They must be ice skating in hell; the Washington Post has published something that makes sense.
A letter t0 the editor excoriates the effort by a scholar and a publisher to “improve” Mark Twain’s classic novel, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
NewSouth Publishers, an Alabama company, will release in February a version of the novel, in which the word “slave” will be substituted for the original word used, “nigger.” The latter appears 219 times and offends the center-left.
Making a lot of sense, the letter writer to the Post said, “If the book cannot be read as originally intended, it is better to let the readers wait until they can stomach it.”
Bravo!
Sadly, and I’m speaking in generalities, conservatives usually have to explain their position by explaining that they are really reasonable people. I won’t do that in this case, but will simply state that this sort of editing of Twain’s work is wrong.
Growing up in the South during the back end of the Civil Rights Movement, I both read Twain and enjoyed many friendships with blacks. The iconic writer’s use of a word that defined people in his era did not poison my mind to my fellow man.
But that was then. Now we are told by new publishers that extraordinary literature is flawed and needs to be improved upon.
Alan Gribben, a scholar from Auburn University, is responsible for the new version of “Huckleberry Finn.” He has said that students are refusing to read the novel, because they are offended by the language.
Aren’t teachers supposed to teach? If there was real leadership at, say, Auburn, wouldn’t students understand Twain and his shadow-self, Huck?
Richard Volet, writing in the Times Colonist, also gets it. He makes the great point that Twain knew exactly what he was doing in using the N-word.
One can argue that Shakespeare, in his own era, was holding up a candle of illumination to the vicious anti-Semitism that has always seemed to infect Europe. His crude character, Shylock, from “The Merchant of Venice,” is every Jewish stereotype we can imagine. Could it be that Shakespeare didn’t share his contemporaries’ vile characterizations of Jews; let’s believe that he wanted them to see it for what it was.
In any event, I can speculate that Twain would not be overly offended, actually. A writer with such wit would no doubt give a wry smile and perhaps pity those who feel the need to alter brilliance.
Some balance was brought to this issue by Hilary Shelton, a spokesman for the NAACP. Shelton points out that while the use of the word “nigger” in a modern context is indeed offensive (and he acknowledges the use of the word in various cultural situations today), he feels modern students are “smart enough to deal with it” and he understands that the lessons Twain was no doubt planting in his novels can be discerned today.
Huck Finn, one of Twain’s alter egos, is a timeless social commentator. His friendship with the slave Jim is a picture of what humans can aspire to. It is almost ironic that in our age of alleged sophistication, we believe in the concept of “races” at all. The Bible teaches that there is one human race of one blood. Physiologically, we are all the same, with varying amounts of melanin in our skin, which determines just how “brown” we become.
From a public relations standpoint, NewSouth will generate some buzz from this announcement, but more than likely the new version of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” will end up on remainder tables.
Let us hope.
In my youth, during that explosive era of civil rights legislation, it was the women in my life who influenced me and taught clearly that “racism” and bigotry are true evils. Only one man taught me the same thing: Twain.
