Was the Book Propaganda?
After reading the story, I started to question the reason that it was written for. I started to get the notion that it had at least as much about glorifying Chris Crutcher’s books as it did about Eddie Proffit dealing with death and religion. So, this posting is about why I think that the book was written with a second purpose in mind.
I started to think about this first when the class got assigned to read Warren Peece. Of course that is a fictional novel made up for the story, but it was supposedly written by Crutcher. At first I thought it was humorous that an author would be alluding to himself in the form of a character asking themselves what this Chris Crutcher guy must be like, but it continued. There was more and more talk about Crutcher and what kind of character he must be, so I started to think that it was strange. I had to wonder if the he was arrogant or cleverly funny for the references to himself.
Then, as the story started to unfold, I realized that it was not as much about a sledding hill, that was only briefly introduced three times, but a book. The sledding hill was about why one of Chris Crutcher’s novels should not be banned! Because Warren Peece (I like the pun) was a made up book, he could have used some made up author, but he instead chose to use himself. I would like to clarify that I have nothing wrong with almost all of the story, I think it was written very well, but the book seemed like a very, very clever ad campaign. I was just astonished that the issue of young adult literature (specifically that of Crutcher) being banned was presented in another book by that same author. So, was the story really targeted at convincing people not to ban his books, or was he just trying to add irony into his book? I would like to know. It may be that he was unsure of which issue to write about, so he chose book censorship, and decided to use himself. It seems very strange.
If it is trying to convince us, it would be to no great effect. If our parents and school board don’t have any worries about circulating the book in the first place, why would we need to be convinced? Also, if our school board did not allow this book to be circulated, we would not even be reading it, as the probability of us randomly coming across it is not great. These opinions of mine would lead me to think that he just wanted to write a story about the topic, but I am still not sure.
In my opinion, the story was propaganda, but with a thought provoking story about a kid with ADHD and his dead friend to the side of it. It was about why Chris Crutcher’s novels shouldn’t be banned. The book was even about the book itself when Billy snuck into Chris’ computer and planted the story that we are reading. Although, please do not think that I did not like the story. I enjoyed reading it much, but I was just left wondering if it was a giant add campaign for all of Chris Crutcher’s novels. Maybe it was just a funny story. So, please tell me what you thought, and if you think that any of my points in this blog do not make sense to you. I would be happy to reply!
3 comments:
I agree with your thought about the ad campaign. In my opinion, I think Chris Crutcher should run in the presidential race. He would probably win. When I was first reading the book, I thought that it was going to be about Billy's death and how Eddie overcomes his struggles. But in the end, it turns out that it was all about Crutcher.
Thank you for seeing my point. It is just a very clever way of supporting his own work. I like how you said that he could run for president. I am sure that he would have the ability to make himself popular with the people through clever things like books. I do believe that the book had almost too much about Crutcher in it. At least it was a pretty entertaining story to read. Overall, it was a pretty good book.
I did not know that it was a made up book! I wish that I would have known that before, and I agree that he should have not used his name in the story. I do think that the book was propaganda and that he was stupid to add himself as a charachter.
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