The story:
James Bond books edited to remove racist content
tl;dr: The new reissues of the Bond books (paperback and ebook from Ian Fleming Productions) will have a disclaimer at the beginning, and some racial references will be removed. The N word will be replaced with "black man" or "black person," for example, and the "pigs at the trough" line in Live and Let Die's strip-tease scene will be changed into something anodyne.
My opinion: Phooey! I want the original, historical novel, not something revised for an era it wasn't written for. As offensive as the N word is, Fleming used it, and it was acceptable in that time and place, and we shouldn't forget that.
I want to know what Ian Fleming wrote, not what some 21st century editor thinks will fall more pleasantly on my delicate ears.
This makes me re-think my plan to get all of the Ian Fleming Productions hardbacks when they come out (they promise those are coming), and instead get whatever pre-edited content I can for my "permanent" bookshelf.
Replies
I heard tha tthey were doing it for Roald Dahl's books, too. I understand why they might want to do it, but changing this stuff feels like pretending that it never existed I think I'd prefer something like they did with the collections of old Warners cartoons, adding a disclaimer on the disks explaining that they contain a certain amount of stuff that was considered acceptable at the time but is no longer.
I can't say for sure that that's the best solution, either.
It's not entirely new, at least in regard to the Bond books. From what I understand, there's a chapter title of Live and Let Die that originally had the N-word in it, but editions printed in the US have changed it to "Seventh Avenue." Wikipedia says that change was made in 1955.
Historical interest or not, the publishers want to sell books. Unlike a lot of his contemporaries, Bond is a character that still draws a lot of modern interest -- and if someone decides to buy a Bond book unprepared for that, and they flip to the table of contents... well, I think a lot of people would just decide to pick up something else instead.
The email I got from Ian Fleming Productions read that some of the changes were stuff discussed when Fleming was alive, and this would be in accord with his wishes.
And I buy the argument that publishers need to sell books, and racist terminology is going to turn off a whole lot of potential buyers.
I have an instinctive hackles-raised reaction to anything that looks like bowdlerization, so my knee-jerk take is "Phooey."
"My opinion: Phooey!"
Hear, hear. You just talked me out of buying any of the new editions. I had been considering it, but my interest level just fell to zero. You're currently reading Dr. No, yes? What is that book's infamous portmanteau going to be change to I wonder?
"As offensive as the N word is..."
I just encountered it in a 1978 HULK! magazine.
I beg to differ that Ian Fleming's horrid attitudes and expressions were "acceptable in that time and place." Accepted, maybe, but not acceptable, ever.
Consequently, I am disinclined to go through the mental gymnastics necessary to enjoy what might be entertaining in those books while ignoring/disavowing/turning a blind eye to/holding my nose at their offensive content. There's plenty of stuff I can read that I can enjoy without that extra effort. If the publishers of the Bond books want to lift that burden to attract other readers -- and, as I understand it, Fleming gave his blessing to similar such efforts -- my knee jerks a bit less readily.
Personally, this is why I said "stuff that was considered acceptable", although, thinking about it, I should've said "considered acceptable by most white people".
ClarkKent_DC said:
It's interesting how much they're leaving in, if you dig a little deeper. That said, I found I mostly agreed with Den of Geek's take, though I understand why many other people wouldn't, or why a corporate entity might see profits in making changes.
To quote David Crow (and the publisher):
"Further each novel will include a disclaimer at the front stating, 'This book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace. A number of updates have been made in this edition while keeping as close as possible to the original text and the period in which it is set.'
Really, they could’ve just stopped with the first sentence."
I'm starting to be convinced to give these new editions another consideration. To be perfectly honest, I find the racist content to be extremely dated, societal accuracy notwithstanding. I do generally err on the side of historical accuracy. I find it fascinating to observe what was "acceptable" then versus now. Another example would be those live action versions of Norman Lear shows from a couple of years ago: words which aired on network TV in the '70s were bleeped out today. I wonder if that's the reason HULK! magazine has not been reprinted...? In addition to the instance I mentioned yesterday, there is also an attempted homosexual rape scene in one of the stories which was quite controversial at the time.
If they edit the books to remove any and all content that may offend somebody somewhere, there won't be much left to publish. Fleming wrote from the viewpoint of an upper class Englishman, he often demonstrated a low opinion of anyone that wasn't.
I think that is a significant part of the point Crow was making. Ye gods, try to read Bond's "conversion" of Pussy Galore to heterosexuality in the original Goldfinger now without cringing or laughing out loud. It's like an experiment to see if energy can be generated from face-palms. But it represents several all-too-commonplace attitudes from Fleming's time and place and, as you note, his background.
It's a little different from the Dahl rewrites. In that case, they're trying to sell to children, and they're selling books that in some cases already experienced revision by Dahl over the years. But the original James Bond without sexism, imperialism, sexism, colonial attitudes, sexism, racism, sexism, classism, sexism, homophobia, and sexism? Not much left. The movies already update what they can. And people who don't want an un-self-aware period piece can read any of the current spy novels.
UPDATE: I think they may also contain some sexist attitudes.
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