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DURHAM -- The "humble narrator" told an audience at the Durham County Library Sunday afternoon about his ordeal in prison. Alex, played by local actor Lucius Robinson, told about being forced to watch violent films to the point of nausea.
Robinson was dramatizing a passage from British author Anthony Burgess' novel "A Clockwork Orange," a story about a violent juvenile delinquent who after being arrested agrees to go through a program that will condition him to be a good person. Alex, who often refers to himself in the book as "your humble narrator and friend," eventually chooses to reform his ways, but not because of any psychological conditioning, a key theme of Burgess' novel.
Burgess invented a language for the novel, and Robinson, with British accent, made the language more understandable with hand gestures that helped dramatize the words.
Alex was among some 10 characters local actors dramatized Sunday during Banned Books Onstage, the first event in the library's observance of Banned Books Week. All characters are from books that have been challenged by people who wanted them removed from schools, libraries and other venues.
In 1973, a bookseller was arrested for selling the Burgess novel, according to some library research materials. James Joyce's "Ulysses" was once banned in this country for its sexual explicitness but was made available later after a court ruling. Other works dramatized Sunday also have been challenged. James Baldwin's "Go Tell It On the Mountain" was challenged because of scenes of rape and violence. Julia Alvarez' "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents" has been challenged for sexual content, profane language and drug references. Mary Shelley's classic "Frankenstein" was banned in South Africa in 1955 for its alleged obscenity.
Dana Marks, affecting an Irish brogue, did a dramatization of a portion of Molly Bloom's soliloquy that closes Joyce's experimental novel, complete with references to adultery, and the novel's earthy, bawdy references unexpurgated. Actress Joy Jones dramatized passages by two characters, Sethe and Beloved, from Toni Morrison's "Beloved," challenged for its violence as well as language and sexuality. Actor Thaddeus Edwards portrayed Elisha from "Go Tell It On the Mountain," a novel about a young man's journey to a life of faith.
The American Library Association began observing Banned Books Week in 1982 to draw attention to the importance of the freedom to read. The association has a Freedom to Read Statement that asserts the right of Americans to read books with varying and diverse ideas.
The idea for Banned Books Onstage came from Marian Fragola, humanities coordinator for the library, who broached the idea to Jay O'Berski, an actor and artistic director of Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern. O'Berski himself dramatized Humbert Humbert's speech from Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita," in which he remembers first seeing his forbidden love. At Sunday's event, O'Berski said a young member of the audience expressed appreciation for the dramatization, and that dramatizing the passages might offer young people another window into the novels.
"Hearing the language makes it come alive," Fragola said.
The idea behind Banned Books Onstage was to encourage library patrons to discover or rediscover the literary quality of the banned books. To help with that effort, The Regulator Bookshop had a number of the titles that were dramatized for sale. The library also displayed some copies of library volumes pertaining to censorship.
Banned Books Week events continue this week.
More Banned Books Week Events
- "D.H. Lawrence as Pornographer or Prophet: The Case of a Controversial Author," Wednesday at 7 p.m. Judith Ruderman, vice provost at Duke University, will discuss public response to D.H. Lawrence and the controversies his works provoked. Lawrence (1885-1930) wrote "Lady Chatterley's Lover," "Sons and Lovers," "Women in Love," as well as poetry and plays.
- "From 'Forever' to 'Harry Potter': Banned Books That Kids (and Adults) Love," Thursday at 7 p.m. Sandra Hughes-Hassell, a national expert in school library media and professor at UNC, and Heather Mitchell, a doctoral candidate at Duke University, will discuss attempts to ban some of the most beloved books of the last 50 years, including Judy Blume's "Forever" and J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter."
All events take place at Durham's Main Library, 300 N. Roxboro St. For information, call 560-0268 or visit www.durhamcountylibrary.org.
