EA Blevins

The truth of the matter is that artists see the world in a different way than the rest of society. A good visual artist will be trained to examine light patterns, fabric textures, even the way individual strands of hair fall. When a visual artist paints or draws a nude, it is not the nudity that they see but, rather, the individual parts. The freckles on a shoulder, the curve of a nose, and the way shadows fall across the human form. It is not banal to an artist because the artist does not look to express nudity. The true artist revels in the individual details, the details that the untrained eye takes for granted.

In writing, we must mimic all of the other art forms. We must express sound, sight, touch, taste, and smell without actually using any of them. A writer sees a written work as something that must be balanced but off-balance, that fits together like a well-sewn garment. Our work must be interesting without being overboard, and we must revel in the individual nuances that make up the whole. To the untrained eye, a book is merely its content.

But a good writer can shape his or her mouth around the totality of a work and let it melt on the tongue like homemade ice cream. The beauty of the written word is not the font that it's written in or the pictures that accompany it -- a really good piece of writing is not mauled by its content, even if the content is objectionable.

Now, that doesn't mean that objectionable content can be excused just because it's well done. It just means that I don't dismiss books out-of-hand if they have content I might not like. I don't have to like a book to respect it or admire its craftsmanship, or even to see its possible worth to society.

I mean, I'm obviously not going to let my kids read Daddy's Roommate, a picture book about a little boy and his gay father. But getting upset about Of Mice and Men, Bridge to Terabithia, or The Catcher in the Rye . . . that's just ridiculous. I studied all three of these in school. Did I like them very much? No, they were too depressing. Do I think they should be studied? Yes. They have real literary merit that I recognize and respect. In The Catcher in the Rye, the main character has a deep need to protect children, exemplified by his rubbing the F-word off of a school wall with his thumb. Of Mice and Men is rough, yes, but it's also poignant and heart-breaking. And Bridge to Terabithia made me cry for days -- it's what my children's lit teacher called a "death book," a book that covers the subject of death.

All of these books are brilliant, whether I enjoyed them or not, and censoring them would be like putting clothes on all the nude statues in a museum. The point in a true piece of art is deeper than the parts that you see. The deep parts, like shadows among individual strands of hair, are why the art was made in the first place. Through their existence, the work is worthwhile, and the reading . . . it can heal.

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