The Chris Moeller Archives

By Order of the Author

Samuel Clemens' second century in the ground is off to only a so-so start. Initial sales of his final book-- his autobiography-- are booming, but word comes today that an Atlanta publisher is preparing to re-release Mark Twain's 1884 masterwork "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" sans the words "nigger" and "injun." It's a sad day indeed.

Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams gave us a less-than-full-throated defense of Twain and "Huck Finn" in an article today, which makes one weep for a time long lost to history when liberals weren't afraid of their own shadows, an age before they saw value in neutering meaningful art, keeping tally of racial epithets (there are 219 "nigger"s in Twain's classic, according to Williams), and insulting the intelligence of children. "Is ('Huck Finn') a classic work of young adult literature, or a racist tract?" It's neither, Mary. It's a classic work of American literature, "the best work we've had," according to Hemingway, and the source of "all modern American literature."

Twain, the satirist, would indeed see "the irony" over the objection to his work, but he wouldn't be amused by it. He'd be pissed. In an early "scrap" of his autobiography, an acquaintance, "Mr. X," has the audacity to edit an introduction Twain wrote, upon request, for inclusion in the man's book. In fury, Twain resolves to have the entire "edited" manuscript later included in his autobiography, as it now appears more than a century later, complete with every crossed-out word and correction, "that is, suggestion" from this "skull full of axle-grease," "Mr. X," along with extensive annotations defending the pre-edited product. Translation of anecdote: Hands off the man's work.

This 21st century "edit" goes to the very heart of the legendary book. The dialects of its characters stand at the forefront of the narrative. They are mid-country, America-in-its-adolescence, "improper" manners of speech captured with such precision for the first time in literature. Now the word "nigger," employed with great regularity around Huck's racist home and community, will appear in publications as "slave" instead, leading to such headache-inducing phrases in the story as "free slave." (To paraphrase one clever (anonymous) commenter online, should Huck and Jim now be given life jackets as well?)

Last month, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour attempted his part in scrubbing America's racist DNA whiter than Aunt Polly's fence, misrepresenting the history of the reprehensible, racist "White Citizens Councils" of the mid-century South. Now the scrubbing is being done by the mushy left, and the peculiar thing is that it isn't even fashionable at this point, I thought, for the PC cops to be going after the word "nigger." My media sources might be different, but I thought that the leaders of the African-American creative culture had effectively claimed the word for themselves in triumph, just as gay men and women have empowered for themselves the word "queer," and even before that, lest we forget, "gay."

Call me a cynic, but I can't help but see a motive in this publishing venture that others aren't talking about-- the potential, cynical profit for NewSouth Publishing in pimping a version of the nation's most important book that can be ordered in bulk by an amalgamation of our nation's perpetually-skittish school boards.

Give Twain back his words. He needs 'em all. Aunt Sally's trying to adopt him and sivilize him. The author once said that the difference between the perfect word and the almost-perfect word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. Hell, the "Notice" on the very first page of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" reads directly: "The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech." Our children need to be set free to see the world beyond the walls of their parents' house, just as Huck did.

posted by CM @ 8:34 PM