Posted on 05/03/2023 2:25:28 PM PDT by Eleutheria5
Ian Fleming (James Bond) is among the writers undergoing posthumous editing for content unsuitable for today’s readers.
As he is dead, he has no choice in the matter.
We are all familiar with book banning and book burning. Can anything be worse? Yes, changing a writer’s intent, dead or alive, through sensitivity editing.
Some writers, nowadays, agree to go along to get along.
That’s too bad.
True writers value each word they write.
Hemingway spoke of the search for the “perfect sentence,” and quite often he clicked, if he can be forgiven for his mistreatment of Robert Cohn in “The Sun Also Rises.”
Often enough, a single word makes all the difference. There was consternation over Rhett Butler’s exit line in “Gone with the Wind.”
In the end, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” was kept as written, over “give a darn,” which had been offered to please the censors.
Imagine our cultural and literary loss had Margaret Mitchell or the producers relented for the sake of placating the guardians of “good taste.”
The effect would have been bloody murder in terms of our Literature.
A single word, kept true, and it’s a different world…a world we truly live in, warts and all.
.....
(Excerpt) Read more at israelnationalnews.com ...
A copyright can be renewed
No. Though I agree with the author, it's worth noting he neglects to identify who wants Hemingway re-edited.
The left is creating their own history.
The original books are still out there.
Are they gonna grab them all and red pencil them?
Even million dollar 1st editions?
Not gonna get mine!
Well, there’s always Margo.
LEAVE HER ALONE!
11 As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.”
12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Romans 10:14-15
14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in?
And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?
And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?
15 And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?
As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
(Do NOT make me post images of my feet!)
I own real books that can’t be edited. How long before that becomes a crime?
I tended to stick to Beatrix Potter and other stories mean for the very young when they were very young. The fairy books by Andrew Lang can wait until they are able to read well enough to read to themselves.
I collect mostly reference and “how to” material, including encyclopedias, almanacs and dictionaries. All of this stuff is going to be tinkered with online, and the only way people will be able to push back will be with hard copy source material.
Yes. That’s why most of Hemingway’s writings are still under copyright.
Whatever.
Just so long as they don’t re-animate the guy.
Never say never. The original Pinocchio squished Jiminy Cricket right at the start. The stories can be re-told, so long as the original is available for purists. If you burn or ban the original, you’re not just retelling it in a new version. You’re also censoring the original author.
Huckleberry Finn was raised by his racist Pa to be a racist. His constant use of the N word strengthens the ending, where he finally comes to think of Jim as a good man, and learns from Jim of Pa’s death in the flood. But that doesn’t mean that every film version has to constantly use the N word, either. So long as the book remains intact, history and literature are served.
Just like so long as the book Oliver Twist remains intact and unchanged, we can laugh at and enjoy the sanitized Fagan singing and dancing in the musical, and still read Dickens to see him as Dickens intended him, sniveling, conniving and greedy.
I have seen how the ‘woke’ leave out important scripture and re-’interpret’ relevant scripture.
They get really selective.
The small ones do not need to hear what was probably the original Beauty and the Beast (Eros and Psyche with the mother-in-law from hell Aphrodite) or that Ganymede was a prepubescent Trojan prince who was kidnapped and forced to be a catamite, passed around like a party favor. You are right that people can soften them and that is fine as long as they leave the original be.
And that is not what they are doing.
I had some older books that I read that when I found later edition they weren't the same. They were not officially labeled as rewritten but they were. And that is what they mean to do here.
Just a little change, a trifle. And next thing Ganymede is not a tale about how being pretty is not necessarily a good thing and becomes a "Pride Tale" about how a young boy being buggered is the bestest thing ever.
Well, then, damn “them” for their literary crimes, and for what “they” are trying to do to Hemingway, who never wrote Sun Also Rises for woke snowflake kids.
It was harder to do this when books were printed but now many of them are electronic. And that makes them very easy to change. You do not actually own that electronic book. Just a license to access it. And who ever runs the service can change it as they wish.
And many of the original physical books are being pulped.
This is why it pays to learn classical languages. Whatever they do to the English translations and adaptations, the originals will live on in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic and Sanskrit.
Winston Churchill as a boy refused to learn Latin and Greek and was beaten for it in school, but he was adamant. And he was also wrong, though admirable even then for his will power. Ironically, in Between Tears and Laughter, Doubleday, 1940, Lin Yutang calls him out for his wrong-headed statecraft vis a vis China, as a poor Greek student.
Will they rewrite The Merchant of Venice?
Gotta have their pound of woke.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.