Huckleberry Hounded

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

Big in the news lately is that a publisher called NewSouth Books is releasing a new edition of Huckleberry Finn with the racial epithets deleted. The rationale is that now the book won’t be banned or challenged and can therefore be taught in schools.

I suppose my short feeling on this change is, quick: What’s the name of the president of NewSouth Books? Or the editor in chief? Yeah, I don’t know either. Now: Who wrote Huckleberry Finn? His pen name and real name? Yeah, we all know that. So where does the former get to rewrite the latter?

My longer feelings on the matter are as follows:

The truth is that I can see the point being made. The feeling is that, better that the book is taught in a censored manner than not taught at all. On the other hand, there’s always “good” reasons to bowdlerize a book. Indeed, just ask the man who is credited with having done so: Thomas Bowdler, who published “The Family Shakespeare” because he felt the material that the insensitive Bard had written centuries before wasn’t appropriate for the sensibilities of 19th century women and children. In the Bowdlerized version, cuts were made so people could experience the classics without being offended (sound familiar?). Some examples as detailed at Shakespeare.palomar.edu:

Ophelia’s death in Hamlet is referred to as an accidental drowning, not a possible suicide.
Lady Macbeth’s “Out, Ðámņëd spot.” is changed to “Out, Crimson spot.”
Doll Tearsheet is completely written out of Henry IV, Part 1.
Mercutio’s “the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prìçk of noon” is changed to “the hand of the dial is now upon the point of noon”
Juliet’s “Spread thy close curtain, love performing night” is changed to “. . . and come civil night”.

We look at these changes now and we laugh, but the thing is, what makes something a classic is that the world in which it was written transcends the feelings and social mores of the subsequent generations.

Plus, let’s face it: Who are we kidding? If students are reading the NewSouth edition and the word “slave” has been dropped in in lieu of what was then a common word for a black man–indeed, will the text even acknowledge Jim’s skin color anymore, I wonder, since I’m not sure the words “negro” or “black” are ever used to describe him–they’re going to know the word that was changed. It’s going to sit there, the elephant in the room. Are the students then afraid to ask about it? The teacher afraid to discuss it? Just how much power is going to be ascribed to a single dámņëd word, anyway?

And ultimately, it comes down to: What next? A new edition of Tom Sawyer in which “Injun Joe” is changed to “Native American Joe?” As someone who’s Jewish, should I applaud the notion of a new edition of Oliver Twist in which Fagin the Jew is referred to as “Fagin the thief” and all the anti-Semitic physical distributions attributed him are removed? Or perhaps a new ending to The Merchant of Venice in which Shylock, rather than be forced to convert to Christianity, is punished with sixty days in jail or perhaps just a stern talking to. Perhaps the rehabilitation of the Wicked Witch of the West should be completed by a new edition of The Wizard of Oz in which she becomes the Misunderstood Wiccan of the West. Do we publish an edition of Don Quixote which eliminates any mention of him being a madman since it’s insensitive to the mentally challenged? Do we change the end of Anna Karenina because, in this time where teen suicide is such a problem, the end of the book sends the wrong message of how to deal with your problems?

To me, the bottomline is this: I have little doubt that fifty years from now the NewSouth edition will be forgotten, seen as a quaint relic of attempted censorship in the same manner that the Bowdler versions of Shakespeare plays are. In the meantime, Huck Finn’s realization that a man should be judged–if he is to be judged at all–by the quality of his soul rather than the color of his skin–will continue to shine as a clarion call for racial tolerance in a way that all the censored versions of classic works will not.

PAD

132 comments on “Huckleberry Hounded”

  1. This is the issue I have continuously with political correctness. The concept of offensensitivity (thanks Mr. Breathed) absolutely floors me.
    .
    I was going to rant a lot here. Really. I probably have easily enough for a column in some newspaper that’s not in Oklahoma. But PAD makes the point clearly, and probably better than I would.
    .
    TAC

    1. I dunno – it strikes me that, New South Books being Montgomery-based, it’s sort of an “It wasn’t really that bad in the Old South, really, folks,” type thing.
      .
      Kind of like omitting that little bit about three-fifths of a real (white) person in the reading of the Constitution in the House of Representatives the other day.
      .
      I wrote a similar rant for the APA SFPA, also referencing the bowdlerisaton of the “Doctor Doolittle” books and the “Afterword” Lofting’s son wrote, congratulating himself on having the courage to do the Right Thing and cut his father’s books extensively, no matter how repugnant censorship is.

      . . . After much soul-searching the consensus was that changes should be made. The deciding factor was the strong belief that the author himself would have immediately approved of making the alterations. Hugh Lofting would have been appalled at the suggestion that any part of his work could give offense and would have been the first to have made the changes himself. In any case, the alterations are minor enough not to interfere with the style and spirit of the original.

      Riiighhttt. The reader interested in seeing just how well Lofting performed his Noble Work might like to check the page where i found that quoted text, at http://blog.plover.com/book/Dolittle.html.

      Also, one might like to look at how Warner Brothers handled the same question with the DVD collections of Looney Tunes cartoons (They did in their entirety omit the “Censored Eleven” – “Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs” and “Tokio Jokio”, for instance, but left the other cartoons unaltered with this declaimer:

      The cartoons you are about to see are products of their time. They may depict some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that were commonplace in the U.S society. These depictions were wrong then and they are wrong today. While the following does not represent the Warner Bros. view of today’s society, these cartoons are being presented as they were originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming that these prejudices never existed.

      1. Also, one might like to look at how Warner Brothers handled the same question with the DVD collections of Looney Tunes cartoons (They did in their entirety omit the “Censored Eleven” – “Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs” and “Tokio Jokio”, for instance,
        .
        To this day I remember helping run a Trek convention in Maryland at a college campus, and we had cartoons lined up for the evenings entertainment. Back then it was sixteen millimeter films, not videos. And the college’s film department sent over the wrong movies, and we suddenly found ourselves screening “Coal Black.” The audience sat there in stunned silence as we stopped it about a minute in and tried to determine what the hëll happened.
        .
        Be aware that about a fifth of the audience was black.
        .
        And once we checked the paperwork and found out, we went back to the audience and said, “Look…it turns out they sent us films that were slated for a course about the history of animation, and these are Warners films from the war years. They have all the stereotypes typical of the time and were meant to be viewed by a class in a historical context. Now…if you don’t want us to run them, then we won’t, and we apologize. On the other hand, if you guys are interested in seeing them and seeing how blacks and, for that matter, the Japanese were portrayed during that era, we’ll run them. But we need a consensus.”
        .
        And this tall black guy with a booming voice stood up and said, “Absolutely run them. I wanna see this. When else will I ever have the chance?” And others immediately started bobbing their heads and echoing his sentiments.
        .
        And we ran them and not only were people able to get past the stereotypes and understand the historical perspective in which they were viewing them, but they were also able to laugh at some of the genuinely funny gags in there.
        .
        Which is how mature people deal with such things. You understand that it’s part of our collective history rather than running from it.
        .
        PAD

      2. For those interested: Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs is available on YouTube, as is (in the wrong aspect ratio) Tokio Jokio.
        .
        I saw Tokio Jokio on local TV when i was about nine or ten – at which time it was only about fifteen years old… I remember enjoying it.

      3. A related but lighter version of PAD’s story:
        .
        During my teaching stint in Los Angeles, I was usually one of the chaperones on our ninth grade retreat — a canoeing trip down the Colorado River. A good trip most years, but the 6-hour bus ride out to where we began was always a little difficult.
        .
        Fortunately, the driver frequently had some videos we could potentially play.
        .
        One year, one of the options was “Blazing Saddles.”
        .
        I and Keith (the other chaperone on that particular bus) looked at each other and said, “oh, we have to … but let’s be careful.”
        .
        So we gave a little intro similar to PAD’s: “This is a hilarious movie, but it’s got some language concerns. I’m not talking about swearing — we all know you’re familiar with that. There are certain other words that get used in this film which people might find pretty offensive in the current day and age. What you should realize going in, though, is that almost everyone who uses that particular word in this film is either (a) a bad guy, (b) deeply stupid, or (c) both.”
        .
        We then rolled the film. No complaints at all, at least until the bean-eating scene (which had 95% of the boys on the floor with laughter and about 85$ of the girls squealing various expressions of disgust).
        .
        TWL

      4. Kind of like omitting that little bit about three-fifths of a real (white) person in the reading of the Constitution in the House of Representatives the other day.
        .
        No, not like that at all. The House reading was NOT a history lesson, but a reminder to all of the current operating rules of the Constitution. As such, the amended portions have no meaning and legally don’t exist.
        .
        The reason the “3/5 of a person for determining representation” was omitted was the same reason why the state legislators appointing Senators and Prohibition were skipped — they aren’t part of the Constitution any more. And the 3/5 provision has been out of the Constitution for roughly twice as long as it was in.
        .
        Besides, we can always count on folks like you, mike, to bring it up whenever it’s convenient for you and your political axe to grind.
        .
        PAD is right about censorship. I was re-reading “More Digressions” recently, and he made one tiny error about how we never remember the censors: the aforementioned Bowdler. And he’s remembered in a very negative way.
        .
        And I think I spotted a reference to myself in that book…! I’m famous! I’m famous!
        .
        Sadly for me, it’s more in line with how we remember Bowdler…
        .
        J.

      6. Beck doesn’t need me to defend him, Jerry. And I couldn’t care less.
        .
        But you’re still playing the fool’s game. You’re insisting on treating this as a history lesson. It was no such thing. It was about the Constitution as it currently reads, and what it means in regards to the day-to-day operations of Congress.
        .
        Nice try. But Beck didn’t engineer this, and the people who did specifically said it was for operational use, not historical significance.
        .
        Go find someone else to indulge your obsession with Beck. He doesn’t interest me enough to get into what he said or didn’t say. You seem eager to let him control what you say and do, but I’m not.
        .
        J.

      7. .
        Uhm… No, Jay. Nice way to try and spin facts when you’ve been made to look, once again, like an idiot who doesn’t know what he’s talking about though.
        .
        “Besides, we can always count on folks like you, mike, to bring it up whenever it’s convenient for you and your political axe to grind.”
        .
        See, you said that. It was folks like Mike bringing it up to grind an axe. It’s not however just people “like” Mike. I know, I know… You spend most of your time living in that fact free world of Planet Wizbang, but the fact is that there are a number of Conservatives who saw this as a shallow attempt to kiss the @$$e$ of the Tea Party with a hollow gesture and saw the omissions of sections of the Constitution as a cowardly act designed to avoid offending some.
        .
        And it’s by no means just a few fringe Conservatives that no one has ever heard of. The idea that they skipped things that made the Founders “look bad” so as not to offend some people too stupid to realize that the mindset of today’s world and theirs isn’t even close to the same on such matters has been a fairly active point of discussion amongst Conservatives and some Tea Party Conservatives over the last day or so. It’s a conversation that’s out there and it dovetails into discussions about the mindset of this situation quite easily.
        .
        And the argument that this was just “for operational use, not historical significance” falls apart a bit when they included in their readings one of the original passages guaranteeing the vote to specifically “male inhabitants” who are at least 21. For that matter, why read the passages that specifically repeal the passages that weren’t read?
        .
        This was, Jay, at last count, a $1.1 million dog and pony show that the Republicans took so seriously that several of them botched their readings of the Constitution (way to prepare in advance, guys) and that they bolted away from as fast as they could get out of the chamber. Hëll, Boehner blew out of there so fast he left a Warner Brothers cartoon-like cloud of dust that settled in time for him to hold his press conference. Hëll, still better than those Constitution loving, Tea Party Republicans who skipped their own swearing in so that they could attend parties and fund raise.
        .
        So, Jay, Mike is very correct that this is in some ways just like the Twain situation. There is only one text for Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and if you are claiming that you are going to read it then you read that. Likewise, there is only one version of the Constitution. If you’re going to claim to love it and read it then you actually read it. You don’t edit out some portions of it because they might make the Founders look bad by modern standards.
        .
        There was one hilarious result from this though. By editing the Constitution and removing some of the framers’ original words and intents while including those passages that corrected their failings in the writing of the Constitution… The Republicans just said that the Constitution is in fact a living, breathing document that changes over time and that some of the original authors’ intent needs to be addressed and tweaked over time.
        .
        Either that or they, like the new editors of Twain’s work, have simply decided that their supporters are just too stupid to handle history and incapable of understanding the mindset of the country at the time of the 3/5 rule without getting upset and offended now for no really good reason.

      8. Jay, when this reading was originally discussed, the Republicans (and their Tea Party adjunct) framed it as “recognizing the Constitution as written”, as opposed to the “incorrect doctrine” of “a living, breathing document”.
        .
        Yet when it came down to it, they chose not to read the original words, so obviously reflective of “the framers’ intent”, because it revealed that this nation wasn’t founded in total freedom and equality – only in freedom and equality for Christian white males. Over the centuries, we’ve expanded freedom to cover minority groups as well, which is IMO an unequivocally good thing – but plainly not in line with a Constitution that “should never be modified by activist judges”.
        .
        Now, the GOP might well try to spin it differently today – they might even get away with it, as so few people seem willing to remember events as recently as 1994 – but that doesn’t change the original arguments…

  2. Totally agree, PAD. Huckleberry Finn is one of my favorite books. I’m sure the NewSouth edition will be forgotten. Hopefully, years from now, people won’t worry so much about offending other people and will actually teach the actual works in school. Kids should be reading books like Huckleberry Finn. Otherwise, we’ll have a whole new generation that thinks Twilight is a classic novel…

  3. On not quite the same level of Importance, but exhibiting even bigger hubris, Baen Books’ extensive – and i mean extensive rewriting (referred to euphemistically as “editing”) of the work of the late James T Schmitz.
    .
    Among other things, several thousand “unnecessary” words were cut from the beginning of one story, and another story had several thousand words moved from one place to another.
    .
    Not to mention New South style “editing”, in which “obsolete” words were changed or cut, and (i believe) references to smoking were removed.
    .
    Eric Flint, the “editor” in question (who’s a decent writer in his own right, and has collaborated with my brother on some of Pretty Good books) doesn’t seem to understand the way that this has upset people like myself, who grew up reading Schmitz’s stuff in Astounding</i/ANALOG and remember it fondly.
    .
    And, unlike Huckleberry Finn, the Baen-mangled version of Schmitz’s work is what will probably be remembered in the future.
    .
    I wonder how Flint would feel if a publisher decided to do the same thing to his books…

  4. Peter, they DID, in fact, change references to Injun Joe to “Indian Joe” (Native American Joe will have to wait for future editions) and half-breed became half-blood.
    .
    Next target? To Kill A Mockingbird. Which I guess will make the racists in that book seem less hateful and hey, shouldn’t we want to be fair to everyone?
    .
    Roger Ebert already got sent scurrying for the exits after making a comment on this so watch your back, don’t be surprised if the usual whiners try to slam you over this.

    1. I actually did know about the references to Injun Joe being changed in Huckleberry Finn. I was suggesting that it be taken to even greater extremes by redoing the entirety of Tom Sawyer in which he plays a central role, rather than just making it an afterthought.
      .
      Ebert got slammed not for the sentiment but because he expressed it badly, since his wording made it sound as if he himself had ever had to deal with having slurs hurled at him. That obviously wasn’t what he meant, but that’s what he got smacked around over. That said, yeah, I know I’m taking a chance. But how can I protest censorship in other places if I’m so afraid that I censor myself?
      .
      PAD

      1. According to their website, the book they’re publishing is a single volume edition of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, so both books will be getting this revisionist treatment. I suspect Injun Joe will become simply “Joe”.

        What’s really funny is that they boast the single volume is “as Twain intended”, because clearly their very committed to carrying out Twain’s intentions.

    2. Next target? To Kill A Mockingbird. Which I guess will make the racists in that book seem less hateful and hey, shouldn’t we want to be fair to everyone?

      As i said, this sounds like, to me, like an effort to make pervasive racism seem less evil than it, in fact, was.
      .
      I mean, a couple weeks ago, we had Haley Barbour telling us that racist organisations in the Old South were actually beneficial to the cause of Civil Rights, and that the one in his hometown actually kept the Klan out. (Whereupon i was reminded of the old joke that ends “Ivan, you destroy your Jews your way, and let me destroy my Jews my way.”)
      .
      (Incidentally, for those who don’t know me, i grew up in South Carolina during the Civil Rights years, and periodically find myself defending the soldiers who fought for the South, but not the cause they fought for, in various fora.)

  5. I think part of the problem is that Huck Finn shows that what we now know as “the n word” used to just be a word uneducated people used because they weren’t smart enough to say negro.

    By it being presented outside its original context, I think some people fear it might deminish today’s racist definition of the term.

    It’s a bit like Song of the South. It has to be protested because it shows freed slaves in Georgia that aren’t suffering during Reconstruction. The fact that not every freed slave suffered has to be lost to try to keep racism in check.

    Great and terrible things happened to black people in the South. It shouldn’t be forgotten (because those who forget repeat). At the same time, censorship is bad. Swift shouldn’t be edited because people find the ideas of eating baby to be offensive.

    1. Been a while (fifty-some years) since i saw “Song of the South”, but i thought that it was set during slave days, and that the thing that offends people is that it shows the slaves as cheerful darkies who all love Ol’ Massa…

      1. It’s unclear from the film itself, but considering that Uncle Remus is able to come and go from the plantation at will, that would seem to indicate it’s post Civil War.
        .
        PAD

      4. The fact that the line Zippity-doo-dah, Zippity-yay, Negroes are inferior in every way… was being sung by a black man himself might also have had something to do with it, Mike. 🙂

      5. Right. As i said, i saw it more than fifty years ago – i think i was about eight or nine – so i’m rather vague.
        .
        In another context, if you want to be offended by black stereotypes in Disney films, the crows in “Dumbo” upset some people quite a bit.
        .
        Then, of course, we have Pete’s progression from “Pegleg” to “Black” to “Big” to just “Pete”. (Or did i get the order wrong? Pretty sure he was “Black Pete” in Disney comics of the early Fifties…)

      6. Luigi, the lyrics “Zippity-doo-dah, Zippity-yay, Negroes are inferior in every way…” wasn’t in Song of The South, but in a SNL parody of it.

      7. .
        Luigi?
        .
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_the_South
        .
        “A TV Funhouse cartoon from a season 31 episode of NBC’s long-running sketch show Saturday Night Live parodied a number of urban legends and rumors related to Walt Disney and The Walt Disney Company. In the cartoon, two kids watch an “uncut” version of Song of the South showing Uncle Remus singing the dubbed lines “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay / Negroes are inferior in every way” and “Whites are much cleaner, that’s what I say.” Actual footage from the movie was used.[30]”
        .
        Come on, man, if even you won’t use it anymore…

    2. Swift shouldn’t be edited because people find the ideas of eating baby to be offensive.
      .
      Colbert made a reference to that essay, quoting it, and the audience didn’t laugh; instead they gasped in horror, apparently thinking that “A Modest Proposal” was intended seriously rather than as a satirical essay. I tend to think that the audiences of “Daily Show” and “Colbert” are the hippest and best educated around; if even THEY don’t get it…
      .
      PAD

      1. I once taught A MODEST PROPOSAL as part of a class on critical thinking for adults, and during the class one student raised her hand and asked, “He wasn’t REALLY suggesting eating children, was he?” Sigh.

  6. What I’ve been wondering since this hit the news is: have schools on the whole actually stopped teaching Huckleberry Finn? Oh, I know it gets challenged, and that probably some of those challenges are successful. But it has been controversial for decades. Sometimes it’s been because of it using the racial epithets that were used at the time, sometimes it’s because Huck isn’t exactly a good role model, and sometimes it’s because of supposed homoerotic subtext. (Granted, I haven’t read it in about ten years, but since the last time I read it was when I was a filthy-minded teenager and I didn’t notice any such subtext, I’ll admit to suspecting that anybody who sees it is desperate to see it.) This conversation was going on when I read it in school, and the key words there are “I read it in school.”

    So here are the statistics I’d like to see from anybody who wants to use the “better teach a bowlderized version than not teach it at all” argument:
    -What percentage of school systems teach “Huckleberry Finn” at some point?
    -In what percentage has its presence in the curriculum been challenged?
    -What percentage of those challenges have actually resulted in it being removed?

    Because I’m not buying that “People are saying Huck Finn shouldn’t be taught because of the language” necessarily translates to “Huck Finn is not being taught because of the language.” People have been complaining about the language for a long time while it is still taught.

    And as a side note, Neil Gaiman tweeted a few days ago “It’s in the public domain, so you can make Huck a Klingon if you want, but it’s not Mark Twain’s book.” Which immediately resulted in people tweeting bits of Huckleberry Finn that they had rewritten as a “tale of Klingon oppression.” So if you need your spirits raised, go over to Twitter and search #KlingonHuck.

    1. Ironically, my daughter is studying Huckleberry Finn in school right now. Her class has been discussing their thoughts about the NewSouth edition (or at least the news about the NewSouth edition)in class.

      1. Don’t leave us hanging. What are the thoughts of her and her classmates? Do they feel the need to be protected from how uneducated people spoke a century ago?
        .
        PAD

      2. Peter –

        While I’ll admit that my school is by no means diverse (there are probably around ten black people in the entire school), no one that I have met has been offended by Huck Finn. We have discussed how removing the N-word diminishes the satire of Twain’s writing, and how Twain himself commented on the importance of using exactly the right word. Most of us agree that Huckleberry Finn is a valuable part of our curriculum. It is my belief that if the book is prefaced correctly and anyone who is seriously offended has the chance to talk to the teacher it is a perfectly acceptable book for sixteen and seventeen-year- olds to be reading and discussing. After all, we also read The Catcher in the Rye this year. I don’t think that it is acceptable to decide that the N-word is more offensive that the F-word. The levels of profanity of these words are different for each person. In the end, I think that changing the book diminishes Twain’s point and would not be something he would have wanted. For me that is the most important consideration.

  7. When I read Huckleberry Finn, the word ‘Nìggër’ didn’t disturb me, but the references to Jim’s ‘wool’ rather than ‘hair’ did. (I would never change it, though.)

  8. Y’know they should make Lolita about 18 years old because if she’s underage Prof. Humbert is a bad person. Oh wait….

    2. Actually the movie versions of Lolita did increase her age to make it a little less offensive. In the movies she’s 14, but in the books she was 12.

      2. A sequel would have been tough…though who knows, I recall they were trying to make a sequel to EASY RIDER.

  9. .
    To me this is just so far beyond simply asinine. This is (pardon the expression) whitewashing history in the worst possible way. The very real and simple facts are that we were like that at one time and words like that were thrown when discussing black with as little thought (or even sometimes as little malice) than as if they were simply describing the shirt a man was wearing. To deny it or rewrite it is to deny and rewrite history itself.
    .
    We can’t do that. Most people are history illiterate enough as it is, but now we’re going to raise entire generations on materials so sanitized as to be meaningless to the educational process because, God forbid, someone might be offended by a word or a concept. Instead of being afraid of the book; take the thing in its original form and teach it as part of a two pronged course. Teach the literary merits of Mark Twain and his ability to be a writer of the world around him but also teach about that world and how dámņëd far we’ve come since then. Publish an edition with a short foreword and afterword written by historians about the contents of the book, the “snapshot” of our culture at the time and about how far we’ve come since then.
    .
    Why waste making the original version of the story that much stronger of a teaching tool just to make the dumbest in society happy?

    1. This is (pardon the expression) whitewashing
      .
      Maybe it’s just me, but seeing as ‘whites’ have written most of the history of mankind in, basically, their own own image, I find the term entirely appropriate.

    2. I think “whitewashing” is the perfect term. I’ve been using it myself when I’ve discussed this story on Facebook. The very name of the publisher, “NewSouth”, really evokes revisionist history with me. And I find it ironic that they’re whitewashing Twain, himself in the process.

  10. I am rather torn on this issue. On the one hand, the sentiment behind the stated reason for the word change seems noble enough, but on the other censoring and editing a classic like this seems so unnecessary. It’d be different if Twain were still around to give his consent.

    If the new edition included an introductory paragraph explaining that the substitution had been made and why, I’d have even less of a problem. I liken it to dubbing out the profanity in a movie when it is aired for TV. I fondly remember an issue of Quantum and Woody (written by Christopher Priest and M. D. Bright) where the first three pages explained that they were going to talk about the “N-word” and because they couldn’t use the actual “N-word” they were going to use the word “noogie” instead.

    To be clear, I don’t think they should have edited the work. It is A Bad Idea. However, in this particular instance, I’m not exactly offended by it either. I don’t think the meaning of the text was changed over much. Huck certainly wasn’t hurling the N word around as an epithet.

    An aside to PAD: In one of your hardback novels (Imzadi, maybe?) you named many characters after items on a Passover plate. There was an outcry, of sorts. When the book came out in paperback, were the names of the aliens changed to avoid offending others? Obviously, the situation is not analogous — especially since you are still alive to chime in and because you were working in someone else’s universe — but how do you think that compares?

    1. An aside to PAD: In one of your hardback novels (Imzadi, maybe?) you named many characters after items on a Passover plate. There was an outcry, of sorts. When the book came out in paperback, were the names of the aliens changed to avoid offending others? Obviously, the situation is not analogous — especially since you are still alive to chime in and because you were working in someone else’s universe — but how do you think that compares?
      .
      I’m not sure it is analogous, because here’s the interesting thing: Those people who were offended enough to take the time and contact Pocket Books? I contacted every single one of them in turn and explained to them that, for starters, I was Jewish. The instant they heard that, and realized that, rather than having anti-Semitic intent, I just thought it was funny to name alien raiders after stuff on a Passover plate–they were totally fine with it.
      .
      Who knows? Perhaps it’s analogous to the notion that certain racial epithets are unacceptable unless being spoken by the individuals themselves. Or in “Pulp Fiction,” apparently.
      .
      PAD

      1. I’m told that a camp survivor who heard that one of my brother’s earliest books (“Honor of the Queen”) was going to feature a paternalistic religion (and a villainous splinter group of it that had established itself on a planet called “Masada”) assumed that the book was going to be anti-semitic and turned up a Baen’s offices to protest its upcoming publication.

  11. First off, let me say that I agree with what I take to be PAD’s main points – that reasonable people can appreciate the historical context of such works, and that the NewSouth Books edition won’t have the longevity of the original.
    .
    But this reminds me of the earlier discussion about Disney adaptations and whether they do a disservice to the original story. Disney has been criticized for sanitizing stories too much in the process of adapting them. While I wouldn’t that this simple search & replace of a word or two constitutes an adaptation, it does seem to be motivated by some similar sentiments. The intent does not seem (to me anyways) to be to completely replace Huck Finn, but rather to provide a version with some language modernized for the benefit of those who are not mature enough to understand the original in its context.
    .
    Ultimately, I guess I’m wondering aloud (so to speak) where censoring/Bowdlerizing/sanitizing ends and adaptation begins. At the extremes it’s fairly obvious. Joyce’s Ulysses is clearly an original work of no small skill and thus qualifies as an adaptation (or even surpasses such pedestrian notions). Simple search & replace or hack & slash jobs are just as clearly artless. But are there not efforts in the middle that are trickier to nail down? Even Bowdler, for all his infamy, had to put some thought into his modifications (not an endorsement, just an observation).

    1. The intent does not seem (to me anyways) to be to completely replace Huck Finn, but rather to provide a version with some language modernized for the benefit of those who are not mature enough to understand the original in its context.
      .
      Yes, but…we have those already. There are already scaled down, “sanitized,” abridged versions of the novel, just as there are of other various classics. And that’s fine.
      .
      But they’re not being taught in classes as if they were the original book.
      .
      People forget that Twain wrote the book in a post Civil War era. But it’s set before that, and written in a first person point of view of an uneducated boy of that time period in the south. He wrote it honestly. If you’re going to teach the book, teach it honestly. School is where you go to learn. If you’re going to deny history, how can you learn it?
      .
      And yes, Bowdler put thought into the edits. But they were designed to protect women and children because it was assumed they were too faint of heart to handle the originals. I would like to think that women and children of today don’t require quite that level of patronizing protection.
      .
      PAD

      1. Yes, but…we have those already. There are already scaled down, “sanitized,” abridged versions of the novel, just as there are of other various classics. And that’s fine.
        .
        But they’re not being taught in classes as if they were the original book.
        .
        So then the main objection is not so much the existence of the book but the way in which it is used or proposed to be used. That seems like a much more defensible position. I was struggling with the notion that creating such a version of Huck Finn for people to take or leave constituted censorship, but I can certainly see where presenting it as the only version of Huck Finn does constitute censorship.
        .
        If you’re going to teach the book, teach it honestly. School is where you go to learn. If you’re going to deny history, how can you learn it?
        .
        Couldn’t agree more. Either it is worth teaching or it isn’t.
        .
        Thanks for helping me clarify my own thoughts.

      2. So then the main objection is not so much the existence of the book but the way in which it is used or proposed to be used.
        .
        It is to me. I mean, there have been plenty of dramatizations of “Huck Finn” as well that don’t feature racial slurs. I never saw “Big River” but I’ll bet it wasn’t in there either. If you’re going to retell the story, then retell it. But then say, “Based on Mark Twain’s ‘Huckleberry Finn.'”
        .
        But this is for schools. This is for educational purposes. You’re learning about more than a piece of literature. You’re learning about a piece of history. And when you rewrite it and teach that, you’re rewriting history.
        .
        PAD

    2. .
      “But this reminds me of the earlier discussion about Disney adaptations and whether they do a disservice to the original story. Disney has been criticized for sanitizing stories too much in the process of adapting them. While I wouldn’t that this simple search & replace of a word or two constitutes an adaptation, it does seem to be motivated by some similar sentiments.”
      …
      “Ultimately, I guess I’m wondering aloud (so to speak) where censoring/Bowdlerizing/sanitizing ends and adaptation begins.”
      .
      To some degree I think it begins and ends (normally) when there are other names on the work rather than just the name[s] of the original creator[s] or when the work is being advertised as someone else’s version of the work (Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, Disney’s The Little Mermaid, etc.)
      .
      I also think that this line of thought isn’t exactly relevant. Adaptations are treated and marketed as exactly that; adaptations. They are not presented as the original work and they are not taught in school (outside of film school.) They don’t teach Disney’s Pocahontas in history classes, they don’t teach Tromeo And Juliet in literature classes and they don’t teach kids that the American Godzilla is the real thing in responsible households. This… thing… is being put into schools and taught in place of the real version of the book.
      .
      Not only does that do a disservice to Twain, but it does a disservice to every student who reads it and gets a distorted/false view of Twain and of the society he was commenting on through his writing.

      1. I mean, there have been plenty of dramatizations of “Huck Finn” as well that don’t feature racial slurs. I never saw “Big River” but I’ll bet it wasn’t in there either. If you’re going to retell the story, then retell it. But then say, “Based on Mark Twain’s ‘Huckleberry Finn.’”

        Speaking as someone who was in a production of “Big River” you may be interested to know that racial slurs were indeed in the text, including the ‘N’ word. It is actually a very faithful adaptation of the novel, as musicals go.

      2. Speaking as someone who was in a production of “Big River” you may be interested to know that racial slurs were indeed in the text, including the ‘N’ word. It is actually a very faithful adaptation of the novel, as musicals go.
        .
        Really? That’s interesting. I wonder, if they tried to revive it now, if the text would be changed. Then again, I was surprised that “Colored/Spade” and “3500” were in the revival of “Hair” unchanged.
        .
        PAD

      3. I dunno – the climate in 1985 regarding that type of language wasn’t that much less restrictive than today.

  12. What’s next, editing films of the civil rights moment because there are Policemen yelling;’Nìggër Move!’ while they spray the peaceful crowds with fire hoses?

    Hemingway used the ‘N’ word I guess that means that we edit him also. Will we PC everything so that future generations get a whitewashed version of racism?

    The New American History 101

    The Indians thought the rent was to high so they sublet the land to the white guys.

    Black people loved Slavery. Nice boat ride over and free room and board.

    Martin Luther King was a rapper, shot by a rival rapper.

    The Tea Party and The GOP welcome black people.

    Right.

    1. A black conservative will be far more welcome among Republicans than he will be among Democrats. Fact.

      1. That’s because Republicans like to point to them and say; “We got one.”

        In many ways I could be considered a black conservative. I’m a member of the NRA and have many conservative view points.

        I realize, however you can’t regulate morality and conservatives tend to want to tell you whom to worship and whom to screw.

        Stay the fûçk out of my bedroom and stay the fûçk away from my god.

      2. Well, some conservatives do. Certainly not all. As to why republicans are so welcoming of black conservatives I suppose it’s possible that, as you surmise, it’s just to look good. But how can you know?
        .
        But you can easily be a black conservative who disagrees with the religious right. Good luck being a Black democrat with conservative views. “Uncle Tom” will be the kindest thing some will say. (Some. Some. I would not want to make an overly broad generalization about how half the voters will act.)

      2. Bill,

        All valid points. How can I know? Because some (not all as you rightfully pointed out) conservatives I’ve met have made a concerted effort to welcome me to the ‘Party of Lincoln.’

        When I got there I was the only black guy at the party.

        No joke.

  13. Of course, it’s not like the average kid doesn’t hear that particular word a heck of a lot more often while listening to (c)rap music, which is the bit that really gets me.
    .
    I usher at a local theater, and during the school year they have shows for kids, as a field trip thing… one such show last year was set during the Civil War, and at the beginning of the show one of the performers came out to speak to the kids, to tell them that during the show they use language common to the time, and they don’t endorse such language today, yada yada. And then they go on with the play. The theater holds 1300 people, and it was PACKED… so there were well over a thousand kids there, mostly in 4th-6th grade… the collective gasp in the room when one of the characters called another a ņìggër was absolutely astonishing.
    .
    I just don’t get the concept of censoring something about the past, written in the past, and reflecting then-common language. Yeah, Huck Finn couldn’t be written today, even set in the same time period… but it’s a novel of its times, and should be read as such.

    1. Crap music?

      You are certainly entitled to your opinion but that ‘crap’ music is the most Influential music in the world. Also not all hip-hop or rap artists use the ‘n’ word.

      1. but that ‘crap’ music is the most Influential music in the world
        .
        One opinion begets another. 🙂

    2. Might want to reconsider that “couldn’t be written today” bit – check out George MacDonald Fraser’s “Flashman” series (begun in the 1960s and continuing till the author’s death a few years ago) for books that use *exactly* that kind of language (from the mouth of the narrator, a classic 19th Century English Colonial Brute).
      .
      And are also, BTW, hilariously funny and better learning material on a lot of the history of the Nineteenth Century than most history books.

    3. Kevin, while I’ve also brought up the disparity of such language being utilized in music, I think it’s grossly unfair to write off all rap music as crap. There’s plenty of terrific rap music out there. You can’t tell me that “Gangsta’s Paradise,” for instance, isn’t brilliant by any standard.
      .
      PAD

      2. Oh, yeah, I’ll agree that there is some good in there, and “Gangsta’s Paradise” is amongst it; taken as a whole, however, rap is just… garbage. So much noise, really. This is, of course, IMHO; I realize many many people like it, just like many people enjoy disco for some unfathomable (to me) music. Any genre of music (or any medium, for that matter) has its excellent examples and its horrible examples, no matter where the average baseline happens to fall. I certainly didn’t intend to disparage the ENTIRE genre. Just, y’know, the vast majority.
        .
        And I fully realize that not every artist uses such language (and usually, those are the ones actually worth listening to) but I can generally hear more words that I generally prefer not to even type as an example, let alone hear on a regular basis, while stopped at a traffic light next to somebody blaring rap & hip-hop than I will in the rest of the week.
        .
        And certainly more than I’d get reading an American classic.

  14. I look at it from this direction… it is a cheap money maker. Take a public domain edition and change less than 500 words, and boom you have a full novel you can sell… As a skeezy marketing ploy I approve, a low cost material into a sellable product. As a lover ov Mark Twain I think the man needs to be buggy whipped, providing we have enough men to lift the buggy…

  15. I remember reading “Oliver Twist” and cringing every single time I read Fagin the Jew. I literally walked out of class in tears sometimes. And Merchant of Venice? “My daughter, oh my ducats, oh my daughter!” had me literally fuming. And I am so glad I saw it in its raw form. Because you can’t whitewash evil. You must look at it in its most raw and ugly form and know it for what it is.

    I need to remember what my ancestors went through, I need to remember the past and the present. There are going to be people who are going to hate me for being Jewish and censoring the texts aren’t going to prevent that. But teaching people how terrible it was, examining naked prejudice is going to make people think a little bit more about it. There’s a reason Jews remember being slaves in Egypt.

    Remembering evil is the first step in fighting it.

    1. I have to admit that i’ve never read “Oliver Twist”, but there was a scene in the teevee version (that i don’t think was created from whole cloth for the film) in which Fagin (George C Scott), hounded by Good Folk, turns on the crowd and spits defiance.
      .

      “Filthy Jew!” shouts one man who strikes him in the face. Fagin rails against the crowd as he is led away. “If you need money, I am the clever Jew! If you need my help I am the kind Jew! You all sicken me!”

  16. A few thoughts on this:

    First, I am opposed to changing the book for use in the classroom. I think if you’re going to read and study a work of fiction, you need to read and study the work — not a sanitized version of it. You can then discuss what’s controversial about it. ROBINSON CRUSOE is a brilliant work — and yet it’s also extremely racist (and more than HF: Dafoe wasn’t just using the word “ņìggër,” he portrayed Friday as the ignorant savage — and had the title character sell him into slavery at the end). ROMEO & JULIET doesn’t have to age Juliet to the appropriate legal age for marriage in the state it’s being taught. H.P. Lovecraft (who should be taught in school along with Poe) is one of my favorite writers — but also lets a lot of his racism interfere w his ideal pristine New England Purity. And A CLOCKWORK ORANGE becomes a lot less about the price of free will if Alex goes from a murdering rapist to a lovable rapscallion.

    Second, I fear there is a current trend of historical whitewashing of slavery, early America, and the Confederacy. South Carolina just celebrated (and I am using that word specifically) the anniversary of their secession from America, and they tried to say it was about state’s rights. Some schools in Virginia are using a textbook claiming black people weren’t mistreated under slavery and even served with the Confederate army. (On the amusing-if-it-weren’t-sad side, this book also claims black soldiers fought under a Confederate general — several years after that general died!) And with a black Democrat as president, Fox News has been going full-tilt about how Obama is racist, possibly to probably not an American citizen, and out to screw over white folks while giving unfair advantages to “his” people. I think between the fear of a black president and blaming the black president for a bad economy and unemployment, a lot of people feel empowered to rewrite history and engage in “reverse racism.”

    Third, I doubt (and hope) this edited version won’t last in schools. There was a time when Shakespeare tragedies were given happy endings to make them more crowd-pleasing — and the originals are as strong as ever. I think people who want to know and learn why Mark Twain is so revered will go out of their way to read his actual words, not the words through a filter.

    Finally, I would think a school would be the best environment to discuss the word “ņìggër” and its meanings. You can hear this in any number of places, from rap music to retail stores (I worked at a Target with a large black workforce, and I would be fired in a heartbeat for using that word I heard dozens of times a day), and no one’s going to discuss what it meant or what it means. At least in a school people can discuss what it meant (To Twain) and what it means (today).

    (And Gawd help me, I can’t help but think of the SOUTH PARK where Randy Marsh is on the final of Wheel of Fortune, the clue is “people that annoy me,” and after all the letters are chosen he sees “N_GGERS.” Randy says he thinks he knows what it is but isn’t comfortable saying it, then shouts out “Nìggërš!” The audience stares in stunned silence, then Vanna turns over the missing letter to reveal “NAGGERS.”)

  17. My attitude, which might be wildly unpopular, is thus:

    If they can add zombies to Pride and Prejudice, then they can subtract racial epithets from Huckleberry Finn. The original will still be around for people to read. It’s no worse than cutting the bawdier bits out of Shakespeare for high school textbooks (which, back in my day, they were still doing, though not to the extremes of Bowdler’s versions.)

    1. again it’s not they are subtracting it it’s they are teaching the edited version in schools it’s that I and if I read his comments correctly PAD has issues with.

      I would have the same issues if they were teaching Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in English lit as the original version.

    2. .
      Yes, but they didn’t add the zombies to Pride and Prejudice and then declare that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies would be the new norm in schools and taught in the place of the true Pride and Prejudice.

      1. Jerry, sadly Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has been read by more of my 8th grade students than the source material, which stuns me. It’s been offered for the last several months by Scholastic Books (you know, the flyers students get from teachers to buy books). I’ve actually had to tell kids to go read the original, since P&P&Z is only about 25% new material. Then they get the jokes.

        You’d be amazed at what’s in certain books to get parents’ dander up. HF hasn’t been a problem, but I did have a parent grouse about Fahrenheit 451: “There’s a lot of violence. Isn’t there a nicer version of this?” I almost fell over. Heck, I have some of my fellow staff members–my peers–giving me the stinkeye because I allow Harry Potter to be read by students!

      2. Also, nobody is claiming that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a serious work of literature.
        .
        Not with a straight face, anyway.

      3. You’d be amazed at what’s in certain books to get parents’ dander up. HF hasn’t been a problem, but I did have a parent grouse about Fahrenheit 451:
        .
        Plenty of books have been challenged more than F451, but thanks to its subject matter, it continues to hold the lead in ironic challenges.
        .
        PAD

    3. Yeah, Sheila, it may not be worse…but it’s no better. We should always be trying to do better. Yet when it comes to finding excuses for censorship, somehow we never do.
      .
      Sure, they added zombies to P&P. But they didn’t add it into a volume intended to be taught at schools and serve as a substitute for reading it sans zombies.
      .
      PAD

      1. Again, I also read redacted Shakespeare in high school. Nobody seems to be complaining overmuch about that.

        If it had been the F-word instead of the N-word, would we even be having this conversation?

      2. Sheila: Again, I also read redacted Shakespeare in high school. Nobody seems to be complaining overmuch about that.
        .
        I’ve heard complaints about that. When I was in high school we talked about the censorship some schools did. Then we talked about why what was in there was there and why it was appropriate in context. To me that clearly seems like the better route.
        .
        Sheila: If it had been the F-word instead of the N-word, would we even be having this conversation?
        .
        That depends. Is there a book where the F-Word has a different historical context? Something that students could learn from how it was used and why it was considered acceptable in that book? I can think of a few war novels that fit that description. I’d defend teaching those in a serious manner instead of gutting the language.

      3. Sheila, I’m supposing you’re a liberal.
        .
        Aren’t you worried how this kind of rewriting of the past plays right at the hands of conservatives?
        .
        Anything that might indicate racism in the South wasn’t as bad as people say is great news for social conservatives.
        .
        What’s next? Revisionist history saying the Inquisition didn’t actually torture anybody? That women had it wonderful in the 1950s?

      4. .
        “If it had been the F-word instead of the N-word, would we even be having this conversation?”
        .
        Yes, we would. But what do the French have to do with this anyhow?
        .
        Now being serious… Yes, we would be having the conversation. I had a teacher in high school who wanted us to read stuff out loud in class. There were certain works where we hit a bit of a problem though. She wanted us to either skip words like “fûçk” or replace words with other words where the words had changed meaning (such as several slightly more contemporary English stories set after the war where cigarettes were called “fágš” by the characters.) She even wanted us to not use the word “bìŧçh” when reading (I think it was) The Great Gatsby where it was clearly a reference to a female dog that belonged to one of the characters. Several of us, all in the Young Authors Club coincidently, refused.
        .
        We got sent to the Principal’s office. Our parents got called in. We all stated that we believed that if the school thought we were able to read materials with the mature subject matter and themes that we had been reading then a few words shouldn’t be an issue. And we certainly felt that words for cigarettes and female dogs didn’t need to be self censored as we read. Long story short – It finally came down to the teacher being told to let the students actually read some of the stuff or simply have them read the works to themselves rather than out loud.
        .
        That was a stupid practice and actually rewriting the books would be an even dumber one. Hëll yes I and others would be talking about how stupid it was.

      5. If it had been the F-word instead of the N-word, would we even be having this conversation?
        .
        The question is meaningless with no context. I feel safe in saying that if there were a hundred year old novel, generally acclaimed to be one of the greatest ever written, and the fact that it was laced with obscenities was integral to the character…yes, sure. We’d be having this conversation.
        .
        It’s a bad precedent, Sheila, no matter how you slice it. And just because the student body of your high school was indifferent to reading censored Shakespeare doesn’t make it okay. All it means is that your school did them a disservice.
        .
        PAD

    4. Sheila: If they can add zombies to Pride and Prejudice, then they can subtract racial epithets from Huckleberry Finn. The original will still be around for people to read.
      .
      Actually, no, that’s wrong. It’s right for the zombie book, because that’s a new book that nobody will confuse for the original. It’s wrong for the Huck Finn book because it literally *won’t* be around for kids to read. It won’t be in the school, which is where the vast majority of people find it. If you take the original version out of the classroom, the kids won’t read it. If they think they’ve already read the original, they’re not going to read it again.

      1. But women DID have a wonderful time in the 1950’s! Bettie Page is always smiling in those pictures, isn’t she?

  18. This story reminds me of the time not so long ago when I decided to hunt down a copy of the Doctor Dolittle stories, only to discover that you just can’t get the original text anymore, at least in any easy way. I can almost understand the desire to make more “acceptable” versions for kids to read, but I’m not at all happy that the rights holders won’t even allow to be published the original texts for more mature audiences. This is doubly sad considering that the original Dolittle novel won the Newberry Award back in the 1920’s for best children’s book.

    Don’t even get me started on the insanity of every set of the Chronicles of Narnia being renumbered so that kids today are steered towards reading “The Magician’s Nephew” before “Lion, Witch and Wardrobe”… but I digress.

    1. Isn’t that the way C.S. Lewis wanted it, though? Granted, it is pretty insane: kids want to read a fun fantasy-adventure story and instead they get the book of Genesis.

      1. Yeah, the numbering of the Narnia books is a completely separate sort of beast. There are two reasonable ways of doing that – publication order and story chronology order. Many people prefer the former because (1) that’s how they read them and (2) they like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. But story chronology order was C.S. Lewis’s recommendation. Following the preferences of an author is much different than changing an author’s text.
        .
        Incidentally, it’s funny to see how the current Narnia movies are trying to follow the publication order and yet manufacture a through line that runs in that order rather than the original story chronology. I understand why they’re doing it, but it’s still amusing.

    2. Isn’t that the way C.S. Lewis wanted it, though?
      .
      That is disputable. Much of the support for this theory is based on one letter Lewis wrote to a young fan. In any event, he never got the chance to revise his books to fit this theory of his vision, so strange textual errors remain which aren’t an issue if the books are read in publication order.

  20. Pingback: Tweets that mention PeterDavid.net » Huckleberry Hounded -- Topsy.com

  21. Censorship is censorship. Using the word “sanitized” is, in effect, an attempt to censor the fact that something is being censored. It’s a tool of obfuscation and is a hindrance to critical thought.
    .
    This idea that certain words are offensive and are not to be spoken or, in the context of this blog entry, written or even repeated is insane. How can we effectively communicate thoughts and ideas if feel the need to hide behind “safe” language? It’s all rather silly and burdensome.
    .
    Let’s takes the phrase “Full of Shìŧ” as an example. I would say that most politicians are full of šhìŧ and just about anyone I say that to will understand that my opinion of politicians is that they will lie or use only some of the facts to achieve their goals. On the other hand were I to say that politicians are “Nutrient Rich” I’m left have to explain not only the full of šhìŧ politician part, but also the benefits of using feces as a fertilizer.
    .
    There is another angle about this that people either don’t pick up on or choose to ignore. Taking offense to something is a choice we make as individuals. This idea that I can blame someone else for making me angry because she called me an áššhølë, thus absolving myself of all responsibility for how I feel, is just childish. Years ago I came to a conclusion: My feelings, my responsibility. It’s my choice, my responsibility, how I react to what someone may call me. Sticks and stones, and all that.
    .
    Here is good example taken from a bit of stand-up comedy I’ve written. It’s condensed because, dámņ it, I can get a bit loquacious.
    .
    Of the following three words, which is the worst a man can use in reference to a woman? Bìŧçh, çûņŧ or cow?
    .
    Well, a bìŧçh is a female dog and a dog is mans best friend. So if I call her a bìŧçh I’m calling her my best friend.
    .
    Çûņŧ is slang for vágìņá which is a place that most men endeavor to spend a healthy amount of their spare time. Men seem to be pleased afterward too! So if I call a woman a çûņŧ I suppose I’m telling her that I want to spend time with her and be happy about it.
    .
    But a cow… Well a cow is a large, constantly feeding, lumbering beast whose main purpose is to relieve my hunger and provide me with some clothing. Holy šhìŧ! Cow is worse than bìŧçh and çûņŧ combined!
    .
    So I have to wonder… With the facts that I’ve detailed above who is responsible for the offense if I call a woman a çûņŧ?
    .
    Critical thought allowed me to come up with all that. Critical thought also allows you, the reader, to recognize it as spin. I wouldn’t have it any other way. In my experience the vast majority of people who post here are intelligent and get the point I’m trying to make.
    .
    Taking the word ņìggër out of Huckleberry Finn for the purpose of protecting people from feeling offense not only absolves them of personal responsibility (a quality that is lacking more often than not, it seems), but it also retards their ability to grow as thinkers and as people.
    .
    Yes, I used the word retard. It seemed fitting in the context of what I have written. If you don’t like it you can “exert negative air pressure on my phallus.”

    1. To be slightly more on topice– The eloquent version of your view of politicians has already been said. “Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” – Samuel Clemens

  22. “And ultimately, it comes down to: What next? A new edition of Tom Sawyer in which “Injun Joe” is changed to “Native American Joe?””

    PAD,

    I’ve actually read that this edition of Huck Finn, will also remove the word “Injun.”

    1. I can’t help but think of the Tom Sawyer episode of the PBS kids’ show “Wishbone” (it was about a dog that imagined he was characters from literature. It was better than it sounds). They changed the name from “Injun Joe” to “Crazy Joe”, which I thought was strange. I never really figured “Injun” as being a bad term. It’s just a Southern variant of “Indian” (like how “Acadian” became “Cajun”). And while the term itself is incorrect, it’s not really bad or demeaning the last time I checked.

  23. As my (a) final thought on this, I offer the following:

    If you (or your children) can’t handle what’s in the book, for whatever reason, then DON’T READ THE BOOK!!!

    Don’t read a sanitized version and pretend you’re reading (experiencing, actually) the original, the one that became so important and/or a classic. Classics are often controversial, and sometimes that’s what makes them classics. They deal with uncomfortable subjects, either consciously (Twain knew what he was writing about in HUCK FINN) or as an unconscious reflection of their time (as with the horrible stereotypes of the black savage in ROBINSON CRUSOE). And editing them down, taking out what might upset or offend someone, leaves you with something that’s NOT THE ORIGINAL.

  25. I disagree with PAD on one thing–I fear this will NOT fade away and, in fact, ten short years from now this will be the version most high schools are using. I hope I’m wrong.

    1. .
      And that shared fear is just another reason that the kids are getting home schooled.

      1. Certainly, if i’m still around when the granddaughters (currently five and three) are in school and get handed a copy of this abhomination, i will make sure that they get a clean copy.

      2. Look at it from the principal’s POV. He or she goes with the censored version he gets a few complaints from people but really, how many people are going to want to go on record as “being in favor of the n-word”, which is how it will be portrayed. Or he goes with the original which will now have even more people aware that they can cause a scene by complaining and he has to defend the use of the n-word.
        .
        Hëll, I’m using the phrase n-word because I don’t want anyone, anywhere to be able to point to something I’ve written and take the real word out of context and use it to portray the kind of things I, a teacher, write on the internet. Who needs that grief?
        .
        And there are kids who will try to use the controversy to get out of reading the book, not out of any real conviction but just so they, you know, don’t have to do an assignment. (Which is one place where the censored version can come into play-“oh, you can’t read books with bad words? here, have the baby version.”)
        .
        One false step on racial issues can end a principal’s career, I can’t blame one for taking the path of least resistance even if I disagree with the action.

      3. I assume that the story being reported on a teevee news program was this on – and the air guy was fired for using That Word on the air, even though that was what the story was about.
        .
        I am not as offended by this as was the right-wing radio host whose program i briefly flipped into the other night, because i’d be willing to bet that he was fired for violating a hard-and-fast rule of the station.
        .
        Personally, if i’d been his GM, and he’d asked (in advance) for an exception, i’d probably have allowed it – though i might have required a disclaimer. But broadcast media in general do not subscribe to “Easier to get forgiveness than permission…”

      4. Mike, I thought the story was that he was fired for using the word in a meeting about the story, not on the air.
        .
        Hard and fast rule–if you have a job from which you can be fired and are not black DO NOT USE THE WORD. Is that fair or right? That won’t matter much when you’re in the unemployment line telling everyone “It’s not fair! I was right!”

  26. I have to wonder what people are afraid of. If they’re actaully just afraid of offending people, put a disclaimer on the book, kind of like what cable networks put on infomercials. Or could some of it be that people afraid of having to discuss unpleasantness? The past was unpleasant in a lot of ways. Hëll, the present is unpleasant in a lot of ways. Not discussing it will not change it. But it could lead to a discussion, why the words are in there, why the attitudes were what they were and how they are different from what the are now.
    .
    I don’t usually put much faith in polls, but it might be interesting to poll a number of black people to see if they were in fact offended by the book, and Native Americans to see if they’re offended by Injun Joe.

    2. The Irish Times article referenced above did that on a very unscientific basis, the reporter talking to assorted black people on a subway. Every single one thought the change was ridiculous.
      .
      PAD

  27. A book store I sometimes help out at got in a copy of the originally titled version of Agatha Christie’s novel which is also known as And Then There Were None and Ten Little Indians. This is an intersting case because the recial slur is in the book’s title; because the book’s title first got changed about a year after it was originally published (thus almost sure with the author’s knowledge); and because there’s been the initial replacement word (from n-word to Indians) has come under fire for its own racism. I’m of two minds of this. On the one hand I do believe that the original text should be preserved and people reading later versions should be at least made aware of the original. On the flip side, the meat of the story is ten apparent strangers being offed one by one, so the racist elements aren’t really part of what makes the story so effective. I bet most people on this blog who’ve read the story have read one of the toned down versions. So basically I’m throwing this out there and seeing what people think of the use of the n-word vs Indians vs Soldiers in this story.

    1. I’m thinking that this use of the n-word is a case of self censorship, which is completely different from censorship imposed by others.

      1. Despite the opinion of the Twain scholar who’s spearheading this, I tend to think that Samuel Clemens would disagree. He’s having censorship imposed on his work by some guy whose name will disappear from the annals of history.
        .
        PAD

      2. PAD, I wasn’t talking about Twain’s work. I was answering Andy’s question.

      3. Thx, Jason. I hadn’t realized that she actually made the changes herself. Certainly if she rewrote that word out in later editions or at least gave her blessing to the editing, that’s different than someone else cleaning up her work against her intent.

      4. Sorry Andy, I didn’t mean to give the impression that she did it herself. I was just going off what you wrote that since it was done within a year of publication, it was probably done with her knowledge. I’d like to think that they talked to her about it before they made the change, but I don’t know that for sure.

    2. The original version of the title is a line from the British children’s counting game that is known in the US by the second version of the title…

  28. “The difference between the almost-right word & the right word is . . . the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” – Mark Twain

  30. I believe that if schools are going to teach Hucklebery Finn they should teach the book as Clemens wrote it, not any sort of edited version.
    .
    Curiously, it seems Clemens himself didn’t want children to read either Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn. I’m currently reading The Library An Illustrated History by Stuart A.P. Murray, and on page 189-190, we read that in 1905, the Brooklyn Public Library banned both of those books from the children’s department, “when a young woman in charge of the section objected to the ‘coarseness, deceitfulness and mischievous practices’ of the characters.” So, Asa Don Dickinson, head librarian at Brooklyn College, who objected to the ban, wrote to Clemens to ask him to defend his work to the library.
    .
    Clemens’ reply begins, “I am greatly troubled by what you say. I wrote Tom Sawyer & Huck Finn for adults exclusively, & it always distressed me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them.”
    .
    That’s Clemens in 1905, a very different time than 2011. For all we know, he might be shocked and horrified by material taught in schools today that we consider innocuous, yet were anything but in his day. Even so, there’s a huge difference between a writer declaring his books are meant for readers of a certain age and his being okay with people reading a expurgated version of his works. And Clemens didn’t say he was okay with bowdlerized versions of his work in that letter.
    .
    Does the fact that Clemens didn’t want children reading those two books justify banning them and/or putting bowdlerized versions in the schools today? Hëll, no. Again, he was writing in another time. But that does raise an interesting question. Does a living writer have any say in whether his work is taught in the schools? Say PAD learns that a particular school system is teaching one of his books to ninth graders, a book he aimed at an older audience. I suspect that being the supporter of the first amendment he is, he might write to the board and suggest it might be better to teach the book to 12th graders; but he’d leave the final decision to the board. But would he have any right to determine whether this hypothetical book were taught at all?
    .
    I suspect the answer is “no”, that once a book is published, it can be taught by schools if they wish. But again, it should be the book as written, not someone else’s edits of it.
    .
    I don’t recall whether I read Huckleberry Finn in school (the only copy I can find is an annotated version I bought a few years ago), but I read Tom Sawyer sophomore year in high school (I know that because I wrote my name and homeroom on the inside cover). I don’t recall whether the N word is used in Tom Sawyer, but in the version I own (Bantam Classic), the character of “Injun Joe” remains “Injun Joe.”
    .
    Rick

    2. Don’t you mean 1907… at least according to Twainquotes.com

      “But the truth is, that when a Library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn’t anger me.
      – Letter to Mrs. F. G. Whitmore, 7 February 1907”

      But that quote did inspire me– if Newsouth will piss on my holy book– I’ll edit a violence, torture, rape, incest and cat free version of The Bible.

      1. Jess Willey wrote, “Don’t you mean 1907… at least according to Twainquotes.com

        “But the truth is, that when a Library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn’t anger me.
        – Letter to Mrs. F. G. Whitmore, 7 February 1907″
        .
        No, I mean 1905. As I said, that’s the date given in the book The Library, and Clemens’ letter, as I said, was in response to a letter by Brooklyn College Head Librarian Asa Don Dickinson.
        .
        Why you’d ask about some other letter when I identified the person with whom Clemens corresponded, is beyond me, but he did mention the Bible in his letter to Dickinson: “If there is an Unexpurgated [Bible] in the Children’s Department, won’t you please help that young woman remove Tom & Huck from that questionable companionship?”
        .
        Earlier in the letter to Dickinson, Clemens wrote about his “unappeased bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted me but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again on this side of the grave.”
        .
        Clearly, Clemens had issues with children reading an unexpugated Bible, but it’s one he brought up more than once.
        .
        Rick

  31. This story has certainly gotten plenty of media attention, and as a part time journalist myself, I have contributed my fair share of late.
    But they say any publicity is good publicity as long as the names are spelled right.
    So, as long as the books get read… (?)
    Thankfully we live in more enlightened times where the ‘I’ and ‘N’ words are no longer used. Yet I always thought Twain’s use of the ‘I’ word was more just in keeping with the boys’ personas of the times.
    But wouldn’t just adding either a forward or a footnote at the first appearance of each word, about the cultural differences of the times between then and now, resolve the problem more quickly than rewriting these classic tales?

  32. Funny political cartoon in my local paper: Cartoon of Twain holding a copy of HF in his right hand and using his right to point to the readers, proclaiming, “Don’t touch my junk!” I think Twain would laugh.

  34. For those who have suggested that some manner of introduction be added to the original text regarding the language, I should point out that the following already exists:
    .
    In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: The Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods South-Western dialect; the ordinary ‘Pike County’ dialect; and four modified varieties of his last. The shadings have not been done in a hap-hazard fashion, or by guess-work, but pain-stakingly (emphasis mine) and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech. I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.
    .
    That should put the lie to any claims that Twain would have been okey-doke with his text being changed. He used the language for a reason; not just because he enjoyed tossing around coarse language.
    .
    PAD

  35. Pingback: Never the Twain shall meet « occasional fish
Comments are closed.