Post by account_disabled on Dec 25, 2023 23:55:59 GMT -6
We are in 2011, the third millennium began several years ago, yet it seems like we are still in the Middle Ages. Book censorship is always around the corner, ready to strike, never tamed. What could be written in the 19th century is now, in the 21st century, shocking. The NewSouth Books publishing house intends to purge the most famous – and funniest, in my opinion – novels by the American writer Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Hucklenerry Finn . Novels published in 1876 and 1884 respectively.
Therefore in a precise historical context . NewSouth Books has decided to publish those two novels by mid-February, eliminating the word nigger from the texts and replacing it with slave or another less offensive term. I read those two masterpieces some time ago and I remember them very well. As I remember the word nigger used frequently. It was part of the language of the time and was never once understood to have been used as a derogatory term. Criticisms immediately arose, which I fully Special Data share, about this absurd decision by the editor of the publishing house. The editor's function, as has been pointed out, is to guide an author towards the writing of a better book, but it is a job that must be carried out by two people , editor plus writer.
In this case, however, the editor is the only one to decide, without being able to have, for obvious reasons, the consent of the author, Mark Twain , who has been dead for a century. Often the offending word was pronounced by various characters. Characters who move, as I have already written, in a specific historical context. In that period slavery existed and African slaves were called negroes . Point. It's history, it's not an offense. But in addition to this consideration, it should be underlined that what a character says is not necessarily what the author thinks. Each character speaks and must speak according to his education, his function, his social background and the historical and geographical context in which he moves. Were the drafts of Mark Twain's novels edited? Were those texts subject to editing? Certainly. What right, then, does an editor have to change the language of two works that have already been accepted and published some time ago? Nobody.
Therefore in a precise historical context . NewSouth Books has decided to publish those two novels by mid-February, eliminating the word nigger from the texts and replacing it with slave or another less offensive term. I read those two masterpieces some time ago and I remember them very well. As I remember the word nigger used frequently. It was part of the language of the time and was never once understood to have been used as a derogatory term. Criticisms immediately arose, which I fully Special Data share, about this absurd decision by the editor of the publishing house. The editor's function, as has been pointed out, is to guide an author towards the writing of a better book, but it is a job that must be carried out by two people , editor plus writer.
In this case, however, the editor is the only one to decide, without being able to have, for obvious reasons, the consent of the author, Mark Twain , who has been dead for a century. Often the offending word was pronounced by various characters. Characters who move, as I have already written, in a specific historical context. In that period slavery existed and African slaves were called negroes . Point. It's history, it's not an offense. But in addition to this consideration, it should be underlined that what a character says is not necessarily what the author thinks. Each character speaks and must speak according to his education, his function, his social background and the historical and geographical context in which he moves. Were the drafts of Mark Twain's novels edited? Were those texts subject to editing? Certainly. What right, then, does an editor have to change the language of two works that have already been accepted and published some time ago? Nobody.