New in PJ Media:
When the woke bowdlerizers came for Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and Ian Fleming (James Bond), they became the recipients of a torrent of ridicule, but that didn’t stop them. On the contrary, they’re just getting started. Their latest target is mystery writer Agatha Christie, who has sold two billion copies of her novels, making her the best-selling novelist of all time; she is also the author of the world’s longest-running play, The Mousetrap. Future generations, however, are going to find it difficult to discover what the fuss was all about, as Christie’s works have now gone under the woke knife to bring them into line with contemporary Leftist sensibilities. It’s clear now: no books will be spared.
The UK’s far-Left Independent reported Monday that Harper Collins’ new editions of Christie’s books have been “rewritten for modern sensitivities,” and “the n-word and the term ‘Oriental’ are among the language being removed from new editions.” Now, if you’re nodding your head at this point and thinking that such words are a bridge too far and are rightly expunged from the new editions, think again. As offensive as people today find such language, to erase it from the writings of authors who lived in a different age, with sensibilities that differed significantly from those of our own day, is to set out on an extremely dangerous path. Once we accept the idea that the works of any writer can and should be altered to suit ourselves, we have opened the door to changes that are not just cosmetic, but substantive. Before too long, Agatha Christie could sound like Robin DiAngelo.
And that’s just the idea. The woke censors don’t just want to protect modern readers from having their ever-so-delicate sensitivities triggered by cloddish, bigoted older writers who didn’t have our contemporary all-encompassing awareness of how everything, literally everything, is racist. The woke censors want to make it impossible for you to think anything they don’t want you to think, by closing off your access to any writer or thinker who might give you an idea of which they do not approve.
That’s why these new censorship initiatives are so disturbing, and dangerous. Leftists envision, and are actively working toward, a world in which everyone thinks, acts, and speaks exactly the way they do. This involves not only demonizing, marginalizing, silencing, and ultimately criminalizing political dissent, but also even rewriting the literature (and the non-fiction will be in for the same treatment too, eventually) of the past so as to foreclose on the possibility of people realizing that the world once was, and could again be, something other than the bug-eating, own-nothing future the Left is preparing for us.
There is more. Read the rest here.
Jim says
I would guess that they will have to go through Huckelberry Finn and other books by Mark Twain and change a lot. And then Gone with the Wind, which will have to be changed to remove the bias in favor of the old slave south.
Then Joseph Conrad. Remember his story “The Nigger of the Narcissus”? Will that be changed to “The Whitey of the Narcissus” or something else. Or his Heart of Darkness? And perhaps Faulkner.
And then go on to politics and erase a lot of things LBJ said, or statements by Woodrow Wilson It can never end. .
Will readers who want to read the originals of many writings have to buy old copies on the black market or smuggle them in across the open border? Perhaps that would induce Democrats to close the border to prevent subversive ideas from getting into the country.
gravenimage says
Jim, this has already happened with Mark Twain–especially perverse, since he was *anti-slaavery* and racism–really, Huck and Jim, the slave, are the noblest characters in the book.
And books like Gone with the Wind, classic though it is, are just almost never assigned in classes any more.
Mark Spahn says
Why are the examples of censorship so few (I counted only four)?
And how would a sculptor enjoy a torso (misspelled as “torse”) of black marble?
gravenimage says
Mark, I’m sure these examples of censorship are just the tip of the iceberg.
As for the reference to the torso, it just means that this Black woman’s body was so beautiful that even a sculptor would appreciate it (this was back when artists were actually considered to be judges of beauty, something also sadly becoming a thing of the past).
John Allan says
Two billion copies already sold!!??
The longest-running play!!??
They’re just a LITTLE on the late side!!
😭😂
gravenimage says
Not really, John. Yes, older readers will still have read the uncensored works, and older editions will still be for sale as used books. But if these bowdlerized editions become the standard, it will only be scholars and “old farts” who remember what these books originally were.
Leonard Dunnet says
What a loud of two bit over sensitive p**cks. They live in cloud cukoo land no sorry that’s unfair to cukoo’s. If they watched a film BFM about the black mafia and heard how many time black actors in that used the term Ni**r they be apoplecsick. Leave the hell alone you idiots.
Nelson Daniels says
Good point Leonard, but aren’t you also contributing to this latest woke nonsense by not spelling out the full word “ nigger” in your letter? What the heck does “Ni**r” supposed to mean? Or “N word”? Huckleberry Finn did not float down the Mississippi with a guy named “N word Jim” . His raft buddy was Nigger Jim.
somehistory says
I have Black friends. Some of them call their kids that and told me why. If they heard the word from their parents, it wouldn’t bother them to hear it from strangers.
Much like when I was a kid, my parents referred to our family as “crackers.” I never knew until a few years ago that it was used by others (racists) as an insult.
Westman says
Whitewashing history for the party. Down with the statues, the historical names of institutions, the flags, the inconvenient words that expose the lie of party oneness.
Who knew Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World were instruction manuals? The soma of streaming video, drugs and the lowest degredation possible, the sexualization of children.
Did we just see Big Brother sucking on ice cream, declaring 4 = 3, before spinning the most recent social war battle?
gravenimage says
Grimly true, Westman.
gravenimage says
And Then There Were None: Woke Censors Come for Mystery Writer Agatha Christie
The UK’s far-Left Independent reported Monday that Harper Collins’ new editions of Christie’s books have been “rewritten for modern sensitivities,” and “the n-word and the term ‘Oriental’ are among the language being removed from new editions.”
………………………………………………….
Chilling stuff. It is one thing to include some politically correct “notes” with a book; it is something else again to *rewrite* the book. But this wholesale rewriting of history is becoming more common all the time. And this is Harper Collins, not some fly-by-night “woke” publisher.
Kenneth Birtwistle says
Who the hell are these people and who gives and gave them the authority to ban loved and cherished literary works and authors? Their names should be printed so that they get the abuse they warrant and desperately need!
Gamaliel says
Since when is the term Oriental an insult. The woke made it into an insult. They are looking for insults. They are creating insults so they can portray society as evil and in need of control, control by them. Oriental means East Asian i.e. Chinese.
Michael Canning says
I need to go out and buy up all the classics before they are altered. I dread the thought of altered Dostoevsky, altered Tolstoy, altered Dracula or Frankenstein. And altered Sherlock Holmes! They will of course go after the Bible. They’ve been at that already. But after 2000 years they have not been able to succeed against the followers of Christ and they won’t be able to now either.
somehistory says
=100
OLD GUY says
Simply put WOKE INSANITY.
James Lincoln says
Pre-woke movies will be the next things censored.
somehistory says
What will they do to “In the Heat of the Night”? “Sidney Portier ….the intelligent Black man….not appreciated by the White chief of police.
Or how about “A Patch of Blue” and “Look Who’s Coming to Dinner.”
Will they make changes to those in which Portier portrayed someone who commanded respect?