AUGUSTA â When her teenage son came home from school toting a book titled âKafka on the Shore,â Amy Arata of New Gloucester decided she ought to give it a read.
What she found within the pages of the 2002 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami appalled her.
âIt was very, very specific and graphic,â Arata said, and at one point made it seem as though a woman desired rape.
Arata, who was elected in 2018 as state representative for House District 65, is taking steps to try to make sure books she considers obscene donât wind up in the hands of schoolchildren.
The Republican lawmaker introduced a bill that would revise a state law governing the dissemination of obscene material to minors to remove an exception for educational purposes that allows public schools to use obscene matter.
She has support for her bill from Sen. Scott Cyrway, R-Benton, and Rep. John Martin, D-Eagle Lake. Her measure will likely be considered by the Legislatureâs Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety.
Arata said that college students and adults should have access to Murakamiâs novel, but its âvery vivid descriptionsâ of sexual scenes make it inappropriate for public school students, especially given the consequences that could follow from reading rape scenes that falsely portray the crime as potentially pleasurable.
The book she is targeting is widely considered a modern-day classic, included on The New York Times list of the 10 best books of 2005 for a translation by Philip Gabriel.
It brings readers into a world where, as one teacher put it, âcats talk, fish fall from the sky, and spirits slip out of their bodies to make love or commit murder.â
Author John Updike, one of Americaâs most famous novelists, called it a âreal page-turner, as well as an insistently metaphysical mind-bender.â
But it has its critics as well.

The novel is banned for sale in Hong Kong, where it carries a âClass II: indecentâ classification reserved for what authorities call obscene materials. What that means in practical terms is that the book canât be distributed to anyone under the age of 18 and has to be sealed in a wrapper with printed warnings.
Maine law defines obscene materials as items that appeal âto the prurient interestâ in the opinion of average people applying contemporary community standards âwith respect to what is suitable material for minors, considered as a whole.â
Obscene material âlacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value,â the law says, and âdepicts or describes, in a patently offensive manner, ultimate sexual acts, excretory functions, masturbation or lewd exhibition of the genitals.â
The obscenity law doesnât apply to noncommercial distribution or exhibition âfor purely educational purposes by any library, art gallery, museum, public school, private school or institution of higher learning, nor to any commercial distribution or exhibition by any art gallery or museum.â
Arataâs bill would simply strip away the exception for a public school.
She said public schools shouldnât be handing obscene material to students.
âItâs not about banning books,â she said. Itâs about making sure that students are given age-appropriate materials they can learn from.
The obscenity law established âa really high barâ that doesnât apply to much. She said she has no interest in pushing classics out of the classroom.
But, Arata said, she doesnât want teenagers reading graphic descriptions of rape scenes that might give them a false idea of the horror involved in the crime.
She said the Murakami bookâs lewdness is so extreme that âI donât know how Iâm going to testify on this book. Iâm not going to get up there and read it.â
She said her proposal is âjust a common-sense billâ to rein in the most extreme volumes.
Not everybody agrees with her, though.
A 2017 column by two students in The Clarion, the school paper for Grover Cleveland High School in Portland, Oregon, admitted the novel has graphic, troubling scenes that their teacher should have warned the class about.
But, they said, âwhen you read âKafka on the Shore,â it will become clear that this novel is more than its few graphic scenes.â
They said the volume âillustrates themes of destiny and family through displays of personal pleasure and violence.â
âNone of these topics should be new to any high school student,â wrote Ariel Harmon and Brooklyn Pierce, who were juniors when they read the book.
âSimilar scenes are common throughout books, shows, and movies that appeal to the demographic of high school students,â they said. âAnd seeing that many high schoolers are in tune with what is happening in the real world outside of the boundaries of Cleveland, the events that transpired in this novel are nothing we have not seen before.â
Arata said that when she read it, she found its obscenity outweighed any possible value for students who are still minors.
As a member of the School Administrative District 15 board of directors, she said, she spoke with the superintendent and a teacher about the assignment and the book was ultimately withdrawn from classroom use.
But, she said, it was just lucky that she happened to pick up the volume and read it.
It shouldnât be so easy for something so offensive to wind up as a class assignment, she said. Changing the law is one way to tackle the problem, Arata said.
Before her bill can advance, it will be the subject of a public hearing, not yet scheduled, and would need to win a majority of both houses of the Legislature and Gov. Janet Mills.
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