What are you currently reading?

[JBS]

I think you might have misunderstood. A sensitivity reader is not overly sensitive; they are a professional editor who rewrites passages of older books for a modern audience.  Please see the wiki:

A sensitivity reader is someone who reads a literary work, looking for perceived offensive content, stereotypes and bias, creating a report for an author or publisher with suggested changes.[1][2] The use of sensitivity readers has attracted criticism from some authors and members of the public, particularly with respect to edits to re-editions of previously published works of literature.

No I understood. But my (admittedly hazy) memory recalls nothing in that book that would raise those concerns. (There are other Christie books like Death On The Nile that might trigger that kind of editing.)

[Papy Oli]

finished Alice's Adventures in wonderland last night. Will do Through The Looking-glass later on.

Now starting Peter Pan.

[Florestan]

I think you might have misunderstood. A sensitivity reader is not overly sensitive; they are a professional editor who rewrites passages of older books for a modern audience.  Please see the wiki:

A sensitivity reader is someone who reads a literary work, looking for perceived offensive content, stereotypes and bias, creating a report for an author or publisher with suggested changes.[1][2] The use of sensitivity readers has attracted criticism from some authors and members of the public, particularly with respect to edits to re-editions of previously published works of literature.

Sounds like an euphemism for censorship to me. 

[Spotted Horses]

I like Dennis Lehane. I've only read Mystic River and Shutter Island though.

I read The Murder of Roger Akroyd, one of the most satisfying mysteries I've ever read. What makes it so good would not work on TV or film. (I know it has been adapted; that is not my point).

I read the public domain version, which was free of any interference from the sensitivity readers the publisher employed for Agatha Christie (that is factually true, not paranoia on my part).

I seem to remember that the modification of Christie's texts happened in the most recent editions, but I'm not clear when that happened. Going back to the public domain versions (project Gutenberg?) sound like a safe bet. I remember reading that they corrected archaic usage and punctuation, which is half the fun of reading an old book. I remember that stodgy English characters would frequently disparage "foreigners" (including Poirot himself) and maybe they thought they should tone that down as well...

Some mention of it here:

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/agatha-christie-novels-edited-offensive-language-gbr-intl-scli/index.html#

[ShineyMcShineShine]

Some mention of it here:

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/agatha-christie-novels-edited-offensive-language-gbr-intl-scli/index.html#

For example, Poirot's description of another character as "a Jew, of course" in Christie's debut novel, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles," has been stripped out of the new version.

Throughout the revised version of the short story collection "Miss Marple's Final Cases and Two Other Stories," the word "native" has been replaced with "local," The Telegraph reports.

A passage describing a servant as "black" and "grinning" has been revised and the character is now simply referred to as "nodding," with no reference to his race.

And in the 1937 novel "Death on the Nile," references to "Nubian people" have been removed throughout.

Those sensitivity readers are quite sensitive, aren't they? I guess they have to be: they wouldn't get paid if they didn't change anything.

[Florestan]

Those sensitivity readers are quite sensitive, aren't they? I guess they have to be: they wouldn't get paid if they didn't change anything.

As I said: censorship.

[ShineyMcShineShine]

As I said: censorship.

"Winston's greatest pleasure in life was in his work. Most of it was a tedious routine, but included in it there were also jobs so difficult and intricate that you could lose yourself in them as in the depths of a mathematical problem—delicate pieces of forgery in which you had nothing to guide you except your knowledge of the principles of Ingsoc and your estimate of what the Party wanted you to say. Winston was good at this kind of thing."

[Florestan]

"Winston's greatest pleasure in life was in his work. Most of it was a tedious routine, but included in it there were also jobs so difficult and intricate that you could lose yourself in them as in the depths of a mathematical problem—delicate pieces of forgery in which you had nothing to guide you except your knowledge of the principles of Ingsoc and your estimate of what the Party wanted you to say. Winston was good at this kind of thing."

Aye.

I was born and raised în the Socialist Republic of România, so I know a thing or two about censorship.

[ShineyMcShineShine]

Originally written in English but translated into Spanish.

[SimonNZ]

"Winston's greatest pleasure in life was in his work. Most of it was a tedious routine, but included in it there were also jobs so difficult and intricate that you could lose yourself in them as in the depths of a mathematical problem—delicate pieces of forgery in which you had nothing to guide you except your knowledge of the principles of Ingsoc and your estimate of what the Party wanted you to say. Winston was good at this kind of thing."

If Winston Smith in his job was doing the toning down of racism in Agatha Christie books, then that would mean altering or destroying all previously existing copies.


TD:

finished:



starting:

[vers la flamme]

Originally written in English but translated into Spanish.

Thoughts?

[LKB]

Sounds like an euphemism for censorship to me. 

+1

[Ganondorf]

War is never fun but you can make damn great books about it. And so far, this has been very interesting, concerning the Franco-Prussian war. This is the longest of the books in Rougon-Macquart and, IIRC, also the best received at the time of its publication.

[Spotted Horses]

Sounds like an euphemism for censorship to me. 

Censorship is when authorities prevent you from publishing something. When the owner of a book waters it down to make it more innocuous or appealing to a mass market, that is crass commercialism.

[Florestan]

Censorship is when authorities prevent you from publishing something.

Uhhmmm, no, not quite.

A sensitivity reader is someone who reads a literary work, looking for perceived offensive content, stereotypes and bias, creating a report for an author or publisher with suggested changes.

Well, precisely. The censorship in the Socialist Republic of Romania did exactly that: they suggested the author or publisher to change this or that word, phrase or paragraph. If the changes were agreed upon, the book was printed. If the changes were rejected, more often than not the book was not printed.

Remember:

I was born and raised în the Socialist Republic of România, so I know a thing or two about censorship.

 

[Florestan]

Now, if someone argued that the  Romanian censorship was more lenient than the Soviet censorship, I'd agree. After all, Mussolini's regime was more lenient than Hitler's. 

[Florestan]

sections of the government which are supposed to be non-political

I am not aware of any section of any democratic government which is supposed to be non-political.

OTOH, the claim of technocracy is typical of undemocratic governments.

[ShineyMcShineShine]

Thoughts?

I'm learning Spanish so I'm reading the translation primarily to improve my vocabulary; comprehension is a secondary concern. But recently I read The Last Emperor of Mexico by Edward Shawcross, which got me interested in this period and region again, so afterwards I went looking for histories of the Mexican-American war and this one kept coming up on lists. I just started it so can't say too much about it yet. It's "woke", but that's to be expected of any academic history published in this century.

[ShineyMcShineShine]

If Winston Smith in his job was doing the toning down of racism in Agatha Christie books, then that would mean altering or destroying all previously existing copies.

Yes, in his world all previously existing copies were altered or destroyed, but if a school provides only the bowdlerized version to its students or Amazon provides only the bowdlerized version to its customers, and they never know any other version exists, what's the difference? And if Google decided to block access to uncensored versions all previously existing copies would effectively cease to exist for a large percentage of people.

[ShineyMcShineShine]

...non-political, surely.

I expect the mods will soon censor this thread.