Mark Twain Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
Published January 15th, 2011 | 
In America – as elsewhere – free speech is confined to the dead. — Mark Twain
So they are planning to remove the the “N” word from Huckleberry Finn. Samuel Clemens is rolling in his grave, I’m sure.
On one hand, this is not that big of a deal because the novel is in the public domain and, as such, the same freedom that allows these arrogant, misguided nitwits to revise Twain also makes it impossible for them to censor all editions of the book.
On the other hand, it’s an assault on art, common sense and education. Just as you wouldn’t say that a piece of costume jewelry has the same value as real jewelry, you can’t just trample on the creation of an artist and expect your perversion of it to have equal value as art or as an educational tool.
Here’s the deal: The “N” word — the word “nigger”, offensive though it be, is a word that carries the weight of our history. An ugly, albeit true history that cannot be buried or denied. One of the key purposes of great art is to illuminate those truths, however brutal and bring them to light. When you attempt to whitewash the language of that truth from our art, you do a disservice to everyone.
Jane Austen Would Probably Laugh About This
Published October 26th, 2010 | I’m going to let you guys in on . . . well, I’m not sure that it’s a secret, but a tidbit that some would not believe about me: I read Jane Austen. Yes, it’s true. I adore Jane Austen. So it is with a measure of both fascination and silent horror that I read this headline in The Telegraph: "Jane Austen’s famous prose may not be hers after all".
To even suggest that Jane Austen didn’t write her books is something close to sacrilege in the literary world. Of course, when I actually read the article, it wasn’t nearly all that. Leave it to mainstream journalism to sensationalize the smallest things to attract readers. No, the “controversy” here, is spawned by an academic who studied some early drafts of Austen’s novel and came to the conclusion that — gasp — Jane Austen must’ve had an editor. See, in Austen’s early drafts she misspelled some words, used unorthodox grammar and didn’t always break passages into paragraphs.
A few things about this:
1) I’ve always imagined that Austen wrote her stories in something of a fever. So, it really doesn’t surprise me that she initially laid her story down without regard for convention.
2) Name one writer who can spell. Even I’m not the ace speller I was back in the fifth grade.
3) Jane Austen is Jane Austen not for her ability to break things up into paragraphs, but for her memorable characters and for her insights into the social mores of her time.
4) Does Professor Katherine Sutherland really imagine that novels are published without being edited? I know in this day and age it must be hard to imagine but come on!
. . . and He Claims to be an Expert on Cyber Law
Published October 22nd, 2010 | As much as I would like to escape to a spa for a massage, facial and a slimming body wrap, duty calls. Things to write, submissions to read and other nonsense to deal with.
Nonsense, like this blog post I read this morning — "Is it Plagiarism ? or Is it Irresponsible Publishing?". The author, Naavi (Avatar, anyone?)identifies himself as the author of a book called Cyber Laws for Every Netizen in India and claims the a similarly titled book, The Cyberlaw Handbook: for every Netizen is plagiarized from his own.
Certainly, it’s possible. This Naavi and the other book’s author, Vakul Sharma are both citizens of India and both writing about the same subject. However, I doubt it. Why? Well, both books were originally published around the same time period. I’m always skeptical about claims of plagiarism where the works in question were published within a couple of years of each other because it’s likely both authors were writing their books at around the same time, so unless you can prove that one author had direct access to the other’s draft or notes, it’s a dubious claim. Secondly, even if Naavi’s book was published before Sharma’s, Naavi’s book doesn’t seem to have as wide of a distribution, so it’s certainly plausible that Sharma had never heard of it. Thirdly, Sharma is a well-known lawyer and expert on Indian Cyber Law who has written about the subject quite extensively over the years. It’s highly doubtful that he’d require any insights from Naavi, who I suspect is more of a self-educated novice on the subject. Lastly, titles aren’t protected by copyright. So, if the only similarity between the two books is a couple of words in the title and the general subject matter, I’m afraid Naavi has no case.
So his post is, as I say,self-aggrandizing nonsense.
