Taking a Page Out of 1984
The Revision Crisis Attacking the Works of Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl, Agatha Christie, and Whoever Is Next.
Orwell’s 1984 may be the most cringey great book out there. Not because of itself, but because of the idiocy surrounding the vast majority of mentions of it. Referencing it has become a meme, for it is a reference often abused. It is similar in style to the famous “socialism is when the government does stuff” line of thinking that, sadly, often circulates around our conservative circles (because, like any group of people, we, too, are susceptible to the immense stupidity the human brain is capable of). This abuse of reference often comes at the hands of people that have either not read 1984, or that believe it is somehow a defense of capitalism and a conservative society (despite having been written by a staunch socialist to oppose authoritarian socialism, communism, and authoritarianism, in general).
There are times, however, when the world surprises you and shows you a situation where the mention of the reference is not only applicable, but must be used for the sake of justice. One of this situations is the recent ‘revision crisis’ occurring around the publishing world where the works of authors such as Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl1, and Agatha Christie have been revised and changed to avoid offending ‘modern audiences’.
There may be but a few things more vile than rewriting someone else’s words and pretending that is just fine in the name of some twisted notion of supposed ‘social justice’. In fact, the mere act of rewriting what someone else has written without explicit consent may be a more offensive act than anything Fleming, Dahl, Christie, and the rest of the authors who will be eventually affected by this2 combined ever said.
Changing the Trees
First of all, some of the corrections are unbelievably stupid. Like, ‘how have you gone through life thinking like this?’ level of stupid. For instance, ‘turning white’ becoming ‘turning quite pale’ in one of Dahl’s works. Or, for another idiotic example, Fleming describing the members of the Red Bull Express World War II unit as ‘black’ has been changed, despite the Red Bull Express unit being historically composed of black men. One of the funnier ones is on done to Agatha Christie work, where the word ‘native’ has been changed for the word ‘local’.
These seem, of course, so small that they may appear irrelevant. However, they are really great examples to try and discern the intentions and beliefs of those getting their dirty hands all over these texts. In most cases for these ‘small’ changes, the big-brained editors are taking a certain word or phrase that they believe has obvious ethnic and racial connotations (although the same happens with terms deemed sexist3) and then they change it for a synonym. One of the problems with these approach is that synonym’s rarely mean the exact, same thing, and precision is a vital component in literature. Stephen King, George Orwell, David Bentley Hart4, E.B. White, and basically any other writer that has provided some advice on writing at some point or the other agrees that precision is king when writing. Saying, for instance, ‘the extremely fat lady’ is most of the times weaker than saying ‘the obese lady’ (unless you mean, of course, extremely fat and not obese). At the very least, those are two different ways of saying, supposedly, the same thing.
With this in mind, it is easy to see why going from ‘turning white’ to ‘turning quite pale’ is an idiotic change. First of all, ‘white’ is a color. Yes, race and bla bla bla. But, fundamentally, white is a color. It’s the color of snow, of (most) marble, of many walls, of ceramics, of paper, of pure light. It’s also the color of the skin of some people, but that sense of the word is not what Dahl seems to care about here, is it? To reduce ‘white’ to a merely ethnic term is to be both an idiot and a linguistic criminal, for ‘turning white’ is rather different from ‘turning quite pale’.
The example I provided for a change in Agatha Christie’s work, going from ‘native’ to ‘local’, is even more jarring: the two words are not remotely close to meaning the same. I, for example, I’m native to Spain, but local to Mexico. ‘Well, no,’ say the brain-less editors, ‘native is an ethnically charged term REEEEEEEEEEE!’ Just like the previous example, this change shows that however was in charge of this whole fiasco is, best case scenario, a moron or, worst case scenario, a disgusting liar.
Sadly, this is only the beginning.
Changing the Forest
As it often occurs with bad things, it doesn’t just end here. It was not enough to desecrate the writing of long-gone authors with a knack for getting offended and an understanding of the English language so bad that I (a non-native speaker that struggles to this day to correctly pronounce a word as simple as ‘island’5) can dissect and correct. No, they had to go and change larger aspects of the writing to better adequate it for 'modern audiences'.
From what we know, Dahl has been the most affected by this. Just in The Witches, we’ve seen women suddenly go from cashiers and secretaries to top-scientists and business owners6, from saying most women are lovely to saying nothing at all7. In Matilda, all references to fathers and mothers were changed into their more abstract (and genderless) alternatives like 'parents' or simply 'family'. Also in Matilda, the geniuses behind this chaos decided they would replace a reference to Rudyard Kipling because of... reasons? In fact, Kipling is apparently hated by the editors, because he was replaced by Jane Austen8 and John Steinbeck9. Or in James and the Giant Peach, where every single mention of a Giant-Man or the Giant-Men became Giant-Person. And in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where everyone has apparently gone on a diet and being fat is a figment of the imagination and nothing more10.
These changes, like the ones discussed before, may seem like minutiae, and they are in many ways. However, they just seem to show us more of the vileness of this folk. Dahl (and Fleming, and Christie) may not be of your liking (I am not particularly attracted to the writing of any of them, for instance). However, their writing is theirs, and the ‘flaws of their time’11 are part of it, whether you like it or not. Dahl's obsession with pointing out every single flaw of his characters and mocking it is a fundamental part of his writing, even I may find it a bit tiring and even disgusting at times or if some sensitive sensibility reader finds it offensive, it is part of Dahl, and you can’t just extirpate it simply because it is not an element of your writing. Same with Fleming, who would stop being Fleming without his… particular way of speaking about women (for example). Or with Agatha Christie who, while perhaps not a ‘great stylist’ according to some12, wrote so many novels that are truly enjoyable where her modern, witty, quick style are part of the experience. Again, you may not like it, but it's part of the identity of these writers and, thus, it should be faced when one reads it, even if it makes one uncomfortable. After all the worst case scenario is that you end up learning a tad bit about life in the past instead of pretending the entire human experience throughout the centuries has been exactly the same.
Language matters. Word choice matters. Themes matter. If you try to read Shakespeare’s sonnets translated from Early Modern English into 2023 English nothing rhymes or even makes sense. If you take Tolkien and pass it a couple times through Google Translate the sludge that comes out will have nothing to do with the original. The Odyssey and the Iliad wouldn’t make sense as a novel; Beowulf would not be Beowulf without the gut-wrenching violence displayed. The way stories are told is almost always as important as the stories themselves.
We’ve Always Been at War with Eastasia
They will tell us the slippery slope is not real and we will believe them until it is too late. They will tell us it’s only for writers whose style is unimportant and not ‘Twain or Faulkner’13 , ignoring that they, too, are next14. Nothing is sacred anymore, not even the works of people long gone. And the problem does not only lie on the proposed solutions, but on the supposed problem: adapting works for 'modern audiences'.
Many fear censorship in the name of ‘social justice’ and ‘modern audiences’ and see early examples of it in the cases of the modifications to the works of Fleming, Dahl, and Christie, but I believe the issue is much worse than mere silencing or changing a few words. Perhaps it is because I’m naturally paranoid but I sense something much more dangerous on the road ahead, and something that I can’t describe without the help of Orwell’s 1984:
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.
There is a hatred for the past the likes of which, I believe, we’ve never seen (in the West, at least). Rightfully so, up to a point, because Men have been historically been terrible to each other (and will continue to be in sæcula sæculorum). However, choosing to delete our often embarrassing past with an endless present and pretend everything has always been the same way, that standards were not different at some other time, and that there is nothing to be learnt from the contrasting perspectives of Man across the ages will be our doom. We will build a wall to protect our endless present in which We are always right and have always been right, instead of accepting our own brokenness and vowing to fight it. We’ll build an impenetrable fortress where everything that doesn’t fit our modern standards (which we will deem to be perfect and timeless) must either be changed to fit them (thus, destroying them) or be expelled from the collective minds of the people.
The Telegraph’s article on the matter is worth a read. Here it goes. It is paywalled (of course) and you definitely should not use a site like 12ft.io to bypass the paywall. Definitely. Don’t do it.
I can imagine folks like Tolkien, Lewis, Orwell, Huxley, along with Locke, Hobbes, Adam Smith, and many others getting revisions sooner than later because of things like the UK’s Prevent program were such authors have been deemed as right-wing extremism literature. A great article on the matter was written by Douglas Murray on The Spectator.
Dahl, for example, has suffered a change from ‘maid’ to ‘cleaner’. Another example is a change from ‘mad woman’ to merely ‘woman’, which I find hilarious.
David Bentley Hart’s ‘How to Write English Prose’ is, in my humble opinion, the best text on prose and writing I’ve ever read. Way better than the other three authors’ advice I mentioned (and rather critically). You can read it here.
Whenever I have a lapsus brutus I’ll say ‘is-land’ instead of ‘i-land’, if that makes any sense. Another one I’m particularly embarrassed of is ‘literature’.
We went from ‘even if she is working as a cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a businessman,’ to ‘even if she is working as a top scientist or running a business.’
‘I do not wish to speak badly about women. Most women are lovely,” was removed in its entirety.
‘Dickens and Kipling,’ was changed to ‘Dickens and Austen.’
‘She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling,’ became ‘she went to nineteenth century estates with Jane Austen. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and California with John Steinbeck.’ Note here that India was changed to California (because why go to a developing country with a rather interesting culture when you can go to Hell Heaven on Earth?) and Joseph Conrad got Big Brother’ed and replaced again by Jane Austen.
In general, people are apparently no longer fat in literature. So much for representation, I figure.
Most publishers have gone the route of claiming these things were said only because ‘they were fine back then.’
Joyce Carol Oates recently argued in a tweet hat there is no problem with changing the language of Christie’s works because Agatha Christie is not a ‘revered stylist’ nor a ‘writer reflecting sociological realism’. I think Joyce Carol Oates might not be concerned with this whole revisionism fiasco because she thinks not many will read her works after she has passed.
The famous N-word dropped in ‘Huckleberry Finn’ won’t last 5 years, in my humble opinion.