On the other hand, that kind of aphorism can be used to argue against/minimize acknowledging that some phrases or words still in use are demeaning or hurtful.
I don’t think that’s wise at all. “This stuff” is part of the actual problem.
I haven’t kept up with the thread. What have they done to Mark Twain? Black Jim?
I have an Elmore Leonard novel in my bedside stack o’books that I’ve started a few times but never really gotten into. It doesn’t help that the book is set in 1930s Kentucky and everyone is dropping n-bombs right and left.
I don’t want to have to encounter casual racial slurs while reading a murder mystery, and even more so I don’t want my kid to have to do so. If the choice is between reading these novels in their “authentic” form or not reading them at all, most people are going to go for option #2. And it seems most people who are in the business of selling popular fiction understand that.
Sure, schools should teach kids how racist almost all white people were until quite recently, but there’s a time, place, and context for that. Literature classes might be one such place, but hopefully the vast majority of one’s reading will be for pleasure, and I see no reason why editors of classic books shouldn’t edit in a way that will make the works more rather than less accessible to the modern casual reader.
How do you mean, “done to”? Twain’s work is out of copyright, so you can find, for example, the 1885 edition of Huckleberry Finn reproduced verbatim at Project Gutenberg, complete with the original n-words.
You can also find, for example, more recent editions such as the 2011 version from New South Books, whose editor remarks:
I have a mystery novel from 2020, not 1930, which includes dialogue like
I do not live in rural Virginia [where this takes place], therefore cannot tell you how authentic that dialogue is, but if it is, do you really think the story would be served by changing it? Same for Mark Twain (who went out of his way to emphasize that he was attempting to reproduce authentic dialectical speech).
What does “authenticity” have to do with anything? Is it OK to change a writer’s original words if it turns out the writer was factually wrong about something? And what does it mean to “serve” a story? Why should we be more concerned about “serving” the story than about serving the reader?
And if your question is just “Is Huckleberry Finn a more enjoyable book to read without all the racist epithets?”, my answer would be “It’s hard to imagine how anyone other than a racist could think otherwise”. It may be a less accurate representation of mid-19th century Southern speech patterns, but there are textbooks you can go to if that’s what you want to learn about.
If the writer or editor screws up, certainly they can and often do fix things in subsequent editions. This is not limited to factual errors, and sometimes includes changing offensive language or characterization.
As for “authenticity”, I mean you, the reader, for your own enjoyment and entertainment, would expect a couple of 21st-century middle-aged black guys from rural Virginia to talk like a couple of middle-aged black guys from 21st-century rural Virginia. Or possibly not; sometimes there is a literary reason why not, but it is not randomly edited, because different words tell a different story.
As for Mark Twain, he wrote
so I am under the impression the final result is more or less what he wanted.
I dunno. It’s certainly unpleasant to encounter the racial epithets. It’s also unpleasant to encounter the attitudes behind those racial epithets; yet those attitudes are a key part of the story and a key part of the society that Twain is depicting.
In general, many books include language and events that the reader may well find unpleasant, shocking, or even traumatic; yet the book wouldn’t work as well, or maybe even at all, if they were left out.
On the other hand, encountering such epithets in a book can cause genuine distress, especially for a reader who has had them used against him- or herself in real life. What’s the solution? Is replacing them with dashes or asterisks any better? or are readers still going to think about the words and experience the same effect? And it seems somehow dishonest, inauthentic, and maybe inadvertantly comic, to replace, say, the n-word with something like “African-American” or “person with a lot of melanin.”
The Moonshine War is a good story. Not my favorite, but worth reading. The characters in the book who use bigoted language are who they are.
Thanks, Kimstu.
Twain was writing about bigotry and ignorance, and the damage they did (and do) to everyone concerned, including both the ignorant bigots and their victims. He did so by illustrating bigotry and ignorance.
Adults reading Huckleberry Finn, among others, as literature and/or as history should, IMO, be reading the original version – and be discussing, among other matters, how Twain was using specific words to accomplish that specific effect.
Children reading the books as adventure stories are another matter entirely. Some children may benefit, or at least take no harm, from reading the originals, especially with explication from a skilled adult. But I’ve got no problem at all with the existence of children’s versions that tone down the language. If Clemens were still around to ask, of course it would be necessary to ask him; as that’s no longer possible, people who are now living need to make the decisions.
Schools at earlier than college level teaching the book as serious literature/history are the tricky one. That one I think needs to be a judgement call taking into consideration the age of the students, the particular students in the class, and the ability and skill of the teacher.
The version of Huckleberry Finn that I read as a youth was Bowlderised - not the language, but the entire story line of the feud where people were killed, including the boy Buck’s age, was taken out. I only discovered the missing part when I read an adult version, years later.