PulpLit.net

Potter and Bowdler?

As mentioned by my esteemed cousin Edward, Harry Potter fervor has once again stormed across the entire world. Much is being made of the way in which the bespectacled lad and his friends have been growing and maturing during their time at Hogwarts. At this point, I'm very tempted to make a joke involving puberty and the handling of magic wands, but I believe those references alone will suffice.

Despite my love of fantasy fiction, I have never climbed aboard the express train to Hogwarts. Part of it is due to my dislike of textual mischief - the American editions of the Potter books are edited so as to remove any British terms, grammar or slang that American kids might be unfamiliar with. I think this smacks of condescension - kids still read C.S. Lewis and Roald Dahl in the original British text. The odd British words are part of the fun. Imagine an edition of The Lord of the Rings with the text corrected to American spelling conventions. There would be rioting in the streets. Thus, you can still read American editions of LOTR that make frequent mention of "faggots of wood."

But what irks me even more is that, despite the availability of "adult" editions of the Potter books, you can't buy editions in America with the unedited text. You have to go to something like Amazon.co.uk to get them (and pay exorbitant shipping costs).

Spelling conventions can be a tricky issue when it comes to fiction. As a writer myself, I can vouch for the fact that sometimes even the way the words look on the page--their specific visual arrangement, right down to the letters--can make a difference in the cadences or flow of the text. It's something as simple as "practice" versus "practise," to say nothing of replacing an entire word (such as substituting "truck" for "lorry"). I think it's a shame that books so well-loved by so many have to be altered in what seems to me a fairly cynical move on the part of the publishers. If I were Potter author J.K. Rowling, I would be chagrined that my texts were being fiddled with for any reason. Given the occasionally controversial nature of the Potter books--I'm referring to the concerns voiced by some of those in the religious community--it could potentially be a slippery slope from correcting a few words to changing whole phrases or sentences to tone down their "blasphemous" nature.

I've read only the first Potter book - I read a paperback edition I picked up while in London - but I do want to finish the series. As such, I have been forced to trawl eBay for a paperback set of the UK editions.

Again, this is too bad. Scholastic, Rowlings's American publisher, which has made so much money off Harry Potter fans, could at least offer those fans the option of reading the books unaltered--without having to cross the Atlantic to get them.