Am rereading this before I read Percival Everett's James. I last read HF in high school, and did not remember such prolific use of the n word. I am certainly aware of the controversy in this regard--whether the book should be "banned" for this (despite the generally antislavery sentiments of the book) . I just don't remember it being used so liberally, such that even though I see all the arguments for taking it in stride (because this is how "naturally" Huck as the narrator would have thought/talked, etc.), I am still squirming a bit. Which makes me wonder if I read a bowdlerized version.
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We had the full fat version in school. The sort of people you expect very much enjoyed lingering and emphasising that word to cause deniable offence.
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We did not study this book
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This is similar to my secret garden experience
I think in the 80s a lot of sanitised classics must have been doing the rounds
I read HF and there's zero chance my mum would have given me the original version
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Good god. You are modern adults (presumably educated ones). It's just words on a page in a book of its time and place. Read the books with that knowledge (or don't) but don't ask that someone else change them so that it is not of its time and place, lest you be made to 'squirm'.
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No need to be so niggardly in your approach to this book madders
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I wasn't suggesting that it should be changed! I was just commenting that because I don't remember feeling uncomfortable when I read it in high school, they probably gave us a censored version without making it clear. Am not sure how I feel about that (being kept in the dark that it was bowdlerized). They did it to Shakespeare too--the version of Macbeth we were given to read had the slightly off-colour monologue from the watchman (?) removed, but our English teacher rebelled and gave us the full version in xerox.
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ha, Shakespeare. I did Romeo & Juliet in school..
As Mercutio and Tybalt meet
"Draw thy tool!" (cue giggling teenage boys)
"My naked weapon is out!".. here endeth the class due to uncontrolled laughter.
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Or when we did Othello for the leaving cert and had the most prudish American teacher...
"Sir, please explain a cuckold again"
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i wonder if books of the 2020s will be censored/edited in 20 years time
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Sorry PP I completely misread your post as you wondering if you should read a bowdlerized version (now). My bad
Unless you are very young I doubt you read a bowdlerized version at school. The ‘N word’ while obviously a very bad word didn’t hold anything like the same almost magical horror then that it does now. Kids in class would probably have been more likely to joke about it than to call social services and threaten legal action…
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Got me humming Moon River now, a great song.
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we didn't have particularly complex views on racism in 80s Scotland, Italian counting as exotic and foreign in them days (oo pasta, you say), but we definitely would have had a disgust reaction to that particular word even then
I am quite sure things were edited "to improve readability"
things were done with more subtlety then I think - no cancellation fuss, just whip it out
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THANK YOU: I HAVE ORDERED A COPY!!
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With luck diceman books from the 2020s won’t becread in 20 years time.
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