What with Banned Books Week right around the corner (or upon us & rolling away as the case may be), I thought I would take a look at a newly-not censored book: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as newly translated (it sounds better than bowdlerized, also no one knows what that word means anymore) by Alan Bribben.
The short version is Mr. Bribben (Professor Bribben?) went through & replaced the word "nigger" with the word "slave". I understand the word "injun" was also removed, but I don't know what replaced it. The word "slave" could work there too, I guess. Unlike a lot of people, I actually have a more than passing familiarity with Mr. Twain's original work. I adore it & I don't mean that in the knee-jerk literature major way. To give you some perspective, I refer to Moby Dick as the G*d damned fish book & while I have been trying for almost 30 years & I still cannot think of anything more overrated. Also, The Great Gatsby is puerile crap. I do not love literature lightly or because someone told me I should.
& I actually think the word nigger is worth hanging on to, in Huck Finn & in general (yes even in rap music). Nigger means something. It isn't pretty, it isn't flattering but why oh why are we so anxious to paint over a word with history (an ugly history but no less real). Why isn't someone waging a war on "nice" or "like", which as far as I can tell are placeholders for "I don't really remember that person/place/thing" & "uhmmm" respectively?
I do not understand why the choice is Huck Finn without nigger or no Huck Finn at all. I don't understand why we have room for Harlequin romances & holocaust deniers & The Surrendered Wife & Beatrix Potter rip-off board books & all kinds of copy-cat rehashed consumer driven word-putty, but nigger is two syllables too far.
I did not think for one moment Huck Finn could be improved by replacing nigger with slave but what the hell. Here is one of the more or less nigger-rich passages:
They asked us considerable many questions; wanted to know what we covered up the raft that way for, and laid by in the daytime instead of running -- was Jim a runaway nigger? Says I:But why slave? If we are going to rewrite history, Jim should be a ...patriot! & let's face it, who calls their father Pa? & those $16 really should be adjusted for inflation. Because that's where this goes, it doesn't stop with one bad word, there is always tomorrow's bad word & "let's update the language to help the kids through" & so forth.
"Goodness sakes! would a runaway nigger run south?"
No, they allowed he wouldn't. I had to account for things some way, so I says:
"My folks was living in Pike County, in Missouri, where I was born, and they all died off but me and pa and my brother Ike. Pa, he 'lowed he'd break up and go down and live with Uncle Ben, who's got a little one-horse place on the river, forty-four mile below Orleans. Pa was pretty poor, and had some debts; so when he'd squared up there warn't nothing left but sixteen dollars and our nigger, Jim..."
They asked us considerable many questions; wanted to know what we covered up the raft that way for, and laid by in the daytime instead of running -- was Jim a runaway patriot? Says I:
"Goodness sakes! would a runaway patriot run south?"
hmmm. Let's keep going.
No, they allowed he wouldn't. I had to account for things some way, so I says:
"My folks was living in Pike County, in Missouri, where I was born, and they all died off but me and daddy and my brother Ike. Daddy, he 'lowed he'd break up and go down and live with Uncle Ben, who's got a little one-horse place on the river, forty-four mile below Orleans. Daddy was pretty poor, and had some debts; so when he'd squared up there warn't nothing left but sixteen hundred dollars and our patriot, Jim...
Interesting, but "Ike" calls up images of Ike Turner, so unflattering to black people & "Uncle Ben", well I don't think I need to explain that one. According to the baby name trends site I found, boy's names that were popular when Ike was popular are: Dock, General , Gustave, Enoch, etc. So I'll just randomly grab another name from that era. As for Uncle Ben, well there are other forms of the name Benjamin we can fall back on. So, let's try this:
"My folks was living in Pike County, in Missouri, where I was born, and they all died off but me and daddy and my brother Otho. Daddy, he 'lowed he'd break up and go down and live with Uncle Bentley, who's got a little one-horse place on the river, forty-four mile below Orleans. Daddy was pretty poor, and had some debts; so when he'd squared up there warn't nothing left but sixteen hundred dollars and our patriot, Jim..."I think there is a future for the Madlibs version of The Great Works of American Literature, because that is what we are screwing with here. Ernest Hemingway said "All American writing come from that (Huck Finn)". Are we so sure whitewashing is always the best way to keep something clean?
Poor Tom Bowdler. I'm sure he thought his name would live through history.
ReplyDeleteI am reminded of the time I taught Catcher in the Rye and one girl went through and blacked out every 'goddamn' in the book. I thought it was a very unhealthy way to spend her time.
It won't be long before "the s-word" becomes offensive. Mark Twain must be having a good laugh wherever he is.