(Nearly) Open Thread, May 18 2012

Fred Clark just resumed his Left Behind posts--which got us wondering about two things.

1) How many others were surprised by some of the changes in the publication of the updated first volume of the Left Behind series? This re-release incorporated the political and technological changes that had taken place since the original publication of the first book of that series.

2) Is there any other book you know of that has had an edited/altered re-release and, if so, what do you think of result?

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Comments

[MercuryBlue]

Patricia Wrede's Talking with Dragons. Dunno what all she changed, though, other than rearranging the bit that goes 'That is a sword. They are long, pointy, and very sharp.'--I think the original says pointy, then long. I haven't done a page-by-page comparison, I'm not entirely sure I've read the first version, but she published the book and then wrote three prequels and then edited the book to better fit with the first three chronologically and rereleased it.

[Mmy]

While not writing[1] my doctoral dissertation I read the original The Stand then read the reissued version of The Stand then read them side by side.

[1] Much research seems to be comprised of equal amounts of frenzied weeks in which one neglects to eat or sleep and times when one cannot even abide thinking of the subject.

[Firedrake]

T. H. White rewrote chunks of The Sword in the Stone - adding the ants, for example, probably in light of the Nazis, and taking out most of Pellinore - and to my mind made it rather less good.

But then I have no trouble seeing that a book was written in 1931 and reading it with my best approximation of a period mindset. I think books, once written, should be left alone.

[Froborr]

@MercuryBlue: Do you happen to know which version is in the omnibus edition of the series? That's the version I have, and Talking with Dragons is notably less well-written than the other three.

The Hobbit: Still not a very good book, but I like it better. Hard to say for sure, though, since I read the (much more familiar) later version first.

The Worthing Saga: Vastly, vastly, VASTLY improved over the original (pretty bad) novella. Easily Card's best book, though I haven't read it (or anything else by him) since he turned into a loudmouthed homophobic jackass. (Pretty much the only case where I have ever stopped reading someone because I found their opinions unbearably vile. Probably because the other cases involved vastly better writers who died long before I was born.)

I think books, once written, should be left alone.

"No garden is finished while its gardener lives."

-Ian McDonald... I think? I'm about 70% confident it was in Desolation Road.

[MercuryBlue]

Froborr: Not a clue. Check the copyright dates?

[Froborr]

Also: Yay, someone acknowledged the existence of Patricia Wrede and the Gerund Preposition Dragons series! *is happy*

[Rob]

Hardy Boys
Everything by Michael Moorcock

[Mike Timonin]

Spider Robinson retconned dates when he released Deathkiller - the omnibus of Mindkiller and Time Pressure. In the original, according to his intro, he anticipated legalized marijuana cigarettes in Canada well in advance of when they were actually legalized (which is to say, not yet, actually).

We're actually hunting for our copy of Wrede's Dealing with Dragons, so that the eldest can read it. I hope it's not still in a box...

[hapax]

Wrede wrote a nice essay about the first of her updating the first of her Lyra books -- I think it was SHADOWS OVER LYRA. She mentioned that in the first edition, she knew that she had to have a character *do* something while carrying on a conversation, but had no idea what, so she just tossed in something nonsensical and out of character. In the revised edition, she wrote, she knew the sort of things that said character was more likely to do.

It's not uncommon for genres that have a lot of titles originally released in paperback -- particularly romance, but also mystery and sff - to re-release those early titles when the author "makes it big." Evanovich's old category romances and JD Robb's first IN DEATH books are good examples.

It's interesting to see these updated, both with later technology (like cell phones) but also more "modern" attitudes (a number of Old Skool romances add a lot more sexual content, while still significantly toning down the rape-iness of the earlier versions).

Oddly enough, these updates cause more problems than they're worth. For example, if you toss in cell phones, the reader is left wondering why the nosy amateur detective didn't just Google the suspect's name, rather than go to the trouble of that whole involved scene at the libray...

[MercuryBlue]

Wiki says commercially available cell phones predate Google by fifteen years. So it'd depend on the ambiance of the rest of the novel, I suppose, what decade readers are to assume it takes place in.

I haven't read these in a while, so I'm not sure, but I have the distinct recollection that Nora Roberts's MacGregor series all had about the same tech level. These books deal with three, maybe four by now, generations of a family, and they're all romance novels that occur when the romantic leads are, what, mid-thirties at the latest?

[SPAMFLAGGING]

Yaaaay!
I have been eagerly awaiting this day, but wasn't here to see it early on, because we were out enjoying the weather. Which is also yay.

I can't think of a book I've read that I am aware of having been rewritten. Certainly recut movies I have dealth with.

[MercuryBlue]

Lonespark, still spamflagging, or just forgot to change your signature back?

[cjmr, who will probably figure out her typepad logon eventually]

Diane Duane keeps muttering about updating the technology in the early books of her Young Wizards series, but I won't buy the new ones if she does...

[cjmr]

After trying all the passwords I've ever used, I finally gave up and reset my password on Typepad to what I thought it was.

[gleomstapa]

Young Wizards is weird because the tech level matches the publication date but rather less time passes in the story timeline, with the result that technological development appears curiously accelerated ...

[P J Evans]

Ringworld had the opening rewritten because it had the world rotating backwards (that is, time zones going east were later instead of earlier).
I still think the original version reads better.

[Lonespark]

I just forgot. Overwhelmed with excitement or something. Sorry, y'all.

[Emily Cartier]

I also think Young Wizards has fewer tech level issues than the author does. But apparently to a kid in 2012, the first book is confusingly low tech. I find this somewhat mystifying, since I don't recall any instances where actual card catalogue cards or pay phones are used :P.

Personally, I suspect the Lotus is more confusing than the rest of the tech.

[cjmr]

Yes, because you really have to be a car junkie to understand The Lotus.

I'll have to try out the first book on my 13 year old, now that we have a copy that isn't falling apart.

[sarah]

Wrede's Dragon series was one of my favorites when I was 11 or 12. I loved Cimorene. :)

[Wednesday]

I know a lot of books that fall under #2. Of course, pretty much any religious text that gets translated falls into that category, and I find it absolutely fascinating to read about the histories of these texts and their origins and various changes. (Bart Ehrman's "Misquoting Jesus" is a fantastic introduction to this as pertaining to the New Testament.) And of course, there's the perennial textbook edition issue. But I'm guessing that's not what was intended by the question. =)

There've been a few novels on my radar that have recently been published with revised editions.

Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith was originally published as two volumes, and she'd had to change some place-names to have it set in the same world as her previous YA books, rather than the world it was actually set in. I didn't know this until it was reprinted as a single volume with the place-names restored. I'm definitely glad we got the "original setting" version published, because now that she has other books printed set in that world, I can put the culture and events in the context of the meta-history and world.

Talking to Dragons by Patricia Wrede. Count me in as another big fan of Wrede (the problematic aspects of her new trilogy aside). I've read (and in fact, own) both versions of this book. The changes were pretty minimal, but I was happy to be able to get the hardcover version to match the rest of the series.

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume. I never read either version, but I was glad to hear they published an "updated" version to reflect the changes in mainstream menstrual products, since it's very clearly meant to be a book for (cis) girls about coping with early puberty.

Huckleberry Finn. (TW for the whole debate over the new censored version?) I'm honestly torn on the special edition that replaces all instances of the n-word with "slave". On one hand, I hate censorship, and from an educational standpoint I think making a book "less offensive" is a whitewashing of history and undermines some of the value of teaching that book, and frankly that particular choice of word is a really bad one because it will confuse the reader as to which Black characters are slaves. I've also heard that more changes were made to sanitize the book in other ways, but I don't have any details.

On the other hand,I have read accounts of black feminists whose high school English classes read the book and were hell because white classmates used the pretense of the n-word to misbehave (eg, giggling and looking at the Black students whenever the n-word was mentioned). The solution I'd _prefer_ is for the teachers to keep their classes in line and teach about racism responsibly, but some teachers don't care and others might but wouldn't know how to start. So I understand that having an edition with the n-word removed can help in those cases.

So, ersh. I'm just really torn.

[Kirala]

Yay, someone acknowledged the existence of Patricia Wrede and the Gerund Preposition Dragons series! *is happy* -Froborr

Wow, I'm happy to see so many fellow Wrede fans here. I've never seen the first edition of Talking to Dragons, so I don't know how it differs from the later editions. (And aside from the topic at hand - I've never been able to imagine a satisfactory plot for a sequel and find "Utensile Strength" to be an unsatisfactory sequel story, but then I found an amazing fic which I would like to see become canonical and see what happens next.)

It's not exactly a re-release edit, but I remember being very irritated when I realized how much Harry Potter had been Americanized in its American edition. Very irritated indeed.

I was probably most jarred by the re-release of Narnia. I grew up with the Witch's wolf being named Fenris Ulf, and discovering a newer edition in which he was named Maugrim almost drove me to a rage. There are a couple of slight differences in the portrayal of the Dark Island in Voyage of the Dawn Treader as well. Then I found out that my childhood edition... was an Americanized revision, albeit a Lewis-authorized one, and the re-release reverted to the original British text. This was shattering. I remain purely devoted to my adulterated childhood text, but I cannot complain to the public on purist grounds.

[gleomstapa]

I was fairly irritated when I learned about the Americanization of Harry Potter. But then I read the French translation, which cuts out whole paragraphs (like the sorting of Neville!) for no apparent reason, and the Americanization seemed trivial by comparison.

[Amaryllis]

test

[Amaryllis]

Yes, well. In spite of appearances, that was not actually a successful test. Let's see if this is any better.

Rabbit Hill. The reprint changed one word in the whole book, a reference to a cook's race. Now she's just a cook of a certain shape and size.

I still like Maugrim better than Fenris Ulf. I can't remember any more which way I read it first; it must have been the Americanized version, given the time and place, but Maugrim was so clearly superior a name that it must have overwritten any other versions, in my mind.

I hear that the "Elsie Dinsmore" books have been republished with the more egregious racist language softened, and the more archaic usages updated. I can't exactly see the point of that: any possible value that those books have is as artifacts of their time. Changing the language doesn't make the story any less racist, and removes the historical value.

So I was wondering if it's books intended for children that are most likely to get the update treatment. But then I remembered that I've seen George MacDonald's long, dense, theological novels abridged and repackaged as "Christian romance," so I guess it's not an invariable rule.

[truth is life]

"Fenris Ulf"? That's like...Wolf Wolf, right? Most uncreative name ever.

[Firedrake]

Amaryllis, there certainly seems to be an assumption that children will be less able than adults to say "OK, this was written fifty years ago, and things were different then" - I didn't have any trouble with this as a child, but I like subtitled films better than dubs, so I'm clearly not typical. If you want mass appeal, it may be a good idea to lower some of the barriers to entry.

On the other hand... one of Diana Wynne Jones' books was Americanised by changing an "allotment" (across which children ran, and got muddy) to a "parking lot". Yes, there's no direct American translation ("community garden" comes close), but...

[Lonespark]

That's really weird. Not "lot," or "field" or "garden?" We have just grassy lots, which are sometimes community-managed as parks or gardens...

[cjmr]

Or 'vacant lot'?

[hapax]

Most of the developments I've lived in had "common grounds", which could be used for community gardens I suppose, but mostly seemed to be used for kickball.