Mark Twain rolls over in his grave

[Vanquish]

It's not surprising that this happened in Montgomery, as we're a town of extremes. We've got staunch conservatives in the majority, but a huge liberal side with the Southern Poverty Law bunch and the Black Civil Rights establishment here as well.

There's a bohemian vein kind of running through the town if you know where to look (Cloverdale, Downtown) of indie publishers, bookstores, and fine artists.

 

[kwc57]

Lots of paintings need to be edited

And statues!

BBC NEWS | Americas | Curtains up on risque US statues

 

[kwc57]

This place is about 2 blocks from my office, in downtown Montgomery. I really ought to go talk to the owner and find out more info.

I'm against this myself. It really dumbs down the message of the entire book in my estimation BUT to use an old conservative conceit...if you don't like it...dont buy it. Only time will tell if the "problem" fixed is one that people find worthy of money.

As long as we're 'fixing' works of art, why not go ahead and put arms back on the Venus de Milo.

And give David a larger Johnson.

 

[manifold]

If the word slave gets the job done well enough for others...who are YOU to say they shouldnt be able to buy something? It's their decision..however wrong it might be to you.

I don't give a shit about that. My opposition is much simpler. I think it's wrong to modify an artist's work without their permission.

 

[hjmick]

Burn 'em! BURN 'EM ALL!






Fuckers...

 

[Vanquish]

If the word slave gets the job done well enough for others...who are YOU to say they shouldnt be able to buy something? It's their decision..however wrong it might be to you.

I don't give a shit about that. My opposition is much simpler. I think it's wrong to modify an artist's work without their permission.

You need to explain yourself a bit better.

I don't know if this is in the public domain or if someone in the Twain family has/sold the rights. If it's in the public domain and they're just doing it for giggles, you might have a point. But it's still not one that wins over the free market. This won't be the ONLY version available...and if you don't like it...don't buy it. Isn't that the argument conservatives use all the time?

If someone actually holds the rights then you're on even shakier ground. Of course it's not the actual artist's permission...but it's still legal permission...and therefore a property right. Again...conservatives love free markets and protection of property rights, amirite?

I'm technically on your side as I won't have my kid read it that way, but I the most I would say in opposition would be "don't put that in my school".

 

[Tank]

The only reason the word is considered so bad is because it applys to blacks.

No other race of people have a word that upsets them so much.

 

[kwc57]

The only reason the word is considered so bad is because it applys to blacks.

No other race of people have a word that upsets them so much.

You're an idiot.

 

[Tank]

A mature and civilized people would not be so easily upset by a word.

 

[Vanquish]

There are all kinds of racial epithets across the world. You must not have traveled very much.

 

[Tank]

There are all kinds of racial epithets across the world.
(

Such as?

 

[hjmick]

Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Russell Baker wrote of the character "****** Jim," emphasis mine:

The people whom Huck and Jim encounter on the Mississippi are drunkards, murderers, bullies, swindlers, lynchers, thieves, liars, mows, frauds, child abusers, numbskulls, hypocrites, windbags and traders in human flesh. All are white. The one man of honor in this phantasmagoria is '****** Jim,' as Twain called him to emphasize the irony of a society in which the only true gentleman was held beneath contempt.

These people see the word "******" and shit a brick, without any understanding of what Twain was doing. They censor the work and, in effect, dilute if not not completely remove Twain's intended commentary. In doing so, the not only do a disservice to Twain and his work, but their children as well.

It makes me want to throttle someone...

 

[bodecea]

Lots of paintings need to be edited

And many of them have been.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

Mark Twain was in no way delusional about what would happen as time went on. I would think, that in some fair elesuim, Mark and George Orwell are havling a laugh and toasting each other's precience over the future of man kind.


And no, Slave is not appropriate here. From about chapter 10 on, Jim was no longer a slave. And I think in the circumstances, even Jim would find this kind of offensivly stupid.

 

[Vanquish]

There are all kinds of racial epithets across the world.
(

Such as?

List of ethnic slurs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Ravi]

If the word slave gets the job done well enough for others...who are YOU to say they shouldnt be able to buy something? It's their decision..however wrong it might be to you.

I don't give a shit about that. My opposition is much simpler. I think it's wrong to modify an artist's work without their permission.

But not to steal it...

 

[Valerie]

Twain used the word because it was the vernacular. He knew what he was doing, and what the word meant. That's the way he shone a light on the culture.

It's criminal to edit it. Thanks leftards.

You can blame NewSouth Books...

About NewSouth Books

NewSouth, Inc., is an Alabama-based book publishing company co-owned by partners Randall Williams and Suzanne La Rosa. NewSouth’s roots go back to 1984, when Williams proposed to a few other writers a concept for a cooperative that would be called the Black Belt Communications Group. In 1986, BBCG came into being as a publisher of magazines, newspapers, and newsletters. In 1989, BBCG, Inc., began publishing books under the Black Belt Press imprint. By 1996, Black Belt Press was the state’s leading independent publisher of Southern fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and folklore. In 1998, Williams recruited publishing veteran Suzanne La Rosa, who joined Black Belt Press as publisher.

NewSouth Books in historic downtown Montgomery, AlabamaIn 2000, Williams and La Rosa became partners and renamed BBCG, Inc., as NewSouth, Inc. They launched NewSouth as a new independent publishing house specializing in regional books of national interest

And Mark Twain scholar Dr Alan Gribben...

In a bold move compassionately advocated by Twain scholar Dr. Alan Gribben and embraced by NewSouth, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn also replaces two hurtful epithets that appear hundreds of times in the texts with less offensive words, this intended to counter the “preemptive censorship” that Dr. Gribben observes has caused these important works of literature to fall off curriculum lists nationwide.

In presenting his rationale for publication, eloquently developed in the book’s introduction, Dr. Gribben discusses the context of the racial slurs Twain used in these books. He also remarks on the irony of the fact that use of such language has caused Twain’s books to join the ranks of outdated literary classics Twain once humorously defined as works “which people praise and don’t read.”

At NewSouth, we saw the value in an edition that would help the works find new readers. If the publication sparks good debate about how language impacts learning or about the nature of censorship or the way in which racial slurs exercise their baneful influence, then our mission in publishing this new edition of Twain’s works will be more emphatically fulfilled.

His rationale from the intro to the book:

Alternative Editions

It goes without saying that textual purists will object strenuously to these editorial alterations of an author’s final manuscript. However, literally dozens of other editions are available for those readers who prefer Twain’s original phrasing. Those standard editions will always exist. Even better, a facsimile of Twain’s holograph (i.e., handwritten) manuscript of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer has been published in a two-volume edition (1982), and Twain’s holograph manuscript of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is now viewable in a CD issued in 2003 by the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library.

This NewSouth Edition of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn is emphatically not intended for academic scholars. Those individuals should consult instead the authoritative edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1980) and the magisterial edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (2003) that have been issued in The Works of Mark Twain series by the Mark Twain Project at Berkeley. Scholars can also turn to Michael Patrick Hearn’s meticulous and resourceful edition, The Annotated Huckleberry Finn (2001).

A word about the NewSouth edition of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn - NewSouth Books

 

[Valerie]

Twain used the word because it was the vernacular. He knew what he was doing, and what the word meant. That's the way he shone a light on the culture.

It's criminal to edit it. Thanks leftards.

You can blame NewSouth Books...

About NewSouth Books

NewSouth, Inc., is an Alabama-based book publishing company co-owned by partners Randall Williams and Suzanne La Rosa. NewSouth’s roots go back to 1984, when Williams proposed to a few other writers a concept for a cooperative that would be called the Black Belt Communications Group. In 1986, BBCG came into being as a publisher of magazines, newspapers, and newsletters. In 1989, BBCG, Inc., began publishing books under the Black Belt Press imprint. By 1996, Black Belt Press was the state’s leading independent publisher of Southern fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and folklore. In 1998, Williams recruited publishing veteran Suzanne La Rosa, who joined Black Belt Press as publisher.

NewSouth Books in historic downtown Montgomery, AlabamaIn 2000, Williams and La Rosa became partners and renamed BBCG, Inc., as NewSouth, Inc. They launched NewSouth as a new independent publishing house specializing in regional books of national interest

And Mark Twain scholar Dr Alan Gribben...

In a bold move compassionately advocated by Twain scholar Dr. Alan Gribben and embraced by NewSouth, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn also replaces two hurtful epithets that appear hundreds of times in the texts with less offensive words, this intended to counter the “preemptive censorship” that Dr. Gribben observes has caused these important works of literature to fall off curriculum lists nationwide.

In presenting his rationale for publication, eloquently developed in the book’s introduction, Dr. Gribben discusses the context of the racial slurs Twain used in these books. He also remarks on the irony of the fact that use of such language has caused Twain’s books to join the ranks of outdated literary classics Twain once humorously defined as works “which people praise and don’t read.”

At NewSouth, we saw the value in an edition that would help the works find new readers. If the publication sparks good debate about how language impacts learning or about the nature of censorship or the way in which racial slurs exercise their baneful influence, then our mission in publishing this new edition of Twain’s works will be more emphatically fulfilled.

His rationale from the intro to the book:

Alternative Editions

It goes without saying that textual purists will object strenuously to these editorial alterations of an author’s final manuscript. However, literally dozens of other editions are available for those readers who prefer Twain’s original phrasing. Those standard editions will always exist. Even better, a facsimile of Twain’s holograph (i.e., handwritten) manuscript of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer has been published in a two-volume edition (1982), and Twain’s holograph manuscript of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is now viewable in a CD issued in 2003 by the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library.

This NewSouth Edition of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn is emphatically not intended for academic scholars. Those individuals should consult instead the authoritative edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1980) and the magisterial edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (2003) that have been issued in The Works of Mark Twain series by the Mark Twain Project at Berkeley. Scholars can also turn to Michael Patrick Hearn’s meticulous and resourceful edition, The Annotated Huckleberry Finn (2001).

A word about the NewSouth edition of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn - NewSouth Books

"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."
~Mark Twain

 

[PoliticalChic]

This has been done with other works as well. It's ridiculous, shameful and it dumbs down our young ones.

From what I have observed at the mall.

Most of them couldn't get any dumber.

Sunni, this is one of those times when perception and reality may not mesh.

I also am usually ready to call the current generation dumb, unmotivated, illiterate....

But this is not the case, according to the 'Flynn effect':

"The Flynn effect is the substantial increase in average scores on intelligence tests all over the world. When IQ tests are initially standardized using a standardization sample the average result is set to 100. By convention, the standard deviation of the results is set to 15 points. When IQ tests are revised they are again standardized using a new standardization sample and the average result set to 100. However, if the new sample is tested using older tests in almost every case they score substantially above 100."
Flynn effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


So, do we believe Flynn, or our 'lyin' eyes'?

 

[manifold]

If the word slave gets the job done well enough for others...who are YOU to say they shouldnt be able to buy something? It's their decision..however wrong it might be to you.

I don't give a shit about that. My opposition is much simpler. I think it's wrong to modify an artist's work without their permission.

But not to steal it...

You must have me confused with Shogun... again.