Category: publishing

“There are already scores of editions in print in which the N-word appears. And every year, it seems that some school district somewhere refuses to read Huckleberry Finn because of it. Dr. Allen Gribben, the Auburn University Twain scholar who has edited this new version, says he just doesn’t want one word to keep students from reading a great book.”

“Is there any meaning whatever in the repeated words we hear? “Fantastic” and “incredible” seem to parody or refute the statements they are intended to strengthen. Many of our newly minted clichés have a touch of violence added to them – such as “kick-start” instead of the quicker, simpler “start”, and the aggressive coating of “batter” which (as if taking orders in a totalitarian restaurant) all cricket commentators suddenly began using one morning.”

Colbert (the character) thinks that merely replacing the n-word isn’t enough: “Who knows what other words it contains that are O.K. now that someday might be offensive?”

“[C]lassrooms – and the school systems they’re embedded in – aren’t always idealized teaching spaces: One too-graphic sex scene in an otherwise age-appropriate book, and an administrator may decide to nix it. Or a teacher may swap it for a book that’s less likely to get them angry phone calls from parents. … If taking out the n-word means more students can be exposed to [the book], well, I’m not convinced that that’s a horrible thing.”

“The book, which deals directly with racism, is not better served by erasing the racial slur. The only purpose is to ease the tension that is felt by parents and teachers of students who would read it. To pretend this is for some higher good is to insult the intelligence of the American public.”

“But is there never any justification for altering a classic – even if the revised edition would serve a specialized audience (like high school students) or readers who feel assaulted and are unable to get past that epithet?” Nine writers hash it out in the NYT‘s Room for Debate.

Throughout the book — 219 times in all — the word “nigger” is replaced by “slave,” a substitution that was made by NewSouth Books, a publisher based in Alabama, which plans to release the edition in February.

Over the past few decades, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been steadily removed from school curricula, and sometimes banned outright, over its repeated use (219 times) of the epithet “n****r”. An Alabama publisher has decided to fix that problem by simply replacing the word.

“Third-quarter sales at Borders fell 17.6 percent over the same period in 2009, and it reported losses for the year at nearly $75 million, almost double the 2009 mark. As losses mounted last year, the company laid off 10 percent of its management force and planned to close 16 stores.”

“For all the walls he has torn down, Mr. Assange’s new contract proves that some information is still worth paying for. Putting his autobiography in book format, whether printed or electronic – and charging admission to read it – is an obvious recognition of this fact. So why are books still relevant in a WikiLeaks world?”