# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/61 "2009-04-08T18:03:18Z")
I remember my parents buying me what is now called a graphic novel because I loved the movie “The Jungle Book”. I was about six. Ee-yikes, that thing freaked me out! It had Mowgli cutting off Akela’s tail for god’s sake and swinging around in the trees showing it off to the other wolves in his home pack, and taunting them that he was now the pack leader. I still remember it some forty years later! Needless to say it was not the Mowgli I knew. I read the Kipling’s Jungle Book later, but it had no mention of Mowgli cutting off Akela’s tail. Did I read an abridged version? It still had the flattening of Shere Khan in the cattle stampede. Whoops, no spoiler. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelJohnBertrand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dfb087/32.png) [@MichaelJohnBertrand](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelJohnBertrand)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/62 "2009-04-08T22:43:24Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > I remember my parents buying me what is now called a graphic novel because I loved the movie “The Jungle Book”. I was about six. > > Ee-yikes, that thing freaked me out! It had Mowgli cutting off Akela’s tail for god’s sake and swinging around in the trees showing it off to the other wolves in his home pack, and taunting them that he was now the pack leader. I still remember it some forty years later! > > Needless to say it was not the Mowgli I knew. I read the Kipling’s Jungle Book later, but it had no mention of Mowgli cutting off Akela’s tail. Did I read an abridged version? It still had the flattening of Shere Khan in the cattle stampede. Whoops, no spoiler. > Sorry. Holy crap. ☹ um, no offense, but I think I’ll stick to the Disney version. ---
**Author:** ![cplschnapps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b487fb/32.png) [@cplschnapps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cplschnapps)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/63 "2009-04-11T00:25:41Z")
Not just kids - I read Frazier’s _The Golden Bough_ twice - as an ADULT - and thought it was very interesting mythology-wise, although pretty heavy going. Imagine my shock when Camille Paglia wrote about the book in her [Salon.com](http://Salon.com) column, and said you have to read the entire TWELVE volume set - and not the condensed version - to really understand it! Of course I had read the “condensed” version, and I’m still not ready for all 12. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/64 "2009-04-11T14:01:42Z")
> [@Blue\_Mars](#): > > Now that you mention it, I did think “Finite Jest” was lacking something! And but so I wonder how many people are going to get this (as odd as it is, I’m sure someone\* will) little joke, or my (odder (yet more apt\*\*)) little jape. \*(An overeducated tennis fan?) \*\*(Imitation is horribly insincere.) (A supposedly funny imitation I’ll never attempt again, promise.) ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/65 "2009-04-13T14:51:08Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > I remember my parents buying me what is now called a graphic novel because I loved the movie “The Jungle Book”. I was about six. > > Ee-yikes, that thing freaked me out! It had Mowgli cutting off Akela’s tail for god’s sake and swinging around in the trees showing it off to the other wolves in his home pack, and taunting them that he was now the pack leader. I still remember it some forty years later! > > Needless to say it was not the Mowgli I knew. I read the Kipling’s Jungle Book later, but it had no mention of Mowgli cutting off Akela’s tail. Did I read an abridged version? It still had the flattening of Shere Khan in the cattle stampede. Whoops, no spoiler. > Sorry. Not to mention the trap Mowgli sets for an invading pack of wild dogs - he lures them into a massive beehive & they get stung to death. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/66 "2009-04-13T21:13:19Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > In Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” the factory workers were orginally African pygmies who looked like they were made out of chocolate. They later became white skinned, golden haired people from “Oompaland.” > > PC run amok. It’s not quite the same as most of the other works being mentioned here, though. Other than the descriptions of the Oopma Loompas, the story was still the same and complete. As a kid, I had access to both the original hardcover and a then current paperback (early 80’s) and read them both, for some reason, and quickly picked up on the changes to the OL’s. At the time I wasn’t sure if they changed from pygmies because someone complained, or if it had something to do with the movie. I hadn’t run across the concept of PC at the time, or it might’ve been more obvious. I also read “Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator”, but only had a paperback of that one, and I always wondered if that one had anything different than the original. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/67 "2009-04-15T19:13:10Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Yeah, it’s hard to find an unabridged _Les Mis_. Well, maybe hard it overstating it, but most editions are abridged (without the fascinating history of Paris’ sewer system). I was quite impressed with myself when I stayed up and read it two nights in a row, while working, and thought to myself: Man! These classics are great, even if I did read the unabridged version-all four hundred pages of it!:smack: ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/68 "2009-04-15T19:29:07Z")
> [@MichaelJohnBertrand](#): > > Holy crap. ☹ um, no offense, but I think I’ll stick to the Disney version. Oh, it’s much better. I haven’t read it in a while, but the Kipling version is awesome. Way less sanitized. But that’s the case with a lot of Disney movies. Little Mermaid, anyone? ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/69 "2009-04-15T22:31:02Z")
Growng up I had an entire legion of books called “Great Illustrated Classics”. They were basically a crapload of famous books that were written for kids. I read pretty much all of em, and to this day still claim myself as having read them even though I know what I read was a watered down version. But I get the gist enough to say I read the book and seem smart to people. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/70 "2009-04-16T13:31:33Z")
Over Christmas I read Jon Krakauer’s _Into Thin Air_ and I kept thinking it sounded awfully familiar. Then I remembered I had read the original article he wrote about that trip in Reader’s Digest in 1997. The article contained pictures of the horrible frostbite that crippled several people. :eek: The book contained pictures of the people who had died–the pictures were of them alive. I prefer the book’s illustrations. > [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Oh, it’s much better. I haven’t read it in a while, but the Kipling version is awesome. Way less sanitized. But that’s the case with a lot of Disney movies. Little Mermaid, anyone? I just had a vision of Disney mucking up “The Steadfast Tin Soldier.” Oh, the nightmares will visit me tonight. Note to anyone from Disney who may be reading this:\*\* DON’T YOU DARE\*\*. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/71 "2009-04-16T14:42:34Z")
> [@SpazCat](#): > > I just had a vision of Disney mucking up “The Steadfast Tin Soldier.” Oh, the nightmares will visit me tonight. Note to anyone from Disney who may be reading this:\*\* DON’T YOU DARE\*\*. You’re too late. I haven’t seen it, but there’s a “Steadfast Tin Soldier” section in [Fantasia 2000](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasia_2000), and it apparently has a happy ending. Although in fairness to Disney, that particular story has to be one of the most blatant examples of an author being determined to wrench defeat from the jaws of victory. And the original ending to “The Little Mermaid” wasn’t merely a downer, it was preachy. Children shouldn’t be naughty because they’ll slow the poor dead mermaid’s quest to get to heaven? Come on! ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/72 "2009-04-16T16:56:01Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Although in fairness to Disney, that particular story has to be one of the most blatant examples of an author being determined to wrench defeat from the jaws of victory. And the original ending to “The Little Mermaid” wasn’t merely a downer, it was preachy. Children shouldn’t be naughty because they’ll slow the poor dead mermaid’s quest to get to heaven? Come on! Well, okay, maybe that part’s a little lame. But I really like the rest. Like about how walking/becoming human is gutwrenchingly painful and how it doesn’t end happily. It’s poignant. It got to me. The movie had zero emotional effect on me. Also, I never realized that there was more of a downer than The Little Match Girl, but One Steadfast Tin Soldier has to be it. Still, I love Andersen. Was he a sad guy? ---
**Author:** ![RachelChristine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7ab992/32.png) [@RachelChristine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RachelChristine)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/73 "2009-04-16T17:15:39Z")
> [@Sigmagirl](#): > > I puzzled about this quite a while before I realized you were talking about _Little Men._ No, I’m talking about \* Little Women \* (well, technically Good Wives I suppose). It’s a very brief mention of Tommy Bangs setting fire to something, somewhere during the scene out at the apple orchard. One of the other differences was that the chapter full of letters to their father was shortened considerable. Off the top of my head, I can’t recall what else was left out of the condensed version, but I remember those two things. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/74 "2009-04-16T17:16:44Z")
> [@RachelChristine](#): > > No, I’m talking about \* Little Women \* (well, technically Good Wives I suppose). It’s a very brief mention of Tommy Bangs setting fire to something, somewhere during the scene out at the apple orchard. One of the other differences was that the chapter full of letters to their father was shortened considerable. Off the top of my head, I can’t recall what else was left out of the condensed version, but I remember those two things. I know that sometimes Good Wives and Little Women are sold together as two parts of one book. Maybe you then read a Little Women with no Good Wives? ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/75 "2009-04-16T17:26:24Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > You’re too late. > > I haven’t seen it, but there’s a “Steadfast Tin Soldier” section in [Fantasia 2000](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasia_2000), and it apparently has a happy ending. Yet more proof that there is not, never has been, and never will be, a loving God. ---
**Author:** ![Elret](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Elret](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elret)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/76 "2009-04-16T19:01:06Z")
> [@Sigmagirl](#): > > You mean Beth didn’t die in your book? Right. Didn’t even have the sniffles yet. > [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Do you mean the second part, “Good Wives,” wasn’t included? No, I don’t think that was it. I think it really wasn’t the whole story of “Little Women”. ---
**Author:** ![RachelChristine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7ab992/32.png) [@RachelChristine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RachelChristine)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/77 "2009-04-16T19:15:31Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I know that sometimes Good Wives and Little Women are sold together as two parts of one book. Maybe you then read a Little Women with no Good Wives? No, it was just a condensed or abridged or something version of Little Women AND Good Wives together in one volume. It wasn’t Little Men, and it wasn’t just Little Women. I had both a full version and the condensed version side by side and I went through them one time, looking at the differences. I do remember that there was one chapter title that was different, but can’t remember which or what. Other than that, it was all just mostly small little tidbits and extraneous details taken out here and there. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/78 "2009-04-16T21:19:46Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I know that sometimes Good Wives and Little Women are sold together as two parts of one book. Maybe you then read a Little Women with no Good Wives? When I was in elementary school I had a copy of _Little Women_ like that – it was the entire original novel, without Part II/_Good Wives_. I remember one of my classmates mentioning something to me about it being sad when Beth died, and I assumed he had either stopped reading or become confused after Beth bout with scarlet fever. I had, after all, read my copy of _Little Women_ cover to cover many times, and knew that while Beth became very ill she got better! In the 5th grade or so some family friend gave me a copy of _Little Women_ that did contain _Good Wives_, so I finally learned what happened to everyone when they grew up. But I felt (and still feel) that this was less interesting than the story of the March girls as children. Thinking about it now, it’s kind of funny that _Little Women_ and _Good Wives_ were ever combined into one volume. They were written a year apart, and Alcott probably never would have written _Good Wives_ had _Little Women_ not been such a great and immediate success on its own. But Wikipedia tells me that from pretty early on the two were being published as Parts I and II of one book, and that’s how most people have experienced them. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/79 "2009-04-16T21:24:19Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > When I was in elementary school I had a copy of _Little Women_ like that – it was the entire original novel, without Part II/_Good Wives_. I remember one of my classmates mentioning something to me about it being sad when Beth died, and I assumed he had either stopped reading or become confused after Beth bout with scarlet fever. I had, after all, read my copy of _Little Women_ cover to cover many times, and knew that while Beth became very ill she got better! Oh no! Was that a huge spoiler for you? I never knew that they weren’t both part of Little Women. That is, I thought Good Wives was just the name of another part. Then I found out they had been published separately. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/80 "2009-04-16T22:37:39Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Oh no! Was that a huge spoiler for you? At the time I really just thought my friend was wrong! Before I got the edition with _Good Wives_ included then I’d heard about Beth’s death from other sources as well (I think I’d seen the Katharine Hepburn film version by then) so that cat was pretty well out of the bag. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817.md?page=3)