Burning Books
The Age
Saturday August 2, 2008
Burning Books
Matthew Fishburn Palgrave, $59.95 IN ALAN BENNETT'S play Kafka's Dick, Max Brod tells his friend Kafka (when they meet in the afterlife) about the Nazis burning books. "Dreadful," Kafka says. "Sure," says Brod, "but burn one and you sell ten thousand. Believe me, if the Nazis hadn't thought of it, the publishers would." We have learned to deplore the burning of books as a barbaric act of censorship most vividly illustrated by the Nazis' in the 1930s. Yet, as Matthew Fishburn shows in this slyly witty and erudite history from the rise of Nazism to the Cold War, putting books to the flame has long held a paradoxical fascination. Even writers, intellectuals and critics who claim to deplore censorship often betray a desire to cleanse the world of literary dross - "personal and redemptive currency: the dream, forever tarnished, of beginning with a blank slate".Fiona Capp's most recent novel is Musk & Byrne (Allen & Unwin). She is a guest at the Melbourne Writers Festival. www.mwf.com.au
© 2008 The Age