STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The estate of Kurt Vonnegut joined a lawsuit against banning his most famous book. "Slaughterhouse-Five" is about a World War II veteran like Vonnegut himself.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KURT VONNEGUT: (Reading) Listen. Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.
INSKEEP: That's Vonnegut reading his book about a man who keeps flashing back-and-forth from his memories of the war to the present.
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K VONNEGUT: (Reading) Billy has gone to sleep a senile widower and awakened on his wedding day. He's walked through a door in 1955 and come out another one in 1941.
INSKEEP: This novel has sold millions of copies, has provoked a long-running debate about the fire bombing of Dresden in World War II and has run afoul of a Utah law. It includes references to sex or sexual organs. Book banning debates are common across the country, so we will hear from a critic and supporter of Utah's law. We begin with Kurt Vonnegut's daughter Nanette, who remembers the typewriter clacking as her father wrote "Slaughterhouse-Five."
NANETTE VONNEGUT: We knew not to bother him. He was talking to himself a lot.
INSKEEP: And then he let her read the story, which is serious and comic all at once.
N VONNEGUT: And I have to say, when I was reading, he would be in the next room. If I laughed, he'd come running in because...
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
N VONNEGUT: ...That is what mattered (laughter).
INSKEEP: He'd want to know which joke landed.
N VONNEGUT: Absolutely, every time.
INSKEEP: The book has been banned in various places for decades, sometimes even burned. Now, two Utah school districts have removed it from their libraries. If a third makes a final decision to remove it, the ban goes statewide. Nanette Vonnegut and the Vonnegut estate joined the suit along with several living authors whose books are also affected.
N VONNEGUT: I feel the urgency. I've never felt this urgency before about what's going on. Maybe because I have a granddaughter, I don't want to see her in a world where words are taken away from her and choices.
INSKEEP: Utah's legislature passed the law on sexual material in 2022. Terry Hutchinson of Utah has no doubt about their wisdom.
TERRY HUTCHINSON: Certain types of sexual material put in school libraries is harmful to students. It's harmful to student safety.
INSKEEP: Hutchinson is a Utah lawyer, broadcaster, former local school board member and current candidate for the state board of education. He says he's also a fan of books. For many years, he reviewed them on a Utah radio station.
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HUTCHINSON: Hi, everyone. I'm Terry Hutchinson. Welcome to Bookmarks. It's been more than 25 years since I first began talking about "Harry Potter" on this program.
INSKEEP: He likes J. K. Rowling and books related to his faith and history and classics.
HUTCHINSON: I'm actually in the middle of Homer's "Odyssey" again.
INSKEEP: But when he was on a school board in southwest Utah, the board sometimes pulled a book from the library. At our request, he went back through Vonnegut's masterpiece.
HUTCHINSON: You know, I read "Slaughterhouse-Five" years ago.
INSKEEP: Got it.
HUTCHINSON: I am not a big Kurt Vonnegut fan. Not really because of subject matter, but because of style.
INSKEEP: If you were on a school board today and the question came up as to whether to remove this book from a school library, what would you do?
HUTCHINSON: It'd have to come out.
INSKEEP: To the extent that you were comfortable, which passages go over the line for you?
HUTCHINSON: Oh.
INSKEEP: He said a phrase from the book describing a partially aroused man.
HUTCHINSON: And once you get there, that is where you are crossing the line.
INSKEEP: Now, here's a conflict at the center of the lawsuit. Utah law allows schools to remove sexual content when it's challenged, but the U.S. Constitution upholds free speech and expression. A U.S. Supreme Court case has limited when a government may censor alleged obscenity. Officials must consider not only a few words in the book, but whether it has wider, literary, artistic, political or scientific value. Terry Hutchinson is hoping the courts will overlook that in the case of Utah school libraries.
HUTCHINSON: You've got 10- and 11-year-olds. And then you've got kindergartners who are just starting out.
INSKEEP: I could see a case with a 17-year-old, though, that that person is still a minor, but learning to become a citizen, learning about the world, and some of them will reach into a library and get value out of a challenging novel, even including some material that I wouldn't necessarily agree with myself.
HUTCHINSON: And the point is you have public libraries for that.
INSKEEP: Hutchinson once was on the board of a public library, which also removed books sometimes, although he says it at a broader standard. In a school library, he says, parents may object on behalf of their kids.
Let me ask about the other example. What about a parent who insists, I want my child to have available in the school library, which is the most convenient library for them, a variety of literary works, including ones that might be on the edge of controversial?
HUTCHINSON: If it violates the standard, then it's not our obligation to put it in a school library. We're using taxpayer funds.
INSKEEP: Yeah, but what if the taxpayer is saying, I want that?
HUTCHINSON: Doesn't matter. I mean, heck, parents might want a pony. Does the school district have to provide the pony?
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
HUTCHINSON: And I'm being a little facetious there, OK?
INSKEEP: What if the parents want "My Little Pony," the book? No, that's a joke. Please...
HUTCHINSON: Then you know what? If it's in the budget, whatever.
INSKEEP: On the other side of the argument, Kurt Vonnegut's daughter Nanette says removing her father's novel from the school library takes it farther from the audience that needs it most.
N VONNEGUT: It's robbing these teenagers of these magnificent words. Shutting books down, taking them away from kids is a very disturbing and awful thing that's happening.
INSKEEP: I think it will sometimes be said we are not actually banning the book. We are taking the book out of reach of children under a certain age in public schools.
N VONNEGUT: I don't know how they can justify it. There's nothing pornographic. Can't kids at this age decide for themselves and also let the teachers and the librarians do their work?
INSKEEP: Oh, right there is an even deeper conflict over who decides. Vonnegut wants professionals to decide, not politicians. Terry Hutchinson feels the opposite.
HUTCHINSON: Think it's just naive to say, well, politicians should stay out of the library, politicians should stay out of the schools. And a lot of people naively thought that for years until eventually, all of a sudden, kids are coming home with different ideologies than the parents want or whatever.
INSKEEP: Nanette Vonnegut contends her father's book teaches no ideology except to be kind. She told me the book has saved people.
What did you mean?
N VONNEGUT: Saved the lives of especially teenagers. I think it's a very lonely place to be, very awkward place to be. I think his tone, his voice, his words, he's made people feel less alienated, less alone.
INSKEEP: Vonnegut is arguing for the artistic value of the book, one of the factors the courts may consider as they decide who decides. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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