Another poll on editing Twain

[Glorybound]

If you were going to purchase "Huckleberry Finn" and/or "Tom Sawyer", for yourself, or for someone else, which version would you buy - the edited version or the original? You can vote for two of the four options.

 

[K Hale]

I'll be appalled and dismayed if anyone votes for the butchered option.

 

[brass napoleon]

I voted the original version for myself. I didn't vote on the gift question, because that would all depend on who I'm giving it to. If it was an adult, I'd give the original version. But if it was a kid, I'd ask the parents which they'd prefer. I especially don't think I'd feel too comfortable giving a young black kid a book that uses that word so many times without talking to the parents first.

The fact is, that word (which we can't even say on this forum) has become much more bitter, hateful and divisive than it was when the book was first written.

 

[K Hale]

OK, who voted for the butchery? LOL

 

[brass napoleon]

Debauchery? Was that an option? :hmmm:

 

[K Hale]

Debauchery, unlike failure, is always an option.

 

[larry_cockerham]

I voted for the unedited version, a copy of which I already own. If I were giving this to most folks, I'd select that version. If it were going to my now five-year old grandson, I might consider selecting the edited version, just for the value of the story, without exposing him to the racial environment for now. He'll learn that soon enough around here. Let's hope we can afford schools organized enough that he may even be exposed to Twain. Our public schools ain't much to write home (or anywhere else) about. Home schooling anyone?

 

[timk]

I totally agree with Larry. I would buy the original for me and anybody older than 13 (or the mental equivalent of 13). I would probably agree to the modified version for somebody not mature enough to understand the context of the word. I see no problem with this.

When I buy movies on demand, many times I have a choice of the PG13 version or the unedited/uncut version. Same movie - one is just a little easier on the less mature eyes and ears.

 

[K Hale]

Bad Santa comes to mind. (Did I say that?)

 

[Stonewall1982]

I read the edited version when I was a boy and loved it. I have since read the original. Yes the words used are offensive but to edit them out is to ignore the mistakes of the past. Also, it is that pesky little thing called senorship that I myself find appalling. I would give the easy to read version to kids. By editing out a that particular word in that context is ignoring what that word means and why it is offensive. This in my opinion is different than rappers who use it in a derogatory way, though for them it is ok. This piece of work tells us where we as a country have been and have come too. What was that little quote about forgetting history????????? Just my opinion

 

[larry_cockerham]

Don't forget that both those novels, Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, were political satire, very pertinent to the time and location in which they were written. To ignore that function is to do Twain's work a gigantic disservice. I wasn't particulary impressed in college 45 years ago, but thought it fascinating that a story this good had another entire sphere of reference for the content. Twain was a giant in American literature for several reasons. I really believe the n word, pretty common when I was a kid, just to identify a race without much harm intended at least for the blue-eyed users of the term, was used by Twain to set the mood and the context of the way folks dealt with each other socially on the Mississippi. Bama, you any help here?

 

[kenjcruz]

Interesting post by Michael Chabon in the Ta-Neishi Coates blog on The Atlantic website about reading Huck Finn to his kids:

http://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2011/01/the-unspeakable-in-its-jammies/69369/

 

[CoA49thNCT]

Even though I do not read a lot of Twain, I think editing out certain aspects just to be "politically correct" is wrong, pure and simple. Just because we find it uncomfortable doesn't mean we should ignore it. It was a part of that time, and we must acknowledge it, so we can learn from it, and never do it again.

Would we edit out references to the Holocaust in every work of film and literature because it's "too depressing?" Would we not talk about America's mistreatment of the Native Americans? We have to acknowledge that great wrongs, such as slavery and genocide happened so we never allow it to happen again. As someone once said, those that fail to understand history are condemned to repeat it.

God bless!

 

[Bob Owen]

Reminds me of the seven words you cannot use on TV by George Carlin.:laugh1: