Wednesday, July 03, 2013

Book banning and Ted Dawe’s Into the River

A thoughtful piece posted on her blog by


A ‘friend in the media’ asked me to give his local paper a response to the furore that’s erupted over Ted Dawe’s novel Into the River, which I worked on in its initial assessment and editing phase. The newspaper that asked for comment has decided not to step into the controversy after all: and given I spent quite a bit of time pondering it this week and during the initial reading of the draft novel, I thought I would post something here.


I strongly believe that literature is one of the places that young people can safely think through situations, and rehearse their moral choices, without the grave personal compromise that living through the real events might involve. Forewarned is forearmed.The novel is aimed at ages 15+: the sex scenes are unromanticised, and speak the truth of unsatisfactory experiences. Yes, they’re awkward, raw, discomfiting. That’s part of the point. They happen in the context of a young, disenfranchised teenager trying to grapple with a loss of identity and with institutionalised racism, casual racism, and classist attitudes; with a life where the moral compass seems skewed to the powerful and those with a dubious authority. The sex scenes have to be read in context. If readers read the entire book, they’ll see that the main character, Devon, is left hurt, bewildered, empty, and wanting more than the casual encounters he’s had. The point isn’t the sex: it’s what the sex represents. The real tragedy is that Devon has nobody to talk to about what happens to him. He’s deeply isolated; the hunger for something wild and explosive that grows out of his failed relationship with the first teenage girl he has sex with, the craving for anarchy, is a channelling of pain and inarticulacy.

If we silence the book, and remove it from young adult readers, we repeat the kind of insidious censorship and bullying that the fictional private boys’ school of the novel, Barwell’s, embodies. From silence grows ignorance, isolation and confusion.

Full piece.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is all very well but you are an adult and able to process this all very intelligently with your years of experience. We are promoting this book (by its win) to teens. Some/many of whom this may be their first sexual experience. It is inappropriate, it is graphic and it darkens minds.
I remain unconvinced that this is appropriate for our confused young people of today.

Beattie's Book Blog said...

I will not accept anymore anonymous comments on this subject. if you do not have the courage to sign your name then don't worry about writing to me.

Anna Rumble said...

Oh yes Graham Beattie, do you really think a 15 year old boy who finds this in the library at school marked 'explicit content' is going to be concerned about reading the whole story to find out at the very end it didn't turn out that great for the character?! I'll tell you what he'll do if you can't work it out for yourself or you're to old to remember what it's like to be 15, he's going to find the most sexually exciting page and fill his mind with the scene he's reading which YOU say has to be 'read in context' I think the promotion of sex in todays society is 'raw' enough thanks, without permeating young peoples minds even more with 'unromanticised' garbarge.
SIGNED - Anna Rumble

Unknown said...

Anna, in today's world a 'book' is probably an unlikely place for a teenager to look for, and get their dose of porn. Good on you Graham for addressing a difficult and confusing topic for young men and women alone.

Shane Wratt

Catherine Dimitrov said...

I understand there has been much debate over this book’s award. I don’t believe that 15+ teenagers have the understanding and the experience to take the message intended by this book. Anne has a point that teenage boys will skip to the parts where the sex is. I just don’t think this book is for the general teenage population. My fear is that it will serve as yet another way society highlights sex. If this book is to be of help it needs to be read with an adult advising or talking with the child, reaffirming the message of the book. That this ‘disenfranchised’ teenager was looking to replace his emptiness, brought about by events and people who did not have his best interests at heart and took advantage of his innocence, in all the wrong places. The sticker does two things in my opinion; 1. It warns of the explicit content to the reader who will read it from cover-to-cover, and 2. It illuminates to the enquiring mind that there is something ‘saucy bits’ to read in this book. At the end of the day, we should be very discerning as to who reads this book. Let’s give it to those perpetrators of ‘institutionalized racism, casual racism, and/or classist attitudes’ to read so they can be a positive rather than destructive influence on our children.