Monday, April 17, 2023

Revising Agatha Christie

 RHYS BOWEN:  We’ve all been talking about the revisions that have taken place in the works of several known literary figures recently.  Their works are being altered to conform to current sensibilities, creating debate over how much we should try to reform the past and whether we have the right to do so without permission of the author.

In Agatha Christie’s novels terms like ‘oriental, gypsy and native’ have been removed. Ian Fleming’s books are being scrubbed of racist and sexist phrases. (can you picture Bond girls wearing plaid skirts below the knee and suggesting a game of ping pong to James?)

We’ve all read about Roald Dahls books with adjectives like fat and ugly being taken out as well as references to skin color.

So is this a good idea? Is the aim of literature not to offend anybody? Are most readers not wise enough to think “this is how it was in the past. People were more racist/sexist.”  

I’ve just experienced this myself in the last round of edits for my upcoming Royal Spyness book. I too have had to remove words like “natives” even though I know that a person living in 1936 would have used them. The one occasion I dug my heels in was when an explorer says he was chased by tribesmen across the desert. No, they were not local inhabitants. They were Bedouins. Tribesmen.

In one of my books, set in Kenya, I had to write a foreword to explain that this was how the British colonials treated the natives  local inhabitants in those days, even though we find it offensive today.  How else do we know exactly how it was? How else do we learn?

My feeling is that books are supposed to invoke emotions in us. We are supposed to feel rage about Oliver Twist asking for more in the orphanage. We are supposed to feel rage and weep when we read Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Books should be learning experiences.  When you read about what some of my characters had to endure in WWII you should feel that war is never a good idea.

So how far do we go with this cleansing of anything that could offend? Does Oliver Twist now live a happy children’s home? Does Fagin, that kind old man, take the children out for fun walks where they sometimes find a handkerchief fallen from a pocket?  I personally do not do well with violence in books. So no torture scenes from now on. No on page killing please. Every murder must be neat and sterile.  And what about bad language. Some readers get offended at four letter words. So are drug dealers now going to have to say, “Please go away, you naughty policeman?”


What do you think, Reds? Do you think we should purge books written long ago so that they conform to current sensibilities? Don’t you think readers can rationalize that this is how it was and even learn from past mistakes?

HALLIE EPHRON: I think… it’s complicated. When viewed from my more (what?) privileged viewpoint it looks one way. When I try to put myself in the shoes of someone who is arguing for the changes? No, I still don’t get it. But then…Coincidentally I recently managed to get my hands on a copy of a play my parents wrote; it ran on Broadway for a year, a hit, starting in 1944. It’s about a young couple who have a baby during the Depression and have to move in with her parents. Other relatives move in, too, and chaos ensues. It’s a farce  with the baby as a Whoopi cushion. 

Here’s the thing: It’s totally racist. There’s a Black housekeeper who is SO stereotyped it’s horrifying. Yes it’s a period piece. No amount of rewriting can make it palatable to today’s audiences. And my parents, old Lefties, thought they were liberal and racially tolerant. 

So, like I say, it’s complicated

JENN McKINLAY: I’m a recovering librarian so I am not down with censorship of any kind. And, yes, purging old books of anything offensive is censorship. How can we measure the progress of society if we take away the starting mark? I understand that some will argue that those original works promote racism, misogyny, homophobia, and xenophobia, etc., but I believe it’s the opposite. I don’t believe they promote these things so much as they call them out by their mere existence.

I remember reading the opener of a John D. MacDonald book where Travis McGee slaps a woman (she was hysterical, of course, she was) and I thought nope, and yet, I kept reading because it was published in 1965 and I knew it was a reflection of the time in which it was written. Could we go back and erase the slap? Sure. But again, how does society improve if we don’t have an accurate reflection of ourselves from which to grow? My other core belief, as a librarian, is that a good library has something to offend everyone. So there’s that.

LUCY BURDETTE: I’m with Jenn and Rhys here–we should not try to fix what’s already written as those books are an important part of our history. It’s a different matter if an author wants to rewrite something, or for that matter, if a publisher denies a book because of racist/sexist/anti-LBGTQ language. I’m so worried about the growing trend toward removing books from schools and libraries–this feels like part of that. BTW, Hallie, you must have been horrified to read that play from your parents!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I’m just going to point out that announcing you’re going to publish an “updated, non-offensive” edition for an old book is a terrific way to get an enormous amount of unpaid publicity, and I’m cynical enough to suspect the opportunity to get everyone talking online and in print about your forty-year-old intellectual property might have something to do with these recent efforts - which, you’ll notice, are always announced by the publisher. Think of the sales - from people buying the original “before it’s gone,” and buying the “modern” version in order to either support it or tear it apart. Providentially, every company putting out bowdlerized versions of these classics has said it’s also going to continue selling the original. 

Anyone else notice this? Or do I simply have a low, suspicious mind?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Yikes, it is complicated. I start out being incensed at the idea of "re-writing" (censoring!) books that some people may now find offensive, and then I think that with my white, middle-class, Protestant identity, is that just me shouting out my privilege? But cleaning things up is a slippery slope and if we start down it, where does it end? Who gets to be the final arbitrator? And shouldn't we be aware of the changes in society's norms and perceptions? For instance, I've recently been rereading Dorothy Sayers. When I first read Sayers in my teens it would never have occurred to me that she used anti-Semitic terms. Now they make me cringe. But if you change them you lose the opportunity to see how we've progressed in the hundred years since they were written.

And my cynical self agrees with Julia.

RHYS: So what about you, dear friends? Should we re-write books to take out anything that might now offend or should we leave it to the judgment of the reader to realize that we have progressed in some ways and are now more enlightened as to what is offensive?  Or is there a middle ground?

88 comments:

  1. No. Just, No.
    I don't care if, by today's standards, something is considered suddenly "wrong" or "offensive." If a person feels that strongly about an author's works, they don't have to read the books. As far as I'm concerned, no one has the right to change the words, not for any reason.

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  2. No, we should not rewrite books to remove sensitive items. We learn from our past and how can we if the past is not there in the present. I agree with Joan, if they don't like what's in the book, then don't read it.

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  3. I don't think we should try to change the past. The present and future, yes. But I'm with those who feel the past — history — is there to learn from, not to repress.

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    1. And certainly not to erase. That is so . . . Big Brother. Shudder

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  4. I'm also in agreement - leave the books alone.

    A couple of years ago an independent editor cautioned me about a scene, saying it could be a trigger. My character is remembering a friend of her father's who tried to get his hand up her skirt when they were alone in his library. Dot kneed him where it hurt and got away. It was in 1920, so it was a big deal. But I can't mention that encounter (where nothing dire actually happened) for fear of triggering some hypothetical reader? I left it in.

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    1. Rhys: I had to write a forward explaining when I had a scene like this, Edith

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    2. Rhys, I remember that! I thought the Author's Note was important because it helped me understand why that scene was in the story.

      Edith, your comment reminded me of a book that I read. Lessons in Chemistry had a trigger scene and several reviewers included a Content Warning about this trigger. Good for Dot defending herself!

      Diana

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    3. If one had to worry about all the triggers if real life, nothing would be written! The sensibilities of this kind are ridiculous! I think the publisher wanted the foreword to manufacture buzz and publicity!

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  5. I wish we’d spend less time censoring book and more time stopping gun violence. Words can certainly hurt but I recall no murders committed by reading a book.

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    1. Another Amen Ann!

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    2. Third amen~Emily Dame

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    3. I'd like to throw some books at certain Republicans--they don't read them anyway!

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    4. Fourth amen here!

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    5. Ann, as always, you speak the truth. Thank you, Elisabeth

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    6. Thank you all. But I suspect I was guilty of preaching to the choir

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  6. A book should be true to the time period it is written for. You can put a disclosure at the beginning but how people talked and were treated is a part of our history. When I read a period story I want it to be as authentic as possible.

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    1. Rhys: good point, Sheri. I had to do that for my book about Kenya in 1930. You will be shocked at the way white colonists treated local people. We learn from the past

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  7. Big topic. Huge.
    I think rewriting an author's works to take offensive words and scenes out is in itself offensive. If a publisher wishes to explain rather than scrub, let them include an explanation, as Rhys did when Georgie and Darcy went to Kenya. That was perfect.

    Hallie, there are old movies that are never shown anymore because of scenes that are now considered to be not pc. As for plays and musicals...our high school did Annie Get Your Gun in the 1960's. I saw it again several years ago and they had removed the delightful song where Annie sings, "I'm an Indian, too, a Sioux." I was flabbergasted. I knew why they did it but still. Come on! Are they going to rewrite The Merchant of Venice?
    Lastly, Jenn, a topic on Facebook last week when a reader was offended by a statement of a character in SUMMER READING. People are probably still contributing to that conversation. I sure took notice. How do you deal with it? It was never written to be interpreted that way.

    The eggshells are scattered and we are stepping around them. But only in literature and art. The news is a completely other story.

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    1. When I was given a piano as a child, it had a Collection of Stephen Foster Songs in the drawer. I loved them because they were so much fun. I also used to tap dance and this music made your feet want to move. Those songs no longer are played. A section of history lost. Could we not respect what went before, and use it to guide where we go in the future - like when a detour becomes the road forward?

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    2. Margo, there is a similar change in attitude toward many songs written for minstrel shows during the Jim Crow era. Dip your toe into the controversy around Lassus Trombone sometime. Written by well-known white composer Henry Fillmore, Lassus Trombone was the most popular of a suite of songs in the ragtime/minstrel show style reflecting various stereotypical black minstrel show characters. None of the portraits were flattering but, stripped of the marketing gimmicks that grew out of Jim Crow era tropes, most of the songs are kinda fun. There's a movement afoot in the band world to "bury Lassus Trombone" because of its racist origins and a lovely counter-movement to resurrect works by black composers like N. C. Davis, written in the same era and style without the racist imagery. I hope for a day when we can listen to instrumental music like this for its musical charm alone, minus the really horrible social context it grew out of. But maybe not. Henry Fillmore wrote lots of other music that isn't controversial, and forgotten composers like N. C. Davis deserve to be rediscovered. Maybe we should just enjoy the music that doesn't creep us out with its nasty history for now, and leave Lassus Trombone to be rediscovered a couple of centuries from now by listeners who can enjoy it simply because it's fun.

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  8. This is the first time I’ve ever responded here! I don’t like the idea of erasing and sanitizing people’s work, but I also teach in elementary schools. I have changed the words in stories I’ve read to my students. One book, written in 1908 in England about Robin Hood, has lots of derogatory references to the Muslims and Jews during the Crusades and Middle Ages. That’s not something second graders can handle, so my team has made some revisions. I was going to reread some of Pat Convoy’s work after visiting Dafuskie Island and I just had to put down the Great Santini because it was too harsh. But it shouldn’t be changed because that’s how the Marines talked.

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    1. Welcome to the front of the blog! Well said. Sounds like another vote for "it depends."

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    2. Yes, it’s how many Marines talked, and some still do. I appreciate that you chose to stop reading Great Santini instead of deciding it should be censored, and I hope you can enjoy the beautiful writing in some of PC’s other titles.

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  9. No, books should not be changed. Just like statues of our history shouldn't be taken down and put in warehouses. You can't change history.

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    1. The problem with the statues of Confederate "heros" is that these traitors who fought against America, were glorified in southern states after blacks had their freedom and could run for office, buy property etc as a warning of who was important to white southerns and to keep blacks in fear of the white man.

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  10. I remember the first time that I read 1984, and was fascinated with the Bureau that scrubbed all printed material, changing the history continuously. So, of course we allow Bowdlerized literature to exist in collections, provided the original material is next to it. And perhaps these collections are in the rare book sections? When I was a child and read the scene where Prince Bumpo (Story of Dr. Doolittle) stopped a thick board with his head, and was not injured I thought the character was brilliant and strong like superman. Did not see the racism at all. Did scrubbing Mary Poppins make it more palatable? or did it turn the book into pablum? Pop culture vs history. A good topic for a Monday morning. Thank you Rhys, and thanks for staying with accuracy.

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  11. There is no excuse for doing any kind of "revising" books from the past so that they don't offend today's sensibilities. Absolutely none.

    The books are what they are and should be left alone. If you as a reader are going to pick up a book set in say the 1930's South, how can you say you are surprised that things that actually happened or were said are included in the narrative?

    Frankly, I find it a little candyass on the part of people complaining. We have enough people out there trying to sanitize any kind of book, they don't need our help accomplishing their goal.

    If you are trying to censor books in any way, you are the enemy you are looking for.

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  12. Complicate and a slippery slope. I believe we should NOT change the language. For all the reasons noted. A new forward, a new introduction -okay. The changing smacks too much of “1984” Suzette PC

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  13. Ugh, no, leave the Christie/Dahl/Fleming books alone. Sanitizing these books is a slippery slope.

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  14. No No No re-writing books.
    My first love were historical novels. I learned so much about other times, other cultures, other customs, other habits, other manners.
    If a book is offending your sensibilities, take another, there are billions of them.

    Jenn writes « …that a good library has something to offend everyone. «  isn’t it a good thing ?
    If I’m offended about something, I can do something to change it or evaluate how it changed in time.
    It’s not the words that need to be changed but the behaviours.
    Danielle

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  15. Do I recall that when he harry potter books came out in the US, the publisher had changed terms that were considered too "British"?

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    1. Including the first title From Philosopher's Stone to Sorcerers' Stone.

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    2. Yes, because they didn't think an American audience was "smart enough" to understand the British terms. Sigh.

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    3. Yes, I noticed that. When I was living in England, I remember an American telling me about a conversation they had with a British person complaining about how Americans "bastardized" the English language. There are differences between the Queen's English (the Queen was still alive at that time) and the American English languages.

      Diana

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  16. I am opposed to editing older books. I think we as readers, need to know when something was written and what the norm for that time was. Was the writer's intent to be hurtful or were they just using the vocabulary of their time. Reading something written by an author from another country has often led to me using a dictionary to see what the word means. Reading should always stretch us.
    Removing statues that venerated those that supported insurrection and hate is not the same as editing a previously published work.

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    1. Marcie, I totally agree with your statement about removing statues. —Pat S.

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  17. No, no, no, no, no! The thought of "updating" books for current sensibilities is ludicrous. These books were not written to be offensive or provocative, they were simply reflective of their time. If we "update" how do we measure where we were? The fact that they grate on the eye and ear are an indication of how far we have evolved.

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  18. I remember reading a book when I was a teenager, or even younger. It must have been published in England because a certain word was used a few times. It was b______. That was it. It seems like I spent ages trying to guess what the "naughty" word was. It was years later before I realized what it must have been.

    So, no to any kind of censoring.

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  19. If anyone is interested this article highlights the problem current authors are facing from publishers if they write about discrimination or racism from a historical perspective.
    https://www.npr.org/2023/04/15/1169848627/scholastic-childrens-book-racism

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  20. I don't think this trend is a 'slippery slope.' It's just one more step in a determined march on our liberties and freedoms by a minority that has acquired power in high places. They are determined to ram their vision of life down the throats of the rest of us. Taking out the 'bad, offensive' parts? No, we don't want them left in because we are white and privileged--leave those works alone because to do otherwise is censorship. I happen to think that most people, picking up a book written in an earlier time--a century ago, 50 years ago, will understand that norms were different then.

    And I share your low mind, Julia. Publishers have seen the gravy train and are willing to sanctimoniously hop on.

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    1. Right? Nothing like having multiple editions of an old book on offer with plenty of free publicity!

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  21. The first book that I remembered being censored was Little Black Sambo. I was a child at the time, and really enjoyed the child in the book catching the tiger and spinning it so fast that it turned into butter. There was a lovely illustration of the tiger on one page and the butter on the other. To my child’s mind it was magical to think you could spin that fast – nothing else. There was no name calling, denigration, anything – just spinning. The child (very black in a loin cloth) was just a child.
    We have a tiger – a real one, just dead – hanging on our wall. My great uncle shot it because they were upper-crust British people who lived in India post WW2. Shooting tigers was what they did if a tiger should wander across the lawn. Am I supposed to send the tiger to the land-fill (not allowed to call it a dump) because it is politically incorrect? Meanwhile the grandchildren gaze in awe at him, and want to pat him every time they visit. It has sparked many questions on what happened then, society and its mores and who were the relatives and what was their life.
    I like literature to educate me. I also like fluff – to clear my mind and often make me laugh. I read war novels to learn about that time, and ‘fill in the blanks’ of what my grandparents lived through. I read them to have someone impress on me the feel of the time. I am impressed at the research the writers have done, especially considering they have fewer and fewer people to ask about things. Mila 18 made a huge impression on me when I was 20, and had no idea of the tragedy of WW2.
    We can sterilize books to make them useless. The publishers can then bind sheets of white paper together and sell them. So much for what we need to know. Will we next be editing school history books and deleting parts that we don’t like?
    On the other hand, there will be books published with either whitewashed stories of rape and violence in today’s society, or a full manual on all I need about any kind of sex in minute detail – and call it a novel and make it a ‘need to read’!

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    1. The problem with Little Black Sambo was the illustrations! It was written by someone who lived in India and supposedly about an Indian boy but the characters are clearly African So the story is fun. The boy is smart but the illustrations are derogatory. Rhys

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    2. I read that book too, Margo. My five year old reaction was that Sambo was a smart kid!

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    3. As a child I had a Little Black Sambo book (also read it to my kids. When I was an expat in England, I was gobsmacked to realize that the boy was Indian, not what we Americans call “black.” Another lesson in cultural differences.

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  22. I read expurgated Shakespeare and Chaucer in high school, which we all thought was ridiculous. I also remember our AP- required DH Lawrence short story collection had a lovely nude sketch on the cover, which we had to rip off. No obscenity in high school! Sanitizing books and plays and music is ridiculous.

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    1. I do think there are some books that don’t belong in school libraries but Shakespeare and Chaucer are history lessons!

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    2. When my son-in-law taught high school English and a student’s mother suggested he replace Steinbeck with Shakespeare to avoid bad language and sexual content. We had a good laugh.

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  23. Julia, I don't think you're cynical at all.

    I recently read a couple of Christies. One character is described as having "a Jewish nose." In another, they're talking about girls who have sex with undesirable boys and the cops say, "Then the mother forces her to claim it's rape. We all know what rape is these days."

    Yikes.

    But like Jenn, I kept reading. Why? Because in 1950, or 1970, that was the times. Was it wrong? Absolutely. Would I write it now? Heck no.

    As Rhys points out, literature should make us uncomfortable with words like that. How else are we going to learn and change? Being comfortable doesn't make you want to change.

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    1. Liz, I'd much rather see books with dreadful phrases and outdated mores prefaced with essays delving into what the reader is going to encounter. Tell us about the antisemitism of the author and of the time. Encourage to reader to look for those places where the author inadvertently shows their hand. Explain attitudes towards sex and what people at that time were arguing about. In other words, give context, which enables the reader to learn and expand their understanding, rather than simply hide words and phrases behind a curtain.

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    2. Yes, exactly. I think I kinda did that in my Author's Note to THE TRUTH WE HIDE.

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  24. No! No! No!
    But, sometimes books published long ago create stereotypes that are damaging to a certain group and the truth is overshadowed to their detriment. An example is the book LOLITA by Nabokov. It portrays a young teenager who has a sexual relationship with an older man (her mother's lover after her mother died). Setting up women/girls as predators, whores, loose morally - of course it was written by a male's point of view of blaming women for their behavior when it was the male protagonist who was guilty of child sexual assault.
    Lola (by today's standards) was the victim of a man who took advantage of her by grooming her to trust him, then as an adult who should have known better he rapes her and then she is blamed for his immoral behavior. Today's copies of Lolita should include an explanation of this - as a warning to others.

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  25. I come down on the 'it's complicated' side. As the daughter of two librarians, I am totally against book banning and censorship. My reaction to the news about Roald Dahl was outrage. I remember reading Huckleberry Finn in 4th grade and my mom's explanation about how the racist language used reflected a past when that language was acceptable. At the same time, when I see that kind of language, I am taken aback. I read the first three George Smiley books by LeCarre during the pandemic. So much sexism. I also re-read a Minette Walters book, The Shape of Snakes, and my jaw dropped when she used the "n" word. She was making a point about racism and maybe the plan was to shock the reader--and that book was published in 2000.

    Language policing on the left and content policing on the right have met at the door of censorship and are walking through together. I do come down on the side of free speech, although not everyone deserves a platform.

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  26. The trend toward banning books from schools and libraries, made me think that changing books that no longer conform to our social standards is also a way of removing or banning the original books.

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  27. All of you have said it so well that all I can do is agree with you. Obviously, I can't know how I would feel as a person of color, but I know how I feel as a woman, and (like Jenn's example of the slap) I read painfully sexist things in older books all the time. But if they are good stories, I read on. Censorship of older books is not only dangerous; it treats readers as if they were stupid, as others of you have said. If something offends us, we can stop reading. Do any of you remember the TV show "Mad Men," about an advertising agency in the early sixties? I found that so offensively sexist (even though I imagine it was relatively accurate) that I had to stop watching it after a few episodes (and I also got bored, so it wasn't JUST the sexism). Having said all that, I have to add that I'm relieved that the pendulum is swinging too far in the direction of exaggerated political correctness. Upset as I am by all this, I'm grateful that racism, sexism, and\or anti-Semitism aren't becoming acceptable. We all know it can happen again.

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    1. It seems to me that while removing racism, sexism, and antisemitism from literature, society is rapidly accepting those same three is every day discourse, music, political speeches. Makes me sad and frightened. Elisabeth

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  28. In the general case, I agree that it's a slippery slope to update works to match current sensibilities and aspirational goals of mutual respect and understanding. How easy it would be to extend that "sanitizing" approach in ways that change the meaning of a work and actually work against its purpose. But there are complexities of context that are difficult to navigate when one gets into the details. For example, I know my husband, who was one of only three Black student in his grade, still harbors the hurt and anger of being called "N-word" Jim behind the teachers' back for months after they read Huckleberry Finn. In a better world, they would've learned the author's lessons that racism was a harmful and false construct. Instead, they picked up another way to bully a classmate. I'm not saying it's the book's fault, but I do wonder if the students would've picked up a different, more nuanced message if the book hadn't given them a forbidden slur to use. And, by the way, my husband's name is not Jim.

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  29. You can't learn from the past if you clean up the written word from the past. Leave it be.

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  30. I don't know that there's one single answer. I feel differently about children's books that are usually read without a teacher or adult guidance (e.g. Nancy Drew, Roald Dahl) vs children's lit that's pretty much only read in school settings (Huckleberry Finn) vs adult books (Fleming, Christie, etc). For the guided reading scenario and books aimed at adults, I agree that the audience should be able to understand that something is of its time and read with that in mind. For example, I recently read some of Rex Stout's early Nero Wolfe stories, and that was like jumping into a time machine. I find it fascinating to get a glimpse of NYC in the 1930s, but the racist and sexist stereotypes are rampant. I'm an adult though and have enough education and life experience to recognize them and make the choice to keep reading or not.

    For children's independent reading, I do feel differently. Nancy Drew made me a lifelong lover of mysteries and I devoured the editions with the yellow covers in the 60's and 70's without knowing they were the "sanitized" versions. When I came across a 1930s first edition a few years later, I was shocked to see the original. If I had read that version when I was 8 or 9, I definitely wouldn't have had the background I needed to place it in the context of the time when it was written.

    So I guess in the end I come down on the "it's complicated" side.

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  31. No I do not believe books should be re-written. Totally agree with Jenn. I am not totally on board with the use of “sensitivity readers” of new material either.

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  32. I really am torn on this- I hate racist or sexually explicit it, but as someone here has said, you need to know the context of the times. So as a liberal, not eliminate the offending material but make sre the context is clear.

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  33. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it'--
    You can use variations of this quote. Recently, an elementary school in my town was renamed because the original name was that of a person associated with slavery which was acceptable at
    the time. He was a philanthropist and donated his house and the land upon which the school is located. Should we re-name all the Washington and Jefferson streets and buildings? How about
    the Washington and Jefferson monuments? What about our currency?

    I read Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad which contains descriptions of people that would now be
    considered offensive.
    This is how you learn about what went on in the past, hopefully, you learn from it and use it to teach
    how these stereotypes evolved and why they are offensive.
    In South Pacific, Oscar Hammerstein wrote a song called You’ve got to be Taught in which one of the
    actors sings you’ve got to be taught to hate and fear…
    If you eliminate all references to these past descriptions, actions and labels there will be no context to use to provide the understanding that this is the way life was perceived then, but we know now how hurtful it can be and do things to explain how to change the present and future. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it'--

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    1. Love your mention of “You’ve Got to be Taught”. When I was a teenager/young adult in the 70s, I naively thought that racist attitudes would die out when the older, racist people died. But no, they taught their children their values and, as we have seen since 2016, they still exist and have crawled out from under their rocks to negatively impact so much of our society now. —Pat S.

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  34. I agree that we can’t learn from the mistakes of the past if we eliminate all references to it. As a child, I was always reading way ahead of my grade level. Lots of times I ran across words I was not allowed to use at home. I understood, perhaps from talking to my parents about it, that “there ARE people who use that kind of language, but we don’t do that in our family.” Also, my parents were quick to point out that stereotypes are wrong.

    The thought popped into my head as I read today’s blog that it’s probably only a matter of time before some organization or group decides that all references to violence and sexual assault should be removed from the Bible!

    DebRo

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  35. Ages ago there was a movement to ban The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from school libraries because of what Twain called Jim. But the book was written about an era when white people still enslaved black people, and accurately reflected both the rhetoric of the time and Jim's undeniable humanity. A big part of the book is Huck's struggle with what he was taught by society about black people, and the truth he learns from escaping that society with Jim. Ban it? Clean it all up so it's just a fun raft trip down the river? I don't think so. It's a novel about an issue that's still at the heart of American angst, and an accurate reflection of the beliefs that lie at the root of our problems. People should read it as it was written and understand it for what it was, is, and tells us about our history.

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  36. Yes, this is a complicated issue. This group is so well-read and enlightened that I find myself agreeing with so many of your comments. Overall, though, Jenn perfectly encapsulated my thoughts. (Also a recovering librarian — Pat S.)

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  37. Food for thought!

    Reading today's post reminded me of when the local bookstore was selling the reprint of the original Nancy Drew detective novels. I was shocked by the racism in the original Nancy Drew novels then I remembered that the first Nancy Drew novel was written before the Second World War. The American military were split between white soldiers and black soldiers until President Harry Truman ordered the desegregation of the military.

    Agatha Christie herself admitted that she did not realize the implications of her anti-Semitism in her writing until after the Second World War and the news about the Holocaust.

    Agreed about the censorship issue. I also think it is important to add an author's note about the racist or disparaging comments about anyone who is different. If I was writing a novel about Jim Crow America, it is important to show what that world looked like even if there are dark passages. And I would explain why in my notes.

    Regarding bad words, I am a very picky reader. Personally, if I was reading a novel by a new author who is still alive, then I see too many bad words, I would want to know if it is essential for the story? There is an author, who I would hesitate to read again because this author has a male character (the hero) say horrid things to a woman that he is supposed to be in love with. This is supposed to be a rom com. I reviewed this author twice for NetGalley and I decided not again.

    There was a scene in a tv series (I forgot which) where this woman (an assassin?) said "I do not like that word " and I agreed that I do not like that word either. It rhymes with "rich". Despite the women's movement and the progress achieved in the last two or three generations, why on earth are women STILL called that word.

    Even women authors are using that word! It is shocking to me! I do not know if it is the author or the editor who decide it is ok to use that attack word.

    Just my opinion here.

    Diana

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  38. I come out of a background as a children’s librarian ,where the problem of. older books with now offensive aspects has been a hot issue on and off, for all my professional life and long before. I have an opiononis and it is not always popular.

    Children do not read with the background adults do and do not always have wise adults at home to talk about it and often are introduced to books in groups. This is often overlooked in this discussion whenever it comes up. Often, the most incensed commenters have not actually read the books since they were children, and have never read books to children in a group. SO: my shocking opinion is that nothing Roald Dahl wrote, or anyone else, is as valuable as not harming children.

    I am not talking about Huckleberry Finn, which should be read -of course!- and put in context. I am talking about the picture books where the Chinese characters are caricatures and the word “Chinese” becomes part of the joke. Would you read that in a group of Asian children? And if you wouldn’t …why are you reading it to anyone?

    Do you think that Dahl’s cruelty about fatness doesn’t get the fat child in the audience bullied? Children can be quite cruel. Let’s not give the message, as Dahl does, that the cruelty is funny.

    Anyone know which children’s “classic” has an African prince go off to find his own Sleeping Beauty and when he does, she says he’s too black. And he goes home and paints his face white. Tell me what child audience should be read that story? Some books belong in the historical collection. (Ask me if you don’t know the book. I promise you will be surprised)

    “Sensitivity readers” and small groups of library-censoring parents are two separate subjects IMHO But if Seuss copyright holders say, “We have higher, kinder standards now and he would have done it differently now” – I say they get to do that.

    Apologies for the length; I could have gone on longer. It is certainly a complicated topic.

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  39. Great comments here today. Did anyone else read the letters section in Saturday's New York Times? Quite a few were devoted to this issue.

    When my daughter was seven or eight, we read Nancy Drew together. We started with a few of "sanitized" versions and I was so horrified by terrible writing that I searched out the original editions. We had lots of interesting discussions as we read about the attitudes and descriptors used in the books, and we enjoyed the stories, too. This is how children grow up to be critical thinkers.

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  40. I was encouraged to see how many readers don’t agree with rewriting an author’s work, without that author’s explicit permission. Doesn’t that just make it a different book? I value the hard work authors put it writing accurate representations of time, characters, community and cultures. It’s important to hear all different perspectives so as a reader you have an opportunity to learn. If an old story is so valued that it should be republished, shouldn’t it be illegal to change it then claim the author didn’t change?

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  41. Don't change the old ones. Write new ones - from the disadvantaged point of view. Read and encourage old books by "othered" authors. The best way to make the point isn't to erase the evidence, it is to create a contrast and leave everything standing (like the Little Girl statue on Wall Street in the face of the Bull.)

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  42. I'm with everyone else. Maybe a disclaimer at the beginning that there is historical relic in the text that do not express modern attitudes? Even that seems a bit heavy handed to me (different from what you did, Rhys, in a modern book), but it is much better than censoring the original. (And thanks for using that word, Jenn, because that's exactly what this is.)

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  43. Do not rewrite an author's book no matter how cringeworthy it is. The fact that we cringe is progress. This sanitizing is simply censorship. Removing books from libraries. Closing libraries. All are a form of censorship. Is book burning on the horizon? Knowledge is power and censorship weakens. Our children deserve better.

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  44. Oh, Thomas Bowdler, you must be dancing in your grave. You, who thought you knew better than Shakespeare how his works should read, and in 1818 produced the Family Shakespeare with the "naughty" parts and suggestive text removed. Your legacy of the word "bowdlerize" seems to be gaining a revival. In the past, people have tried present bowdlerizing as different than censorship. I don't buy it, never have. Removing parts or words or changing them is all censorship. If you don't think it is, you haven't been paying attention.

    Change Agatha Christie to bring it inline with what we've learned and know today? Jenn, your whole response was brilliant, and your question of "how does society improve if we don’t have an accurate reflection of ourselves from which to grow?" was spot on. It's in step with the sanitizing of history taught to students in textbooks. The governor and legislators in Florida are so scared that kids will learn the racist and ugliness of our country's history, they have outlawed the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT), and they have skewered its meaning and intention by presenting it as an attack on white people. Of course, this is propaganda showing its part in censorship. As Flora pointed out, the censorship of books we are seeing is all part and parcel of the minority that has gained power to take our rights and liberties away and cram their narrow-minded view and life style down our throats. Hmm. Wasn't there a certain dictator who burned books that didn't support his fear mongering that the "pure white race" was being vilified in literature and textbooks, that the books didn't support the Nazi way of life.

    When I was studying for my Masters in Library Science, censorship was one of the areas in which I was most interested. We all know censorship has been around for a long time. I remember the book The Language Police dealing with pressure groups influencing what children learned from textbooks. But, today's censorship feels and looks different. There's an attempt now to nationalize censorship, enacting laws to force a way of life on people. It's beyond scary. It's terrifying.

    And, Julia, I think you are pointing out another disgusting part of this censorship movement. Shame on publishers for their greedy motives in supporting censored versions of older and classic books.

    So, if I haven't been clear enough, I am completely against changing the Agatha Christie books or others. I will give in to a foreword or introduction to a book in which the possibly offensive words or actions are given an historical explanation. I think this might even spur on some productive discussion. And, one last item. I will concede that at certain ages, kids might not be ready to grasp the difference between something being a product of its time and what it should be. So, use common sense. Do people remember what that is? Use common sense and gauge your child's maturity. They probably will surprise you with how much they do understand so early. And, if there is an overweight child in your classroom, no one says you have to read the Roald Dahl that uses "fat" and "ugly" to demean. There are hundreds, more, to use in your class. However, if we keep banning books, there won't be hundreds more or books from which to choose.








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    1. It is amazing to me watching libraries be closed because the uninformed few demand that if they don't want to read something no one else should either. Frankly, I can't think of a better to way to get something read - forbid it and the readers will come. But the ignorance is just exhausting.

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    2. Jenn, it is exhausting! Every single day, it seems, there's a new assault on libraries and schools. Parents, you have the right to guide what your children read, but you do not have the right to tell everyone else what they or their children may read!

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    3. Yes, Jenn, exactly. Those "concerned"parents don't get to decide for everyone.

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  45. As a historian, I am offended. Also as an author. To me, this is tampering. I don’t condone burning historical records and to me, altering the author’s words is just that.

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  46. That making these changes, even when they are made by the descendants of the original author, is censorship is beyond doubt. The assumption that adults, or even teens, reading Agatha Christie cannot understand that the book is set in a past era when the language, understandings, and attitudes were commonplace says more about the censors view of the current educational system than anything else. As far as children's literature is concerned, I'd rather use the opportunity to read the book as originally written to my grandchildren using the occasion as an opening to discuss why we no longer consider the language in question appropriate.

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  47. i'm with Jenn and most of you. I think we learn from seeing just how ugly people could be and by understanding our own discomfort with slurs and racist and sexist dialogue. What might be a good compromise without touching the authors' work could be a new forward added to the front of the novel that puts the language in context without apologizing for iit or certainly for supporting it. New forwards are written for a lot of books that were published long ago and it seems to me this would be a very good use of a forward.

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  48. The answer is complicated. I feel that some elements might be modified/updated without significant impact while others would be disruptive to theme/tone/intent. Making any change should (generously?) assume that the reader is a rational, intelligent human being.
    The only text changes I immediately think of favoring might be ones that aid in readability...similar to changes of a "translator"...an effort to make it more understandable because a term or concept has been eradicated in modern usage.
    We have modernizations of text from "middle" and even "Victorian" English into "modern" English. These still maintain the tone and content in a way that reflects the author's intent in a way that is understandable to modern "ears."
    Whatever the case, if a work is modified from the original, I would fully expect an introductory page explaining the nature and reasoning behind the changes.
    I would prefer an annotated update with footnotes or endnotes rather than inline edits. This allows editors to define antiquated terms or concepts and even provide disclaimers while maintaining the original content as an object of comparison and discussion.
    If the changes are too minimal to justify one or two footnotes, then a simple editors note would suffice to explain a change in vocabulary justified by a word that has completely left our lexicon.
    Regarding modern authors, I would hope/expect them to use modern sensibilities and consideration when choosing their vocabulary and the situations of their scenes and characters. Sometimes even a modern author may be justified in using "offensive" concepts to make a point.
    I see this especially justifiable when writing historical fiction or even when writing about harsh or divisive situations in current or future timeframes.
    The author should not choose offensive language and tropes "merely" to shock but rather to instill and maintain the realism of a situation. For truly, reality has often been offensive and through these offenses we can learn and grow.
    (Even then, sometimes the purpose of a work IS to create "shock and awe" to instill discomfort and discussion. But speaking of most fiction, I feel authors should not strive for unnecessary "shock" unless that is part of the intent as a whole)
    Books and art in general invokes emotion and is a product of its time. Enduring books should have timeless themes and text that can be applied to any generation in spite of concepts that may be stuck in the era of the author.
    As a reader, we can and should exercise our wisdom and discretion as we internalize any writing. Rather than taking offense, we should explore our emotions and learn how and why the book was written that way and then use the writing as a launch point for intelligent discourse.

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