Amazon I am ASHAMED of you-wtf ftw
via @mikecane quoting Gawker:
Amazon Hawks Censored Joseph Conrad Book, Calibrated for Delicate 'Modern' Eyes
Amazon recently added this gem, from a conservative publisher concerned with "the phenomenon of manipulation based in white guilt." So white guilty they changed Joseph Conrad's title, The Nigger of Narcissus, to The N-Word of Narcissus.
Here's the production description, including a rather anachronistic gloss:
WordBridge Publishing has performed a public service in putting Joseph Conrad's neglected classic into a form accessible to modern readers. This new version addresses the reason for its neglect: the profusion of the so-called n-word throughout its pages. Hence, the introduction of "n-word" throughout the text, to remove this offence to modern sensibilities. The N-word of the Narcissus tells the tale of a fateful voyage of a British sailing ship, and on that voyage the ability of a lone black man to take the crew hostage. The ability of this man to manipulate an entire ship's crew can no longer be seen as a mere exercise in storytelling. Conrad in fact appears to have been the first to highlight the phenomenon of manipulation based in white guilt.
How can Amazon get away with this kind of shit? I protest!
1 comments:
The villian of this piece is not Amazon - it's Ruben Alvarado, the person responsible, apparently, for this 'revision' of Conrad's text. If Amazon stopped distributing it, I'm sure they'd find someone else who'd sell it, and probably whine about "PC gone mad!" whilst they were at it.
Sounds on a par with the recent 'revised' version of Darwin's "On The Origin of Species" put out by Ray Comfort, which consisted of deleted a few choice sections of the original and adding an introduction declaring how flawed the Theory of Evolution is. Worst part is that they were handing out copies to students on the anniversary of Darwin's birthday.
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