Doesn't Change Anything

There was big literary news this week when it was announced the next run of Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" will have been edited, removing any trace of the 'n-word' and replacing it with 'slave'. (If you're anything like me the first thing you thought of when hearing that is it doesn't seem like much of an improvement.) Anyway, the publishers stated that the reason they made the change was because, due to the language, many schools have been removing the book from reading lists and the company thought this was the best option they had to make sure the story was still read by younger people. Anyways, this has raised a lot of eyebrows around the world and many people have weighed in on it. Most people feel as though the editing was unnecessary and I'm in that camp. Now, don't worry, I'm not about to go off on some pro-racial-slur rant, I simply feel like this is another example of people trying to be a little too politically correct.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that people shouldn't be offended by the 'n-word'. I hope I am never the kind of person who could tell someone else what should and should not bother them. I'm simply saying that, rather than remove a word from a book and replace it with something else, why not use that time to explain to the kids who have to read it why that word is so terrible? I think that is a better alternative than running from the issue, which I feel like this is. I remember when we read this book in junior high. Beforehand, the teacher explained to us that just because a word was used in a book written over a hundred years ago it doesn't mean we could go around using it now. That was it - took five minutes and I don't remember it being a problem the entire time we were covering Huck Finn in school. And bear in mind that we were not a class full of MENSA candidates, just a group of normal seventh graders. If we could understand the premise of not using every word we see in print than I am sure others could as well. I understand that not everyone enjoys having conversations like that, but life is pretty much a series of uncomfortable conversations.

Also, as someone who fancies themselves a writer, I don't like the idea of people going in and making all these changes without consulting the author. (If he can't be consulted because he's been dead for 100 years then that should be further evidence all hands should be off.) I may be a constant tinkerer with my work, but at least I'm the one doing the editing. Writing a book is hard and I don't care how many literary scholars have read up on him, none of them will ever actually know for sure what Twain would think of these changes. If people are allowed to start going back and changing parts of stories they don't like then there is no telling where it ends and every work ever published essentially becomes a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book. Suddenly "Bridge to Terabithea" has a happy ending and "Romeo & Juliet" end with a big outdoor ceremony where the families come together like My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding.

But, the main reason this bothers me is that I don't think people should be going back and editing things just to fit the current culture. Unless you have access to a time machine, all you are doing is putting a happy face on history and history is the study of the way things actually used to be, not the way we wished they used to be. With that in mind, here's the thing: you can edit out all the references you want, it won't change the fact that people used to throw the 'n-word' around pretty casually. It goes back to this book being a chance for a teaching moment - use it as a way to talk about how far we have come as a society (and in some cases, how far we still have to go). By editing "Huck Finn" I feel like the publishers are instead trying to cover their tracks like they did something wrong. The book was written in the style of the time - you can't change that fact 125 years later.

So, to sum up: while the liberal in me understand why some people are uncomfortable with certain words, the realist in me knows that you can't edit history, the writer in me doesn't agree with changing a literary classic a hundred years later and the editor in me thinks that replacing 219 references sounds like a lot of work.