re: book banning

This was originally brought to my attention in a post on the Penny Arcade forums.

Don’t ask me why I did it, but here it is.

The list of objections brought against Farenheit 451.

Page 197 Drunk
Page 199 Bought Cig/ Beer
Page 201 Drunk/ smellen(sic) like …
Page 203 Drunk
Page 15 So D Late (?)
Page 28 Cigarettes
Page 70 Slapped face/ Shook HE…
Page 75 Dirty Talk
Page 76 Dirty Talk
Page 78 Old & New Test
Page 80 Bible

Addendum

“downgrading Christians”
“talking about firemen”

Perhaps foolishly, I had assumed that the pagination of my copy of the book(republished in '78) was the same as that relied upon by the Philistine who drafted the original list of objections. I wanted to see if I could, for shits and giggles if nothing else, find out what they had classified as "dirty talk".

I wish I was making this up, but in my copy of the book, across the span between pages 75 and 76 is one of my favourite exchanges in that entire book.

"His name was Faber, and when looking at the sky and the trees and the green park, and when an hour had passed he said something to Montag and Montag sensed it was a rhymeless poem. Then the old man grew even more courageous and said something else and that was a poem, too. Faber held his hand over his left coat-pocket and spoke these words gently, and Montag knew if he reached out, he might pull out a book of poetry from the man's coat. But he did not reach out. His hands stayed on his knee, numbed and useless. "I don't talk things, sir," said Faber. "I talk the meaning of things. I sit here and know I'm alive."

That was all there was to it, really. An hour of monologue, a poem, a comment, and then without even acknowledging the fact that Montag was a fireman, Faber with a certain trembling, wrote his address on a slip of paper. "for your file," he said, "in case you decide to be angry with me."
"I'm not angry," Montag said, surprised.