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Timebandit
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Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 854
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 Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 9:39 pm Post subject: |
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If such readers are so sensitive as to get the vapours over reading a word that has much to add to the historical context and history of oppression in the American south - fuck 'em.
Oh, wait, was that offensive?
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Tehanu
More or less, more or less
Joined: 12 Apr 2006
Posts: 17636
Location: Seceded from the Ford Nation
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| Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 9:46 pm Post subject: |
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Indeed.
| Quote: | | Consequently in this edition I have translated each usage of the n-word to read “slave” instead, since the term “slave” is closest in meaning and implication. Although the text loses some of the caustic sting that the n-word carries, that price seems small compared to the revolting effect that the more offensive word has on contemporary readers. |
Not to put to fine a point on it, the concept of owning slaves is pretty damn offensive. Caustically stinging, in fact. And I don't recall a huge amount of criticism of slavery in Huckleberry Finn, although it's been quite a while since I read it. |
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Rufus Polson
Purple Library Guy
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 3483
Location: SFU and/or the college of Riddlemastery at Caithnard
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| Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 10:30 pm Post subject: |
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Funny how inflammatory shifts not just with time but place. I'm not sure just what the most inflammatory word in Vancouver is, but I doubt that's the one. Inflammatory, sure, but I'd say words dealing with Asians or First Nations would be more so. The local history here just doesn't revolve around oppressing blacks in particular--we were more about head taxes on Chinese, rounding up the Japanese and putting them in camps and stealing their property, and generalized ongoing offences against the people who had the land when we came along wanting it.
Side thought . . . so does this mean all the references to blacks in Huck Finn were in fact to slaves? There were always *some* free blacks in the US, even in the South, weren't there? If you want to avoid offense, isn't there something offensive about creating the equivalence black = slave if it wasn't previously in the text? |
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Maestro
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Location: Vancouver
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| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 3:38 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | And I don't recall a huge amount of criticism of slavery in Huckleberry Finn, although it's been quite a while since I read it. |
There may not be specific criticisms of slavery in Huck Finn, but there is the most poignant reflection by Huck on the raft, when he decides not to turn Jim in as a runaway slave.
It may not be a direct criticism of slavery, but it is Twain providing a beautiful description of a person raised in a slave-holding country - and raised to believe that helping a runaway slave was the worst crime imaginable - coming to the realization that Jim the slave is every bit as much human as he is.
The simpleness of Huck's understanding of the issues involved, and his plain spoken way of describing them is pure Mark Twain. No one could read this without realizing that Twain was utterly opposed to slavery.
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Tehanu
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| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 4:36 am Post subject: |
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Fair enough. I didn't think Twain was in favour of slavery, I just didn't remember any particular condemnation of it. My point was more along the lines that if you're looking for offensiveness in the book, it is there. Hell, I recall that Huck cross-dresses at one point! I'm surprised fundies haven't gotten their knickers in a knot about that one.
Colbert is sending this up on his show. Quite well, I must say. |
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voice of the damned
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| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 5:21 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Side thought . . . so does this mean all the references to blacks in Huck Finn were in fact to slaves? There were always *some* free blacks in the US, even in the South, weren't there? If you want to avoid offense, isn't there something offensive about creating the equivalence black = slave if it wasn't previously in the text? |
As I recall, there's one scene where Huck's dad complains about having gone somewhere and seen an educated African-American, dressed up in nice clothes and whatnot. I don't think the person being described was a slave, but I think Huck's father must have used the N-word to describe the man.
| Quote: | There may not be specific criticisms of slavery in Huck Finn, but there is the most poignant reflection by Huck on the raft, when he decides not to turn Jim in as a runaway slave.
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Isn't that the scene where he decides that he can't worship the Christian god, because someone told him that the Christian god would want Jim returned to his rightful masters? |
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voice of the damned
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| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 10:32 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Hell, I recall that Huck cross-dresses at one point! I'm surprised fundies haven't gotten their knickers in a knot about that one.
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Well, I don't know what the fundies think about it. But at least one eminent American critic went to town with the homoerotic implications of that novel...
| Quote: | "Come Back to the Raft Ag’in, Huck Honey!"Fiedler's first critical work appeared in 1948 and came about from his habit of reading American novels to his sons. The essay appeared in a journal called Partisan Review and was the subject of a great amount of critical debate and controversy. "Come Back to the Raft Ag'in, Huck Honey!" argued a recurrent theme in American literature was an unspoken or implied homoerotic relationship between men, famously using Huckleberry Finn and Jim as examples. Pairs of men flee for wilderness rather than remain in the civilizing and domesticated world of women. Fiedler also deals with this male bonding in Love and Death in the American Novel (1960), Waiting for the End (1964) and The Return of the Vanishing American (1968).
As Winchell wrote in his book on Fiedler, "Reading ‘Come Back to the Raft’ over half a century later, one tends to forget that, prior to Fiedler, few critics had discussed classic American literature in terms of race, gender, and sexuality" (Winchell 53). Fiedler emphasized the fact the males paired in these wilderness adventures tend to be of different races as well, which created an additional critical dimension. "Come Back to the Raft" not only caused a stream of letters of protest to be sent to Partisan Review, but it also was attacked by the critical community. For instance, Queer theorist Christopher Looby argues that Fiedler's claims were noticeably given from a 20th century, urban perspective and did not adequately address the time period in which Huckleberry Finn was written
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voice of the damned
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| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 10:32 am Post subject: |
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| double post, sorry |
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voice of the damned
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Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 6134
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| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 12:46 am Post subject: |
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Well, that's it. I'm OUTTA here!!
| Quote: | South Korea has issued a ban on an erotic novel by the 18th-century French nobleman and writer, the Marquis de Sade, for "extreme obscenity," a Seoul official and publisher said Wednesday. The Korea Publication Ethics Commission, a state review board, told the local publisher of "The 120 Days of Sodom" to recall and destroy all copies currently at stores, senior board official Jang Tag-Hwan told AFP.
The translated version of the book, which details the sexual orgies of four wealthy French libertines who rape, torture and finally murder their mostly teenage victims, hit stores in the South last month.
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Can't say I've read the book, however, if the Pasolini film I saw is any indication(click at your own risk), I guess I'd say that if the banning of a book is ever justified, 120 DOS would be it.
Not that I personally think the banning of a book is ever justified. And from what I've heard(ahem), there is no enforced rule in Korea against the portrayal of sexual violence in pornography. Admittedly, De Sade takes these things to a whole other level.
| Quote: | "This book is not about promoting pornography and violence ... it mocks and criticises the dark side of human nature behind such acts," Lee Yoong, senior editor of Dongsuh Press, told AFP.
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Considering that De Sade himself engaged in activities in the same general ballpark as the ones portrayed in his books, it's debatable how much he was criticizing "the dark side of human nature". I'm taken to understand(again, not being well-read in his work) that he provides some interesting insights into human depravity, in a sorta "straight from the horse's mouth" fashion.
I've also read that he was a sincere opponent of capital punishment. Though that might have something to do with him being a prime candidate for it.
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6079_Smith_W
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Joined: 15 Nov 2011
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| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 5:11 am Post subject: |
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Sade was briefly made a judge under the republic, and he had his in-laws (who had persecuted and initiated court cases against him) before him. He refused to send them to the guillotine because killing someone as an instrument of the state was against his moral code.
I'd recommend reading Simone de Beauvoir's essay on him - Must we Burn Sade? - which concludes that although he was a poor writer, he was a revolutionary thinker.
As for 120 Days, I haven't read all of it - many of the later chapters are just in point form.
Pasolini's movie is one of the most powerful I have ever seen, and I find it sickening to watch. As an indictment of fascism, it SHOULD be difficult to watch. He actually grew up in Salo, the fascist state which existed briefly at the end of the war, where his film is set. Although the official story is that Pasolini was murdered by a prostitute, there is evidence it was a revenge murder because of his film's indictment of the rich and powerful. The film's the final reel, which he had with him, was stolen and butchered.
Criterion's site has some very good essays about it. Like Derek Jarman's Edward II, virtually all Pasolini's dialogue is straight from the original source.
http://www.criterion.com/films/532-salo-or-the-120-days-of-sodom |
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voice of the damned
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Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 6134
Location: slandered, libeled
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| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 4:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Pasolini's movie is one of the most powerful I have ever seen, and I find it sickening to watch. As an indictment of fascism, it SHOULD be difficult to watch. |
In my experience, Salo is more of a punch-line for pub banter than anything else. "Okay, let's hear everybody's favorite scene from Salo! I liked the shit dinner myself."
But it is interesting to see a depiction of fascism emphasizing its futuristic/pseudo-Nietzschean aspects. I doubt Pasolini had the Ayn Rand cult in mind when he made the film, but it works quite well as a send-up of their general outlook.
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I hear words I never heard in the Bible. |
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6079_Smith_W
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Joined: 15 Nov 2011
Posts: 571
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| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 9:50 pm Post subject: |
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Well it's not exactly the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.. Maybe it's the fact that it wasn't just a made up story, it was in part autobiographical.
Also, that other people recognized its seriousness enough that they killed him for it. |
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