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PussyNoMore thinks that Revelator’s supposition is highly credible and would rather die with his leg up rather than read a sanatised version of Fleming.
Why can’t these political correct Johnnies leave things alone ?
IFP should hang their heads in shame for failing to defend the great man’s work in its entirety. It is time literary freedom was protected and these versions should have ‘censored’ stamped front and centre across their front covers.
PussyNoMore’s blood boils!
You're oversimplifying things, I think, in your reactive outrage. From what I read in the edition's note, this sounds like a well though out, well researched, and respectful attempt to produce what may well have been Fleming's preferred version of L&LD following conversations with and suggestions from the American editor. This interests me enormously. How many of us would salivate over the thought of a newly discovered draft of The Man with the Golden Gun with further polishings and edits from Fleming? Would we write it off as sacrilege because it wasn't what originally made it to print? I think anti-PC reactionism is causing some to knee-jerk against a very cool and potentially quite revealing new look at Fleming and his relationship to his own literature. This by no means replaces any other copy or version of L&LD, but as I understand it provides a look at Fleming's reconsideration of content after discussion of audiences and prevailing racial attitudes (of the 1950s). Access to the letters themselves would be great, but it sounds like enough of the right people have been involved and acknowledged here to give the benefit of the doubt that this is indeed an attempt at a faithful approximation of Fleming's final thoughts on the book.
Do you talk like that in real life?
Anyway, I'd always assumed these were the 'American versions'...
I've got a set of these, and they're printed in the US, with American price tags, yet they've got the full text and 'Nigger Heaven' chapter title. The note at the start of the new edition states that the 'censored' version of LALD was issued in the States from the 50's to the 80's. So the version with two and a half pages missing (and perhaps more?) was the American version, which according to the publisher's notes at the beginning, Fleming might have preferred.
That might well be the case, but I can't help but feel the publishers have taken the easy way out on this one.
It's a lovely edition of the book, and for a tenner it's a very welcome addition to the collection. And, if Fleming approved of the edits, then that's it as far as I'm concerned. We still have the original UK version, so I'm not going to start hand-wringing on this one. I did have a moan about it in the pub last night though, before I realised it was Fleming approved.
Interestingly, the notes at the start of the book say this edition combines elements of the British edit where we best thought they reflected Fleming's writing and original vision. So it's a hybrid - and however small the edits - a new version of Live and Let Die.
Yes to both questions. But if Fleming preferred the edits, he could have requested that Cape apply them to reprints of the British versions. There were certainly many chances to do so, especially after the books became best-sellers.
As for Fleming's letters, this discussion reminded me of a letter sent to his American literary agent Naomi Burton in May 1955. The text is printed in Chapter 19 of Pearson's biography:
Two things to note: Chandler's copy of LALD came directly from Fleming, and was thus the British version. And the conversation alluded to was cut from the American edition, which was published in April 1955. But Fleming's letter is from May, which suggests he either had forgotten or didn't know that the conversation had been cut. In any case, the letter makes clear that Fleming was proud of the scene--and based on this letter, he very likely would not have preferred this particular edit to the original British version.
I do find it odd that these Vintage editions are introducing the American edits into the British market. Even more odd, Vintage has not merely reproduced the American versions. The editorial note says "with input from the Fleming family and literary experts, we have examined these differences in order to construct what we believe could have been Fleming's preferred text for Live and Let Die."
Notice that verb, "construct" and what it implies.
Until other letters come to light, we have no reason to believe that Fleming's preferred text for Live and Let Die was anything besides the original British one. The letter I have quoted supports this and goes directly against the rationale supplied by the Vintage editors. I have no wish to impugn the honesty of the editors--perhaps there are unseen Fleming letters which back up their explanation--but they have not made their case a convincing one.
I'm thinking they've wussed out on this one.
Thank God we have Revelator to set us straight !
In any event, in PussyNoMore's not so humble opinion, it should not be the job of those left behind to second guess what the great and the good would have wanted were they still with us.
Otherwise, what will we have next, the repainting of the Sistine Chapel in the style that Michelangelo may have wanted were he still alive ?
Unless IFP have telepathic contact with Ian's spirit and are taking his instructions directly this is a clear case of censorship to appease the politically correct. Perhaps they are hoping to sell Harriot Harperson a copy ?
PussyNoMore thought we'd moved on since The Lady Chatterly case.
We should have Revelator on IFP's board - then perhaps this nonsense will stop.
PussyNoMore's blood continues to boil and this expurgated editions will never grace his elegant shelves.
Fleming forever - censorship never !
(Great point, @Revelator, that Chandler's observation is pure gold.)
Maybe they were always left out of the regular US book shop releases but happily PussyNoMore can confirm that they are all present correct in his fabulous, leather bound, 2005 collector's edition as published by the Easton Press, Norwalk, Connecticut.
Maybe they didn't receive the IFP (In Fleming's Place) memo or sought to ignore it.
@shamanimal, that's the edition I have, the reprinted Penguin novel editions for Fleming's 100th birthday in 2008. The content isn't censored because Penguin as a publisher has always been a devout subscriber to the idea of uncensored texts, and even paved the way for the UK to ditch it's strict censorship rules when it chose to publish Lady Chatterley's Lover in 1960 when nobody else would. It seems they've done the same thing with the Bond novels all along, presenting Fleming's novels and all their instances of sex, violence, language and more without censoring any of it. I'm quite proud to own these editions and to support Penguin by buying other editions of theirs, as they are fighting a good fight in a PC culture that seeks to mutate history and books to fit their cozy and over-reactionary ideals, as if the past isn't something we should learn from.
As for the implication that Fleming may've approved or liked the American edits, @Revelator has said all that I feel and so there's no need repeating him and the sentiments of other posters who are in agreement too. It just seems strange that Fleming was through the moon with that part of L&LD and loved that Chandler liked it too (someone whose opinion he obviously held highly), yet, according to Vintage, agreed that those pages should be ripped from the text for US publishing. If Fleming agreed at all to these edits (again, there's no proof of this at all beyond the publisher's word), I expect that it was an agreement done to please and appease the publishers who were bringing his work to another market outside his native European one, and he didn't want to argue with them or have them rescind their deal to bring the books to the states. If it was a question of the American publishers doing these edits or not printing the books in the US at all (given their desire to sanitize what they felt was sensitive content), I can easily see Fleming bowing to the request and obliging, as I think most writers would who want to share their work in other territories and get more money for it from the sales.
I just wish Vintage had more to back up their claim than the statement of, "Fleming could've liked these edits." Not really good enough, as they are judging what a man who is no longer with us would say, and are arguing that he already agreed to the edits without sharing his words of agreement on it, which would no doubt be found in Fleming's letters to the American publisher/s if they really did exist. That these words of confirmation aren't shared don't add up to me.
I'm definitely curious about those letters in the back and wonder if they've ever been printed before. I'll eventually try to acquire these editions, both for the letters and introductions by John Cork, who definitely knows his subject.
Thank you for the nomination! My first act would be to publish an affordable standalone edition of Talk of the Devil.
Yes. Any American copies bought between the 1960s and 2000s would have been the specially edited versions. This was my first copy of LALD, purchased in 1992, and it definitely had those edits:
I loved the garish cover and the incredible blurb on the back, which says something like "It's too late to kill the Big Man. He's already dead. He's the Zombie King of the Living Dead, with a plan to feed Bond to the sharks and America to the Russians, all for a pirate treasure and a blonde jewel named Solitaire." Though I don't think Solitaire was blonde.
It wasn't until the 2002 Penguin series (with the Richie Fahey covers) arrived that America readers could easily purchase the original text.
Exactly. Fleming was pragmatic about such matters and he was eager to break into the American market. For example, the first American paperback edition of Casino Royale was retitled You Asked For It, and Moonraker was christened Too Hot to Handle. Fleming approved of those changes too. Let's hope Vintage doesn't act on them!
Mon Dieu, let's hope not otherwise PussyNoMore will die with both legs up!
And yes, I think Solitaire has black hair.
Vintage I believe is being disengenuous.
They are choosing to present the original sanitized American versions of the books, as something that Fleming himself might have, could have, maybe, possibly have preferred.
Yeah right.
From a marketing perspective though they might simply be reaching to a pc crowd, whose correct-thinking superiority might cause them to shun the originals
But, if these sanitized versions could be passed off , as actual preferred versions, of the hitherto unenlightened Fleming, than that might be just swell.
Another angle, might be one aimed at completists who wish to have the sanitized versions for their collection.
This group though, I would suspect to be negligible.
Fleming fans I think, would be put-off by the the stench of censorship.
Although, being somewhat of a completist-collector myself, @PussyNoMore 's idea does intrigue. ie if a big fat censored-label was stamped on the covers, then I could display these versions on my shelf, for what they are.
We all know that certain aspects of Fleming’s novels would not work in a contemporary context but that is the case for many works of art of historical importance.
I recently quoted from a Fleming passage, and opted out of naming Chapter 5--just omitted that part. But that's specific to this forum, to avoid offense and distraction.
A novel should be treated with respect and presented in its entirety. If not, it should be branded **ABRIDGED!!!** for all to see, honesty in advertising and all that. If it's the publisher's choice and what's best for them, and allowed by the Fleming group, let the market decide.
Also recognize the crazy times we're in, especially in the US. I actually don't fault the book company for avoiding potential targeting by a crazy element that could ruin them. There is an effort in play to erase history, pick and choose what exists from the past based on a pre-conceived set of political blinders. The limits are near boundless.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/us-sport/espn-robert-lee-remove-presenter-charlottesville-confederate-general-racist-asian-american-name-a7907701.html
PussyNoMore understands and appreciates RichardTheBruce’s point entirely.
He differs insomuch as he does fault both the publisher and IFP.
In PussyNoMore’s not so humble opinion, works of art should remain unaltered - with the exception of restoration - in perpetuity.
Anything else constitutes an act of vandalism and takes us down the Nazi book burning path.
This probably isn’t IFP’s intention but their marketing strategy regarding Fleming’s work has been dubious for a number of years. Multiple editions that milk the cow instead of marketing them as classics.
PussyNoMore has no problem with, indeed he applauds special editions that add real value. The likes of Bentley, The Eaton Press and Folio have done great things but when it comes to the regular book shop editions they would do well to re-publish the hardbacks in the original JC livery and the paperback edition could do worse than re-issue in the fabulous Hawkey/PAN livery.
All with the complete original U.K. text!
PussyNoMore has read the three released so far and detected no sign of censorship.
Folio did publish 'Live & Let Die' as a one off some years ago and as a consequence it will be the last to be released in their new Fleming collection with the Dalton visuals.
PussyNoMore may live to eat his words but given the nature of 'Folio' he doubts that they would ever accept to publish anything that has been censored. It's just not the way they work. They are an extremely ethical organisation completely dedicated to the art of literature.
I just wish we saw letters that confirm Vintage's view of history and Fleming's own opinion on the edits that they say support them. They write things like "Based on Fleming's letters," implying that they have the letters where Fleming approves the edits, but they chose not to actually share them. I know many of us find that particularly strange, as Vintage seem to have included other letters from Fleming in the back of the books as supplemental material. It just seems weird not to do that, to back up your claim and avoid nutty fanboys like us wondering why you edited the text to fit a more truncated and softened edition of the text.
Originally it was "Dior's Vent Vert." Fleming was very embarrassed by this error, as one of his letters shows: "Alas, attributing Vent Vert to Dior [as opposed to Balmain] was nearly as bad as when, in one of my books, I made Bond eat asparagus with sauce bearnaise instead of mousseline."
So we can assume that this correction to Live and Let Die was requested by Fleming. Which raises a question--if Fleming requested this change in the British edition, why didn't he request Hart's racial edits as well, since he supposedly preferred them? Given the opportunity to make those edits, Fleming only chose to correct his perfume mistake!
This edition says Fleming "very likely preferred" the American edit on the basis of his letters, which actually suggest the opposite. Oh the irony!
The said thing, @SaintMark, is that America requested to censor the books even in the original releases of the books in the 50s and 60s. That I never knew until the past two weeks, though in some ways I'm not surprised. We pick strange things to be prudes about, and like to deny things as they really are.
Shameless plug for one of my oldest [2007] (and possibly best, according to some) blog articles:
http://thebondologistblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/james-bond-novels-that-were-edited.html
Apparently Ian was on the whole unmoved by edits to his work and was happy to oblige in the name of getting his work to America, a market that he obviously wanted to dig into. Furthermore, he seemed to view the commotion over the mature content of his books not a war against his art, but as free publicity that only continued to make his novels known in the world through controversy. Sort of a "no news is bad news" ideal.
It seems that us fans care more about the censorship than the man himself ever did, which is interesting. As the creator of a character he had a love and hate relationship with, or at least had increasingly difficulty with the process of making more books, I think Ian was less attached as a result much in the same way that Doyle's Holmes was a beast of burden to him but a hit with the wider reading public (both men also "killed" their heroes before bringing them back once demand necessitated it). As readers we don't have to face the creator's burden of living with their character and producing more adventures of him to fit pressing deadlines which can make the process less fun and more of a grind. The work becomes work to them, whereas to us the books are more than that, and a source of escape. Funnily enough, I'm sure that Fleming's own escapist books and character made him want to escape writing them as the pressures continued to mount. ;)
Had he refused the edits, he would have jeopardized breaking into a market that dwarfed the British one, so he made the sensible choice. We do have to keep in mind that Fleming wrote for money, not just pleasure. He longed for true wealth and was very commercial-minded about his creation. His eagerness to sell Bond's TV and film rights at times verged on stupidity.
Additionally, the American edits--though deplorable to those of us who value the original text--were ultimately minor in effect. He wasn't being asked to remove entire plot-lines or significant characters or important dialogue.
I even doubt Fleming would be very upset about the new Vintage editions. But there's no evidence so far that he preferred the American edits--he merely accepted them for commercial reasons. Like everyone else, I find it strange that IFP had not included with the Vintage LALD the letters that supposedly show his preference for the American edits, especially since the Fleming letters that are in circulation suggest the opposite.