I love classic literature. Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace may be long, but the rambling philosophical thoughts of his protagonist Pierre Bezukhov, questioning the meaning of life, are well worth the effort. I am currently reading Anna Karenina; and the characters are vivid and real, although set in a time with moral standards far from today’s world. The rich language of books written years ago is not only beautiful but reminds me of the decline of decorum.
Books and movies today are filled constantly with the *F* word. Recently, at our virtual world science fiction literary study, we read-aloud a current sci-fi story and I was so uncomfortable because it was filled with curse words and foul language. (This has happened several times!) I found myself looking ahead at the upcoming paragraphs trying to find a good spot to “hand off” to the next reader because I dislike using foul language very much. In fact, a new colleague and friend (Kyoko) sent an instant message because she could sense my discomfort. Now- don’t go thinking I believe in censorship! No way! A librarian stands up for intellectual freedom! I simply have never used vulgarity as it is not my personal style. Yet I realize others may pull it off well in a spicy conversational way.
What’s the purpose of foul language anyway?
Life has a dark side. We all know ugliness, decay, lewdness and evil lurk in the darkness of our world. But must we seek it out, glorify it, or use it as flippant sarcasm? Has our culture become desensitized? Perhaps some words are meant to shock us. But when overused, they lose the value to shock. What used to be lewd, crude or profane has become commonplace among young people in public and on social media.
What’s a drunken sailor to do when 15 year old girls have stolen all his swear words?
There is a place for vulgarity and foul language. I’m sure of it. But it isn’t in my vocabulary. Somebody needs to stand up for the drunken sailors! The oscillation between purity-beauty-idealism and soiled-ugly-realism is but one of the many opposites we swing between in life: war and peace, light and dark, and so on. (This has always been true but awareness of it seems so metamodern.) Are we throwing out the beautiful ideal because we no longer believe it is possible? Oh, but it is. It truly is. I have been married to a prince for almost 50 years through many joys and sorrows and can attest to the reality of dreams coming true.
No more worries about reading those bad words out loud!
Last night, as I placed my bookmark in Anna Karenina (which is far from a sweet syrupy novel which I would find a waste of time), I kept thinking about my dread of reading foul language aloud! It reminded me of how I am repulsed by snakes and I would look away from the cover of the books in the reptile section when I was re-shelving them in the school library (where I was the librarian). This repulsion is not a fear but more of an extreme dislike. The “snake man” with a van full of reptiles came to school one day and I decided to overcome my “so- called fear” by shooting a video of them for our school news show. As I was walking along the school cafeteria tables, looking through the video camera at snakes coiled and wiggling, I felt rather nauseous. I went back to my library office to put away my video camera, I thought to myself, “You know– it is okay not to like snakes! I don’t really need to like them and I don’t really need to like snake man either!” I stayed away the next time he visited the school.
As I put my Tolstoy book on my bedside table last night, I thought, “You know what? It is okay not to want to read the *F* word out loud in the science fiction literary study!” Each time, we ask for volunteer readers and some choose to just sit and listen. So, next time… I will pre-read the story and if it is filled with drunken sailor words, I am going to simply say “I pass tonight”.