OT: Heyer censored

Here we go again. I wonder which version of Heyer's texts Folio will use, if they continue to publisher more of her books going forward?

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/30/books/georgette-heyer-romance-novel-antisemit...

>1 ambyrglow: Oh, hush. Your enlightened overlords know better what's good for you.

I've basically come around to the position of "leave it as-is and add a warning/disclaimer to the beginning". Otherwise we will continue to chip away at every book over time, losing the not just the voice of the author, but the context of their time. Make not the past a happy idyll.

>3 Shadekeep: Exactly, otherwise historical research would be akin to looking out the window.

>3 Shadekeep: How about just leave it as is - period - and spare us the modern moralizing in an unnecessary, unctuous secular sermon masquerading as an introduction.

>3 Shadekeep: Yes, but please, no more disclaimers/trigger warnings! :) We need to stop raising mobs of neurotic, narcissistic fascist snowflakes in constant pursuit of something to be offended by. At this point we already got plenty of fake outrage even over things that are not offensive by any stretch of imagination.

Btw, I'm ok with bowdlerization in children books, but only in a sensible manner. For example, I think it's ok to retell Greek Myths without explicitly calling out rape. Or I think it's ok to take the word "nigger" out of How the Leopard Got His Spots in Kipling's Just So Stories: it's a singular random occurrence that serves to contextual purpose whatsoever, the book is meant for smaller children, and the word is now a taboo in the modern society, ironically with a notable exception of the black community itself. On the other hand, the recent re-write of Dahl's books was an absolutely shameful, absurd, grotesque abomination.

But we are big girls and boys, we don't need no disclaimers telling us what to think. Even something like Hitler's Mein Kampf should be available in its entirety without any disclaimers or warnings. Sure, publishing it in an edition bound in leather with gilded edges etc. like EP did is certainly mauvais ton, but the book should be available for anyone who wants to research what Hitler actually wrote.

>5 ultrarightist: Well said, except I wouldn't use the word "secular". This ideology is nothing but a new modern religion/sect, complete with extremely dogmatic outlandish beliefs, fierce proselytizing and desire to convert by word or sword, saints, places of pilgrimage, acts of penance, witch-hunting and punishing heretics etc. etc.

>6 elladan0891: Btw, I'm ok with...

Slippery slope? Thin edge of the wedge? The exception becomes the rule?

>6 elladan0891: Why no trigger warnings? How can that possibly harm someone. Just turn the page over and keep reading. Why take away the choice from other people too. If you are indeed "big girls and boys", maybe be less sensitive to things which clearly don't concern you.

People who have been raped/suffered child abuse/escaped domestic violence and so on might not want to relive that experience. There are so many works out there which throw rapes in just as a mildly interesting plot point.

A simple trigger warning allows people to choose. Why anybody would be so triggered by the presence of trigger warnings is just beyond ridiculous and incomprehensible to me.

It is way more neurotic and narcissitic to be unable to ignore a simple trigger warning written on one page and simply move on with one's book.

On the other hand, i am not okay with taking out rapes from greek mythology, be it only for the sake of the children or not. Maybe it can serve as a good opportunity to explain certain things to children.

Maybe you should add some examples as to the "witch-hunting" claim, otherwise it just makes your words come across as melodramatic.

>5 ultrarightist: >6 elladan0891: I do think a disclaimer serves a useful purpose, as publishing problematic texts without one leaves the publisher open to accusations of condoning the attitudes of the book. I don't think every book needs it - if you pick up the writings of the Marquis de Sade, then you are knowingly putting your head in the tiger's mouth, and you should get what you get without preamble. But by and large I think texts like Heyer's just need the standard boilerplate about "contents reflect some of the attitudes of the times and have been left unaltered". This is purely informative without being judgemental. (And honestly, this statement should be understood as implicit in every single book ever, but in some cases a reminder can be useful.)

>8 sekhmet0108: A simple trigger warning allows people to choose. Why anybody would be so triggered by the presence of trigger warnings is just beyond ridiculous and incomprehensible to me

Could be a spoiler alert. E.g.

*SPOILER*

"Warning: Don't Look Now is not suitable for achondroplasiaphobics"

*END SPOILER*

basically kills it.

>8 sekhmet0108: Why anybody would be so triggered by the presence of trigger warnings is just beyond ridiculous and incomprehensible to me.

For me, it's rather ridiculous to think that a modern reader could be so stupid as to expect a hundred-year-old book to be considerate of his or her contemporary sensibilities.

>10 InVitrio: There's certainly an element of that in the warn-words that come up at the start of streaming shows. Especially if it's a drama and something like "suicide" comes up as one of the terms. I honestly wish you could choose to disable these.

As someone of Jewish faith, it pains me to see anti-semetic language whitewashed away via censorship. It is part of our history, and erasing it simply makes it that much easier to return. Human history is ugly, but we only learn and move forward when we process it; not when we brush it under the rug.

>9 Shadekeep: And honestly, this statement should be understood as implicit in every single book ever

Absolutely, and it's a good argument why such disclaimers aren't needed. We should stop treating people as imbeciles or clueless little children.

Quite honestly, this approach has been ingrained in American culture for decades, and might be one of the reasons why Americans raised generations lacking basic common sense. Things like printed instructions on how to use shampoo, magazine articles on how often to wash jeans, printed warnings not to eat things that are very obviously not edible, courts finding that a clumsy old person who knowingly bought a hot drink and spilled it on herself while driving her car should be paid millions by the restaurant for her own stupid decision and clumsiness have been laughed at around the world for decades.

Sorry, if you don't know how to wash your hair or when to do your laundry you have much bigger issues in your life which printed instructions to lather, rinse, repeat won't help with. If you decide to take a hot drink into the car you're driving and spill it burning yourself - it's YOUR fault. If you decide to open a box of moth balls and pig out on its contents - I say let natural selection take its due course. If you don't understand that social norms change over time and even at any given time are different across cultures - I have no compassion for you or desire to babysit you. Let's stop raising spoiled baby adults with no common sense and who are offended by everything.

>8 sekhmet0108: So you think we need to have rape trigger warning for adults, but you want parents to explain rape to 5-6-7-8-year-olds? This is one of the things seriously wrong with modern anglophone and some other western societies: treating adults as children while force-feeding explicit adult information to children and pretending that children are capable of making adult decisions about their upbringings, irreversible changes to their bodies, etc.

Maybe you should add some examples as to the "witch-hunting" claim, otherwise it just makes your words come across as melodramatic.

Do you really need examples of the rabid cancel culture and raging twitter mobs on the hunt to destroy people's careers, reputations, and lives in general for the horrible heresy of not sharing the same beliefs?

>15 elladan0891: Imagine thinking that a single page with "Trigger Warning : Sexual Abuse/ Child Abuse" is something infantilising!

Moreover, which children's book has rape in it? If it does, then maybe it's not a children's book. It would very much depend on the context,wouldn't it. Besides, all kids need to be told from an extremely young age what is and isn't appropriate behaviour towards themselves and towards others. Being overly naive/innocent makes them more liable to become victims.

"children are capable of making adult decisions about their upbringings, irreversible changes to their bodies, etc."

Ooh... dog whistles. Okay, then, not gonna touch that.

And your inability to name a name says more than any of your words do. You must know that all these people getting "cancelled" don't actually suffer much more than being criticised and even disliked by some people.

Rowling? Hogwarts Legacy was a tremendous success,and the books still sell like hot cakes. Louis C K? Absolutely sold out performances. Woody Allen? Roman Polanski?

Nothing happens except some people bringing light to things. The people don't get "cancelled". Clearly.

Even in slightly different cases like the Frankfurt Buchmesse cancelling Adania Shibli's award due to the current war is just leading to more and more people buying her book ("Minor Detail"...i have read it, and it's powerful and moving).

>14 elladan0891: "clumsy old person who knowingly bought a hot drink and spilled it on herself while driving her car should be paid millions by the restaurant for her own stupid decision "

Congrats on falling for some great McDonald's propaganda.

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/28/1201421914/a-woman-is-suing-mcdonalds-after-being...

Also, the first time it happened was in 1994, when these "spoiled baby adults" like us were either not even born or toddlers at the time. Moreover, even in 1994, the lady was not driving. She was parked and she suffered 3rd degree burns!

The problem nowadays with older generations is that they are far too gullible and don't have sufficient media literacy at times, which makes them vulnerable to misinformation.

"Let's stop raising spoiled baby adults with no common sense and who are offended by everything."

Or, maybe realise that the "good ol' times" were not that good and maybe some things do need change.

If you can be so offended by something as petty as "trigger warnings", just imagine how triggering ghe actual triggers could be for some.

I'm fine with trigger warnings because if some people find them useful, then I don't see any harm in including them. I am lucky enough to not benefit from them, so if I see the label "trigger warning", I just turn the page in the book or skip that part of the synopsis/review so that I don't potentially see spoilers. People who do benefit from certain trigger warnings may also generally dislike spoilers, but perhaps they understandably put their own well-being before a spoiler-free experience of (oftentimes) fictional content. As has been previously mentioned, if someone has been raped, they may not wish to see that in the content they're consuming because it may bring to the forefront their own horrifying experience(s), but it could even be as simple as someone having recently lost a parent and not wishing to read about a character losing a loved one. I see trigger warnings as just an attempt to be kind — I don't believe that anyone has maintained that they MUST be included in every book, so if an author or publisher wants to include them in some titles at their discretion to help some of their readers, sure, why not? is my opinion at the moment.

To me, it doesn't feel very different from - just as an example - someone avoiding books with supernatural horror so that they can sleep at night. Usually this can be determined from the synopsis, cover art, title, reviews, etc. (in fact, maybe the supernatural horror part is supposed to be a surprise, but the person may go digging for the spoiler because they'd rather know what to expect so that they can read the book exclusively during the day or maybe even skip the whole book rather than not sleep well for three weeks). Trigger warnings seem loosely like a similar concept to me except they're at a more detailed level, typically more serious, and more easily accessible to readers who wish to see them.


I'm also generally in favor of leaving the text as is and adding a one-sentence note at the beginning of the book — I've seen it done with Agatha Christie (I can't remember which book it was) and I didn't have a problem with it: I just raised an eyebrow and wondered what I was going to encounter and then when I got to whatever outdated view or comment I just went tsk tsk lol. I think sometimes they can also be educational opportunities because when I read The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer I wouldn't have even noticed anything if I hadn't read reader reviews beforehand, and this is because I'd never previously been aware of any association - let alone a hurtful one - between Jewish people and money. So this is a bit like what >13 HonorWulf: said. But at the same time, despite wanting to leave text as is, I'm so glad they changed the name of Christie's book to "And Then There Were None" and the name of the island as well because the original names are straight-up unacceptable imo, so I guess there are exceptions? (And the fact is: these exceptions probably differ from person to person. I noticed that several readers mentioned that they preferred the modified version of The Grand Sophy.)

Honestly, if some people really want modified copies, then I don't think I'd care if publishers put out both original copies and modified copies (but never just modified copies alone), but I'd need them to make it VERY clear that the latter copies are modified, either directly on the cover or with a whole page at the front of the book dedicated to mentioning that. This way the reader gets the choice of whether they want to either read solely for comfort/enjoyment or put their head in the sand VS. just read it normally — kind of like abridged (or retold) versus unabridged.

But also publishers are already changing authors' texts quite often as brought up in recent LT topics, e.g.
- Abridging the English translation of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
- Changing the jokes/insults in Hitchhiker's Guide between the UK and the US
- Even spelling changes between the UK and the US if we want to go into that much detail

so this is quite the blurry concept already.


I'd also just like to note that I'm always in favor of instructions on products! Humans are different from many animals who just grow up knowing what to do as they age — we have to be taught most things, which is why we spend our childhood in schools with formal instruction. (This is not my own thought; I read it somewhere but can't remember where or in what context.) Without parents, friends, and things like school to teach people societal norms, we'd have a lot of trouble trying to fit into current society — even more so because norms can differ from country to country, region to region, etc. As a very basic example, let's say someone grew up in a family who only used shampoo on their hair; now, if a hairdresser asked them to start using conditioner, they'd probably be thankful for the instructions on the back. Luckily, with the internet you can google instructions for anything, but this is the general reason behind why I support instructions even for things that most people are expected to be familiar with.

>11 Andrew14: I wasn't talking about classics though, i was talking about contemporary literature mostly. Again, how hard is it to ignore a simple page with trigger warnings!

This has got nothing to do with "modern sensibilities", considering that people all through history were uncomfortable with everything from Tess to Lady Chatterly and so on.

I don't feel that there is any need to change the text, but if there are serious triggers, then a warning doesn't hurt anybody.

>10 InVitrio: Just turn the page and don't read it. I ignore introductions and sometimes even the backs of the books when it comes to classics, since they spoil too much of the plot. So, yeah...just turn the page over and keep reading. Then it's not a spoiler for you.

>9 Shadekeep:

I think you've hit on the main point here, with the comparison to Sade (clearly a different category, as is literary fiction or non-fiction in general).

The reason publishers are eager to sanitise the sorts of Heyer and Christie is that these authors are still selling very well--they are popular in every sense of the word. But it's likely fair to say that, whatever the reasons for their popularity almost a century since their first editions, racism is not among them. So it's not at all difficult to understand why a publisher looking to keep profiting from these titles might "update" them in the fashion showcased in the article. Heyer and Christie are still today meant to be enjoyed in more or less the same way they were ever enjoyed, and openly racist language goes against that. Increasingly.

Is there a tension between the expectation that your beach read will be thrilling without reminding you of real-world miseries, and the expectation that authors of a certain demographic will be racist etc. as a matter of course? Yes. Are the publishers pushing these changes banking on the former group being in majority? Also yes.

>13 HonorWulf:

This is far from the first example of dropping antisemitic language in popular fiction since the Holocaust (or even before). This kind of whitewashing is also common in cinema, proving that people always knew not just that the prejudice was unpleasant, but that it was also dangerous to broadcast it.

My take on it is that we should be wary where we learn history and what assumptions we make about objects of popular culture.

>19 LolaWalser: Exactly. Particularly as in this case, the Heyer edition seems to be a cash-in on Bridgerton, whose comforting fantasy has convinced a worrying number of people that Regency England was a multicultural country with a black queen.

>20 red_guy:

Heh! I haven't seen or read anything Bridgerton but I'm mildly aware of the show... certainly a case in point about not taking fantasy literally!

I will say that I regret these changes to Heyer insofar she is often praised for her historical accuracy and efforts at authentic speech (I've read many of her books but I'm not capable of judging this), and no doubt the usage of antisemitic clichés was as accurate in the era she writes of as in her own. But I suppose it's true that she is nevertheless read more for romance than history, and this trait, "magical absence of antisemitism" has to be added to other such chronologically dubious but unquestioned features like better standards of hygiene and impeccable teeth.

On the subject of trigger warnings, my understanding is that evidence suggests that they don’t really work how they are generally assumed to work and so don’t really help people who have suffered previous trauma.

This article tries to give a balanced perspective:

https://heterodoxacademy.org/blog/the-illusion-of-following-the-science-in-the-w...

>22 leboucher: thanks, this is really interesting.

>17 BooksFriendsNotFood: “I'd also just like to note that I'm always in favor of instructions on products!”

One of my favorites, found on the labels of kids’ costume/role playing superhero capes since the late ‘90s/early ‘00s:

“Warning: Cape does not enable wearer to fly.”

What probably bothered me most was that the first time I saw this, it was on a Batman cape.

Batman doesn’t fly, fools. He glides. ;)

>24 betaraybill: I'm glad I wasn't in the middle of drinking something or I might've choked while reading this haha! I am both amused and horrified at the thought of a kid putting on the cape and attempting actual flight gliding.

>25 BooksFriendsNotFood: Just saw your reply.

I’m glad you got a good chuckle from that. :) And that you weren’t mid-quaff when you read it! ;)

>24 betaraybill: Batman doesn’t fly, fools. He glides.

Same goes for flying, ahem... gliding squirrels.

>27 mr.philistine: Nice!