Keep history honest. Please.

I read a hilarious satire on the rewriting of Roald Dahl’s language in new editions of his books. The article, titled “A Modest Proposal for Revisionist Gothic Literary Thoughtcrimes Against Wokespeak,” offers revisions of portions of several classics including Huckleberry Finn, Animal Farm, Gulliver’s Travels and The Cask of Amontillado. It’s over the top, as satire often is, but it underscores the sanctimoniousness and absurdity of the ideologically pure who consider themselves qualified to pave over the work of artists.

I’ve never really liked Roald Dahl’s books, to be honest. I remember my 2nd grade teacher reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and its sequel aloud in class, and though I was fully prepared to like the books — I was always interested in chocolate, and I loved my second grade teacher — I found them nightmarish. The movie was even worse.

But censorship after the fact? It’s unfair to any author, and it’s unfair to all readers. A major part of the value and power of books is that they keep history honest; they place us within the perspective of someone at a particular time, and we live for a little while within that perspective. There’s no substitute for reading in this respect.

That’s not to say there aren’t things that will make us uncomfortable. There are. And they should. I’ve reflected on that in several posts here throughout the years. Here’s one from 2009 on reading the Little House books as an adult. And one from 2013 on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. And here’s another about Laura Ingalls, when the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award was renamed in 2018.

There’s nothing that schools awareness of past perspectives like having to read someone else’s words for an extended period, and come to terms with the cognitive dissonance. But the result, for readers of all ages, is insight more complex and meaningful than what we would get from a sanitized book. For example, if we take out the racist vocabulary that saturates Huck Finn’s world and makes us cringe as we read it, his revolt against the slave culture becomes no big deal. But if we leave the atmosphere as casually and dehumanizingly racist as Twain made it, Huck’s decision not to turn Jim in exhilarates us and carries its rightful moral weight. Huck would rather go to hell than betray a friend.

Removing the language a particular group or time finds offensive totally strips literature of integrity as an artifact of culture. How do we come to terms with the past if we are not permitted to examine and wrestle with it for ourselves? Depriving us demeans authors and readers alike, and looks perilously close to a Ministry of Truth in the 21st century.