I’m always surprised when the debate over the  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn returns.  I’m not sure why that is. I shouldn’t be. According to the ALA it is among the top five most challenged books in the United States. The controversy, as we all should know, stems largely from the representations of Jim and the vocabulary attached to him.  But don’t worry, someone has come up with a way to solve  the problem.

From the New York Times:

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.

Alan Gribben, a professor of English at Auburn University at Montgomery, approached the publisher with the idea in July. Mr. Gribben said Tuesday that he had been teaching Mark Twainfor decades and always hesitated before reading aloud the common racial epithet, which is used liberally in the book, a reflection of social attitudes in the mid-19th century…

“I’m by no means sanitizing Mark Twain,” Mr. Gribben said. “The sharp social critiques are in there. The humor is intact. I just had the idea to get us away from obsessing about this one word, and just let the stories stand alone.” (The book also substitutes “Indian” for “injun.”) [full article here]

Except that of course he is sanitizing it. Gibben’s scheme to end the book’s contentiousness is an end run around the book itself, a way to make it easier to swallow Twain’s social criticisms. A nice spoonful of sugar.

But, carbo-loading your literature isn’t the best idea. Read the rest of this entry »