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?