusion and appearance as reality is another symptom of this same refusal to examine the realities of our lives. Let us seek 'joy' rather than real food and clean air and a sane future on a liveable earth! As if happiness alone can protect us from the results of profit-madness.

Audre Lorde, Breast Cancer: Power vs. Prosthesis (1978)

[dissidentlibrary]

Like superficial spirituality, looking on the bright side of things is a euphemism used for obscuring certain realities of life, the open consideration of which might prove threatening or dangerous to the status quo. Last week I read a letter from a doctor in a medical magazine which said that no truly happy person ever gets cancer. depsite my knowing better, and despite my having dealt with this blame-the-victim thinking for years, for a moment this letter hit my guilt button. Had I really been guilty of the crime of not being happy in this best of all possible infernos ?

Audre Lorde, Breast Cancer: Power vs. Prosthesis (1978)

[saintsaensreads]

Il y a dans l'homme une bête, heureusement; elle le ramène à la réalité.

L'homme qui rit, Victor Hugo

[arctic-hands]

Hoopla, Overdrive/Libby Now Banned for Those Under 18 in Mississippi

Public libraries in Mississippi have cut off access to digital platforms like Overdrive and Hoopla to those under 18.

I never want to hear conservatives go on about repressive censorship in China, North Korea, and Iran ever again

[ryanthedemiguy]

To be clear to those unfamiliar: these are the companies that libraries use to lend ebooks.

They are literally cutting off library access to minors.

[ayellowbirds]

If you are affected by this or other bans and restrictions in the United States, be aware that the Brooklyn Public Library is offering free digital library cards to anyone age 13-21 nationwide as part of their Books UnBanned initiative:

Books Unbanned

Brooklyn Public Library joins those fighting for the rights of teens nationwide to read what they like, discover themselves, and form their

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

BOOOOOST

[elfwreck]

Seattle has joined them:

The Seattle Public Library Joins Brooklyn Public Library’s Books Unbanned Initiative to Fight Censorship

[dissidentlibrary]

À l'époque, on méprisait la jeunesse. Personne ne l'avait encore embellie, exaltée, prolongée jusqu'à la mort. Personne n'avait encore appris à la jeunesse l'agressivité, la suprématie du fauve, la poussée totalitaire. La jeunesse ne savait pas encore qu'elle était une catégorie biologique à part, une formation sociale distincte, un état de privilèges particuliers dans l'état de l'existence universelle.

Tadeusz Konwicki, Chroniques des événements amoureux

[dissidentlibrary]

En ce temps-là, personne ne voulait être jeune. La jeunesse était quelque chose de honteux, d'incomplet, de bete. La jeunesse était comme le fléau de Dieu, ou comme le purgatoire de la promotion rêvée.

C'était l'époque des jambes arquées, appelées, Dieu sait pourquoi, la maladie anglaise. C'était l'époque des visages grêlés dont on disait que le diable y avait moulu des fèves. C'était l'époque des bouches édentées et des gencives pleines de chicots noircis qui ne faisaient peur à personne. [...] C'était une époque merveilleuse peuplée de gens très laids.

À l'époque, on méprisait la jeunesse. Personne ne l'avait encore embellie, exaltée, prolongée jusqu'à la mort. Personne n'avait encore appris à la jeunesse l'agressivité, la suprématie du fauve, la poussée totalitaire. La jeunesse ne savait pas encore qu'elle était une catégorie biologique à part, une formation sociale distincte, un état de privilèges particuliers dans l'état de l'existence universelle.

Chroniques des évènements amoureux, Tadeusz Konwicki

[quotespile]

“I want to tell you, don’t marry suffering. Some people do. They get married to it, and sleep and eat together, just as husband and wife. If they go with joy they think it’s adultery.”

— Saul Bellow, Seize the Day

[ladyhawke]

Audra McDonald, Anne Hathaway and Raúl Esparza in Twelfth Night by Brigitte Lacombe, 2009.

[alexis-doubts-deactivated202401]

I've always loved this. 🥹

[dissidentlibrary]

The blue sky seemed to descend like a blanket.

And I couldn't say anything,

I couldn't cry;

I just remebered his face,

a bright, blunt, handsome face,

and his weariness, which he wore like his skin,

and the way he said ro-aad for road,

and his telling me how the tatters of clothes

from a lynched body hung,

flapping, in the tree for days,

and how he had to pass that tree every day.

Medgar.

Gone.

James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro.

[dissidentlibrary]

Heroes

I begin in Septembe, when I go on the road. "The road" means my return to the South. It means, briefly, for example, seeing Myrlie Evers, and the children - those children, who are children no longer. It means going back to Atlanta, to Selma, to Birmingham. It means seeinng Coretta Scott King, and Martin's children.

James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro.

[dissidentlibrary]

That's when I saw the photograph.

Facing us, on every newspaper kiosk

on that wide, tree-shaded boulevard in Paris

were photographs of fifteen-year-old Dorothy Counts

being reviled and spat upon by the mob

as she was making her way to school

in Charlotte, North Carolina.

James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro.

[dissidentlibrary]

There was unutterable pride, tensuin, and anguish

in that girl's face

as she approached the halls of learning,

with history, jeering, at her back.

It made me furious,

it filled me with both hatred and pity.

And it made me ashamed.

James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro.

[dissidentlibrary]

Some of us should have been there with her!

But it was on that bright afternoon

that I knew I was leaving France.

I could, simply, no longer sit around

in Paris discussing the Algerian

and the black American problem.

Everybody else was paying their dues,

and it was time I went home and paid mine.

James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro.

[dissidentlibrary]

That's when I saw the photograph.

Facing us, on every newspaper kiosk

on that wide, tree-shaded boulevard in Paris

were photographs of fifteen-year-old Dorothy Counts

being reviled and spat upon by the mob

as she was making her way to school

in Charlotte, North Carolina.

James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro.

[dissidentlibrary]

There was unutterable pride, tensuin, and anguish

in that girl's face

as she approached the halls of learning,

with history, jeering, at her back.

It made me furious,

it filled me with both hatred and pity.

And it made me ashamed.

James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro.

[dissidentlibrary]

That's when I saw the photograph.

Facing us, on every newspaper kiosk

on that wide, tree-shaded boulevard in Paris

were photographs of fifteen-year-old Dorothy Counts

being reviled and spat upon by the mob

as she was making her way to school

in Charlotte, North Carolina.

James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro.

[saintsaensreads]

Idk what goes through people's head but rewriting original texts and taking out what you consider insulting is in fact, not the sign of a new edition of a text. It's the publication of an entirely different one.

[dissidentlibrary]

I always wonder why we don't just add introductions to texts that are deemed too problematic to be left in the wild.

Why don't we just face these texts for what they are and with an ounce of critical thinking?

Add a foreword, add a critical essay by some scholar (hire us, please), add contextualisation and critiques.

[saintsaensreads]

Books recently banned in Moscow

Last month, Muscovite libraries received a list of 53 books that were to be taken off the shelves. In total, it's 34 titles (with various editions of said titles) which are not to be seen again in those libraries.

It's unclear why those specific books were targeted, but what is certain is that they all contain, in one way or another, LGBT+ content (something which is understood as "Western propaganda" by the Russian government), they are criticizing totalitarianism and they are considered popular amongst Russian readers.

Here is the full list, with Storygraph/WorldCat links.

Possession, Anthony Susan Byatt (1990)

The Immortalists, Chloe Benjamin (2018)

The Absolutist, John Boyne (2011)

A Ladder To The Sky, John Boyne (2018)

"El Jersei", Blanca Busquets (2006) [no English translation]

"Рана : роман", Oksana Vasyakina (2021) [no English translation]

Playing a part, Daria Wilke (2013)

James Miranda Barry, Patricia Dunker (1999)

The Prophets, Robert Jones Jr. (2021)

Lizard, Banana Yashimoto (1993)

Our Lady of the Flowers, Jean Genet (1988)

Confessions, Jaume Cabre (2011)

The Snow Queen, Michael Cunningham (2014)

By Nightfall, Michael Cunningham (2010)

The Girls, Emma Cline (2016)

"Введение в сексологию", Igor Kon (1989)

The Notebook, Agota Christoph (1986)

Every day, David Levithan (2012)

It’s me – Eddie, Edward Limonov (1979)

The Borrower, Rebecca Mackay (2011)

Dancer, Colum McCann (2003)

After the Quake, Haruki Murakami (1999)

Oh boy!, Marie-Aude Murail (2016) [no English translation]

The Air You Breathe, Frances de Pontes Peebles (2018)

"Люди луннаго свѣта. Метафизика христіанства", Vasily Rozanov (1911) [no English translation]

The Raven boys, Maggie Stiefvater(2012)

The Dream Thieves, Maggie Stiefvater (2013)

Family Album, Danielle Steel (1994)

Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters (1998)

The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters (2009)

Making History, Stephen Fry (1996)

The Fry Chronicles, Stephen Fry (2011)

The Perks of being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky (1999)

The Wave, Todd Strasser (1981)

Sources

Article in French: Actuallite

Articles in English: Observatorial, The Bell, Nippon, Meduza