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If only his best friend listened to him, about his (and other directors and editors) films.
I think it's quite interesting that Fleming himself didn't particularly care and actually suggested to the US editor that they could trim down the Casino Royale torture sequence if they felt it was too much. Perhaps he changed his mind on that as he got more successful, I don't know; but he certainly seemed to be open to changes for different sensibilities. Certainly other changes were made, including on LALD they change a load of his descriptions of American things and locations because he'd got them wrong; Octopussy had the number of cigarettes he smokes changed, all sorts of little alterations. And that's before you get to the international translations, which clearly aren't what he wrote and depend upon the skill of the translator.
Then obviously you have the issue of TMWTGG, which has Fleming's name on the cover but has a load of changes from his editor Plomer and ideas from Amis in there too. I think it's hard to draw the exact line about where these things are okay and where they aren't.
I'm also not sure they should just be teaching tools: they should be alive and active as thrillers. That's why they've got new sparkly covers, to keep them alive: not as an archive.
Yes based on some articles with regards to either his biography or interview, he didn't really cared, like he just made those books as an escape from the anxieties of his upcoming marriage at the time and to earn money by turning his books into films.
He'd never cared about Bond or either those books, it's actually surprising if I'm going to tell here that despite of writing it, he actually disliked the taste of Vesper or that Vodka Martini that Bond usually drinks, he found it distasteful.
He'd even accepted the $1000 pay of CBS just to got his book filmed, Heck we'd never know what Fleming thought of it.
He also sold the book at $6000 not long after that Climax episode, and bought a car for himself, see?
So, I think Fleming just wrote those books for business and relaxation, that's all, but he had never cared for it.
He even reached the point where he got tired of writing those books.
=D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D>
I think (I don't know for sure) it's about keeping these in print today, alongside other brand new books which follow any guidelines the publishers have for themselves. They're not archive pieces, they're being maintained; is what the publishers may possibly say.
There's also potentially a case to say they may be trying to protect themselves for any kind of pushback if it was suddenly 'discovered' that a couple of these books have a racist moment or two in them.
Hopefully equally no-one would have to pretend that previous edits and adjustments haven't been made to these or other books before, and it's never been regarded as anything other than a curiosity. This article is quite a fun read as it outlines a few of these previous edits and changes, and it's not even exhaustively comprehensive. Do we need the 'Boofy' edit of DAF restored? :D
I think only if you have the prose memorised. I would doubt this is more than a few words or sentences in each book; some books nothing at all.
I would prefer the originals, but I just can't get too upset about this and I think I can see the thinking. It's also not like these books are hard to find as they've been in print for 70 years.
When it's a matter of just a word or two going, then you sort of do have to have memorised them to remember them, don't you? Is that not just logic?
You say that as if the two statements are contradictory, but of course it's for money: they're a business, not the British Library. If they were some sort of national archive, dedicated to preserving material in its original form, then it would be terrible. But they are a business and they're selling copies of their property to people, slapping funky new covers on them and trying to make a profit - they don't make a secret of that. Pleasing audiences is what businesses like this do. Archives don't have to please anyone- and that's why they're not an archive.
How are you thinking they're trying to make money out of it if they're not trying to please audiences?
I'm not sure anyone has said you're being immature about it. But maybe take some time to consider why they've done it, whether it's happened before, and if it really is all that massive.
I said those “contradictory” things because I highly doubt they actually care about making some great social change, which they wouldn’t accomplish even if they wanted to by trying to erase history. I don’t begrudge them simply for trying to profit, that’s what we’re all doing to get by at the end of the day, it’s the facade of pretending like it’s just about “fixing” Bond essentially so everyone will be happy, even though it’s obviously had a very opposite effect seeing most reactions. And to their credit, driving up sales of older versions probably has worked, as I’m a sucker who has started collecting the Folio editions so I know I’ll be able to keep great versions of the uncensored material.
The change treats audiences like they can’t contextualize and handle offensive material from a different time, hence the immaturity remark. Of course changes of all kinds to countless books have happened before. That doesn’t justify anything. In the end I hope it isn’t massive - there’s a reasonable chance it won’t be in the long term of being able to retain history. It’s the principle of it that pisses me off.
Ah okay, that makes sense. I guess that shows how this stuff can be distracting then. It's not impossible to think that a new reader may even be put off buying more in the series; and as you say: they're a business who want to sell books.
I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that they're claiming to have done it for making 'great social change'. Pretty much the main reason they claimed for doing it was because certain racial references they saw being likely to 'detract from a reader's enjoyment' (the actual words they used in the announcement). Where are you getting this 'great social change' thing from?
If readers don't enjoy them, or find reasons not to enjoy them (as you yourself said the offensive parts nowadays stick out way more than the rest of it in the mind; which is not what Fleming intended when he wrote them) then they won't buy more.
I think that considering what is and has happened, and how important that actually turned out to be, is better to look at than the 'principle'. Because that's how all this culture wars stuff happens: newspapers trying to wind people up about the 'principle' of things, that the new generation are throwing away everything you hold dear, that you're getting tossed in the trash, exploiting that existential fear that you will die soon (which is at the bottom of the way they stir things up). Because newspapers are businesses too, and they want to outrage you to make you buy more newspapers.
Because really it's a publishing company who want as many people as possible to buy their series of books, and racism is way more unacceptable now than it was then, and buyers may well be put off reading a series where they encounter some racist material - and it may well be one of the most memorable things about the book, as you found yourself. Maybe more new readers will press on with reading the series, and keep the books around for longer.
Would I prefer the original texts to still be published? Sure: and hopefully they'll also release original text versions- IFP have got to keep finding ways to exploit these now they're publishing their own books, after all. But also they're not going anywhere- we've all got copies of them. Most books which have been written aren't in print at all right now: it's a good thing that the Flemings still are.
Fleming was trying to break into the American market--that's why he also agreed to change the titles of American paperbacks of CR and MR. And after he succeeded in breaking into that market the Bond books didn't go through many stateside changes. More to the point, the early changes to the American texts were confined to a specific market, and not Fleming's home territory. What IFP has done is make the American version the only one (sold new) in the anglophone market, which is not what Fleming intended. He had the opportunity to amend the British text and chose only to make a factual correction rather than remove racially offensive material.
Seems pretty easy to me--go with the text the author authorized and preferred. If Fleming preferred the American edits he'd have incorporated them into his original ones. And I find it even easier to draw the line at edits and deletions imposed decades after the author died. I want to read what the author wrote, not what a sensitivity reader thinks I can handle.
Whether the racism is there or not doesn't change the genre of the books or make them more or less effective as thrillers. If the justification is that removing racism creates less distraction for the reader, what about all the distractingly offensive sexist and imperialist passages? Or all the other very dated references? Either those should be removed to keep the book "alive or active" or we should accept that these are 70 to 60 year old books. Like all books from that long ago they are of their time, and any editorial attempt to deny this will either be hamfisted or halfassed. And like most books we take seriously the text should be preserved in a state closest to the author's preferences, rather than updated like a piece of software. As for the supplements, new covers are fine, and so would be new introductions and notes. If only we'd had those instead of new edits.
Sure, I just feel it would be nice if it felt like you were considering anything I say. I feel I'm just responding to things you say rather than it being an attempt at a conversation.
Well there's certainly been a load of noisy people happy to get involved in culture wars stuff, and other people like me who have been keeping quiet who are tired of all that.
I didn't say it would prove that, and I don't think it make all that substantial a difference, but equally it would be hard to prove otherwise.
Yeah hopefully they will; as I say, they need something to print now they're a publishing house with works based around just one author.
Indeed; as I say, he was open to changes for different sensibilities- and if it meant profit. And sensibilities are different now: the home territory of today isn't the same UK of 1953. And obviously IFP feel like it may affect their profit or they wouldn't have done it.
And let's face it: the books are theirs.
Where does that leave TMWTGG then, where his words were added to and changed after his death. Or the foreign translations which people around the world have been reading for decades. Apparently entire chapters were cut in the Spanish editions. Did he want the swearwords he wrote in rather than edited?
So as I say: the line isn't that clear.
Well it's debatable, isn't it. Maybe those aren't all exactly the same thing and directly comparable: are there any sexist words which are considered to be basically swearwords and unprintable today? I'd say there aren't, not in the same way as the n word. And are we saying we want all of those other parts removed as well as the racist stuff? Because this way seems preferable to me: if the racist stuff has to go then keep the rest.
Basically new Bond books set in the 50s are written today and put on bookshop shelves and they don't have racist words and sentiments in them, even though they may have a bit of sexism (perhaps knowing), imperialist ideas in characters' heads, smoking, drinking etc. Should some newly printed books, all on the shelves together, follow some sort of guidelines whilst others can have whatever they like in them? I don't know the perfect answer to that, but I can see why the question is asked.
The text is preserved though, it's not going anywhere. You and I and millions of others own it, and it's kept in important national libraries throughout the world etc. It is preserved. We're just talking about new editions on sale today, which isn't the same thing. As you say, the covers have been changed: why don't we respect the work of artists like Chopping and their intentions and preferences? Or the original publishers who worked on these books?
As I say, my preference would have been not to trim them, but I think it's interesting and worthwhile to consider why it happened, whether it is as terrible as all the kneejerk articles want to have us believe, and it's interesting to think why the work of other artists, like cover artists, it's seen as fine to replace them entirely and not to reproduce them like it's an archive. And equally why this sort of thing doesn't happen to other forms of art like film.
I have no idea why you'd come to that conclusion or try to make this personal.
I only say you're not responding because you've ignored questions I've asked like why you think they claim to be making some great social change, my point about how this is being exploited by media who want to push the culture war angle, about the history of these edits etc.
But fine, I'm happy to disagree too. But just because we're having a conversation on slightly opposed viewpoints (and I've said several times that I don't even disagree with you!) please don't assume that I've never liked you and am just pursuing some personal beef because that infers that I don't believe what I'm saying and am just doing it to troll you, and that's unnecessary.
And since Fleming isn't around to say what he thinks, any speculation about what he might have approved six decades after his death is just that. What we do know is that he preferred the British editions and he didn't incorporate the American edits into them. IFP has also yet to produce any convincing evidence that its profits will rise or be affected. Instead it's jumping on a recent trend in publishing whose merits have yet to be proven.
Then thank goodness they'll enter public domain not too long from now. It's sad that IFP ended up being their worst publisher.
It still is. TMWTGG was hardly rewritten by Plomer and Amis. They were working with a completed typescript that included Fleming's handwritten corrections, and their work mostly consisted of removing errors and cleaning up the text. They did what editors usually do. As for translations, the ones that usually get acclaimed as those that come closest to what the author wrote, and the reviled and replaced ones are usually those where the translator leaves out passages or traduces them.
Aren't phrases such as "Sweet tang of rape" and "all women love semi-rape" practically as offensive? Aren't they just as likely to distract the reader? So why stop at racism? And let's remember that even neutral mentions of race are being removed from the books, not just the most egregious ones.
If the goal is to keep the book "alive or active" by removing what would repel the modern reader, then by your own logic those passages should be removed.
And despite their setting those books are very much of their time.
The problem is that someone who wants to buy a new copy of the books has no choice but to buy the redacted editions. And those are hardly the ideal editions of the books, or ones usually accepted for a respected author.
Because we buy the book for the text, not the cover. The cover is supplementary to the text--changing one doesn't change the other. It would be nice if Chopping's illustrations were retained, but someone can say they've read Fleming without ever viewing them.
Any speculation he wouldn't have approved them is much the same. And as I say: he was happy for them to be edited for sales in places of different sensibilities, and the UK of today is not the UK of 1953.
They don't have to. They're putting their money into it, they don't have to produce any evidence to anyone besides their investors.
I'm still not sure how that will work. If they have to licence the trademark of James Bond from Danjaq/MGM, will anyone really be able to print Bond books?
With Amis' alterations taken onboard. And those types of changes are what we're talking about here: prunes of words here and there. It was edited after his death.
Same with translations: the exact words are never kept- turns of phrase changed etc.
Is racism the same as sexism? No of course it isn't; they are different experiences.
It's a disingenuous point of view: because you don't want that to happen. It's silly to complain that it isn't happening.
You're trying to make out like they're being hypocritical for doing one and not the other, but the two aren't equal no matter how much you try and make them out to be. The sexism is usually very much part of the characters' intents rather than the authorial voice, which the race elements do creep into.
Yep, but they're all getting printed and sold together in 2023.
First world problems, though. Are there really people who want to read a book who won't buy a second hand copy? And think how many authors there are who people can't buy a new copy of their works at all because they're out of print.
Speak for yourself: I've certainly bought books because of their beautiful covers, and not even read some.
Fleming certainly approved and preferred those covers (presumably) so changing them is against his wishes.
If you can be silly about removing sexism then I can about covers. But I'm also half-serious: it really is removing part of the original book. Because the original books aren't what left Fleming's typewriter: they're the result of an editing process with other people having input into the text, a design process of the finished item. And if we're happy for that process to be continually revised, despite it being what the author agreed to originally, then that's what we see.
He okayed edits for the American market when he was trying to break into it and stopped after he succeeded. If we're serious about printing an author's text as he authorized and preferred it, then we have to base the edition around the author's actual decisions and preferences, rather than creating hypotheticals about how the author might have felt decades after he died.
Then I'd like to see if what they told the investors was more convincing than what they told the public.
Yes, as demonstrated in Canada, where Fleming is sold by the country's largest bookchain, in addition to academic presses like Broadview. The same thing happened with Sherlock Holmes elsewhere, and will be happening with Steamboat Willie.
Such corrections as "W. Indies, not Indian" are part of the normal editing process, are required prior to publication, and would have happened if Fleming was alive.
The exact words can't be kept because of the differences between languages. The translations most often superseded are those where the translator didn't even bother translating some sentences or passages. There were lots of hack translators in the 19th century whose work is being replaced for that very reason.
They can be equally offensive, that's the point.
I've done you the courtesy of presuming your arguments are made in good faith. Try doing so for others.
Sexism is very much part of Fleming's authorial voice--I don't think anyone would argue he wasn't a profoundly sexist author! Conversely, there are racial remarks that are part of the character's intents (Solitaire and Bond's use of the n-word). If the point of these edits to remove jarring elements that might offend and distract the reader, then it is hypocritical to remove racism but leave highly offensive instances of misogyny/sexism. The same goes if the point is create an updated text that better reflects modern attitudes.
So are plenty of books from long before then.
Well, the first world is where we live and have the privilege of having debates about these things on message boards. So it's still a problem that people who want to buy a new version of the books have no option but to buy the redacted ones.
I have no doubt that I'm speaking for the vast majority of readers. Most of us buy books to read the text, not stare at the cover.
I can agree that he would have preferred the Chopping covers to be retained. But replacing a book's cover doesn't change the book's content or the author's work.
It's removing an element from the original edition of the book. But when we refer to Moonraker or Casino Royale as books, we're referring to their text, not whatever cover they happen to have. Changing the cover doesn't require changing the original text, which is what the vast majority of us buy the book to read.
Why should we be happy for the editing process to be "continually revised" when the neither the author nor the original editors are around to participate? The idea that the editing of the text should be continually revised is hardly an accepted fact either. People don't go into bookstores to buy the latest editorially revised edition of Hemingway or Fitzgerald or Chandler, as if a book could be treated like an annual car model. Sometimes they might buy an alternative edition that has an earlier version of the text or restores more of it, but they're buying those to read more of the author, not edits imposed by sensitivity readers. The same goes with various editions of Shakespeare--they compete to give you the text they believe closest to the author's, not a redacted edition.
I don't think anyone is saying that he will have 'preferred' these edits to the other books, just that there's no evidence that he wouldn't have accepted it.
Well I'm sure; I'd like to see all sorts of things from behind the scenes. I'd love to see Pierce Brosnan's original audition. They have no obligation to produce them though.
It's all rather half-hearted in Canada though. A couple of sort of fanfiction things dribbled out.. either the market isn't big enough or they're not quite sure of their standing. I think the black-covered Fleming reprints avoid having 'James Bond' on the cover, don't they? I can't find an image of them now.
Alterations and additions were made, whereas these new versions have a word here or there trimmed out. As would have happened if Fleming were alive today, yes.
So they're changing the original editions as agreed by the publishers/authors etc. when they were alive. You see, a lot of these arguments are presented as absolutes, when there's always been movement on them in reality.
No, they are different experiences, that is the point. They don't just get lumped into a box of 'things that people get offended by'.
To complain they should be treated equally when you don't actually want that to happen is disingenuous.
So you actually want them to be edited down further? Because your other points suggest that you're not happy with the edits.
Yes, it is very privileged. But this isn't a huge problem for anyone. The original texts are easily findable as ebooks. The Folio editions are out there. They're not going anywhere. And when I went to my bookshop they still had a load of the penguin versions. And that's not to say that IFP won't bring out 'original text' versions too.
And that people can still buy new editions at all is still good news: most books which have ever been published are not available as new editions at all.
You should doubt yourself then. I daresay quite a few people have bought the Folio editions of the Flemings just because of the beauty of the item and never actually read the pages. I suspect that's what happens to the majority of the books Folio publish in fact.
It ignores his preferences and decisions, which is what the problem seemed to be earlier. Especially as we've agreed that the editor will have changed words here and there, as part of the 'normal editing process'.
I would argue it's a much larger part of the original book than a couple of words are. Most people are able to spot a change of cover, but I suspect the large majority won't be able to spot these few words being trimmed out.
The original editors and publishers approved the cover, the typesetting, the introductions etc. These are constantly revised, and supply context to the book. You think no-one looked at the Pan cover to Moonraker and allowed that to shape their idea of what Bond, the rocket, Gala etc. looked like? That's changing the experience for, let's say, the majority of readers, every time. If covers didn't matter they wouldn't have covers. We accept that every single time.
The books have been adapted for different markets before, and they are again.
I should say again to make my position clear: my preference would be for them to remain unedited. But I can see why they've done it, and the alterations sound like they're so minor that I think they're being overstated and I find a lot of the arguments that books must never be edited to be on slightly shaky ground, especially in this case. I'm not keen on arguments that focus on 'the principle of the thing' rather than the actual thing, especially when those principles have been bent in many ways over the the years already. And the original versions have been constantly published for 70 years- they're not being taken away.
Or evidence that he would.
They don't, but they're in the business of appealking to readers, and if they wanted to prevent or counter some of the criticism they received they could have done a better job of making their case.
You can easily find them by searching the website of Canada's largest bookseller, which sells them in stores as well. Nothing half-hearted about that.
Aside from the differences between the US and UK edits of LALD, where entire sentences and pages have been eliminated, the edits to the other books remove phrases and sentences to remove mention of characters' ethnicity.
They're publishing new translations to better capture the author's original text, not later impositions by translators and editors.
But racism and misoygny are two of the things people are most offended by today, and if the goal is to create "updated" editions that don't present jarring passages to the reader, then it doesn't make sense to focus on deleting one and keeping the other. There's nothing disingenous about pointing out that inconsistency, which harks back to the larger problem of publishers pretending these 60 year old books can be somehow modernized.
I don't want them edited at all, especially because the current edits show how such a project is bound to be inconsistent in its purpose.
Good for folks who go to your local bookshop, but it's still unfortunate that most readers can no longer buy new copies of the original texts. As for ebooks, those can be changed even more quickly than print editions, as others have pointed out.
And those people bought the Folio editions because they already had read the original books. Such people don't represent a substantial amount of the reading public either.
It ignores his preferences and decisions about the cover, not about the author's actual work. And nothing suggests Fleming was upset by his books being reprinted as paperbacks with different covers.
If they've read the original texts before, they'll almost certainly recognize when some of the most racist passages are missing.
They don't supply what we think of the actual book, when we say "I've read that book." And though covers matter in selling a book, they don't matter enough to not be continually changed. Whereas no respectable editor thinks, "well, let's get a new cover for our new edition of Farewell to Arms and let's get some new text too!"
I reread books with different covers all the time, and while I might buy a certain edition because I like its cover more than another's, the cover doesn't alter or influence my perception of the author's text, whether I'm reading for the first or fourth time. I don't judge the text by the cover, which is primarily an advertising element designed to grab the buyer's eye. The same thing goes for movie posters--I prefer the originals but I'm not going to think less of a movie, or judge it differently, if they used a bland modern poster for the DVD cover.
As written above, I don't believe the alterations are minor in nature, and they go beyond changing a few words. These carefully chosen edits present a false and sanitzed picture of Fleming's racial attudes to new readers.
The principle that a book shouldn't be retroactively edited by someone else beside the author isn't shaky--it's widely held and consistently maintained, which is why the news of Agatha Christie, Roald Dahl, and Fleming being retroactively altered made the news and was heatedly discussed. Most readers want to read the text authorized and preferred by the author, as seen in most editions of respected authors. What we're seeing now is authors being edited "to protect the brand," rather than present the text the author authorized and preferred. At best IFP could claim that re-releasing the American edit of LALD in America was justifiable, though in 2003 the British text of LALD was published in US and supplanted the American one. Reinstating the American variant just seems retrograde, especially in its estimation of readers.
I only skimmed through the video, but are these new editions going to be the standard editions going forward? I don't suppose they will reverse this foolish decision.
I would imagine so from IFP until the books come into the public domain. These arrogant butchers have no interest in public opinion.
I love this sentence.
Part of Bond's appeal nowadays is that he is in some ways quite anachronistic in the modern world. If you strip that away it takes away a lot of the fun and nostalgia.
Agreed! I see Bond as hovering somewhere between the past and the present, not tied to any time specifically. He's as much a relic of the past as he is a traveller from the future. The 'politics of our time' is a very loose concept in the world of 007.