Although some books may be very offensive to certain readers, I believe that can bring out the best in a novel. Often times, the most offensive and vulgar forms of entertainment to one person may be extremely captivating to another. Also, a strong reaction to a piece of text may not always entail negativity. For this reason, I think literature that provokes strong reactions should not be banned or censored.
In Slaughterhouse, one of the main themes is "fate or free will". There is no God for Billy, or any higher power of any kind. Because of this, readers who are religious may be offended by those things. Also, people may interpret Vonnegut's version of the war in the novel as inaccurate and inappropriate, but that can happen with most war novels, I guess. Personally, I have not read many books that were viewed as barbaric to others. However, I have seen multiple movies that could fit under that category.
Another novel that could be considered controvercial that the class read this year is Brave New World. Being published in 1932, where society was very conserved and even mentioning sex in public was inapropriate. Also, morality and religion were highly valued. Brave New World stood for the exact opposite of society in the 30's. Huxley wanted to 'wake up' society, if you will, by showing them the vulgar reality in consumerism.
Similarly to Slaughterhouse, The Da Vinci Code (film) was also interpreted as anti-religious, harshly criticized by the roman catholic church, and was protested to be banned. This reaction essentially did very little harm to the films success. In its opening weekend, it earned $230 million worldwide. Another, less serious, film that brought up a large contraversy was Borat. Let me get this straight, I do not agree with anything that the film stands for, nor am I accepting of it. But at the same time, the purpose was for comedy only. It was also very successful and has a gross revenue of $261.5 million.
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