Twain knew exactly what he was doing with the language he chose, and bowdlerizing his writing replaces lightning with lightning bugs. There are lines from novels that stick with me for decades. I haven’t read Huckleberry Finn for twenty-five years, but there’s a passage that I will never forget:
“It warn’t the grounding — that didn’t keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinder-head.”
I bought my father a copy of The N-Word of the Narcissus for Christmas. I tell you, it’s a growth field! How else can you download a public domain novel, alter it so very slightly, copyright your new version, and sell it at a profit?
January 5th, 2011 at 12:23PM
Twain knew exactly what he was doing with the language he chose, and bowdlerizing his writing replaces lightning with lightning bugs. There are lines from novels that stick with me for decades. I haven’t read Huckleberry Finn for twenty-five years, but there’s a passage that I will never forget:
“It warn’t the grounding — that didn’t keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinder-head.”
“Good gracious! anybody hurt?”
“No’m. Killed a nigger.”
January 5th, 2011 at 1:53PM
Add at least three of UD’s English Department’s alums and former adjuncts to the opposition. A few of us have been talking about it.
And, right after the passage Dave cites, Aunt Sally remarks: “Well, that’s good because sometimes people get hurt.”
Looks like I’ll have a little something extra to talk about when I start teaching the novel in two-ish weeks.
January 5th, 2011 at 2:39PM
Right on!
There is a brouhaha brewing over at the Chronicle, have a look:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/censoring-mark-twains-ghost/30789
January 5th, 2011 at 3:21PM
That’s the line, Dave. Twain encapsulated American slavery in four (and a half?) words.
January 5th, 2011 at 4:16PM
I bought my father a copy of The N-Word of the Narcissus for Christmas. I tell you, it’s a growth field! How else can you download a public domain novel, alter it so very slightly, copyright your new version, and sell it at a profit?
January 6th, 2011 at 10:54AM
This censorship is highly selective, have you noticed?
January 6th, 2011 at 11:08AM
Yes, Chas: We’ll have to redo our Roots too, as it were… And William Faulkner. Lots of work to be done there.