New edition of 'Huckleberry Finn' to lose the N-word

[White Rain]

I am ashamed to admit I was 54-years-old before I got around to reading Mockingbird. (I still haven't seen the movie.)

One of the five best books ever written in this country, if you ask me.

So no, let's don't rewrite it.

Nova!!!!!! How can you read the book and not watch the movie???? WATCH IT!!!!!!!!!
Oh yeah and whats the other 4 best books?

 

[tlcya]

Apparently you think it's better to burn a book than change a word. Seems a bit of an overreaction, but that's just me.
I am strongly opposed to changing Twain's text, but Jim is still a slave in the "clean" version and Huck still befriends him. The essence of the work and Twain's ideas aren't being lost.

BBM I actually was trying to illustrate that, to me, they are one and the same. I find the idea bastardized version of books to be as offensive as the idea of burning books. I am sorry if my sarcasm wasn't evident.

I feel very strongly that a part of the strength of this particular book was in depicting how people actually were in that time, how very differently people viewed the world and one another back then. I think by removing the word, they took some of the power out of what that book taught me as a young person reading it and can teach others about the wrongs of the past. Thats just MOO

 

[Fairy1]

I am ashamed to admit I was 54-years-old before I got around to reading Mockingbird. (I still haven't seen the movie.)

One of the five best books ever written in this country, if you ask me.

So no, let's don't rewrite it.

O.M.G.

My favorite movie of all time and the book is even better!

It cannot be "rewritten!" It is a fictional work but, first and foremost, it is a beautiful testament to civil rights and soooooooo important to the history of the USA.

Please, please, please watch the movie! It is a true work of art.

 

[Fairy1]

BBM I actually was trying to illustrate that, to me, they are one and the same. I find the idea bastardized version of books to be as offensive as the idea of burning books. I am sorry if my sarcasm wasn't evident.

I feel very strongly that a part of the strength of this particular book was in depicting how people actually were in that time, how very differently people viewed the world and one another back then. I think by removing the word, they took some of the power out of what that book taught me as a young person reading it and can teach others about the wrongs of the past. Thats just MOO

I agree tlcox - and your sarcasm was not lost on me!

It is important to record and recall our history - however ugly some of it may be.

 

[eve]

Don't censor Mark Twain's N word

By LEONARD PITTS JR.
lpitts@MiamiHerald.com

It is, perhaps, the seminal moment in American literature.

Young Huck Finn, trying to get right with God and save his soul from a forever of fire, sits there with the freshly written note in hand. “Miss Watson,” it says, “your runaway Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.”

Huck knows it is a sin to steal and he is whipped by guilt for the role he has played in helping the slave Jim steal himself from a poor old woman who never did Huck any harm. But see, Jim has become Huck’s friend, has sacrificed for him, worried about him, laughed and sung with him, depended upon him. So what, really, is the right thing to do?

“I was a-trembling,” says Huck, “because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell’ — and tore it up.”

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/...ns-n-word.html#storylink=fbuser#ixzz1AYuJ0tlT

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/...ns-n-word.html#storylink=fbuser#ixzz1AjxrKNXJ

I posted this article on my Facebook page. It is the best I have read on the subject. He expresses perfectly what disturbs me, an English teacher, most about this issue:

Finally, and in the third place, it is troubling to think the state of reading comprehension in this country has become this wretched, that we have tweeted, PlayStationed and Fox Newsed so much of our intellectual capacity away that not only can our children not divine the nuances of a masterpiece, but that we will now protect them from having to even try.

I don't forgo the teaching of this book and others because of so-called political correctness. That is something I grieve rather than bother to fight anymore. I do not present worthy American literature as I would like because most of my students are virtually incapable of understanding and learning from it, much less appreciating and enjoying it. Fearful administrators and teachers, misguided parents, and now, blatant censors are ushering us into an era in which we are so dumbed down and oblivious to the lessons of the past that I truly fear for the future.

Mark Twain wrote: "the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter...the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."


Eve

P.S. marktwain@boyrudumbdownthere.edu says: LMAO

 

[IWannaKnow]

Fine. Then I want ALL blonde jokes stricken from written history. They are insulting to my intelligence. :waiting:

 

[Nova]

BBM I actually was trying to illustrate that, to me, they are one and the same. I find the idea bastardized version of books to be as offensive as the idea of burning books. I am sorry if my sarcasm wasn't evident.

I feel very strongly that a part of the strength of this particular book was in depicting how people actually were in that time, how very differently people viewed the world and one another back then. I think by removing the word, they took some of the power out of what that book taught me as a young person reading it and can teach others about the wrongs of the past. Thats just MOO

Got it. Sorry. It read as if you were saying the burnings of the "good old days" were somehow better than abridging a single word.

 

[Nova]

Nova!!!!!! How can you read the book and not watch the movie???? WATCH IT!!!!!!!!!
Oh yeah and whats the other 4 best books?

The Great Gatsby, Absalom! Absalom!, and The Grapes of Wrath.

And then I'll take the coward's way out and say everyone gets to choose the fifth book for herself. Partly (but only partly) because my list is so Euro-American-centric, I'll add Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.

 

[Jacobi]

Reminds me of the controversy surrounding the remake-in-the-works of The Dam Busters because of "******", the dog and mascot of the RAF unit. I think they've settled on calling the dog "Nigsy" in the remake.

[video=youtube;QgePEO7GUtE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgePEO7GUtE[/video]

 

[Kat]

I agree tlcox - and your sarcasm was not lost on me!

It is important to record and recall our history - however ugly some of it may be.

Just popped onto the thread to see where this convo was going. Pretty interesting posts!

Fairy your post nudged a memory for me. We lived in Germany (94-97) and I remember being surprised to learn that Hitler, and the Nazi's weren't taught or covered in public schools there.

I also learned that (and I didn't look to see exactly what laws were in place there) but it was illegal to make reference to the Nazi regime (Hitler as well) on the radio and TV.

It's just not done. So what we have is a generation of citizens in that country who haven't been taught at all about the history of the regime in their country.

I do understand that the USA washes over a lot of our own history, but I was a bit surprised that an entire regime and it's impact on the Europe just isn't taught or really spoken of much.

Just as an aside and kind of keeping in line with the topic of convo (censorship and etc.)

JMHO.

 

[raisincharlie]

AAAAARRRGGGGGGG

will this need for whitewashing never end?

I am an avid reader for pleasure with an inordinate respect for the written word. This just flat out pisses me off.

This is just sacrilige in my opinion.

Back in the day we burned objectional books or objectionable passages, now apparently, not having the stomach to outright burn books we will proceed to whitewash them, scrubbing out any offending words, thoughts or ideas.

This scares the he77 outta me. I pray someone uses some judgment before they start screwing up all the great classics.

poor Samuel Clemens must be spinning in his grave right now.

Agree with you on this. Removing to shelter us, hogpoo. Not only is the word removed, but also a very powerful question that goes with it - WHY.

Leave the books alone and let us continue to ask WHY. There are no answers without questions first.

 

[Jacobi]

The dog in the Dam Busters remake is to be called Digger:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-13727908

(i thought Nigsy was a better suggestion)

 

[Daisyjane]

Are we going to rewrite ALL the classics, leaving NO WAY to reflect on our past and learn from it?

As a woman, I've known and experienced my share of oppression. Upon graduating from college, I worked at 58 cents to every dollar earned by men. Our mothers had to resign their teaching jobs upon marriage. Our grandmothers could not vote.

50 years from now, when I'm gone, I'd like for the women of future generations to be able to read about how far we've come, and how hard-fought those victories were. And I wouldn't mind if the crude words and grittier sides of the story remained in print, if it would get the meaning across clearly.

Wouldn't the African-Americans, the Native Americans, and other minorities want future generations to have a clear view of THEIR struggles and triumphs, too??

 

[redfish]

I don't know where to start on how wrong I find this. This scares me as much as racism. It is just as dangerous.

 

[Nova]

The dog in the Dam Busters remake is to be called Digger:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-13727908

(i thought Nigsy was a better suggestion)

I absolutely loved that movie as a kid, but for some reason, changing the name of an actual, historical dog doesn't bother me. Particularly since the dog's name became a code word for the mission, using it today would simply be untenable.

There's nothing in the story of the mission that demonstrates WHY the word is now problematic. (And to add an explanation would be an imposition on "Dam Busters" and have nothing to do with its story.) Huckleberry Finn is different.

 

[Nova]

The Great Gatsby, Absalom! Absalom!, and The Grapes of Wrath.

And then I'll take the coward's way out and say everyone gets to choose the fifth book for herself. Partly (but only partly) because my list is so Euro-American-centric, I'll add Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.

BTW, it occurs to me now that 4 out of my 5 top American novels contain the "N word." (And in fact, I'm not sure about Gatsby, but I can't think of a scene in the book where the word would be relevant.)

 

[Nova]

I don't know where to start on how wrong I find this. This scares me as much as racism. It is just as dangerous.

I too am opposed to changing Twain.

But as dangerous as racism? That seems a bit of an overreaction.

 

[Emma Peel]

I fondly recall when they put the sex back into the Three Musketeers. :woohoo:

It had been lost in translation for a century. American translators were prudes and felt it best to leave the dynamic french foursome's sexcapades out of initial translations.

and now ... they're taking what is essentially contextually correct historical terms out of Twain.

Long live American prudery.

:innocent:

p.s. Best not tell anyone about the newer editions of Musketeers. shhhhhhh!!!

 

[Emma Peel]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/books/07huck.html?_r=3

******, which appears in the book more than 200 times, was a common racial epithet in the antebellum South, used by Twain as part of his characters’ vernacular speech and as a reflection of mid-19th-century social attitudes along the Mississippi River.

Mr. Gribben has said he worried that the N-word had resulted in the novel falling off reading lists, and that he thought his edition would be welcomed by schoolteachers and university instructors who wanted to spare “the reader from a racial slur that never seems to lose its vitriol.” Never mind that today ****** is used by many rappers, who have reclaimed the word from its ugly past. Never mind that attaching the epithet slave to the character Jim — who has run away in a bid for freedom — effectively labels him as property, as the very thing he is trying to escape.

 

[Emma Peel]

I too am opposed to changing Twain.

But as dangerous as racism? That seems a bit of an overreaction.

:dunno:

book banning ... taken to certain degrees ... could get pretty dangerous...

http://trueslant.com/pattihartigan/2010/02/02/banned-books-anne-frank-and-the-dictionary/

The Diary of Ann Frank has recently been banned in many school districts b/c parents complain about this passage:

There are little folds of skin all over the place, you can hardly find it. The little hole underneath is so terribly small that I simply can’t imagine how a man can get in there, let alone how a whole baby can get out!

The parent, who dutifully “got involved” in the students’ work, deemed the “sexual nature” of the passage inappropriate for impressionable minds. The book will no longer be assigned to eighth grade classes.

what's so fabulous about that example is that it's not the holocaust that is horrifying ... nope ...

it's the vajayjay!



*emma starts a bonfire for her bras. again.*