THE LIBRARIANS

Kim A. Snyder's Documentary

If one were to seek forensic evidence of my depression, consumption of wine or/and Vanderpump Rules would be an appropriate measure, offering a direct correlation with my state of mind insofar as the more booze and crap TV (crap, definitely, but also an incredible psychological and sociological study into the mind of and his friends’ response to one of the world’s most narcissistic and delusional men, right?! If Tom Sandoval had been born in Eastern Europe in the early part of the 20th century, we’d have had another despot on our hands, so I guess we should thank our lucky stars he was born in St Louis in the 1980s and adopted into the West Hollywood tribe of Lisa Vanderpump, spending the majority of his adult life in the strict confines of a bar at SUR - which stands for sexy, unique restaurant… ffs… - where his diabolical behaviour was limited to hitting up as much vajayjay as humanly possible at whatever cost, completely obliterating the lives of the women who were unlucky enough to cross his path, all of which is captured on camera and none of which he seems to regret or even really understand at all, the fucker) I’ve watched, the lower I was feeling. The inverse correlation applies to books: if I’ve read loadsa books, things must have been looking and feeling up, relatively speaking. And I just finished watching Season 11 of Vanderpump Rules and it sounded like a dawn chorus of clinking glassware when I took my recycling out this morning, so I know two things: (i) I have been down in the dumps, and (ii) I haven’t read a book for months.

Not reading books does not mean I haven’t been buying books (sadly for my piddling bank balance). I have chronic literary FOMO, convinced I must read absolutely everything of any import whatsoever. The Japanese have a term for this dopamine-driven habit: tsundoku. And I fear my tsundoku is very advanced and could become terminal, such is the height of the piles of unread books on either side of my bed and the very real risk of them collapsing on me while I slumber (although as causes of death go, tsundoku isn’t an awful one, is it? I rather like it, tbh, given the alternatives…). To boot, I bought David Szalay’s novel Flesh a month or so ago when it won the Booker Prize, then skimmed through his bio and decided I should also read All That Man Is and Turbulence and become Facebook friends with him immediately, which I did, and I have not read a single word of any of ‘em. Nor of anything else in the interim period. Sozzles, Facebook friend David, but the shenanigans of all those sexy, unique bar tenders have kept me distracted, pretty tipsy most of the time, and yes, rather low for a while.

Aware of the encroaching “black dog”, I planned a little pick-me-up by way of a late lunch and Christmas shopping trip to Eataly with my elder daughter (and if you’re not familiar with Eataly, it is a ginormous marketplace in Liverpool Street and a temple of worship to all things Italian, a convenient spot where Italophiles and ex-pat Italians can quite sensibly go to get their parmesan and pancetta and panetonne, but which also somewhat confusingly exists in… Italy… ermmm… Why exactly do you need an Eataly in Italy, Italians, ffs?), but woke up with some all-too-familiar discomfort in my abdomen, a result of surgical adhesions, and rather than apply the tried and tested formula of taking some ibuprofen and lying prostrate for an hour or two, I decided on the less conventional prescription of prosecco, a huge bowl of spaghetti carbonara and a massive glass of barolo, force-feeding the discomfort until it grew into an unbearable pain (honestly… crying on the tube-level pain… the worst!), forcing me to prematurely end our afternoon together and load myself up with fistfuls of dihydrocodeine to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening in bed dozing to the background lullaby of Tom Sandoval’s karmic retribution (side note: I saw a post recently promoting Vanderpump Rules quiz nights in a dodgy pub in up-state New York, hosted by HRH of Thundercunts… which is precisely where he belongs).

Anywho, time to switch things up, eh? Time to switch off the reality TV (and, conveniently, I’ve just watched the last of the original cast’s 229 episodes… 229… what a waste of time…), give the booze a break (unconventional time of year for this, I know, but I am contrary as fuck and I’m having a dry Christmas anyway as a gesture of respect to non-drinking attendees… plus my mocktail game is on fleek) and read a (very carefully selected… one wrong move and these bedside Towers of Babel will stop me from seeing 2026…) god damn book! Dihydrocodeine may be pretty good stuff for surgical adhesions, but for the rest of it, for the perennial, persistent pain arising from grief and heartbreak and the huge challenges we are facing in our world, I recommend a good book. Books, eh? Where would we be without them?

The United States got itself into quite a pickle during the late 40s and early 50s with Senator Joseph McCarthy and his reckless censoring and blacklisting of creative voices and intellectual minds, banning books which he perceived to have communist undertones, including works by Langston Hughes, Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway; and things looked pretty dire again in the 70s when a New York school board banned nine books including Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five and Desmond Morris’ The Naked Ape (and any books which included Jonathan Swift’s essay A Modest Proposal… do Americans not understand satire, ffs?!), a decision which was overturned in the 1982 landmark case of Board of Education vs Pico, ostensibly the Roe vs Wade of libraries and freedom of thought. Pico had been a high school student at the time of the ban and he and four other plaintiffs sued the State on the basis of a breach of their rights… and won. Phew! Censorship in school libraries was ancient history, a thing of the past, right?

Wrong.

Kim A. Snyder’s THE LIBRARIANS is a war film, kinda.. set at the dangerous frontlines of the battle between school librarians and those sad, deluded, mostly moronic and entirely manipulated people who would ban books they deem to be damaging for children, including anything with any perceived reference to sex or sexuality, to LGBTQIA rights, to Black American History or to women’s reproductive rights. And it seems these perverse peeps can find “pornography” in anything. Literally anything. One of the banned books is the Diary of Anne Frank, ffs (and if you find obscenity in every single thing you read, maybe… just maybe… it’s you who’s obscene… 🤷🏻‍♀️).

The book ban began with The Krause List, 850 books deemed by Texas State Representative Matt Krause to be inappropriate for school libraries, and it swelled quickly, engulfing other states and elevating previously unknown campaign groups to the fore (Moms for Liberty, a front for right wing ideologies and nothing to do with parental rights, really) and it quickly became apparent that this was not an organic movement led by genuinely concerned parents, but a political movement funded by right wing, homophobic, racist, misogynistic billionaires. The ultimate goal of the Krause List and everything it catalysed has absolutely nothing to do with the harm that could be done to a young person by reading The Colour Purple - it is not a war of or on words, obvs - and everything to do with power, money, religion and maintaining the status quo. And in the fight for power, money and religion, the librarians were the first called out to the battlefield to be fired, threatened and attacked, and sights were then set on the school boards. “The school board is the key that picks the lock,” said Steve Bannon, revealing the diabolical tactics at play.

During the film you see one campaigner’s written requests for books to be removed from libraries, and the filmmaker highlights a document with the name of author Abdi Nazemian, and Abdi just so happens to be a friend from high school and a wonderful writer of stories for young people in the LGBTQIA community (link to all his fantastic work here: https://www.abdinazemian.com). It is, perhaps, not the best way to see your mate’s name in a documentary (i.e. on a petition to have his work banned…), but Abdi is powerful and resilient as fuck and has persevered, continuing to write and publish his brilliant novels. And he just so happened to be launching his latest YA book, EXQUISITE THINGS, last time I was in New York. At a store signing, Abdi spoke about his experience of his work being excluded from libraries across myriad school districts in the United States and of his choice of a picture of two teenage men kissing as his new book’s cover art. Why, he asked (and forgive me for paraphrasing, Abdi, and likely butchering your always elegant turn of phrase), should he bend his queer-as-fuck knee to a ban which is unconstitutional, unethical and dangerous? Why hide his content? If readers are going to find pornographic content in an illustrated Diary of Anne Frank, then what’s to lose? Make it easy on everybody and put two boys kissing on the cover. The decision (and Abdi’s insistence on it despite protests, I imagine) is a brilliant act of truth, creative integrity and political defiance, all at once, right? Bravo.

And bravo, filmmakers. The war against the Krause List and banning books is ongoing and the casualties are considerable, but I think it must be fought. And with the phenomenal librarians portrayed in Kim A. Snyder’s film, there could very well be victory in the final chapter. There has to be. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“For if we’re destroyed, the knowledge is dead.… We’re nothing more than dust jackets for books…. So many pages to a person.” Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451