封杀哈利·波特的背后

看新闻晚报，看到一篇美国人欲封杀《哈利·波特》的报道(Highai上看到的，所以不知原文标题是否如此)。

又是畅销书哈利·波特，又是禁书，绝对属于吸引眼球的题材。

不过，不知是新华社的记者有苦衷还是为何，关于这个事件的背景，却没有交代清楚。

之所以会有这样一则新闻，是因为2006年的"禁书周"(Banned Books Week,BBW)。

“禁书周"自1982年以来，每年的都有，日期就定在每年九月的最后一周。这个活动是为了庆祝言论自由和出版自由，以及由此而保障的阅读自由。

这个活动的举办者好几家，都是相关领域的重要组织。

回到《哈利·波特》的问题上。其实，“封杀"这个词用的是严重了。的确在历史上，有一部分书是被封杀的(Banned)，不过近代更多不过是"Challenged”，即有人希望能够将这本书从公立图书馆或者图书架上撤下，以避免被孩童接触到。毕竟，在言论自由已经成为"常识"的美国，要真的封杀一本书，实在不是容易的事情。当然，即使是"Challenged”，也是不容许的。 Library Bill of Rights上清清楚楚的写着，只有孩童的父母有权利禁止他们接触某部分图书馆资源，而且这种权利仅限于自己的孩子。"Librarians and governing bodies should maintain that parents-and only parents-have the right and the responsibility to restrict the access of their children-and only their children-to library resources. "

从统计资料来看《哈利·波特》真是越来越成为被Challenged的热门书籍，在1990-2000年前100本被Challenged的书籍中，《哈利·波特》尚排列第七，而到了2000-2005阶段，就名列榜首了。

当然，BBW活动中有趣的资料非常多，各位可以去这个链接仔细看看。下面引用的这份书单，则是Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century，也就是20世纪最伟大书籍的评选。BBW发现，其中至少有42本成为封杀的目标。下面的榜单中黑体的就是。

不过，就个人而言，并不喜欢这样一份昭示有多少本伟大的书籍曾经成为封杀对象的榜单，因为这样的榜单容易引起误导。对于阅读者，很容易留下印象就是：我们要捍卫言论和出版自由，是因为许多伟大、正确甚至真理的东西也会面临自由的挑战，我们保护的目的就是使这些好的东西可以存在并且流传下去。

但是，真正言论和出版自由的精髓，与正确与否，伟大与否无关。这是一种天赋的权利，即使我们有方法确认一本书完全是错误而且永远是垃圾，其实仍旧要维护它存在的自由。这才是禁书周存在的真正意义。

PS：今年Google也推出了专门的网站为BBW贡献一份力，有兴趣的可以去http://books.google.com/googlebooks/banned/浏览。

** The Great Gatsby , F. Scott Fitzgerald**
** Catcher in the Rye , JD Salinger**
** The Grapes of Wrath , John Steinbeck**
** To Kill a Mockingbird , Harper Lee**
** The Color Purple , Alice Walker**
** Ulysses , James Joyce**
** Beloved , Toni Morrison**
** The Lord of the Flies , William Golding**
** 1984 , George Orwell**
The Sound and the Fury , William Faulkner
** Lolita , Vladmir Nabokov**
** Of Mice and Men , John Steinbeck**
Charlotte’s Web , EB White
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man , James Joyce
** Catch-22 , Joseph Heller**
** Brave New World , Aldous Huxley**
Animal Farm , George Orwell
** The Sun Also Rises , Ernest Hemingway**
** As I Lay Dying , William Faulkner**
** A Farewell to Arms , Ernest Hemingway**
** Heart of Darkness , Joseph Conrad**
Winnie-the-Pooh , AA Milne
** Their Eyes were Watching God , Zora Neale Hurston**
** Invisible Man , Ralph Ellison**
** Song of Solomon , Toni Morrison**
** Gone with the Wind , Margaret Mitchell**
** Native Son , Richard Wright**
** One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest , Ken Kesey**
** Slaughterhouse Five , Kurt Vonnegut**
** For Whom the Bell Tolls , Ernest Hemingway**
On the Road , Jack Kerouac
The Old Man and the Sea , Ernest Hemingway
** The Call of the Wild , Jack London**
To the Lighthouse , Virginia Woolf
Portrait of a Lady , Henry James
** Go Tell it on the Mountain , James Baldwin**
The World According to Garp , John Irving
** All the King’s Men , Robert Penn Warren**
A Room with a View , EM Forster
The Lord of the Rings , JRR Tolkien
Schindler’s List , Thomas Keneally
The Age of Innocence , Edith Wharton
The Fountainhead , Ayn Rand
Finnegans Wake , James Joyce
** The Jungle , Upton Sinclair**
Mrs. Dalloway , Virginia Woolf
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz , Frank L. Baum
** Lady Chatterley’s Lover , DH Lawrence**
** A Clockwork Orange , Anthony Burgess**
The Awakening , Kate Chopin
My Antonia , Willa Cather
Howard’s End , EM Forster
** In Cold Blood , Truman Capote**
Franny and Zooey , JD Salinger
** Satanic Verses , Salman Rushdie**
Jazz , Toni Morrison
Sophie’s Choice , William Styron
Absalom, Absalom! , William Faulkner
Passage to India , EM Forster
Ethan Frome , Edith Wharton
A Good Man is Hard to Find , Flannery O’Connor
Tender is the Night , F. Scott Fitzgerald
Orlando , Virginia Woolf
** Sons and Lovers , DH Lawrence**
Bonfire of the Vanities , Thomas Wolfe
** Cat’s Cradle , Kurt Vonnegut**
** A Separate Peace , John Knowles**
Light in August , William Faulkner
The Wings of the Dove , Henry James
Things Fall Apart , Chinua Achebe
Rebecca , Daphne du Maurier
A Hithchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy , Douglas Adams
** Naked Lunch , William S. Burroughs**
Brideshead Revisited , Evelyn Waugh
** Women in Love , DH Lawrence**
Look Homeward, Angel , Thomas Wolfe
In Our Time , Ernest Hemingway
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas , Gertrude Stein
The Maltese Falcon , Dashiell Hammett
** The Naked and the Dead , Norman Mailer**
The Wide Sargasso Sea , Jean Rhys
White Noise , Don DeLillo
O Pioneers! , Willa Cather
** Tropic of Cancer , Henry Miller**
The War of the Worlds , HG Wells
Lord Jim , Joseph Conrad
The Bostonians , Henry James
** An American Tragedy , Theodore Dreiser**
Death Comes for the Archbishop , Willa Cather
The Wind in the Willows , Kenneth Grahame
This Side of Paradise , F. Scott Fitzgerald
Atlas Shrugged , Ayn Rand
The French Lieutenant’s Woman , John Fowles
Babbitt , Sinclair Lewis
Kim , Rudyard Kipling
The Beautiful and the Damned , F. Scott Fitzgerald
** Rabbit, Run , John Updike**
Where Angels Fear to Tread , EM Forster
Main Street , Sinclair Lewis
Midnight’s Children , Salman Rushdie