Twice-told tales: An anthology of short fiction

I purchased this book for a literature class that I dropped early on (overloaded schedule). I now wish I'd taken it, or re-enrolled at another time, because it would definitely have been interesting to participate in some class discussion of the stories it contains. The first third of the book features two (three in one case) versions of the same story. Either the author felt it deserved an improvement, or the audience had changed. In one case, for example, Jack London wrote about a young man traversing a frozen landscape for a young boys publication, then revised for one geared more toward adults. It was quite interesting to gauge what was changed for the audience's greater maturity and ability to handle squeamish scenes. Next, we are show more given stories by different authors that are variations on a theme. The comparison is more about how different authors handle subjects in relation to their own background or experience. Both of these parts include study questions for further analysis, which I imagine would be quite helpful for an instructor to either use outright or build upon for testing purposes. I am not sure what the purpose of the final section is, as it is just a selection of stories with no discussion questions or any overt relation to any of the themes or authors in the other parts of the book, although they were all of a similar quality and era.
Personally, I have a hang-up about stories having a clear ending and the dearth of vaguely concluded tales was disappointing to me. That is the main reason I'd like to have discussed them in class. At some times, I was unable to even denote any kind of theme or reason for having read the story in the first place. Especially in the case of one of the final selections, "Awakening." A young boy goes to music lessons, but doesn't like them so he stops going. He wants to be a writer. He's not very good. His dad is pissed. The end. Um, what? Does he write? Does his dad send him to military school? Does he turn into a purple potato and dance a jig? I haven't a clue. I'd really like to know, because I came to care about this boy and want him to fulfill his dreams. If there was some sort of note telling me this story was vaguely autobiographical, I would have been mollified. However, currently I am just left with a vague dissatisfaction.
My other main complaint is that the time period most of the tales were written during is very obviously prior to the civil rights movement. By which I mean to say that there is frequent use of the N-word. And it's very nonchalant. And, none of the discussion questions touch on that fact. I find that unacceptable, even (maybe especially?) in a book with a publication date of 1979. I was born in 1981, so I wasn't alive then, and maybe that was still (societally, not in actuality) okay, but I kind of think not. I'm not saying that kind of thing should be censored (see recent discussions of edited "Huck Finn"), but it at least deserves comment. Also, warning. So, this is me warning you. If you are upset by this kind of thing, skip this book.
In fact, I might go so far as to say, only read this book if you are doing so for class, or you really, really, really like old short stories.
This kind of makes it seem that I didn't like this book, but I have to say that it serves its stated purpose exceedingly well. The selections are juxtaposed in an exceedingly complementary manner in part two, and it can't have been easy to track down different versions of the same story for part one. I found no typographical errors. The discussion questions are very thought-provoking and would spur a lively class discussion, even if the students presented as initially reticent. Also, writers used much more evocative descriptors as well as a better range of vocabulary than is seen in today's popular fiction. That is to say, I felt quite a bit more intelligent after reading this book. show less