Kaplan Books is offering 130 free ebooks for your Nook, Sony eReader, Kindle or iPad now through January 17.
Altering Old Stories to Suit the Modern
More on altering old texts to suit modern sensibilities:
Efforts to sanitize classic literature have a long, undistinguished history. Everything from Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” to Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” have been challenged or have suffered at the hands of uptight editors. There have even been purified versions of the Bible (all that sex and violence!). Sometimes the urge to expurgate (if not outright ban) comes from the right, evangelicals and conservatives, worried about blasphemy, profane language and sexual innuendo. Fundamentalist groups, for instance, have tried to have dictionaries banned because of definitions offered for words like hot, tail, ball, and nuts.
Makes one want to use language, if one were wont to do so.
What Were We Saying About Huck Finn?
Author Richard Grayson has 1-upped the recent revision of Huckleberry Finn, which replaced the word nigger with the N-word … no, it replaced it with slave. So Grayson has jumped on this unsolicited hype with his own Huck Finn revision which replaces the word . . . well, let me just give you a sample:
And the place was plum full of farmers and farmers’ wives, to dinner; and such another clack a body never heard. Old Mrs. Hotchkiss was the worst; her tongue was a-going all the time. She says:
“Well, Sister Phelps, I’ve ransacked that-air cabin over, an’ I b’lieve the hipster was crazy. I says to Sister Damrell — didn’t I, Sister Damrell? — s’I, he’s crazy, s’I — them’s the very words I said.
The author, who released the book on Lulu today, says, “I think hipster is still okay to use in 2011, but I have heard some people are offended by the ‘H-word.’” (via Loren Eaton)
Friday fragments
It would be the height of injustice for me not to note this remarkable story:
Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside.
From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.
“We either live together, or we die together,” was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon whose cultural centre distributed flyers at churches in Cairo Thursday night, and who has been credited with first floating the “human shield” idea.
We often say that we’re waiting for Muslims to actually act out the peaceful sentiments they proclaim for the media. Well, here’s some who seem to be doing it. This counts more than a million press releases from CAIR, and I will give praise where praise is due.
(Tip: First Things.)
According to this article, scientists have discovered a tribal group in the Black Sea area who appear to speak a living (though endangered) dialect more closely related than any we’ve seen before to the language of the ancient Greeks.
The community lives in a cluster of villages near the Turkish city of Trabzon in what was once the ancient region of Pontus, a Greek colony that Jason and the Argonauts are supposed to have visited on their epic journey from Thessaly to recover the Golden Fleece from the land of Colchis (present-day Georgia). Pontus was also supposed to be the kingdom of the mythical Amazons, a fierce tribe of women who cut off their right breasts in order to handle their bows better in battle.
Linguists found that the dialect, Romeyka, a variety of Pontic Greek, has structural similarities to ancient Greek that are not observed in other forms of the language spoken today. Romeyka’s vocabulary also has parallels with the ancient language.
(Tip: Archaeology in Europe)
And finally, just so you won’t have to go cold turkey on Sissel, here’s my favorite song of her entire repertoire, a Faeroese hymn called Tidin Rennur. I don’t read Faeroese, but I can figure out the lyrics well enough to know it compares life to being on a small boat on the sea. Only Jesus, it says, can bring the boat safe to harbor.
The last of the First Team
In case any of you live in the Huntington, West Virginia area, be advised that I’ll be interviewed on the Tom Roten Show, on WVHU, AM 800, on Thursday, January 20, 8:35 a.m. The subject, of course, will be West Oversea.
What follows, I’m afraid, is pretty Twin Cities Inside Radio-Ball. But an era is semi-passing for local conservatism, and I want to mark it with a post.
The talk radio station I generally listen to is WWTC, AM 1280, “The Patriot,” a fine station affiliated with the Salem Broadcasting Network. It doesn’t have much of a signal, but for urban dwellers like me it fills a need.
We also have some pretty good bloggers in these parts. Among them are Power Line (famous for helping to blow Dan Rather out of the water over the forged George W. Bush National Guard documents), Fraters Libertas, and Shot In the Dark. Salem talk show host Hugh Hewitt started referring to them as The Northern Alliance of Blogs (a play on the name of the coalition of Afghan militias helping America at the time), and it was his idea for them to do a weekly show on WWTC. Continue reading The last of the First Team
James Church's Inspector O novels: An appreciation
I have now finished reading all four of “James Church”’s Inspector O novels. (“O,” by the way, is not an initial. It’s the man’s family name.) I can’t claim to understand them fully, but I unquestionably enjoyed them. They are tragic stories, but they didn’t depress me.
Quite remarkable books, all in all. I won’t forget them.
I’ve reviewed the first book, A Corpse in the Koryo
The second book, Hidden Moon
The third book, Bamboo and Blood
The final book, The Man with the Baltic Stare
Finn Now, Hemingway Next
D.G. Myers picked up on the story Lars linked to yesterday, saying the word slave doesn’t have the humanity needed to communicate the story in Huckleberry Finn. If this scrubbing of the text flies, Hemingway’s Sun Also Rises may be next. We can’t have a character described as “superior and Jewish.” What would the Greeks say? (via Books, Inq)
"Huckleberry Fi" (n's removed)
This Is Just Too Weird Dept.: Tonight when I came home from work, precisely as I pulled Mrs. Hermanson into the garage to leave her for the night, her odometer turned over 100,000 miles.
I think there can be no question that this is a Sign and a Portent.
But of what, I wonder?
According to this article from Entertainment Weekly (Tip: Big Hollywood), NewSouth Books is bringing out a new edition of Huckleberry Finn, aimed at students. Every instance of the “n” word (you know the word I mean) has been changed to “slave.” And every instance of “Injun” has been changed to… something. They don’t say what.
“Is this really a big deal?” the columnist asks.
Yeah, I kind of think it is.
On the other hand, if this puts the book into the hands of kids who would not otherwise be allowed to read it due to forces beyond their control (overprotective parents and the school boards they frighten), then maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to judge. It’s unfortunate, but is it really any more catastrophic than a TBS-friendly re-edit of The Godfather, you down-and-dirty melon farmer? The original product is changed for the benefit of those who, for one reason or another, are not mature enough to handle it, but as long as it doesn’t affect the original, is there a problem?
My opinion (I could, of course, be wrong), is that if a student is old enough to understand the extremely sophisticated themes of Huckleberry Finn, he or she is old enough to understand that the “n” word, while always offensive, was in very common use in Mark Twain’s time, even by black people themselves. I think that’s a fact worth knowing. Educational, even.
“Ah ha!” says someone. “But you’re saying ‘n word’ yourself! You’re a hypocrite!”
“Silence, Imaginary Interlocutor!” say I (I might as well. Anthony Sacramone isn’t using the phrase much these days [I just tried to link to his dormant blog, but now it won’t let you in without a Google account]). The truth of the age I live in is that the “n” word is no longer in common use, except as an insult (and in rap lyrics). If I tried to use it in Mark Twain’s way, I’d be as false to my own world as it’s false to his to clean it up in Huckleberry Finn.
I hold (again, I could be wrong) that when it comes to speech, the Victorians were able to express themselves with far greater freedom than we enjoy today.
Lemony Snicket on Reading Poetry
Author Daniel Handler writes about reading and loving poetry.
If you were to walk into my living room on some weekend night, that would be creepy. But before I stood up alarmed and demanded to know what you were doing there, you would see me in a big black leather chair that, I’ve been told, is too big for the room. I’d be all dressed up, and reading poetry.
Looking Forward to 2011 Books
Sherry has some interesting books coming in 2011. (via Out of the Bloo)