Jun 28, 2010
Some literary censorship is not only acceptable, but essential.
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The most valid form of censorship is that practiced by writers upon themselves. Scrupulously revising or destroying all writing that fails to let readers vanish into the life of their language is every author’s duty. What we are morally obligated to censor from our work…is our own incompetence.…
If, in other words, a story requires that its author creates a mountain, and further requires that this mountain be imposing, the immoral mountain is not the one with the pair of unmarried hikers copulating on a remote slope: it is the mountain that fails to be imposing.
-David James Duncan, God Laughs & Plays, 39
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Fantastic book. I just finished it about a week ago, after first being turned on to DJD by your quotes from The Brothers K last year. Thanks for that.