47 replies to this topic

[mrmando]

Did they leave "harelip" and "yaller wench" in? Once bowdlerization has begun, where does it stop?

Edited by mrmando, 04 January 2011 - 08:53 PM.

[Cunningham]

This is BS. It's very important to the story to realize that Huck shares some of the racism that he's surrounded by. He's certainly no Enlightened Liberal. There in fact, is a key scene in the book where Huck refers to Jim as "just a n*gger" or something like that. The point being, the weight of Huck's racism is certainly lessened with this change, which fundamentally changes the book.

I suspect though, that this is a bit of a tempest in a teapot. I don't expect that this edition will gain any traction.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Link to our thread on CleanFlix and similar video-expurgating services.

And don't anyone try to tell me that these are not, at root, the same subject. (Though admittedly, Mark Twain's novels are now in the public domain -- speaking of which... -- whereas most if not all of the films edited by CleanFlix etc. tend to be very much protected under copyright law.)

[mrmando]

Oh, I agree that they're the same subject. Censorship is censorship, after all.

I'm torn here between respecting Huckleberry Finn's textual integrity and its place as an artifact of its time (and if ever one can get past the language, one sees that it is a tremendously progressive work for its time: it surrounds a black man with a crowd of white characters, and in terms of morality and dignity the black man towers above them all ... it's one of the very first works of American literature to do this), on one hand, and acknowledging, on the other hand, that the expurgation will remove a barrier that, rightly or wrongly, has prevented a significant number of people from reading the book at all.

Edited by mrmando, 05 January 2011 - 08:38 PM.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Pax wrote:
: And I don't think it's censorship, for what that's worth--any more than abridged versions of other books are censorship.

Oh, there's a huge, huge difference between ABRIDGING a text (i.e. cutting it down in size) and REPLACING one text with another text.

And as Abe Greenwald points out, replacing "nigger" with "slave" won't necessarily save you from the PC police -- especially where books prepared for young readers are concerned. (Apparently the preferred PC term these days, in some circles at least, is "enslaved person".)

: Especially if it's for young readers.

For some reason I am reminded of how the author of Lord of the Flies was once notified by some students that the copy of his book that they had been given to read had had some bits cut out by the publisher. The author was not happy about this, as I recall.

: I mean, this IS the "N" word.

Big deal. Teenagers hear this word all the time in their music and their movies. (See our current thread on the popularity of rap music among young people of all racial persuasions.) I have never read Huckleberry Finn myself, but I see no reason why, in theory, reading the word in a book should be so much more traumatizing than hearing it in a song, etc.

Side note: I'm getting a flashback now to how my class read To Kill a Mockingbird aloud in class, back in junior high school, and how the only time the teacher ever "censored" the text was when he got to the sentence that said "I seen that nigger rutting on my Mayella." He changed "rutting on" to "messing with", but I believe he left the rest as is. For whatever that's worth.

: The last church i went to changed the Nicene creed: "...holy catholic Christian church..." . . .

Wow. That misses the point completely.

: I think the Huck Finn change is just fine--as long as the edition is listed as abridged.

I repeat: It has not been abridged (at least not where the so-called "n-word" is concerned). It has been rewritten. Big difference.

[mrmando]

Peter T Chattaway, on 04 January 2011 - 10:17 PM, said:

He changed "rutting on" to "messing with", but I believe he left the rest as is. For whatever that's worth.

Ouch. That sentence more than any other serves to establish what kind of person Mr. Ewell is.

Quote

I repeat: It has not been abridged (at least not where the so-called "n-word" is concerned). It has been rewritten. Big difference.

Indeed, many if not most editions of Huckleberry Finn have been abridged ... including the first edition, if I am not mistaken ... in that they leave out what is known as the "raftsmen sequence," in which Huck and Jim get separated in the fog and Huck spends a night on someone else's raft. But this may be the first expurgated edition.

Charlayne Woodard's play Pretty Fire contains the best, healthiest take on the n-word that I know about. Sorry, can't find a clip.

Edited by mrmando, 05 January 2011 - 04:35 AM.

[mrmando]

Cunningham, on 04 January 2011 - 09:03 PM, said:

The point being, the weight of Huck's racism is certainly lessened with this change, which fundamentally changes the book.

Indeed, but at least it lessens the weight of all the other characters' racism in equal measure.

[Cunningham]

mrmando, on 04 January 2011 - 10:54 PM, said:

Cunningham, on 04 January 2011 - 09:03 PM, said:

The point being, the weight of Huck's racism is certainly lessened with this change, which fundamentally changes the book.

Indeed, but at least it lessens the weight of all the other characters' racism in equal measure.

Which would completely miss the point.

[Holy Moly!]

One context where i think it makes sense to change the word is if it's being read aloud in a classroom setting. I have no problem reading the word in a text like this one where it's historically accurate and appropriate. I'd not be able to say it out loud to a class of kids.

[Cunningham]

Here are some excellent thoughts from my former English professor: http://dgmyers.blogs...ay-is-next.html

[mrmando]

Pax, on 04 January 2011 - 09:48 PM, said:

Not only do I think it's OK, I think Twain might not even give a flip.

Mark Twain, on 05 October 1888 - 02:30 PM, said:

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Brilliant!

[mrmando]

Pax, on 05 January 2011 - 01:26 PM, said:

Exactly...although I think this--even in print--can be done right. "Annotated" if you prefer.

For pity's sake, if you don't know what a word means, don't use it. Replacing one word with another is not "annotation."

Quote

And, mrmando, that quote is out of context.

BullshitNonsense. You opined that Twain "might not even give a flip." The textual evidence from Twain's own pen suggests otherwise. Are you really so arrogant as to suggest that you, rather than Twain, should have the last word on Twain's work?

Edited by mrmando, 05 January 2011 - 01:35 PM.

[SDG]

mrmando, on 05 January 2011 - 01:30 PM, said:

Quote

And, mrmando, that quote is out of context.

BullshitNonsense. You opined that Twain "might not even give a flip." The textual evidence from Twain's own pen suggests otherwise. Are you really so arrogant as to suggest that you, rather than Twain, should have the last word on Twain's work?

Ditto. How the heck can it be "out of context"? The quotation indicates that word choice for Twain was a big deal. Systematically changing one of his words is clearly the sort of thing he would have been likely to have strong feelings about. We can't know for certain, of course. But is there any countervailing evidence of a more loosey-goosey attitude on Twain's part?

[Nick Alexander]

I think the change is a positive one, so long as it has Huck and Jim battling zombies and/or vampires.

ETA: Didn't Lewis Carroll raise a stink as to how Alice in Wonderland was rewritten by Tim Burton?

Edited by Nick Alexander, 05 January 2011 - 01:50 PM.

[old wave]

I think it's a terrible and misguided idea. Huck using the word "nigger" should make us uncomfortable, that's the point. Replacing the world "nigger" with "slave" isn't an appropriate substitution. Being a "slave" is changeable and impermanent. A slave can be freed, and then he is no longer a slave. Being a nigger is an immutable part of one's being and soul. It can't be transcended or changed. Further, anyone can be a slave, but only a black person can be a nigger. It really doesn't mean even close to the same thing, and its sort of surprising that Twain scholars would think it would.

Edited by old wave, 05 January 2011 - 01:52 PM.

[mrmando]

Nick Alexander, on 05 January 2011 - 01:48 PM, said:

ETA: Didn't Lewis Carroll raise a stink as to how Alice in Wonderland was rewritten by Tim Burton?

He just might have, yes:

Lewis Carroll, in Through the Looking-Glass, on 1872, said:

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ ”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”

Edited by mrmando, 05 January 2011 - 01:59 PM.