Hope someone got fired for that blunder!

I just read The Color Purple, which is epistolary and also redacts a person’s name like this. I wonder if Alice Walker was deliberately mimicking early novels (maybe as a statement about the newness of the black voice in literature?).

One of my favorite novels is Wells' "The Time Machine." I love how he redacted the main character's name so that it would seem like a true story. I know it's been used everywhere, but this was my favorite usage in particular.

I think I do too. And I think that's what audiobooks do as well. I was just wonderin'!

Interesting!! the first time i came across this was in middle school when i was reading Les Miserables. I never could figure out why the name of the town was Le _____

Ohhh I wonder if that's common in other literature as well! I recently finished a book by a Korean author and another by a Japanese author and both of them would use XX when referring to streets and apartment numbers. I just assumed they didn't feel like creating a fake one, but it would make a lot more sense if those were redacted for the sake of privacy.

I always say "Mr M" in my head.

I always wondered how you were supposed to read this in your head. Do you say Mr. M? ("Mr. Em") or can you make up a name, like Mr. Montrose...

i'm learning quite a bit from these comments though!

Ha ha, this is hilarious. You thought it was a smudge.

I never did find out where in the world “Major ___ de Coverley” was supposed to be.

I don't really care about dream analysis, but thanks.

Yes, it is unfair of you. Also Freud != Jung. I suggest you try the first section of psychology and alchemy. Jung documents the analysis of a subject via dreams. It's about as easy to read as Jung gets.

I was taught by my Literature professors that Russian novelists did it, at least in part, to make their books more timeless, as location names were known to change depending on who was ruling. Street names, buildings, etc would change also depending on if they were named after someone and how that person was perceived at the time...a well-known example would be St Petersburg, which was Petrograd and then Leningrad, then back to St Petersburg. Only on a pettier level of changing names...(I mean, I think there are probably multiple explanations. This is just one.)

I consider love of Jung to be something of a red flag for rightwingers that are into the absolute bullshit that is Jordan Peterson-style pseudoscience and theorizing. This is admittedly perhaps unfair of me. But Jung (and Freud), pioneers as they were in their field, are fairly... how to put it... they aren't exactly up to date on modern psychoanalysis, with many of their ideas shown to be unscientific and flawed.

There are also character names redacted like Prince ______ in The Idiot.

Have you read Jung? I've read many academic texts, and nothing compares to the incredible range and obscurity of the ancient texts he references, and in so many langauges. God knows how he found these books or was able to read them all. Even in the age of the internet I often can't find references. You also seem to have a snidey conceited tone toward Jung and his work.

"Should I marry S.? Not if she won't tell me the rest of the letters in her name" - Woody Allen

Thanks that makes sense

You're overestimating the size of the places being hidden: at this point, first name and town might well be enough to allow people to identify your address, and certainly town plus whatever other information was in the thing being censored would be.

Same thing

Another excellent modern example

Yeah I’ve heard it labelled the Dostoyevsky dash as well, only recently though funnily enough.

That is interesting now you mention it - that’s my lunch time reading for tomorrow then!

Like rain on yer wedding day.

I always wondered this about names in older novels as well. Like you'll see a character referred to as "Mr. M----". Same thing?

This is the 19th century equivalent of shooting your movie on a phone so that the footage seems "real". In movies it makes the depicted events seem more immediate and genuine, because "obviously no one was paid to film this." The effect that 19th century authors want to create is like, "it must be true, otherwise he wouldn't care about implying that this apparently totally real lady might be a whore who writes letters to men without parental supervision."