What the Huck?
There's been a lot of buzz and controversy around the Internet lately about a forthcoming new edition of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In this edition (to be published by NewSouth Books) well-meaning English professor and editor, Alan Gribben, wishing to spare young readers "from a racial slur that never seems to lose its vitriol," has replaced the vile racial epithet "nigger" throughout the book with "slave."
Lots of ink has already been spilled, and pixels posted, but this is Huckleberry Finn we're talking about, an oft-banned, oft-critiqued work (of genius) that serves ultimately as a damnation of slavery, racism, and the close-minded ignorance—and justification—so prevalent in the American South of 1835. Along with other period-specific linguistic conventions, Twain made a conscious decision to include the now-neutered epithet, explaining himself thusly in the novel's introduction:
"In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods South-Western dialect; the ordinary 'Pike-County' dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guess-work; but pains-takingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech."
And this sort of preemptive censorship is a particularly slippery slope. After all, what happens when potentially-offensive words are scrubbed and replaced with more politically-correct terms? Particularly when using modern, automated search-and-replace tactics? You end up with nonsense along the lines of the following:
"There was an old horse-blanket nailed against the logs at the far end of the cabin behind the table, to keep the wind from blowing through the Asians and putting the candle out." (Chapter 6)
…or…
"I never see a man look so wild in the eyes. Pretty soon he was all homosexualed out, and fell down panting; then he rolled over and over, wonderful fast, kicking things every which way, and striking and grabbing the air with his hands, and screaming, and saying there were devils ahold of him." (Chapter 6)
…or…
"I never waited for to look further, but unpenised my gun and went sneaking back on my tip-toes as fast as ever I could." (Chapter 8)
…or even…
"'Well I did. I said I wouldn't, and I'll stick to it. Honest Native American I will. People would call me a low down Ablitionist and despise me for keeping mum—but that don't make no difference.'" (Chapter 8)
Don't take me the wrong way. The word is vile; this is not, to flip a quote from Twain, a word that "bears repeating." Slavery and the institutionalized racism that made it possible are an unconscionable stain on the American soul. But so too is whitewashing a word from one of the true classic works of American literature, just to avoid having a difficult conversation with a reader.
Me, I'd prefer Huck Finn remain un-"sivilised". I'll be keeping my copy of The Unabridged Mark Twain (though I wouldn't mind adding the Library of America edition of Twain's Mississippi Writings to my shelves as well).
Lots of ink has already been spilled, and pixels posted, but this is Huckleberry Finn we're talking about, an oft-banned, oft-critiqued work (of genius) that serves ultimately as a damnation of slavery, racism, and the close-minded ignorance—and justification—so prevalent in the American South of 1835. Along with other period-specific linguistic conventions, Twain made a conscious decision to include the now-neutered epithet, explaining himself thusly in the novel's introduction:
"In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods South-Western dialect; the ordinary 'Pike-County' dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guess-work; but pains-takingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech."
And this sort of preemptive censorship is a particularly slippery slope. After all, what happens when potentially-offensive words are scrubbed and replaced with more politically-correct terms? Particularly when using modern, automated search-and-replace tactics? You end up with nonsense along the lines of the following:
"There was an old horse-blanket nailed against the logs at the far end of the cabin behind the table, to keep the wind from blowing through the Asians and putting the candle out." (Chapter 6)
…or…
"I never see a man look so wild in the eyes. Pretty soon he was all homosexualed out, and fell down panting; then he rolled over and over, wonderful fast, kicking things every which way, and striking and grabbing the air with his hands, and screaming, and saying there were devils ahold of him." (Chapter 6)
…or…
"I never waited for to look further, but unpenised my gun and went sneaking back on my tip-toes as fast as ever I could." (Chapter 8)
…or even…
"'Well I did. I said I wouldn't, and I'll stick to it. Honest Native American I will. People would call me a low down Ablitionist and despise me for keeping mum—but that don't make no difference.'" (Chapter 8)
Don't take me the wrong way. The word is vile; this is not, to flip a quote from Twain, a word that "bears repeating." Slavery and the institutionalized racism that made it possible are an unconscionable stain on the American soul. But so too is whitewashing a word from one of the true classic works of American literature, just to avoid having a difficult conversation with a reader.
Me, I'd prefer Huck Finn remain un-"sivilised". I'll be keeping my copy of The Unabridged Mark Twain (though I wouldn't mind adding the Library of America edition of Twain's Mississippi Writings to my shelves as well).
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