Rewriting History...Sucks
I can't believe that they are changing the language in Mark Twain's classics so that ethnic groups aren't offended. Not only is that an infringement on his work, it is downright stupid as well.
I wrote a book called Desperation and I wanted one of my characters, Billy Barth, to personify pure evil. As you might guess, he had a toilet mouth. Would a character meant to be evil talk like Ward Cleaver? I didn't think so. I wasn't making the guy swear so that I could shock someone into buying filth.
The best way to convey evil was to make the man evil.
A couple of months after the book came out...it is a book about hope and redemption and faith that rises above evil...a woman stood before me at a Media Play Book Signing. She held the open, already purchased book open to the middle. There were yellow highlights all over my words.
"How can you sleep at night writing such filth?" she asked.
I was shocked. I felt like I was being yelled at. Something that had taken me years to write and was about so much more than what she was saying.
"You have the "F" word in here a thousand times," she said as she flipped through the book.
I could have explained the process of establishing the character as evil. I could have lectured her about the main character rising above the filth to make it as a loving human being.
I could have.
"Did you buy that?" I asked.
"Of course," she said.
"Then who gives a flying fu&*," I told her.
You should have seen her face.
But the thing is that Mark Twain was writing at a certain time with a certain vision in mind. His words should never be changed. He wasn't writing that way to piss people off. He was conveying the message of the times. That was exactly how Native Americans and African Americans were treated.
Changing Twain's words now won't fix those injustices.
Changing those words now is more of a slap in the face to those groups than leaving it alone is.
What the hell?
I don't get it at all.
Injun Joe must be rolling around in his grave.
I wrote a book called Desperation and I wanted one of my characters, Billy Barth, to personify pure evil. As you might guess, he had a toilet mouth. Would a character meant to be evil talk like Ward Cleaver? I didn't think so. I wasn't making the guy swear so that I could shock someone into buying filth.
The best way to convey evil was to make the man evil.
A couple of months after the book came out...it is a book about hope and redemption and faith that rises above evil...a woman stood before me at a Media Play Book Signing. She held the open, already purchased book open to the middle. There were yellow highlights all over my words.
"How can you sleep at night writing such filth?" she asked.
I was shocked. I felt like I was being yelled at. Something that had taken me years to write and was about so much more than what she was saying.
"You have the "F" word in here a thousand times," she said as she flipped through the book.
I could have explained the process of establishing the character as evil. I could have lectured her about the main character rising above the filth to make it as a loving human being.
I could have.
"Did you buy that?" I asked.
"Of course," she said.
"Then who gives a flying fu&*," I told her.
You should have seen her face.
But the thing is that Mark Twain was writing at a certain time with a certain vision in mind. His words should never be changed. He wasn't writing that way to piss people off. He was conveying the message of the times. That was exactly how Native Americans and African Americans were treated.
Changing Twain's words now won't fix those injustices.
Changing those words now is more of a slap in the face to those groups than leaving it alone is.
What the hell?
I don't get it at all.
Injun Joe must be rolling around in his grave.
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