Passage in China Travel Book Offends Newport Patron

Public complaints about the content of certain books is not limited locally to the Fullerton Library’s current exhibit on the history of literary censorship. The Newport Beach library system recently received a complaint at one of its branches regarding a passage in “Riding the Iron Rooster,” a 1988 travel memoir of China written by Paul Theroux.

According to Tom Johnson, the city’s assistant librarian, a patron objected to a passage with a translation from a Chinese book including “a rather graphic sexual incident” that Theroux was reading while riding a Chinese train called the “Iron Rooster.”

Johnson would not identify the patron or the branch where the written complaint--actually a “request to reconsider”--was filed. The patron did not specifically ask that the book be removed from the shelves, but after researching the book and the passage, a written response from the city library was sent to the individual explaining that the library would continue to make the book available.

In essence, Johnson said, the response said that “we judge books on their merits in their entirety” and that, in this case, “we do recommend that it isn’t of everyone’s taste.” Johnson said the library has its own “banned books” display on exhibit at its Newport Center branch.