Rewriting books is doubleplusungood

[boxcorner]

It's said (in the context of wars) that it's the victors who write history, so arguably history's objectivity is questionable, from the outset. Then it's sometimes subjected to historical revisionism. So, who knows where the truth lies? Similarly, fiction is sometimes subjected to fictional revisionism, further muddying already murky waters.

Numerous ancient texts have been rewritten, or subtleties lost, or changed, in translations (think of Ancient Greek and Roman myths and legends, religious texts - including various versions of bibles, philosophies, even sometimes some of the so-called classics themselves, and so on).

Entire libraries have been torched (think of the Royal Library of Alexandria - was it in 48BC?), countless books have been "modernised", edited, abridged, turned into comics and generally hacked about. Then Hollywood gets hold of a story and applies its take (think of the film U-571) - people who watch films write books, and so more myths are perpetrated.

Meanwhile, the book burning goes on, to this day and there seems bleak chance of satiating the consumer's appetite for modernisation, whether it's to make books easier to read (dumbing down?) or to comply with perceived political correctness, etc. And so it goes on.

Absolutely deplorable as this latest example may be - Mark Twain must be turning in his grave - I rather doubt the process of messing about with books is going to stop any-time soon. Perhaps if enough people make enough of a fuss, then maybe fewer books will be tampered with, or banned outright, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

[elcreative]

Just as well, I think you'd be blue pretty damn quick... unfortunately likely to be a Philistine win with no David in sight...

Originally Posted by boxcorner

...but I'm not going to hold my breath.

[mldavis2]

Many books contain an underlying message, usually one of discomfort, beneath the overt story line. Twain was keenly aware of his intended use of words (see the quotation above in @Nashira's post). If we accept sanitized versions of works, we have lost not only the essence of the author's message, but we have 'sold our very souls to the devil' by endorsing and accepting bastardized, unauthorized revisions. How many modern writers would consent to allow some arbitrary literary pundit to replace their words?

Yes, we are preaching to the choir here. But what can we do about it? There are a lot of public forums out there ...

[Redcard]

I do not subscribe fully to the "information wants to be free" crowd. I do believe authors should be able to charge what they want. But, at the same time, I see this wikileaks thing very similar to the banning/changing books thing. Wikileaks is going to be unstoppable , because many sites mirror the work, and many people have copies of the work. Nothing that people do will change the end result, because the hydra has too many heads to stop.

I think, if you are a writer, and you want to make certain your work remains pure and unchanged, the best thing you can do is get it as widely read as possible. Put it EVERYWHERE you can. Let people read it and have it for free. Seed it into darknet torrents. Etc.

The wider the distribution of a work, and the best way to make it wide is to offer it free, the better likelihood that nothing will be able to be changed without a lot of fussing.

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by Redcard

... Wikileaks is going to be unstoppable , because many sites mirror the work, and many people have copies of the work. Nothing that people do will change the end result, because the hydra has too many heads to stop ...

Apparently the US government thinks otherwise:

BBC News 7 January 2011 - Can governments spot whistle-blowers?

"... the White House is now urging US agencies to create what it describes as insider threat programmes ... It all sounds rather Orwellian, but can organisations really successfully detect behavioural changes that could lead to leaking? In practice, experts agree it is rather difficult to do ..."

[mldavis2]

...and sadly, it is usually financially unfeasible for a struggling author to come up with sufficient money to pay attorney fees to fight a copyright infringement. And then there's the international aspect of copyright which takes all the cards off the table.

[Redcard]

Originally Posted by boxcorner

Apparently the US government thinks otherwise:

BBC News 7 January 2011 - Can governments spot whistle-blowers?

"... the White House is now urging US agencies to create what it describes as insider threat programmes ... It all sounds rather Orwellian, but can organisations really successfully detect behavioural changes that could lead to leaking? In practice, experts agree it is rather difficult to do ..."

Right, but my point is, once the information gets out and is freely mirrored, it is next to impossible to stop or alter.

[Andrew H.]

I think that people in this thread are finding easy, comfortable answers and are really avoiding the real issue. In addition, there are misperceptions floating around concerning the use of the word n*****

N***** was not a pejorative term until some point in the 1900's (where "colored" became the preferred term). It had nothing like the meaning it has today. This is well understood by everyone who has looked the word as it was used contemporaneously - i.e., Conrad's "N***** of the Narcissus," Christie's "Ten Little N*****s," other usages by Twain (i.e, Life on the Mississippi) - even politicians who campaigned for full voting rights for black Americans in the early 1900's campaigned for voting rights for n*****s.

Huckleberry Finn is primarily not a book about racism (although it is *a* theme), and the use of the term n***** is in the book because it reflects contemporary non-pejorative usage - not because Twain was trying to make a point by using the word.

A lot of comments in this thread are taking the easy way out because they are ignoring the reality that Huck Finn is almost never read in schools anymore because of its use of the term n*****. New South's solution is to substitute a word that is not Twain's language, but that does more accurately convey the contemporary meaning of the word than n***** does. (I.e., calling people n*****s in the 1880's is *nothing at all* like calling them n*****s today.)

So it would seem like the ideal solution would be for teachers to explain this to students, and in those few schools where the book is still taught, this is the usual approach. But the much more common result is for the book to not be taught at all.

So I think the real choice is either: (1) Huck Finn is not read in schools at all; or (2) it is read in schools with "slave" substituted for "n*****". In the real world, I think that this is the real choice...and I don't think it's an easy choice at all. I think Huck Finn is an important book, a very good book, and while I think that hs kids (that's usually where it's taught) could deal with the n-word, in practice, they just won't have that opportunity. So they either read it with a minor change, or they don't read it at all.

I suppose I would prefer them reading it as edited, as long as they are also taught what word was edited out, why it was edited out, and are able to discuss that particular issue, too.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

I think that people in this thread are finding easy, comfortable answers and are really avoiding the real issue. In addition, there are misperceptions floating around concerning the use of the word n*****

N***** was not a pejorative term until some point in the 1900's (where "colored" became the preferred term). It had nothing like the meaning it has today. This is well understood by everyone who has looked the word as it was used contemporaneously - i.e., Conrad's "N***** of the Narcissus," Christie's "Ten Little N*****s," other usages by Twain (i.e, Life on the Mississippi) - even politicians who campaigned for full voting rights for black Americans in the early 1900's campaigned for voting rights for n*****s.

Huckleberry Finn is primarily not a book about racism (although it is *a* theme), and the use of the term n***** is in the book because it reflects contemporary non-pejorative usage - not because Twain was trying to make a point by using the word.

A lot of comments in this thread are taking the easy way out because they are ignoring the reality that Huck Finn is almost never read in schools anymore because of its use of the term n*****. New South's solution is to substitute a word that is not Twain's language, but that does more accurately convey the contemporary meaning of the word than n***** does. (I.e., calling people n*****s in the 1880's is *nothing at all* like calling them n*****s today.)

So it would seem like the ideal solution would be for teachers to explain this to students, and in those few schools where the book is still taught, this is the usual approach. But the much more common result is for the book to not be taught at all.

So I think the real choice is either: (1) Huck Finn is not read in schools at all; or (2) it is read in schools with "slave" substituted for "n*****". In the real world, I think that this is the real choice...and I don't think it's an easy choice at all. I think Huck Finn is an important book, a very good book, and while I think that hs kids (that's usually where it's taught) could deal with the n-word, in practice, they just won't have that opportunity. So they either read it with a minor change, or they don't read it at all.

I suppose I would prefer them reading it as edited, as long as they are also taught what word was edited out, why it was edited out, and are able to discuss that particular issue, too.

Wrong. Wrong. And Wrong. "Nigger" has ALWAYS been a racial slur to the peoples being described. It was considered a slur to black people WAY before the 1900's.

[Redcard]

My Oxford English Dictionary on my Kindle says that nigger came from the 17th century, an offensive off-shoot from neger. It notes that it has long held offensive connotations. It also notes that lately, the word has morphed into a more mildly offensive usage amongst blacks to address other blacks, much like gay people use "queer" to describe themselves.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

Wrong. Wrong. And Wrong. "Nigger" has ALWAYS been a racial slur to the peoples being described. It was considered a slur to black people WAY before the 1900's.

Originally Posted by Redcard

My Oxford English Dictionary on my Kindle says that nigger came from the 17th century, an offensive off-shoot from neger. It notes that it has long held offensive connotations. It also notes that lately, the word has morphed into a more mildly offensive usage amongst blacks to address other blacks, much like gay people use "queer" to describe themselves.

According to the "Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang," "N*****" did not originate as a slur and only took on that meaning over time. There's a lot of other evidence that it was not originally pejorative, too.

Although of course I'd be interested in countervailing evidence.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by Redcard

My Oxford English Dictionary on my Kindle says that nigger came from the 17th century, an offensive off-shoot from neger. It notes that it has long held offensive connotations. It also notes that lately, the word has morphed into a more mildly offensive usage amongst blacks to address other blacks, much like gay people use "queer" to describe themselves.

OMG! You have a subscription to the OED??! *drooling* I SO want one but can't really justifiy the cost...

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

According to the "Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang," "N*****" did not originate as a slur and only took on that meaning over time. There's a lot of other evidence that it was not originally pejorative, too.

Although of course I'd be interested in countervailing evidence.

In case you haven't figured it out, I am black and a Southerner. My family has long life spans so I was lucky enough to know my great great grandmother (my father’s mother’s mother’s mother). She was ALIVE during the 1800’s and HER mother and grandmother were slaves. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that “nigger” was a racial slur even back then. But since slaves were not considered to have feelings, maybe the people subjugating them felt that it wasn’t a slur…

I really don’t care what the "Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang" says about the word “nigger” since we all know that black slaves were not allowed to read or write. Nor did anyone care about their opinions.

[boxcorner]

According to the New Oxford Dictionary of English 1998 (paper book)
nigger > noun offensive a contemptuous term for a black person
ORIGIN late 17th cent. (as an adjective): from earlier neger, from French nègre, from Spanish negro 'black' (Negro)
USAGE The word nigger was first used as an adjective denoting a black person in the 17th century and has had strong offensive connotations ever since. Today it remains one of the most racially offensive words in the language. Ironically, it has acquired a new strand of use in recent years, being used by black people as a mildly disparaging way of referring to another black person.

[Chopchurch]

As one of the actual persons of color who use this forum, I have no problem with this book being censored. Though I would have preferred they used "negro" instead of "slave".

I've been noticing a trend on forums where this topic is discussed, of certain people painting this move with the brush of political correctness. Let me explain something to you, as a black man the word NIGGER, the word that doesn't mean anything to many of you because you've never had it thrown in your faces by an ignorant bigot. It is an ugly word, given weight by centuries of murder and enslavement. Often that word was very the last thing a black man heard before he was lynched, that means they put a rope around his neck and hung him from a tree until he suffocated, and they did this because we were not considered human, and that word was part of the process of dehumanization.

I also always love it when someone in the back of the room mentions that "a certain urban subset of black people have reclaimed that word, so it can't be all that bad".

I'd rather not see the word in my literature, I'd rather my nephew not have to see the word. That is of course, an opinion, my opinion. And you are entitled to your own opinions, no matter how wrong headed, distasteful or ignorant the opinions you express may seem to me.