First they came for Roald Dahl, and now it's Ian Fleming and James Bond

[cakeorwine]

Live and Let die has been rewritten to remove some of the more sensitive parts - especially with regards to women and black people.

www.lbc.co.uk/news/james-bond-ian-fleming-books-racist-edit-publisher/

Ian Fleming Publications said its changes to Live and Let Die were authorised by Fleming during his lifetime.
The publisher added: “Following Ian’s approach, we looked at the instances of several racial terms across the books and removed a number of individual words or else swapped them for terms that are more accepted today but in keeping with the period in which the books were written.
“We encourage people to read the books for themselves when the new paperbacks are published in April.”

I have read some of the original books - and the language is "of its time" and I wonder if it reflects Ian Fleming himself and his attitudes.

I wonder if there will be an outcry as there was with Roald Dahl?

It's a bit of a difficult one, as all censorship discussions are to be fair - what's acceptable to one person is unimaginable to the next person.

I have read a lot of Ian Fleming and there is a lot of racist / sexist language, but the books were of their time. I'm not hugely opposed to some re-editing of that to make the books more palatable to today's reader.

I think what bothers me most about the changes to Roald Dahl is the fact that for example, one of the words being removed is the word 'fat'. That is not a bad word, it is a valid adjective, and is a description of made up character. It can be seen to have negative connotations, but are we aiming to scrub all words with negative connotations from our language? What will be left with? And I am saying this as a fat person.

What book will be next? Gone With the Wind? Classic, Pulitzer-prize winning book with plenty of racist language - I haven't heard of this being re-edited yet?

I can understand the intention behind it, but I feel that we're on a path of dangerously whitewashing everything. Some people are fat. I don't think it's necessary to remove the word fat and replace with chunky, heavy, large etc.

Apparently some references to his views on women and rape are still in there

So many books written 20+ years ago will have some horrible stuff in it. Even the likes of Joanna Trollope. I think maybe just let most of it quietly die and go out of print, which a lot probably will?

On the other hand I see the argument for editing some of the really offensive language from books that will remain in print for a long time to come. I don't know, I see both sides to be honest.

the problem with the Roald Dahl edits is there are so many of them. Editing formidable female to formidable woman?? Why for the love of god? If they just took out a few terms, there are some nasty ones in there I think most people would have been ok with changing. Like Biggles did. But this fairly broad set of edits has understandably pissed people off. There aren’t many authors with a whole set of books that were among the first we read and loved and also among the first our children read and loved.

Hopefully they'll move onto the Bible next, it's full of misogyny, rape, murder, enslavement, racism, genocide etc.

@Ifailed great idea!

Editing out uses of the n-word while retaining some racially discriminatory content and including a warning at the front that the books reflect attitudes of the time seems to be reasonable.

If it were to be comparable to the Dahl edits (see Gloop), they'd remove the word 'kill' while actually still having Bond shooting people.

I've read Live and Let Die and it's really racist, not just by modern standards but even in the 80s I was shocked by the way he described some of the characters and the way Bond delighted in harming them, it really ruined the book for me. They've been censoring books for years (look at any original first ed Enid Blyton and compare to a modern version), I think this book in particular is not a hill I would die on when it comes to censorship.
Please don't go in guns blazing unless you've read the original, it's really poor.

They've already done that, it's called the "children's bible". Very insidious that they sanitise it for introducing it to children so you don't discover what it's actually about until you're older.

Yeah if you actually read Ian flaming they aren’t that great, penny dreadful level really. Much more successful as movies for a good reason! If they hadn’t become an iconic movie series no one would know the name, the books wouldn’t live on on their own standing.

That sound dreadful. Any book like that should be either edited or allowed to go out of print. If edited, there should be a note to explain why, because we should never make it seem as though these attitudes didn't (and still do) exist.

It's not just the word "fat" used as a descriptor that is a problem. It's the fact that the word "fat" is only every used in conjunction with horrible characters. I don't recall a nice young fat person in a Road Dahl book. It was just another thing teaching me that I was abnormal and less than normal kids. I could forgive the existence of Augustus Gloop because his sin was greed.

Dahl's books are timeless. They tell children about the world now. That's why children will benefit from the updating. First time I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - a library book- Charlie found a florin (two shillings). Next time I had my own paperback he found 50p. I was incensed! I could see that a change had been made. It was a betrayal. But now as adult I can see things differently. If we put back the shillings and set the stories in a certain time then fine, but that's not Dahl. The books we give to children define how they see the world, that's why there are different sections in the book store for them.

Fleming's work though, that's a bit like scraping the bird droppings off a dung heap. Penny dreadful is a great description for them.

Good. If you have read the original, Live and Let Die has a substantial amount of appalling racism and its gratuitous use of the N word is so excessive that, however forewarned you are, it will leave you feeling sick to your stomach.

And yes, I believe that in his lifetime Ian Fleming became uncomfortable with the language and racism in some of his own work.