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icarusrising9 t1_j7tgmbg wrote

It was literary fad at the time. It's done in plenty of other books of the period, like in much of Dostoevsky and some books by Victor Hugo. (Les Misérables is a notable example that comes to mind.)

The idea is to mimic how something would be presented if it were actually true, as specific identifying information like cities and stuff would be censored. You can think of it as being in the same vein as "found footage" films (like "The Blair Witch Project" and "Paranormal"). It would have served to help readers of the time suspend disbelief, as they would be familiar with actual true accounts where information was censored in this way. It doesn't really serve its purpose for a modern reader, which is why some translations substitute in the name of the city the author meant in lieu of the dashes.

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Pinball-Gizzard t1_j7vxfix wrote

>Dostoevsky

I was gonna say, this was the first time I ran into it and was completely bamboozled every time we went down ________ street

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cliff_smiff t1_j7vh9p1 wrote

Why were true accounts at the time censored?

Edit- I still don't get why a city name would be withheld. Names, addresses, etc. sure those make sense. Are the place names in fiction imitating place names in true accounts being censored? Were other kinds of information censored in true accounts instead? What kind of things are the true accounts, like newspaper articles or something else like an autobiography?

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jenh6 t1_j7vhys7 wrote

It’s to protect privacy at the time. The same way certain court cases don’t reveal names

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icarusrising9 t1_j7vimh9 wrote

It's just like when faces are censored in today's media, or a reporter doesn't give sources' names. It's identifying information.

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bluesam3 t1_j7wsp4b wrote

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.

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