old Grump
01-08-2011, 08:36 PM
Excerpt from a Tony Norman article:
Friday, January 07, 2011
By Tony Norman (http://www.post-gazette.com/search/archive.asp?cCat=153), Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
As a society, we've decided that there's nothing more offensive when it comes to educating our young than an unexpurgated look at what it means to be an American.
In 1884, Samuel Clemens, a cultural DJ who went by the pen name "Mark Twain," dropped some terrifying science about American life called "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade)."
It is a thematically ambitious novel with a problematic narrative structure, but no one has ever written a better satire or a more truthful account of race and class in America. It is a magnificent picaresque, featuring bountiful dollops of grace and grotesquery, that continues to resonate with those brave enough to actually read it.
The novel also features 219 appearances of the word "nigger," resulting in its forced exile to the margins of the high school curriculum in recent years.
Next month, a new edition of "Huckleberry Finn" that substitutes the word "slave" for the racist epithet will be published (http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/45645-upcoming-newsouth-huck-finn-eliminates-the-n-word.html) by NewSouth Books "Injun" has also been removed, in keeping with the mission of shielding young minds from any knowledge of America's racist past and self-deceptive present.
In a misguided attempt to rescue the novel from those who stupidly accuse it of racism, its editor, Auburn University professor Alan Gribben, has rendered it linguistically and morally incoherent.
Huck, the novel's adolescent narrator, is the illiterate son of a violent backwoods drunk. Fleeing exploitation by his shiftless father, Huck and his newfound companion, Jim, a runaway slave, escape down the Mississippi River on a raft. The story takes place in the 1840s, decades before the Civil War.
Like most 19th-century Americans, Huck believes whites are superior to blacks, so he initially feels guilty helping Miss Watson's "property" escape to freedom. He lives in a world where racism is the basis for American exceptionalism.
Once free, Jim's plan is to return to Missouri to rescue his wife and children. His growth from runaway property to full human in Huck's eyes provides the novel with its moral center.
The novel is famous both for its use of negro dialect and the unrefined tongue of Missouri's white working class. Every character sounds like Stepin Fetchit, which continually mystifies readers who assume blacks and whites are culturally distinct.
Despite its resemblance to a child's adventure story, "Huckleberry Finn" is a dagger to the heart of white privilege and its all-pervasive cultural assumptions. That's why the racists of Twain's time despised the book. They knew it was a veiled attack. We're too culturally self-absorbed to see what was obvious to them. We're so hung up on a word we miss the liberating speeches.
Tony Norman: tnorman@post-gazette.com (tnorman@post-gazette.com) or 412-263-1631. More articles by this author (http://www.post-gazette.com/search/archive.asp?cCat=153)
First published on January 7, 2011 at 12:00 am
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11007/1116193-153.stm#ixzz1ATI5qypx (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11007/1116193-153.stm#ixzz1ATI5qypx)
Only those who read will notice. the rest think LOL is a complete sentence and grammatically correct. We will repeat the mistakes of history because those who rewrite it are fools and those who do not read it are bigger fools.
Friday, January 07, 2011
By Tony Norman (http://www.post-gazette.com/search/archive.asp?cCat=153), Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
As a society, we've decided that there's nothing more offensive when it comes to educating our young than an unexpurgated look at what it means to be an American.
In 1884, Samuel Clemens, a cultural DJ who went by the pen name "Mark Twain," dropped some terrifying science about American life called "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade)."
It is a thematically ambitious novel with a problematic narrative structure, but no one has ever written a better satire or a more truthful account of race and class in America. It is a magnificent picaresque, featuring bountiful dollops of grace and grotesquery, that continues to resonate with those brave enough to actually read it.
The novel also features 219 appearances of the word "nigger," resulting in its forced exile to the margins of the high school curriculum in recent years.
Next month, a new edition of "Huckleberry Finn" that substitutes the word "slave" for the racist epithet will be published (http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/45645-upcoming-newsouth-huck-finn-eliminates-the-n-word.html) by NewSouth Books "Injun" has also been removed, in keeping with the mission of shielding young minds from any knowledge of America's racist past and self-deceptive present.
In a misguided attempt to rescue the novel from those who stupidly accuse it of racism, its editor, Auburn University professor Alan Gribben, has rendered it linguistically and morally incoherent.
Huck, the novel's adolescent narrator, is the illiterate son of a violent backwoods drunk. Fleeing exploitation by his shiftless father, Huck and his newfound companion, Jim, a runaway slave, escape down the Mississippi River on a raft. The story takes place in the 1840s, decades before the Civil War.
Like most 19th-century Americans, Huck believes whites are superior to blacks, so he initially feels guilty helping Miss Watson's "property" escape to freedom. He lives in a world where racism is the basis for American exceptionalism.
Once free, Jim's plan is to return to Missouri to rescue his wife and children. His growth from runaway property to full human in Huck's eyes provides the novel with its moral center.
The novel is famous both for its use of negro dialect and the unrefined tongue of Missouri's white working class. Every character sounds like Stepin Fetchit, which continually mystifies readers who assume blacks and whites are culturally distinct.
Despite its resemblance to a child's adventure story, "Huckleberry Finn" is a dagger to the heart of white privilege and its all-pervasive cultural assumptions. That's why the racists of Twain's time despised the book. They knew it was a veiled attack. We're too culturally self-absorbed to see what was obvious to them. We're so hung up on a word we miss the liberating speeches.
Tony Norman: tnorman@post-gazette.com (tnorman@post-gazette.com) or 412-263-1631. More articles by this author (http://www.post-gazette.com/search/archive.asp?cCat=153)
First published on January 7, 2011 at 12:00 am
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11007/1116193-153.stm#ixzz1ATI5qypx (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11007/1116193-153.stm#ixzz1ATI5qypx)
Only those who read will notice. the rest think LOL is a complete sentence and grammatically correct. We will repeat the mistakes of history because those who rewrite it are fools and those who do not read it are bigger fools.