I'm tearing my hair out after wasting about three hours trying to find a way to get the original UK editions of Harry Potter for my Kindle. Despite the fact that J.K. Rowling owns the digital rights to her work, she and her company decided to respect the territorial rights of the print publishers. So, U.S. customers can only buy the U.S. version of the text as published in print by Scholastic.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, Scholastic altered J.K. Rowling's text to Americanize some of the British slang, terminology, and spellings. For example, "jumper" becomes "sweater" and "pitch" becomes "field." It's not major or drastic, and it's not like there are changes on every page, but they did it enough that I (and other purists) feel it negatively impacts the reading experience. It may be subtle, but it feels decidedly less British.
It might seem silly to others, but just being aware of the differences means I can be taken out of the moment when encountering them. There's an experience of cognitive dissonance when British characters or the British narrator are using American slang and you know they shouldn't be. It takes away from the charm of British culture, and I want to experience that culture because experiencing other cultures is an important part of what makes storytelling—and reading in particular—great.
Plus, it feels wrong to bastardize the author's voice, even if the author approved it. It's understandable to a degree, as Scholastic originally needed to market and sell to American children what was then a kid's book from an unknown author. Sure, it made sense to change "revising" to "studying" since most American kids didn't know what revising was back then. It was the early stages of the internet; googling wasn't even a thing. Localizing the language made sense then, but times have changed.
It's now second nature to google anything you don't know, so there's really no need to localize the slang when it's so easy to look up. Heck, kids might have to google other non-localized words anyway. And heck, there's all sorts of British media kids can consume on Netflix that don't have special Americanized dialogue versions. Not to mention that exposing kids (and adults) to other cultures is a good thing and thinking they're not capable of that is incredibly condescending.
So while I respect J.K. Rowling's decision to honor the print publisher's territory, and I respect that publishers made choices to localize the text that made sense at the time, times have changed and it doesn't make any sense not to allow readers the choice of which version they want to read. If the print publishers are getting a cut of the profit, fine, then give the cut to the publisher of the territory the purchaser is from regardless of which version they choose. Problem solved. Considering I was freely allowed to buy the UK print versions online or overseas and import them back to the U.S., it's absolutely absurd I can't purchase the UK versions digitally too.
This may very well seem ridiculous to others to be upset or stressed about. Fair enough. At the end of the day, the story is still the same and it's still awesome, wildly engrossing, and emotionally impactful. Hell, my first reads of five of the books were the American versions, and that didn't stop me from getting lost in them. However, I've grown accustomed to the UK versions now, and my crazy brain will know the difference if I ever read the American versions again, and it will momentarily disengage to grumpily groan over the language because I know no British kid would ever be caught dead saying soccer instead of football and I just can't take it! So why do that to me, J.K. Rowling, Pottermore, and Scholastic? Just let me have the version I want.
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