Posted on 02/27/2023 7:53:27 AM PST by SeekAndFind
April 13, 1953 was a red letter the day in popular culture.
It was when Ian Fleming’s debut novel, Casino Royale, was published, and the world was introduced to James Bond.
The success of Casino Royale in the U.K. paved the way for subsequent works by Fleming, featuring Bond.
In 1961, President Kennedy named 'From Russia With Love' as one of his top ten favorite books in Life magazine. This endorsement made the book a bestseller in the U.S.
Some say it was Kennedy's way of linking himself to Bond and projecting himself as a Bond-like heroic leader taking on the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
In politics, perception often triumphs over reality. Alas, for Kennedy, that perception was never tested, he never survived to run for reelection.
The adaptation of Fleming’s novels to the big screen catapulted the character to legendary status and widened the readership of Fleming’s novels.
Fleming wrote twelve novels and two collections of short stories featuring Bond.
Bond remains a cultural icon to this day with twenty-seven hugely successful cinematic adaptations and myriad authors such as Raymond Benson, John Gardner, Kingsley Amis, and Sebastian Faulks taking over the literary Bond mantle.
Back to the Fleming novels.
Later this April, fresh installments of the Bond book series will be reissued to commemorate its 70th anniversary.
But this reissue has a difference.
The Telegraph reported that Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, which owns the literary rights to the novels, commissioned a “sensitivity” review of the Bond novels to find out if any of its contents failed to meet the contemporary standards of political correctness.
Following these reviews, changes have been made to the novels.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I see a run on used book stores to gobble up old books while you still can get them.
This is getting out of control.
Firstly, each book will carry the following disclaimer:
“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.”
Now for the update to the text.
The Telegraph revealed that the word “n-----”, which Fleming used to refer to black people when he was writing during the '50s and '60s, has been ‘almost entirely expunged’ from the revised texts.
The Telegraph didn’t define what ‘almost entirely’ exactly means.
In the sensitivity reader-approved versions, the ’n-----’ word in most cases has been replaced by “black person” or “black man.” Racial descriptors are entirely dropped in some instances.
The ethnicity of a barman in “Thunderball” (1961) has been omitted in new editions.
In “Quantum of Solace,” (1960) the race of a butler goes unmentioned.
In “Goldfinger” (1959), the race of the drivers in the Second World War logistics unit, the Red Ball Express – which had many black servicemen – is not mentioned, instead referring only to “ex-drivers”.
In “Live and Let Die” (1954), Bond’s opinion of Africans in the gold and diamond trades as “pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought, except when they’ve drunk too much” has been altered to “pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought.”
Another scene in the book, set during a strip-tease at a Harlem nightclub, was originally read as follows:
“Bond could hear the audience panting and grunting like pigs at the trough. He felt his own hands gripping the tablecloth. His mouth was dry.”
This has been revised to:
“Bond could sense the electric tension in the room.”
A segment in the book describing accented dialogue as “straight Harlem-Deep South with a lot of New York thrown in,” has been removed.
When the book was first published in the U.S. in 1955, the title of the fifth chapter was changed from "N----- Heaven" to "Seventh Avenue."
In Dr. No (1957) criminals escaping from Bond become “gangsters” and the race of a doctor and immigration officer remain unmentioned.
But all racially pejorative terms will not be removed.
The racial terms Bond uses to refer to Asian people and his unfavorable views of the Korean character Oddjob from “Goldfinger” (1959) will remain.
The line in Casino Royale (1953) “the conquest of her body, because of the central privacy in her, would each time have the sweet tang of rape” will remain as well referring to homosexuality as a “stubborn disability.”
Winston Smith Lives
The name is Bland, James Bland.
Not quite the same as book burning but getting close.
Next thing you know, someone is going to rewrite Mein Kampf to make it less “objectionable”.
“Bond could hear the audience panting and grunting like pigs at the trough. He felt his own hands gripping the tablecloth. His mouth was dry.”
Has been revised to:
“Bond could sense the electric tension in the room.”
Sounds like what they did to the KJV to come up with today’s versions.
Squirrel!
echoes of Fahrenheit 451.
‘From Russia with Love’ and ‘Live and Let Die’ are the only two of these I’ve read.
I’m opposed to this on principle.. if some writer wants to redo his novels that’s fine but to go literally behind the graves of writers to ‘correct’ their language is awful. Is Shakespeare next?
Digital book burning.
Well, the names of these characters will need to be changed, if we are going full force with these changes.
The movie “Octopussy” will also have to be renamed.
Are they going to rename Octopussy?
I guess when James Bond asks Maude Adams about her tattoo and she responds, “That’s my little Octopussy” has been erased.
Has Mark Twain’s books been altered to N-word Jim, yet?
Wasn’t one of the secretaries’ named Holly Goodhead ??
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