Re: 25 Classic Books That Have Been Banned

On Sun, 16 Feb 2025 13:59:11 +0000, J. J. Lodder wrote:

Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> wrote:
>

On 16/02/25 06:59, J. J. Lodder wrote:
>

First line of the synopsis of the book:
"Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em,
but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."
It recurs in the text, as advice given to youngsters with air guns.

>
Where did that synopsis come from? I don't recall reading it. Perhaps
that is because I read the book, not the synopsis.

>
Your edition will probably not have had it.
The Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition
(Harper Collins) begins with it.
Evidently the series editors see it as -the- key sentence of the book.
It is probably absent in other editions. (full text in .sig)
Note that 'shoot all the bluejays you want' is positive advice.
So here we see a thoroughly nasty 'good' American.
>

I presume that the the author did not write the synopsis. Is it fair to
criticise a book based on something the author did not write?

>
But he did.

She (unless you're crediting Truman Capote with that
line).

It is quoted verbatim from a line in the text,

From your sig:
"====
Synopsis
       "Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but
remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird". This is a lawyer's advice to
his children as he defends the real mockingbird of this story — a black
man charged with raping a white girl in the Deep South of the 1930s
                      (The Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition)
====
"PS The bluejay is a strictly North American species.
It is best compared to the Eurasian Magpie. (Pica pica)
This is a very intelligent bird, comparable in abilities to great apes.
It is the only non-mamalian species known to pass the mirror test."
Why best?  Its closest relative is the Steller's Jay
of western North America, and it's currently placed
in the same subfamily as the other jays of the
Americas [*], the sister to the subfamily that contains
magpies, crows, ravens, and Old World jays.
A Web search confirmed my surmise that the very
intelligent bird you mentioned was the Eurasian
Magpie, not the Blue Jay.  Wikipedia mentions that a
species of fish and a species of crab have been
reported to pass the mirror test, as well as domestic
pigeons after some training (e.g., to look in a mirror
in order to find food). It also says that an attempt
to replicate the mirror test with Eurasian Magpies
didn't find any self-recognition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test
Certainly crows, jays, and magpies are among the
most intelligent birds, though.
[*] Except the Canada Jay.
--
Jerry Friedman
--