Huck Finn also has the distinction of being the first movie I saw at the theater with a boy. Awww...
While Huck Finn isn't on my 100 Best list, which only includes novels from 1900-1998, I'm sure in most people's minds it qualifies as a classic. What do you think of this new edition? Will it make Twain approachable to a wider audience of readers? Is it criminal censorship of the worst kind?
Talk amongst yourselves.
Huck Finn image found here.
Katie had commenting difficulties, so I am posting for her:
ReplyDeleteI read the article you linked to in your blog and I thought this quote was interesting..."This is not an effort to render Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn colorblind," said Gribben, speaking from his office at Auburn University at Montgomery, where he's spent most of the past 20 years heading the English department. "Race matters in these books. It's a matter of how you express that in the 21st century."
Right...except that Huck Finn wasn't published in the 21st century, it was published in the 19th century.
Hm. I think I side with Gribben on this. I kind of see it as a translation so that a particular audience will read it, and I like how he put it in terms of capturing part of the reading market. It's not ideal to change an author's original work, but we've done that to the Bible in an effort to reach folks of other languages, teens, moms, etc. Could've left it in Greek and whatever else it came in, but then it would just be coffee table decoration in even more homes. Well, maybe it would still be read by Nichole and Dr. White and Mel Gibson. But not the common man ;)
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