# reading the REAL book **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 3, 2009, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817 "2009-04-03T06:12:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/21 "2009-04-03T20:59:46Z")
When T.H. White incorporated **The Sword in the Stone** into his epic **The Once and Future King** , he changed it a _LOT_. He took away a lot of the chatty asides, removed a lot of the more blatant magic, and purged Madame Mim altogether. It’s like a completely different book. Read it. In fact, if you can get them, read both. Disney’s _Sword in the Stone_ doesn’t do it justice. Neither does the musical _Camelot_. Not by a long shot. Especially the folm version. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/22 "2009-04-03T21:19:01Z")
If you’ve only read the paperback version of Betty Smith’s Maggie-Now, try to find the original hardcover. Much longer and deeper characterizations and story. It’s out of print, but I found one at a library book sale. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/23 "2009-04-03T21:24:55Z")
> [@Jester](#): > > Part of me wishes I were a high school English teacher these days, simply because of how much fun it would be to teach _Beowulf_ to a bunch of kids who had the recent movie readily accessible. I imagine it’s made spotting the kids who hadn’t actually done the readings just a little bit easier. Ohhh yes. One of my summer students, in a presentation in front of the entire class, started talking about “the part where Beowulf is seduced by Grendel’s mother” :smack: The best part was that the presentations were supposed to be about the students’ term-papers-in-progress. Yes. The kid was dumb enough to try to write a _paper_ about a work she hadn’t read. I hope she had the good sense to be embarrassed when her classmates pointed out the obvious, but she may have been shameless. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/24 "2009-04-03T21:30:48Z")
Several years ago, [this came into my life](http://www.amazon.com/Great-American-Bathroom-Book-1/dp/095373577X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238793925&sr=8-1) and while it isn’t perfect, the book paid for itself the very next day after I cracked it open and perused some story condensed. My old a-hole boss-hag had made some supposedly witty remark about whatever book she viewed as Literary Greatness that week she was quite smarmy. and I happened to have read the summary on it in the GABB. I can’t remember what I said, but I pretty much quoted the book and it just shut her up. I really need to dig it out again and put it in my bathroom and find newer volumes. It isn’t the same, but it gives you the gist of a buttload of fiction/non fiction and other Big titles. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Superhero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Superhero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Superhero)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/25 "2009-04-03T21:34:36Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > When T.H. White incorporated **The Sword in the Stone** into his epic **The Once and Future King** , he changed it a _LOT_. He took away a lot of the chatty asides, removed a lot of the more blatant magic, and purged Madame Mim altogether. It’s like a completely different book. > Read it. In fact, if you can get them, read both. Disney’s _Sword in the Stone_ doesn’t do it justice. Neither does the musical _Camelot_. Not by a long shot. Especially the folm version. Well, the folm version sucks, but it’s sheer brilliance compared to the awfulness that is the film version. 😛 I had kind of the opposite experience. In 6th grade, under circumstances I don’t quite remember, I wound up picking “Gulliver’s Travels” off the shelf for my book report. What it was doing on a 6th-grade classroom bookshelf, I have no idea, but it was definitely not a “Children’s Version.” Suffice to say, 18th Century social satire was just a wee bit over my 11-year-old head. I read it again many years later in college English Lit, and said, “Oh, now I get it!” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/26 "2009-04-03T22:01:57Z")
> [@](#): > > When T.H. White incorporated The Sword in the Stone into his epic The Once and Future King, he changed it a LOT. He took away a lot of the chatty asides, removed a lot of the more blatant magic, and purged Madame Mim altogether. It’s like a completely different book. It’s more complicated than that, even. After _The Once and Future King_ was published, White had some ideas for a couple of other things Merlin could turn Arthur into (the geese and the ants), and published them as a standalone book _The Book of Merlin_, which inexplicably set those transformations at the end of Arthur’s life. Then, he went back to the _Sword in the Stone_ section of _tOaFK_ and edited those two transformations into the existing narrative for a later edition of the book. So there’s at least three versions of _tSitS_: The original stand-alone children’s book, the version edited into the first section of _tOaFK_, and the _tOaFK_ version with the added _Book of Merlin_ material. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelJohnBertrand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dfb087/32.png) [@MichaelJohnBertrand](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelJohnBertrand)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/27 "2009-04-03T22:27:45Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > It’s more complicated than that, even. After _The Once and Future King_ was published, White had some ideas for a couple of other things Merlin could turn Arthur into (the geese and the ants), and published them as a standalone book _The Book of Merlin_, which inexplicably set those transformations at the end of Arthur’s life. Then, he went back to the _Sword in the Stone_ section of _tOaFK_ and edited those two transformations into the existing narrative for a later edition of the book. So there’s at least three versions of _tSitS_: The original stand-alone children’s book, the version edited into the first section of _tOaFK_, and the _tOaFK_ version with the added _Book of Merlin_ material. A hah! So that’s the book I read where Arthur gets turned into an ant and a goose. I read it as a child and then when thinking upon it as an adult, I realized that I had no idea what the darn thing was _called_. This made discussing it with people who weren’t familiar with it kind of _tricky_. 🙂 So thanks for filling in a very old blank. Oh, and FWIW, that book totally blew my mind as a kid. The Arthurian weirdness aside, it was such an extraordinary experience in seeing the world through a different perspective that it had a huge impact on my young and impressionable mind. To this day, I’m obsessed with seeing things from as many different poitns of view as I can. I’m a perspective _junkie_. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelJohnBertrand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dfb087/32.png) [@MichaelJohnBertrand](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelJohnBertrand)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/28 "2009-04-03T22:37:58Z")
As this topic unfolds, it occurs to me that the relationship between seeing the movie and reading the book very closely parallels the “reading the REAL book” from my OP, except, of course, that you know you’re getting a different version from the original when you go from book to movie or vice versa. When I was a wee lad, I got the novelization of the movie _Tron_ for Xmas. I’d never seen the movie, but I read that thing over and over. I loved that book! And particularly tantalizing was the colorful stills from the movie that were included in the book. I looked voer these over and over, and made myself dizzy with anticipation of how much more glorious an experience it must be to see this amazing movie. But the VCR revolution was a long time coming and I didn’t manage to actually see the thing until I was in my late teens. Of course, it was bound to disappoint. Nothing could possibly have lived up to the version of the story I had built up in my mind. Now, of course, when I meet a Tron fan, they’ve never even heard of the book, so there’s no point even mentioning my disappointment. These are the dangers of novelizations! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Prox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/da6949/32.png) [@Prox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prox)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/29 "2009-04-03T23:07:46Z")
> [@FallenAngel](#): > > For me it was Count of Monte Cristo. I’d always loved the story and decided to read the actual book. > > Suffice to say I did not notice the “Abridged” notation on the Penguin Classics. Introducing the Cavalcanti plot then skipping to what happened afterward was confusing in the extreme. > > I’ve since read the complete book in English and struggled through the French. One of the best books ever written, so long as you get the complete story. Funny you shoud bring _Monte Cristo_ up. For Christmas, I got a gift card to Barnes & Noble. To fill out the card, I decided to the get a few of the Barnes & Noble classics, one of which was _The Count of Monte Cristo_. The cover didn’t say abriged, so I thought I was fine. It wasn’t until a couple weeks ago when I picked it up to read did I notice the title page saying it was abriged. The intro made it seem like all that was dropped was “dull and repetitive dialouge”, but as I read it, it became clear that whole plots where dropped (notably the Cavalcanti stuff & I think most of the Haydee stuff). The end product was pretty disjointed and kind of frustrating. After finishing the book and reading online discussions, nearly half the book was cut. :smack: For all that, I enjoyed the book, and plan on reading the full version. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/le_ministre_de_l_au-dela/32/12181_2.png) [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/30 "2009-04-04T00:08:01Z")
And for the opposite effect, I once walked to every bookstore between Eglinton Avenue and Queen Street along Yonge Street, (about 7 km) looking for a copy of the novel “The Princess Bride” that didn’t say ‘Abridged by William Goldman’. F#$k that, I thought, I want to read the whole thing. Finally, I thought to ask in Bakka why all the copies I had found were abridged. The salesman was very helpful after he stopped laughing at me… ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/31 "2009-04-04T00:08:14Z")
**Gulliver’s Travels** I’m just saying, a lot more middle-school boys would be reading it if they didn’t cut out the scenes with the Brodingnabian ladies-in-waiting. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/32 "2009-04-04T00:34:54Z")
> [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](#): > > And for the opposite effect, I once walked to every bookstore between Eglinton Avenue and Queen Street along Yonge Street, (about 7 km) looking for a copy of the novel “The Princess Bride” that didn’t say ‘Abridged by William Goldman’. F#$k that, I thought, I want to read the whole thing. > > Finally, I thought to ask in Bakka why all the copies I had found were abridged. The salesman was very helpful after he stopped laughing at me… To be fair I think that trips a lot of people up. ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/33 "2009-04-04T01:42:47Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > It’s more complicated than that, even. After _The Once and Future King_ was published, White had some ideas for a couple of other things Merlin could turn Arthur into (the geese and the ants), and published them as a standalone book _The Book of Merlin_, which inexplicably set those transformations at the end of Arthur’s life. Then, he went back to the _Sword in the Stone_ section of _tOaFK_ and edited those two transformations into the existing narrative for a later edition of the book. So there’s at least three versions of _tSitS_: The original stand-alone children’s book, the version edited into the first section of _tOaFK_, and the _tOaFK_ version with the added _Book of Merlin_ material. Aha! I couldn’t figure out where the ants had gone when I read _The Sword in the Stone_ to my kids last year. The ants were the part I remembered best, and they just weren’t there–did I make them up or what? ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/34 "2009-04-04T02:55:27Z")
We had a bookcase full of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books when I was a kid. Once I learned what “condensed” really meant, you can bet I hied myself to the library to read the full versions of the “books” I thought I had read in full. It was pretty cool getting to read even MORE of each story. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelJohnBertrand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dfb087/32.png) [@MichaelJohnBertrand](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelJohnBertrand)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/35 "2009-04-04T12:37:26Z")
> [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](#): > > And for the opposite effect, I once walked to every bookstore between Eglinton Avenue and Queen Street along Yonge Street, (about 7 km) looking for a copy of the novel “The Princess Bride” that didn’t say ‘Abridged by William Goldman’. F#$k that, I thought, I want to read the whole thing. > > Finally, I thought to ask in Bakka why all the copies I had found were abridged. The salesman was very helpful after he stopped laughing at me… It’s an honest mistake. I didn’t get the joke until I read the intro, where he talks about his life and his psychologist wife and his fat kid and whatnot. So it wasn’t nice or fair of the book clerk to laugh at you! ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/36 "2009-04-04T13:41:46Z")
Wait a sec, you mean “A Tale of a City” and “The Two Musketeers” were missing something? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/37 "2009-04-04T15:46:01Z")
> [@](#): > > It’s more complicated than that, even. After The Once and Future King was published, White had some ideas for a couple of other things Merlin could turn Arthur into (the geese and the ants), and published them as a standalone book The Book of Merlin, which inexplicably set those transformations at the end of Arthur’s life. Then, he went back to the Sword in the Stone section of tOaFK and edited those two transformations into the existing narrative for a later edition of the book. So there’s at least three versions of tSitS: The original stand-alone children’s book, the version edited into the first section of tOaFK, and the tOaFK version with the added Book of Merlin material. I’m confused – **The Book of Merlin** was first published posthuimosly by University of Texas Press, _long_ after his 1964 death. My copy of The Once and Future King (also from long after his death) still has the transformations. The Wikipedia page only notes the differences between the version in the tetralogy, not a third version: > **[The Sword in the Stone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_in_the_Stone)** > > This is an accepted version of this page > The Sword in the Stone may refer to: ---
**Author:** ![satoridt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@satoridt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/satoridt)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/38 "2009-04-04T21:34:00Z")
> [@FallenAngel](#): > > For me it was Count of Monte Cristo. I’d always loved the story and decided to read the actual book. > > Suffice to say I did not notice the “Abridged” notation on the Penguin Classics. Introducing the Cavalcanti plot then skipping to what happened afterward was confusing in the extreme. > > I’ve since read the complete book in English and struggled through the French. One of the best books ever written, so long as you get the complete story. This exact thing. Also 3 musketeers. I was pumped when i figured out i was reading the abridged versions, it was like having two whole new Dumas books to read! ---
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2009, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/39 "2009-04-04T22:10:15Z")
A while ago, I decided to fill a gap in my education and read “Black Beauty”. Then I noticed it was the “young readers” version, or some such. It was still pretty sad for all that. I got the worst of both worlds. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Woodhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@Miss\_Woodhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Woodhouse)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2009, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/40 "2009-04-05T02:16:24Z")
I’ve actually be opposed to my children reading “young reader” editions of the classics. They read well above their grade levels, i figured they could read the real thing when they were ready for it rather than the bastardized version. I’ve seen kids think they’ve read a book when all they read was some publishing house rewrite and I was afraid of my kids doing the same thing. It seems I’ve been doing them a disservice. I’ll be relaxing on that now. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817.md?page=3)