Unofficial Tex Murphy

What are your thoughts about the whole Editing Mark Twain's "Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn"???

They replaced every single N word with the word Slave...

Personally I feel like they are taking history away from those who will read this book in the future...
Also the book "Was" a Classic, but now that it has been altered it is no longer a Classic...
The book was written in a time when the word in question was the Norm and for the most part was not used in a derogatory fashion... I see no reason why they should have changed this book...

I mean what are they going to do, Alter every book that has ever been written that has that word in it??? Don't we have enough to worry about in this world???

Altering books is stupid and thoughtless and oversensitive. I'll add that Huckleberry Finn is considered to be one of the first ever books to be written with themes of anti-racism.

-Fred

It's an evil abomination equivalent to outright banning or burning a book. To alter it's contents is to radically alter the book itself. No author deserves that kind of abuse to have his work edited like this especially after his death.

It's terrible to revise it at this point. But I have no doubt that it will revert back to the traditional soon enough.

Yeah, I'm with freep. I see them returning to the original version. I do agree that the revision of the book is a bad thing. I am probably misquoting, but I know that Twain chose his words carefully, and I believe he said something along the lines of, "the difference between a word and the right word is the difference between a lightning bug and lightning."

I got curious as to who was doing the altering, or who the "They" were that Bafitis mentioned, so I did some minor reasearch.

Apparantly, it's being done by NewSouth Books. Here is a quote from their web site detailing the reasoning behind their move.

"In a bold move compassionately advocated by Twain scholar Dr. Alan Gribben and embraced by NewSouth, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn also replaces two hurtful epithets that appear hundreds of times in the texts with less offensive words, this intended to counter the “preemptive censorship” that Dr. Gribben observes has caused these important works of literature to fall off curriculum lists nationwide."

It's no secret that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has ended up becoming a banned book from various high school curriculum. That said, it's interesting that NewSouth almost makes themselves sound as though they are taking avant-garde steps in this portrayal of the classic work. Censorship is experimental. Go figure.

With Obama being president I'd like to think the wounds have healed and were moving closer to a time where we're past sensitivity.

Sort of reminds me of all the criticism of the children's book "The Five Chinese Brothers" It's actually a great book, and people are way too sensitive and over the wrong things. It didn't have any racist agenda, it was simply retelling an old Chinese folk tale, the chinese brothers were all supposed to look alike, it's kind of crucial to the story.

Bjyman wrote:With Obama being president I'd like to think the wounds have healed and were moving closer to a time where we're past sensitivity.

You would think, but there are some African-Americans that don't consider him an African-American, because in order to be able to claim heritage you have to be 12% or more of that ethnicity, and Obama is only 6% African-American...

Regardless of how we look at history, I don't think the human race will ever reach a point where we are in Unison... Prejudice will always exist in one form or another when it comes to the races within the human race...

But to Change how our children learn History is taking that history away from them... You are now teaching them lies, not history... Not to mention all a kid has to do is turn on a Rap song and they will hear the word a dozen times...


I'll tell you this much, if my Son ends up having to read it in school, I will make sure that I get him an Unaltered copy...


I can't say whether or not it will revert back to the original or not... I'd like to see this attempt at changing the book fail, but I just don't know... I'm in the middle of the road to have an opinion one way or another... I just know that it disgusted me when I first heard the news say it...

I can't stand Racism, but I don't think we should forget where it came from and what it was like... Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it...

I'll agree with the notion to not change something from its original form.

However, I also think that a book can still be a classic even though it's no longer in its original form. For example, Homer's The Iliad is considered a literary classic, yet there exist numerous different English translations of the original Greek work. If only the original were considered a classic, then most of the world probably wouldn't even know of its existence. But through its many copies, some of which are translations into other languages, it's enjoyed by the world, with no loss in classical stature.

I feel that the choice to replace the "N"-word in Huck Finn (and in the Nancy Drew series as well) is one that modernizes the words and phrases of the classical work to be more in tune with more current standards or principles of behavior, probably not unlike the New King James version of the Bible in comparison to the standard King James version.

Though I have read neither series, I think we also need to consider that both Huck Finn and Nancy Drew are stories aimed at young readers (which is to say, under the age of 18). Perhaps that age group could benefit from the removal of racially-charged rhetoric from a classic. And if the genuine historical context of slavery can still be maintained despite the removal of the "N"-word, then is there anything really being removed that's of great value or significance?

My two cents,

Hammerhead

Bafitis wrote:

Bjyman wrote:With Obama being president I'd like to think the wounds have healed and were moving closer to a time where we're past sensitivity.

You would think, but there are some African-Americans that don't consider him an African-American, because in order to be able to claim heritage you have to be 12% or more of that ethnicity, and Obama is only 6% African-American...

6%? How do you even calculate that? Do you line someone's skin up to a color spectrum?

It's not about Color...
It's about Genes... It's all about heritage and bloodlines...

So if I wanted to know what percent I am I would have to know what percents my parents are and then average them out?

Essentially, yes.

Based on the information given on the board, I think it's something like this:

great-great-grandparent = 100% African American
great-grandparent = 50%
grandparent = 25%
mother = 12.5%
Pres. Obama = 6.25% (or 6%)

I think the most important part here is the AMERICAN part. That excludes from this chart any non-American African descent Pres. Obama's lineage may have. So, he may be more than 6% by another perspective.

Hammerhead