"huck finn" edited...despicable!

[Lord Macbeth]

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...m_medium=email

I can't remember the last time I was so infuriated at the re-working of a classic...THAT IS HEINOUS!

A classic that made its mark by displaying the social and moral fabric of American society like no other book--it's arguably THE "Great American Novel," and certainly ranks up there for that honor--with the highs AND lows of America, the good ideas at work AND the ugliness and hypocrisy within...the claim of "All men are created equal" and the enslavement and demeaning treatment of an entire race and the removal and in some cases extinction of another...

A book that ATTACKS racism and bigotry...

And they take out the "N-word" and "Injun" to make it more pallateable?

Well, while we're at it, why not change around some of the work from the 1920s and 1930s?

I'm a Jew but, hey, I just can't handle it and any future kids someday just would be better off not having to face the "K-word," right? And we can just rewrite those books that have Anti-Semetic characters to soften the blow--no problem!

After all, why have Shylock suffer all the slings and arrows and terrible treatment and slanders in The Merchant of Venice when we can just PC it up and make it perfectly clear those nice, virtuous Venetians were perfect Christians in that day and age and didn't subjugate Shylock or the Jews at all! We don't need THAT! Who needs cold, cruel details and an actual reason for one of the first complex Jewish characters in literature to do what he does when we can just nice it up and clear the Venetians' names and make Shylock a flat character and be SURE no one EVER need see he had ANY reason to act badly.

Shakespeare...he was less evolved, less civilized, right?

Same with Twain!

After all, THEY know better than Twain what Twain meant to get across--why should Jim and his people have to face such terrible language and provide them with reasons for what they do and how we should feel about them and their white masters when "slave" works just fine! After all, "slave" gets it AL across, right? No need to throw in a word that was far more derogatory and insulting and humiliating for them, no need to make us feel uncomfortable that we treated them not only as slaves, but less than human, and called them as such!

And hey--while we took over the "Native American" lands, we were at least SURE we didn't "insult them" by calling them "injun" while sending them on a Trail of Tears and destroying their society and way of life, rioght?

NO REASON we should have to face the problems of race today, because in American society today race relations are 100% perfect and utpoian and everyone loves everyone in a perfect. totally-PC America where nothing bad ever happened and no bad things EVER happen!



Mr. Twain...on behalf of my generation and all of us who actually still read and still are able to think before we act, all of us who aren't afraid to look into the past to see the darker side of our pasts and even ourselves, I apologize.

Your words haven't fallen on deaf ears--its just that "sivilized world" that has it all wrong.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I heard about this on the news today, and it is truly heart-breaking. One would hope no school, or person for that matter, in their right mind would buy this bastardized version over an unedited version, but it will happen, whether from ignorance or choice.

What a shame.

[hanzklein]

Calm down, its just the children's version of the book. And Huckleberry Finn does overtly use the N word, that's because in that time it was not as offensive as today.

[sithkittie]

That is truly sad. I hadn't heard about that. Huckleberry Finn was one of my favorite books as a kid, and I've always found it rather ridiculous that people make such a big deal out of "the N word" despite it's continued common and only selectively offensive use. It's just another part of the language that makes the book. It's really a pity people have felt the need to edit something rather than face their problems.

[Lord Macbeth]

Calm down, its just the children's version of the book. And Huckleberry Finn does overtly use the N word, that's because in that time it was not as offensive as today.

"Just" the children's version?

That'sthe version that MOST needs those slurs in there, because those are the versions that will be TAUGHT!

We're going to have a whole generation--thanks aptly-named "NewSouth Books," rewriting the classics so as to make it perfectly clear that what happens in the South never ACTUALLY happens in the idyllic, alway-perfect South!--who will read this new version and miss the scatching commen tary that Twain passes and instead get a watered-down, PC version that downplays the entire race issue TWO race issues if you count their taking out "injun" and the Native American slurs, too.)

Also...how is placing "slave" in there any better ?!

There's something SERIOUSLY WRONG with people when SLAVERY doesn't make them uneasy to read about, but a racial slur they used to further demean those they enslaved...now THAT'S off-limits!

[Lord Macbeth]

Bottom line: if you don't feel at least a bit uneasy reading a book like this, you've missed what has made it so special and so important to our culture.

Making kids comfortable with what Huck experiences is the LAST THING TWAIN WANTED!

He WANTED people to feel uncomfortable!




This is a travesty, not just on the literary side of things, but on the cultural side. America can't look itself in the face. It can't handle the truth about what happened anymore, and so wants to downplay it, make its children comfortable with elements of its past that would horrify any right-minded child.

And now those same kids who WOULD ahve been horrified at the racial tensions in that time and this time and perhaps actually cared will simply brush it off...and as a classic work is mangled for the "good" of the work and the society, somewhere Twain is sighing, and Orwell even more so...

Big Brother is editing you...

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Calm down, its just the children's version of the book. And Huckleberry Finn does overtly use the N word, that's because in that time it was not as offensive as today.

What does this even mean? Are the two different versions of the book I'm not aware of?

And of course "nigger" was more offensive now than it was then, and that's the point. It shows the dark side of America's past. Even reading the word (which, for some reason isn't censored on here) makes most uncomfortable, but that does not mean it should be stricken from history.

In my mind, if it's that big of a deal for schools, don't teach the book. You either teach all of it, or you teach none of it. You don't change a piece of art to fit your needs.

[baaaaadgoatjoke]

what happens in the South never ACTUALLY happens in the idyllic, alway-perfect South

Did you mean to write "America" there? Maybe "the World?"

[kiki1982]

Well, not wanting to be racist or political at all, but there you go with the great country of freedom and free speech.

@Hanzklein:

'Just' the children's version means that you find that acceptable?
1. One does not change the wording in a work of literature.It was published like it is, and so considered good enough. It does not need re-writing.
2. One expresses ignorance deleting certain words/passages.
3. One takes away the ability of people to read the work properly.
4. One makes one's children and otehr readers ignorant by doing it. How is that acceptable? That cannot be the general aim, right?

There is nothing wrong with racism in the past, or with the word 'n*gger' (I'll do a concession towards the people who cannot face the word, I had written it in full). America needs to face the past, not coneal it.

Same with the Holocaust. Considering it is actually already 60 years ago, I think Germany and the rest of Europe has dealt better with that than America with something that happened much longer ago (which admittedly had its effects still after WWII).

Face it, it does not go away, and that counts for works written then too.

But hey, why do they not bann them all, so they don't have to face it? That would be a better solution. But I forgot, it's a classic. Problem.

Something of 1984 filters through here. Call me Miss Exaggeration, but I think I would prefer to give that a miss somethow (in the cynical words of Blackadder).

[edit] Though, I'll spell the so-called 'offensive' word, just to make a point, now Mutatis (thank you) has done it before me. 'Nigger'. Doesn't sound that bad. Only because it's connected to a certain context, is it so bad. It is only a word and thought provoking in Huch Fin at that. As the thought of it won't go away, one would do better facing it than running away from it. We don't go and shout it around at every black man, now, are we?

[baaaaadgoatjoke]

I haven't read the book since I was a child, but I don't remember all the black people being slaves. On the other hand, I don't see the point in being all "the government is taking away our "niggers!"" when this is being done by a private party.

That said, if you want to read a watered down version you should have the freedom to do so, but you're probably a moron because the book is the way it is because that's the way it was and this is the way it is.

[JCamilo]

Well, not wanting to be racist or political at all, but there you go with the great country of freedom and free speech.

Political correctness is not now, it is old. Hey, it is the country where manifestations of the KKK is protected under the free speech, but Mark Twain is not. But what they pretend? The lack of use of the N word will make it inoffensive?
Last year, Brazil. Monteiro Lobato, the undeniable father of brazilian children literature and father of one of the most beloved creations of brazilian literature (named Sitio do PicaPau Amarelo) was the center of a similar dispute. A relatory of a governament specialist detected the use of racist language in one his stories. Mainly be cause one of the main characters was a black woman worker (the story is in a small farm) and one of the characters (a doll that talks plus the jaguars who want to eat them) called her black, with big lips and also that she could climb like a monkey (albeit a brazilian monkey which fur is white). Have in mind that the end of slavery here did not occured but in 1888. So, Lobato was born in a coutry with slavery. Fact, the character was based on his own "nanny", of course, a house-work slave woman who helped to raise kids. The thing, the character, Tia Anastasia is the black character more famous of brazil thanks to Lobato and his work did no less than make people love her as part of the "Sitio" crew (2 kids, a talking corn, a talking doll, the grandmother of the kids and herself).
Lobato is much more controversial than Twain, having objectivelly defended at some point eugeny (this is a more complicated sittuation in Brazil) and even writting a work (The Black President) when he tried to gain american market about the first black president where he is outsmarted by the white minorities. But he is also responsable for defending a brazilian myth (Saci) for his symbolic mix of brazil "races" (Portuguese european, african former slaves, and native indians) which would add the uniqueness and strength to brazilian culture. But even so, the mobilization was imense and the Education Minister hold the case. It will go under the carpet because the accusation of racism is ridiculous.
Mostly, the bigger problem of historical revisionism is not giving proper vallue to those same words. Without their ties with history, they lose significance. And more, it was works like Twain and Lobato who actually created the link to bring those dicussions under a new light. White upper class would never know the N word correctly without Twain approaching it to the users with his books.
Anyways, some points people complain are wrong.

@Hanzklein:

'Just' the children's version means that you find that acceptable?

It is not different from any children version of Shakespeare or the Red Hidding Hood, the new author modifies the work for them.

1. One does not change the wording in a work of literature.It was published like it is, and so considered good enough. It does not need re-writing.

Not true. It is certain that the version we have of Iliad and Odissey was modificated latter and so are Shakespeare plays. And translations are modifications. Plus, even the author has different versions of his works. Literature is not static.

2. One expresses ignorance deleting certain words/passages.
3. One takes away the ability of people to read the work properly.

Well, there is not reading properly, there is only reading. So it cannt be taken away.

4. One makes one's children and otehr readers ignorant by doing it. How is that acceptable? That cannot be the general aim, right?

How? A person who nevers read Mark Twain is not ignorant. So a person who reads an edited version wont be either.

There is nothing wrong with racism in the past, or with the word 'n*gger' (I'll do a concession towards the people who cannot face the word, I had written it in full). America needs to face the past, not coneal it.

Well, technically, anyone will just point racists wont be stopped by N*gger. Those filters are even silly. A word is not just the symbols, but the meaning they represent. Anyone will read the real word and anyone will find new racists terms.

Same with the Holocaust. Considering it is actually already 60 years ago, I think Germany and the rest of Europe has dealt better with that than America with something that happened much longer ago (which admittedly had its effects still after WWII).

Face it, it does not go away, and that counts for works written then too.

But hey, why do they not bann them all, so they don't have to face it? That would be a better solution. But I forgot, it's a classic. Problem.

Something of 1984 filters through here. Call me Miss Exaggeration, but I think I would prefer to give that a miss somethow (in the cynical words of Blackadder).

[edit] Though, I'll spell the so-called 'offensive' word, just to make a point, now Mutatis (thank you) has done it before me. 'Nigger'. Doesn't sound that bad. Only because it's connected to a certain context, is it so bad. It is only a word and thought provoking in Huch Fin at that. As the thought of it won't go away, one would do better facing it than running away from it. We don't go and shout it around at every black man, now, are we?

The problem is another. The problem is that those questions (either here Brazil or USA) talk about more than art integrity or authoral rights. It is education. We are just saying our kids are too dumb and the teachers to show proper context and language usage. People do not get racist because they know the N word, people won became gay reading Oscar Wilde, do not believe they fly because of Superman (and this is a generalization, individuals are individuals). The very capacity of understandment of art (or rather, enjoyment or experience as understandment is not really the aim of art) is filtered by a obnoxious realism.
It is the question who decides what to write and why? What is the fuction of reading in school at all.

And I am laughing out loud at kids getting near a bunch of black people and intead of calling them "Come here, N*gger" can call "Come here, slave".

[Lord Macbeth]

I haven't read the book since I was a child, but I don't remember all the black people being slaves. On the other hand, I don't see the point in being all "the government is taking away our "niggers!"" when this is being done by a private party. Freedom of the press I guess.

That said, if you want to read a watered down version you should have the freedom to do so, but you're probably a moron because the book is the way it is because that's the way it was and this is the way it is.

It's not morons reading the book we must be worried about.

It's morons TEACHING this version of the book th CHILDREN.

Of course an adult ahs the right to by the real or watered-down version, and I'd like to think most adults will by the real version, if they do buy it.

But they intend to teach this to children who will then grow up with no knowledge of the real book...or what really happened.

Take out the n-word and HEY! We can ALL jsut enjoy a nice, happy little raft ride with Huck and his PAL Jim!

Put that word back in and suddenly that raft ride, that "boy's tale" becomes less boyish and more mature--as it was intended to be.

Adventures of Hucklebery Finn is more about the characters and society rather than the plot, and that's why this is such a travesty.

Take that word away and the characters aren't QUITE as mean or ignorant or bound by society, and the society itself doesn't seem QUITE as bad.

"Slave" can apply anywhere in the world, we've had slaves everywhere.
But the n-word is specific to America--it's AMERICA'S demon to bear.

And as the fellow from Germany said above--and as a Jew I say this--Europe HAS done a better job facing their demons from the First and Second World Wars, they've acknowledged some groups were treated badly and that the whole thing became a mess, and THEY don't sugarcoat it, but accept the fact it happened and don't hide it, even more so, they make sure the kids KNOW what happened...

So it WON'T happen again.

Blind America to its past demons, and watch them crop right back up again as the CHILDREN are NOT passed on the lessons their forefathers had to learn and struggle with.

[hanzklein]

"Just" the children's version?

That'sthe version that MOST needs those slurs in there, because those are the versions that will be TAUGHT!

We're going to have a whole generation--thanks aptly-named "NewSouth Books," rewriting the classics so as to make it perfectly clear that what happens in the South never ACTUALLY happens in the idyllic, alway-perfect South!--who will read this new version and miss the scatching commen tary that Twain passes and instead get a watered-down, PC version that downplays the entire race issue TWO race issues if you count their taking out "injun" and the Native American slurs, too.)

Also...how is placing "slave" in there any better ?!

There's something SERIOUSLY WRONG with people when SLAVERY doesn't make them uneasy to read about, but a racial slur they used to further demean those they enslaved...now THAT'S off-limits!

So you think children reading this are going to open their eyes to the racial injustices of the south via this word rather than give them a new name to call their friends at lunch?

[kiki1982]

It is not different from any children version of Shakespeare or the Red Hidding Hood, the new author modifies the work for them.

I cannot comment on Shakespeare, but I have never come across a version of Red Riding Hood which did not have SPOILER ALERT ! Red Riding Hood eaten as well as her grandmother and then the wolf cut open by the hunter. SPOILER ALERT OVER! The tale was gruesome, but it always stayed the same. I do not see the advantage of watering such a thing down.

Not true. It is certain that the version we have of Iliad and Odissey was modificated latter and so are Shakespeare plays. And translations are modifications. Plus, even the author has different versions of his works. Literature is not static.

The works you name are works written in a time when there was no copyright and where there was consequently no final form of anything. Not even of the gods I recently discovered. Since the advent of copyright, a text is only changed either by the author himself, or by the editor prior to publication (while discussed I suppose), not later by another person and certainly not for ideological reasons. In that sense, literature is static. After the death of an author, if he actually did change his text in various editions, the books are always published with a certain edition as base. Rarely are they changed for any other reason, though there are some texts that were changed, but then mostly by a family member who tended to be close to the person in question (Chalotte changed Emily Brontë's manuscript of Wuthering Heights, for example, and Jane Austen's brother edited Persuasion and Northanger Abbey prior to posthumous publication).

Well, there is not reading properly, there is only reading. So it cannt be taken away.

A a reader, you can choose how you read. I.e. for plot or for deeper interest. Taking away certain words, takes away certain possible interpretations. As such, you do take the possibility of reading properly away of someone by altering the text.

How? A person who nevers read Mark Twain is not ignorant. So a person who reads an edited version wont be either.

This is not only about the word 'nigger', it is about the idea. If those people had their way, they would ban everything that only even refers slightly to that time. It is making people ignorant. The consequence of that would be that the same will happen over and over again. And that is also what it is. On the news, more offenses by black people are reported. The suspect is always 'a black man', never white. Whether that is always right, is never actually highlighted. Black people are paid less for the same job. Etc. That is what happens if the past in this case is ignored. Things are allowed to carry on the way they did. Why did it have to last until the 1950s (and later!) until people of that colour were actually accepted? It is because that society likes to ignore slavery and deeply rooted racism that things have not really really moved along.

Well, technically, anyone will just point racists wont be stopped by N*gger. Those filters are even silly. A word is not just the symbols, but the meaning they represent. Anyone will read the real word and anyone will find new racists terms.

That's why I argue that it is both ignorant and making people ignorant, ignoring the word 'nigger'.

And at any rate, I would argue that America hadn't had that amount of rich people that made the country really, if it wasn't for slavery. They were able to gather so much money because they only had to feed their slaves and house them (sometimes in despicable circumstances). In Europe there was also an upper class, but they still had to pay their servants a wage of some kind (though without social security and the like they have to pay now). Still, they were not at all so rich as for example the Russian upper class which essentially had slaves too (serfs). Not to mention the families in the rest of the world, some in the UK, which got incredibly rich because if the slave trade. The Industrial Revolution had probably gone a little more slowly, if the slave trade hadn't been so prominent in the 17th and 18th centuries. But that's another discussion I suppose.

It is part of America and that is why it is wrong to ignore it. hat is the problem with it anyway? It is in the past, right? Or is it, and is that maybe the problem?

[JCamilo]

I cannot comment on Shakespeare, but I have never come across a version of Red Riding Hood which did not have SPOILER ALERT ! Red Riding Hood eaten as well as her grandmother and then the wolf cut open by the hunter. SPOILER ALERT OVER! The tale was gruesome, but it always stayed the same. I do not see the advantage of watering such a thing down.

Shakespeare text of the plays are not "his final" word, as he did not published, but result of a long research. Since then, his text have been altered, changed, included by people like Charles Lamb who made it acessible to children. But no, Red Ridding Hood or many of the oral faery tales (Cinderela, Sleeping beauty, etc) has several versions. The Hunter was actually added by Grimms to teach a moral lesson to kids. (Perrault early version ends with she laying with the wolf, she is never saved).

The works you name are works written in a time when there was no copyright and where there was consequently no final form of anything. Not even of the gods I recently discovered. Since the advent of copyright, a text is only changed either by the author himself, or by the editor prior to publication (while discussed I suppose), not later by another person and certainly not for ideological reasons. In that sense, literature is static. After the death of an author, if he actually did change his text in various editions, the books are always published with a certain edition as base. Rarely are they changed for any other reason, though there are some texts that were changed, but then mostly by a family member who tended to be close to the person in question (Chalotte changed Emily Brontë's manuscript of Wuthering Heights, for example, and Jane Austen's brother edited Persuasion and Northanger Abbey prior to posthumous publication).

No, translations and versions still exists. Not those you talked but the famous abrigaded versions or children versions are published every single day. I can find a hundred different Moby Dicks. Literature is and never was static.

A a reader, you can choose how you read. I.e. for plot or for deeper interest. Taking away certain words, takes away certain possible interpretations. As such, you do take the possibility of reading properly away of someone by altering the text.

You are doing exactly the same, taking away possibility for interepreation by arguing against the word changes. Again, there is no absolute interpretations, there is no sense complaning about "Not allowing" this interpretation.

This is not only about the word 'nigger', it is about the idea. If those people had their way, they would ban everything that only even refers slightly to that time. It is making people ignorant. The consequence of that would be that the same will happen over and over again. And that is also what it is. On the news, more offenses by black people are reported. The suspect is always 'a black man', never white. Whether that is always right, is never actually highlighted. Black people are paid less for the same job. Etc. That is what happens if the past in this case is ignored. Things are allowed to carry on the way they did. Why did it have to last until the 1950s (and later!) until people of that colour were actually accepted? It is because that society likes to ignore slavery and deeply rooted racism that things have not really really moved along.

Look, those people are dealing with a modern problem, not old problems. But then again, who said they are making anyone ignorant? Like I said, reading Twain does not make any more or less ignorant, so how come reading a version of twain (something ALL who do not read english do) will create ignorance?
You may have a point that such action is inefective, but it is not the same as "holocaust denial" that sometimes pop on.

That's why I argue that it is both ignorant and making people ignorant, ignoring the word 'nigger'.

The word is meaningless. I can come up with enough insults to make N word be gone. It is just inefective. They will have another word, be it "rappers" or "Jayzes" to segregate black people if they want.

t is part of America and that is why it is wrong to ignore it. hat is the problem with it anyway? It is in the past, right? Or is it, and is that maybe the problem?

You are talking about literature. Like I said the question is: the future readers will enjoy more reading? Does it matter? History classes may give them the proper perspective but Literature classes? Are them for this?