Notable Quotable

Another memorable quote from Mark Twain. This time, he imparts a pearl of wisdom for all aspiring writers ...

"Substitute damn every time you're inclined to write very; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be."

Hmmm ... sound advice, although it might get a bit annoying for the unfortunate editor!

Mark Twain on Obituaries and Funerals

Today's Notable Quotable comes from the American author and humorist, Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), who reveals a certain cynicism when contemplating the subject of death and obituaries.


"I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure".

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying that I approved of it".

Obviously, Twain didn't place much stock in the ancient idiom never speak ill of the dead!

Ding Dong! The Book is Dead ... or is it?

The book, as we know it, is dead. As a dodo. Kaput. At least that’s what the countless doom-mongering naysayers who populate newspaper columns and the internet would have us believe. Citing the inexorable rise in popularity of e-readers like the Kindle and the iPad, pundits have been predicting the demise of the humble paperback with increasing fervour.

Why the clamber to relegate the book to the annals of history? The current fashion of bestowing on the book the status of relic seems to me somewhat short-sighted. In their haste to declare the book dead, an artefact of the innocent, halcyon days of the pre-digital era, the anti-book brigade has overlooked one key fact – the printed word has a proven track record when it comes to longevity. It has, in fact, been around since the invention of the first printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1440. Dear reader, can you envisage the Kindle still going strong in 570 years? I think not.

That is not to say that e-readers are not mounting a serious challenge to books in their traditional form. There is, however, no reason why the printed word and its digitised cousin cannot co-exist happily in this brave new electronic world. There will always be those who prefer one form over the other, and that is the very reason why books and e-readers will never become mutually exclusive. We do not live in a homogeneous society, so why should we settle for homogeneous choices?

This particular debate will, no doubt, continue to rumble on for years to come. Perhaps next time we are tempted to write off the book (excuse the pun!), we would do well to remember the words of the equally immutable Mark Twain:

“the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

Literary Vandalism

Mark Twain seems to be everywhere these days. The publication of his autobiography last year to mark the 100th anniversary of his death garnered many headlines. Recently, however, the great American author has been making news for entirely different reasons. Or rather, one of his most famous creations has.

A few days ago, it was announced that a small US-based publishing house called NewSouth Books is preparing to bring out an edition of Twain’s classic novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with some notable changes. Any reference to the word “nigger” is to be replaced by “slave”, and (inexplicably) “injun” is to be erased in favour of “Indian”.

The man who originally advocated these changes is Alan Gribben, an English professor at the University of Alabama and a noted Twain scholar. That any person associated with teaching English literature would call for changes such as these is quite unbelievable, and by a man purporting to be a Twain scholar is unconscionable.

Gribben’s rationale for expurgating Huck Finn is his belief that today’s readers have become uncomfortable reading words with such negative connotations. He argues that teachers increasingly find it difficult to explain the context of such words to their students, and teenagers are confused when confronted with them. He believes the language of Huck Finn is the reason why the novel has dropped off curriculum lists all over America.

In today’s society, there is no question that the word “nigger” is objectionable and highly offensive. The word, with all it’s associations with slavery, racism and segregation, has become a toxic throwback to America’s ugly past. But is this a reason to expunge the word entirely from the classics of American literature? (Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird has also come under heavy criticism for the use of the n-word). Surely not! If anything, these novels, in their original form, serve to highlight how far America has come since the awful years of slavery and segregation. These books provide a snapshot of American life in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and should be preserved - sanitising them only serves to dilute their message.

And as for Gribben's assertion that the non-inclusion of these novels on national curriculums is a direct result of the offensive language contained there-in, I would argue that it is better for the book to be read in it's true form by a few, than a censored version to be read by the masses.