Huck Finn Gutted by PC

Revising past literary works to fit modern PC sensibilities is just stupid and crass. This comes up because NewSouth Books is publishing a revised version of Mark Twain’s masterpiece The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, removing the “N” word and replacing it with the word “slave”.

Doing that removes all meaning of the relationship between the races at the time the novel reflects. What would this precedent do to all lit or art? Tom Bowdler tried this with Shakespeare in the 19^th century, wanting to make those writings more acceptable to his time; thus the word “bowdlerize” (Verb: Remove material that is considered improper or offensive from [a text or account], esp. with the result that it becomes weaker or less effective: "a bowdlerized version of the story".)  Isn’t this a weird inversion, a reflection of the upside down world we live in when there was more literary freedom in Shakespeare’s and Twain’s time that we have now?  

The reason the editor, Dr. Alan Gribben, decided this was the track to take, was because he found out some teachers were refusing to teach the book because of the use of the “N” word. Good grief. Those teachers should have their credentials taken away. Teaching has been mostly reduced to indoctrination, and we need to stop it, and this would be a good place to start. Something else that’s been going on with this novel is that often teachers have parents sign a consent note allowing the student to read it. Not only are schools handing out prophylactics for sexual activity, they’re handing out intellectual prophylactics.  

Would a modern writer of an historical novel of those times be able to use the “N” word? I think not. Are we reverting back to a time when D H Lawrence or Henry Miller will be removed or edited?

These knuckleheads have also removed the word “injun” from Huckleberry Finn. Really?

What’s the endgame for these people? Historical revisionism? Whether or not it’s intentional, that’ll be the outcome if such like minded editors are allowed to continue and let this horrid idea expand into all lit and art.

Let’s hope that no one buys this edition, especially our PC school systems.