Twain scholar supports altering 'Huckleberry Finn'

In the midst of a national debate over censorship, Mark Twain impersonator and scholar McAvoy Layne is coming down on the side of altering the author's text.

A proposed edition of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" will remove the 219 references to the "n-word" and replace it with "slave." The publisher, NewSouth Books, is working with Alan Gribben, also a respected Twain scholar and head of the English department at Auburn University at Montgomery, Ala.

After experiencing first-hand the challenges of teaching "Huckleberry Finn" 23 years ago and receiving a less than warm reception, Layne says he sees the benefit of altering - some would say censoring - the work.

"I took that word to a half-black, half-white classroom in Las Vegas and the contempt weighed 40 pounds," Layne said. "From (the students' perspective) here's a dead white guy who just used a word that negates everything I was trying to say ... the word is the offsetting factor.

"By that experience I have gone the way of Gribben."

Originally published in 1885, "Huckleberry Finn" tells the story of a poor white boy and his relationship with Jim, a runaway slave. The year of its release, the Concord, Mass., Library banned it as being "too coarse for our youth." The novel has been making banned book lists ever since.

"In 1885, for context, the 'n-word' was actually a kinder word than the word slave," Layne said. "Since then, though, the 'n-word' has become 10 times more pejorative."

Removing the offending word is a way to keep Huck Finn in the classroom, giving teachers a tool that allows them to teach it without having the message overshadowed.

"Alan is a kind-hearted person who is a huge Twainiac and who really wants the work to remain in our schools so that the next generation can experience it," Layne said. "The fact that it comes from him is huge ... anyone who has ever taught 'Huckleberry' in the classroom over time will see the knee-jerk reaction that gets in the way of teaching."

"Gribben is doing a great service and he has been brave in the face of this, but I think he saw it coming," Layne said. "This is a version that can be taught in high school and we can encourage college students to read the original text when they're more prepared to discuss the use of the word."

Mark Twain scholars are debating this furiously, and many see this as an opening to discuss race in a meaningful way.

"Jocelyn Chadwick, an African-American assistant professor at Harvard and author of 'The Jim Dilemma: Reading Race in Huckleberry Finn,' has said that the language in 'Huckleberry Finn' was and is uncomfortable ... and it should be," Layne said. "I look at this as a wonderful critical-thinking opportunity for all of us and it's a wonderful argument to have.

"It's a testament to our progress that we can have this discussion and Huckleberry would love the controversy, seeing as how he wasn't in school and didn't especially care about rules."