MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Mark Twain wrote that "the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." A new edition of "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer" will try to find out if that holds true by replacing the N-word with "slave" in an effort not to offend readers.
Twain scholar Alan Gribben, who is working with NewSouth Books in Alabama to publish a combined volume of the books, said the N-word appears 219 times in "Huck Finn" and four times in "Tom Sawyer." He said the word puts the books in danger of joining the list of literary classics that Twain once humorously defined as those which people praise and don't read."
No. In fact, I'll go so far as to say hell no.
What's next? Shall we collect up all of the copies of "Huck Finn" and have a giant book burning to purge our collective consciousness of "unCorrect" books? Shall we authorize overtime for Winston Smith to expurgate all instances of words we currently don't agree with? Perhaps it's time to fire up the Salamander and the Hound and punish those who hoard these banned tomes? It appears as though the dystopian views of our society that pervade science fiction in the post WWII era have all come about, but not with a bang but a whimper.
In a way, I'd prefer they burned the books - burning books we don't agree with is a sure sign that these books have power and therefore represent danger. Censoring books is far more insidious - after a generation or two has passed, folks begin to accept the bastardized version as the original, and the author's intent is diluted and diminished. As one who writes, this notion is as abhorrent as door-to-door confiscation of firearms to my gunnie side. By allowing the nanny state to change Mark Twain - even in the slightest - we might as well remove his works from the collective and pretend he never existed. The words that will appear in "Huck Finn" are not those of Mark Twain, but of folks today who wish that he had written it their way...
Be sure to get your pre-ban versions of "unpopular" books now, so we can all be criminals when the Thought Police start looking for them.
That is all.
10 comments:
My blood was boiling when I saw this in the news last night. Lets just change every history book to make them read the way we want, that allows us to win every war right? Not only will our kids be fat and unhealthy, they'll be stupid as well. Great!
Is all 2435 right now. (1984 and 451)
VI, I like that. *A LOT*
2435
We'll revise history and burn anyone who speaks out against it.
I have a sign above my desk that reads "73 days without a good post" that I can now set to 0.
Didn't used to be this way, not even sure when it happened. It is what it is.
The last line of a somewhat fictional post I'd made a long while back in my corner of the blogsphere.
This crap sneaks into the daily life and just gets accepted or worse minor burp of indignation to be forgotten in a day or three.
Tome and Huck are stories of the day, history and written in the time. Its something to study and understand and even appreciate the time and what it was really about.
My cut, No Friggin way, do not change a word. If it's that big a deal add a postscript about how the words are used and applied at that time. If you going to read might as well learn something!
Eck!
Don't they try this every 10 years or so? I think it usually turns into exactly this kind of big stink, and they back off.
One of these days, though, they'll manage to get away with it - which is what they're hoping for.
I'm sure the PC police have Guy Montag on speed dial in case this doesn't work.
Going the same way 'Little Black Sambo' went.
This shit has been going on since Gutenberg.[sp?]
The line must be drawn here!
These are my people, truly...
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