"The board tries, but God decides, when to kill The Prince of Tides"

Not at all surprisingly to those of us who attended public school in this area, "The Prince of Tides" by Pat Conroy has been banned at Nitro High School in West Virginia, and it appears that Conroy's "Beach Music" is next on the chopping block.

Most are familiar with the book via the movie by the same name, starring Barbra Streisand and Nick Nolte. It is the story of a teacher/football coach who has a twin sister, an extremely troubled yet famous New York poet. When his sister attempts suicide again and becomes so disassociated that she is unable to help in her own treatment, he is forced from his dull, predictable life to assist her psychiatrist in understanding why her patient reacted in that manner. The narrator is thus forced to confront the dysfunction and severe traumas which he, his mother, and his siblings had endured, and which are at the source of his sister's loss of identity. It's an excellent piece of modern literature by any measure.

According to Wikipedia, "Beach Music" is described as follows: "Jack McCall, an American living in Rome with his young daughter, is trying to find peace after the recent trauma of his wife's suicide. But his search for solitude is disturbed by his sister-in-law, and by two schoolfriends who want his help in tracking down another classmate who went underground as a Vietnam protestor and never resurfaced. As Jack begins a journey that encompasses the past and the present in both Europe and the American South, he also begins a quest that will lead him to shocking truths."

Leona Tyree, a parent who pulled her son out of the advanced-placement English Literature class at Nitro High, "“We complained about ‘The Prince of Tides'. I could not read the whole book. I found it very offensive.”

Perhaps if Tyree had actually finished reading it, she would have realized that it was nowhere near as offensive as she originally thought. The so-called "offensive" content is not gratuitious; far from it, in fact. While it describes a rape, that description is necessary to the story.

"The Prince of Tides" is therefore not pornography, despite its sexual content. It is literature, and no intelligent person would think otherwise. If these parents are so ignorant that they can't see the difference, I can't help but marvel that their children ever got into an advanced-placement literature class in the first place. In fact, I'm surprised that their children are interested in real literature at all, with narrow-minded role models like them at home.

At any rate, because the advanced-placement course taught a book that someone's mommy thinks is "very offensive", all the students both now and in the future at Nitro High are being denied a quality education in modern American literature. The class had already read the book, and had already been tested on it. Their grades on that test will not count toward their course final grade unless a "committee" now approves the use of the book.

Huh? Who, exactly, is on this committee? Is it comprised even in part of overreacting parents, rather than professionals in the fields of education and literature? If so, it's a complete waste of time.

High school students are not children, and shouldn't be treated like children. They know what sex is, whether their parents want to believe that or not. They know that pedophilia and rape exist, and all they have to do to find out about those sunjects is read a newspaper, or watch the news. Even watching a few episodes of "Law and Order SVU" will fill them in quite well on the subject of sex crimes. Reading "The Prince of Tides" is not going to turn them into pedophiles or rapists, or make them more likely to fall victim to sexually-based offenses. Instead, it helps them understand what victims of those crimes experience, not only at that time, but as they attempt to make their way through life with the enduring scars of their abuse.

It is especially important for students from the Bible Belt to read books like "The Prince of Tides", because it confronts a lot of the ignorance and familial abuse so common in this area of our country. Indeed, it confronts truths that some of the students may well have experienced in their own lives. Is it possible that's the real reason why parents are opposed to the book? I can't help but wonder.

There is hope, though. About 40 students at Nitro High staged a silent protest on October 5th in opposition to the banning of the book. About 40 students wore white t-shirts bearing the words "The board tries, but God decides, when to kill the Prince of Tides", a play on the book's statement "man wonders, but God decides, when to kill the prince of tides".

I really want one of those t-shirts.

According to Nitro High student Justin Fletcher, he and his classmates want to protest “the censorship of any kind of book for educational purposes.” It's heartening to see that the students understand the stupidity in banning books, even if their parents don't see it. After all, these students actually read the book from beginning to end, so they're better qualified to make the statement than their parents. Furthermore, it is well recognized that banning ideas is not conducive to a free society. According to Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, "Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."

Books regularly challenged for banning include "Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger, "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck, and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain.

This latest attempt at banning a piece of American literature is particularly interesting because Saturday marked the end of Banned Books Week. Read more about banned books at the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom website.