Sunday, September 03, 2006

The Idiocy of Publishers

So I'm reading the Three Musketeers, as stated, and I'm about 9 chapters in. I'm finding the writing a little difficult, which makes sense considering the book was written in the 1800's. The problem is, I'm finding it too simplistic as well.

So the story is simplistic, which may be due to the fact that it's a children's book, but I would envision the book would be something like the movie "Shrek". Kids would love it, but it's really meant for adults. In this version, that estimation does not seem to be accurate.

I decided to go over to my bookcase and pick up my leather copy of "The Three Musketeers" and see if I could notice any differences. There were 8 extra chapters or so, and the book seemed to flow a little better. There is definitely a difference in translations, but I'm not sure how much of the content is disturbed.

Anyway, now I'm trying to decide what to do. Do I continue reading the book, knowing that it's probably an inferior version? Do I pick up where I left off in the Franklin leather copy, knowing that it's around 700 pages and school is on the horizon? Do I abandon the whole thing all together? I've been back and forth and I'm not sure what I'm going to do... place your vote. What would you do?

The one thing that I must impress, is that anyone making an abridged copy of anything should STATE that the copy is abridged. I've been looking over some of my other books, and I think I may have to find other copies of them too... including The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Again, nothing stated. There should be rules against this sort of thing.

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