The Ethics of Typesetting

[Jovvi]

Thank you! Well I think some people just love words, they like to discuss meanings and interpretentions, I do to sometimes (swedish words with my friends) but when reading a literary text I usually prefer not having to look to many words up in the dictionary (occasional words are fine) because it distracts me from the story and for me the story is the most important thing about books.

I do agree that preserving rarer books as close to the original as possible (word by word) is important but a really see no contradiction between the two, It was just that I got the impression some people here objected to even the thought of modernizing. As I think most of us agree, so long as a work clearly declare that it is modernized and updated there is nothing wrong with it. I agree you have to be very careful though and that modernizing has its own set of pitfalls and is not as easy as one could think.

[Muckraker]

Originally Posted by plib

Well in that case you're either the author of the single search result thrown up which is even halfway relevant (one two year old thread on a Tor forum which appears to have attracted a dozen comments), or you live in Australia. So this is obviously a matter of burning concern to the world.

I never claimed the readers concerned with racism in that book were holding rallies. It's a book pretty much nobody buys, reads, or cares about--partly because a used copy costs $150 and partly because of the racism. Yet it is still a key book in a long series of them. I gave it some love, brought the cost back to this planet, footnoted the racism, and clearly identified what was changed.

As I said, people interested in the publishing house can easily find it by reading the posts in this very thread or Googling "racism in oz." I am reluctant to pin up a big banner simply because there have been some people concerned enough to post here but not concerned enough to actually read the thread--and I would prefer not to see negative book reviews from people that have not read the book.

[BeccaPrice]

Should Sherlock Holmes' cocaine use be edited out? should we give Holmes and Watson cell phones?

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

Should Sherlock Holmes' cocaine use be edited out? should we give Holmes and Watson cell phones?

If you wish. Whether anyone else could care to read a version of Sherlock Holmes with his cocaine use edited out is a different matter. It wouldn't surprise me if someone did publish a version with his cocaine use edited out, such edits are not at all uncommon with paper books.

Giving Holmes and Watson cell phones would be ridiculous unless you were adapting the books to a modern setting.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

If you wish. Whether anyone else could care to read a version of Sherlock Holmes with his cocaine use edited out is a different matter. It wouldn't surprise me if someone did publish a version with his cocaine use edited out, such edits are not at all uncommon with paper books.

Giving Holmes and Watson cell phones would be ridiculous unless you were adapting the books to a modern setting.

But how else with teh children understand without cell phones?? *wails*

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

Should Sherlock Holmes' cocaine use be edited out? should we give Holmes and Watson cell phones?

The BBC did both of those things.

Part of why Sherlock's cocaine use is not often edited out, even during times when cocaine is considered vile to the point of demonic, is that it's described as a character flaw in the original. There's no impression that cocaine use makes Holmes a better person or a better detective.

It's not "things that are illegal or offensive today" that get targeted for removal, but "things that are illegal or offensive today, that are described as positive in the original." The dichotomy between "the story says this is a good thing, or at least not a bad thing," and "...but I know that this is actually a really awful thing" is enough to ruin the enjoyment of the story for a lot of people.

To a lesser extent, this is applied to archaic phrasings or "facts;" it's the same kind of mental whiplash: here's something the story says is ordinary and proper, but I-the-reader know this is outdated and inaccurate.

The ability to suspend awareness of modern life and enjoy the story in its own context is a matter of education--previous education; researching the details while reading the story generally means ruining the story itself--and current cultural context. While children are used to stories full of words and concepts they don't understand, at some point, it stops being "a story" and becomes "an educational opportunity," and they lose the ability to enjoy the characters' activities and the underlying themes because they're too busy learning the unspoken assumptions that readers were expected to have.

I'm in favor of informing readers that a work has been updated, condensed, edited in favor of a particular audience, expanded, or otherwise changed. I'm not in favor of saying all these things are morally wrong because they happen without the author's consent. Part of publishing under the system of copyright is the acceptance that, eventually, your works will be freely available to others, to do anything they want with them.

[Freeshadow]

That's exactly why I think footnote capability is essential for fiction books too.

[BeccaPrice]

any rewrite of Sherlock Holmes to give him and Watson cell phones isn't Holmes, it's a Holmes pastiche. There is, in fact, a huge number of very good (and some bad) Holmes pastiches as it's own literary genre.

I feel the same about writing out objectionable parts of other literature: it stops being the author's work and becomes a pastiche, and ought to be labeled as such.

If Muckraker is indeed clearly labeling his edited versions, and documenting the edits he makes, that is a good thing. I probably wouldn't buy them anyway, because I'm like that.

[plib]

Originally Posted by Muckraker

I never claimed the readers concerned with racism in that book were holding rallies. It's a book pretty much nobody buys, reads, or cares about--partly because a used copy costs $150 and partly because of the racism. Yet it is still a key book in a long series of them. I gave it some love, brought the cost back to this planet, footnoted the racism, and clearly identified what was changed.

My bolding on the quote. Really? Do you think this:

Product Description

....

*Note* The book contains minor content edits that were made to remove or change some distracting and very "non-Oz" words and phrases. The appendix details the changes and also contain the original unedited lines.

really informs the potential purchaser of your, rather expensive, book that it actually means

Instead of black human slaves that could have been dropped into the US and fit right in picking cotton, I made them humanoid slaves made of black stone.

which, to my mind, completely changes the characterization of the character who

mounted on her dark and flaming horse, mows down a group of screaming, terrified black slaves brandishing her silver staff. She merrily explains that doing this is no problem, since this is how bad beasts are treated in her home planet, so she is accustomed to this. ... By the time she is finished, Planetty has transformed sixty slaves into unmoving metal statues. The rest of the slaves flee, crying in terror. Kabumpo makes a quiet vow to never offend Planetty, ever.

Forgive me if I disagree.

[howyoudoin]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

Giving Holmes and Watson cell phones would be ridiculous unless you were adapting the books to a modern setting.

The new BBC adaptation of Sherlock does this so well. They even hint at his cocaine use without explicitly mentioning it, for obvious reasons.

[Andy_T]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

It's not "things that are illegal or offensive today" that get targeted for removal, but "things that are illegal or offensive today, that are described as positive in the original." The dichotomy between "the story says this is a good thing, or at least not a bad thing," and "...but I know that this is actually a really awful thing" is enough to ruin the enjoyment of the story for a lot of people.

That makes a lot of sense.

In my opinion, using cocaine is bad, but killing people is even worse.
However, if we started to censor that out of Sherlock Holmes books (or any other thrillers), they might become rather boring to read ;-)

[QuantumIguana]

*Note* The book contains minor content edits that were made to remove or change some distracting and very "non-Oz" words and phrases. The appendix details the changes and also contain the original unedited lines.

All that is needed is to document that changes were made. Having an appendix that lists in detail what changes were made is going above what is needed. Whether you like it or not is a different matter. I haven't read the book, either in its original form or this adapted version, so I'm not commenting on the quality of it. If people want to read this version, they can read it. If it is priced too high, they won't buy it.

If this had been a book under copyright, the copyright holder might well have made the changes without ever informing the reader that any other version had existed.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

If this had been a book under copyright, the copyright holder might well have made the changes without ever informing the reader that any other version had existed.

The copyright holder has the right to make changes. The rest of us don't.

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by Catlady

The copyright holder has the right to make changes. The rest of us don't.

That is not true. When a work is in the public domain, anyone has the right to do with it as they wish. Earlier, you objected to the copyright holder making changes to the Nancy Drew books. Those changes were far more sweeping, because they didn't create an alternative version alongside the original, the edited version replaced the original. You could only find the original if you could get an old copy. You couldn't buy it in stores, because the only version available was the version edited by the copyright holder. The copyright holder is under no obligation to tell you what changes were made or to tell you that changes were made at all.

With public domain works, if there is a problem, it is clearly less of a problem than edited books under copyright, because the original version remains dominant. Project Gutenberg isn't going to carry an edited version, and at the book outlets, the original has a major advantage in being free. I have paid for public domain books, I haven't paid much, but I have paid. I have paid when the version has added value. I bought the complete set of Baum's Oz books, for the convenience in having them in one volume, and having an interactive table of contents. If people think that this edited book has value, they will buy it. If they don't, they will go with the original, which they can get for free.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Catlady

The copyright holder has the right to make changes. The rest of us don't.

Once it's in the public domain, we are all the copyright holder. That's what "public domain" means--it's everyone's IP.