THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
04/16/04 -- Vol. 22, No. 42
El Presidente: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
The Power Behind El Pres: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
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Topics:
English, She Is a Funny Language, No? (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
The Struggle upon Us (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
HELLBOY (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Hugo and Retro-Hugo Nominations (announcement)
This Week's Reading (THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN
RELIGION, VINDICATION, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE,
CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, and TEN LITTLE INDIANS)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: English, She Is a Funny Language, No? (comments by Mark
R. Leeper)
I heard someone talking about a "glass-is-half-empty" sort of
person. Is it just me? I have never understood the metaphor
people use when they say somebody is a "glass is half-empty" or
"glass is half-full" kind of person. Maybe it is the
mathematician in me but to me they mean exactly the same thing.
I think people are supposed to be optimistic if they say the glass
is "half-full." But then it is HALF-full. That is just as
downbeat as saying it is half-EMPTY. I don't know why people have
these emotional attachments to one expression over the other.
Actually it also assumes you want what is in the glass. I
remember from my days as a child that getting my milk glass
half-empty was something of a small milestone to be proud of.
(This is in much the same way small children are made proud of any
very minor accomplishment. For example "What a good boy. He ate
all his potatoes." Wow!). For that matter, when someone calls
someone else half-assed, is that better or worse than being
fully-assed? Are there people who are completely non-assed? I
can see that anatomically it might be impossible, but might it not
still in some senses be a superior state? [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: The Struggle upon Us (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
In the debates prior to the American Civil War, Senator James
Chesnut expected the coming conflict to be a quick and bloodless
war. He promised that if his state seceded and it came to a war,
he would soak up all the blood that would be spilt with his
handkerchief. Both in the South and in the North great numbers of
people expected just a short and mild conflict and a quick
victory. Each side dismissed the other as not much of a match for
their own boys. It was sort of "home team pride."
In fact, neither side had a really decisive advantage. Both were
determined. Both were smart. Both wanted to use modern state-of-
the-art weaponry. Each was too proud to find defeat acceptable.
William Tecumseh Sherman looked at this situation and very
outspokenly declared that a civil war, if it came, would be a long
and very bloody conflict. He thought that neither side had any
idea the price such a war would exact.
Sherman heavily damaged his own career with his gloomy and dire
predictions. He was thought to be unbalanced on the subject. By
the time the Civil War was over his predictions were seen to be
very much on the mark. I wonder what Sherman would make of the
current international clash of cultures his country now faces. I
think our situation is every bit as bad.
My personal assessment is that what Samuel P. Huntington (Eton
Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard University) has
correctly identified as a coming war of civilizations between the
West and Islamic culture will be long, dirty, and bloody in ways
that few of us expect or understand currently. (See Huntington's
article at .) We have two
capable enemies with different strengths. Both sides are
committed. We have the better weapons, but the other culture has
something we are going to have a hard time matching, something
that limits the effectiveness of our powerful weapons. It is,
incidentally, the same thing that makes the Internet so hard to
disrupt. The enemy, thickly distributed in fundamentalist Islam,
is decentralized and distributed. We are not in conflict with an
autonomous leader; we are in conflict with individuals distributed
over a whole culture. I think we are kidding ourselves when we do
not acknowledge the worldwide popularity of the Osama Bin Ladens.
I think that the Islamic culture believes in the Arabic maxim "I
and my brother against my cousin, but I and my cousin against the
stranger." Hussein is cast as the cousin and the United States as
the stranger. Factions that did not like Saddam Hussein are
treating his removal as an affront to Islam. They will band
together. Our enemies are all over the Islamic world and as we
fight back and a lot of potential enemies will become real ones.
The problem is we are not fighting a Hitler. There is no one
leader, no head to remove. We are fighting a lot of people who
genuinely believe they are following God's will. I have heard a
statistic that 90% of the mosques even in the United States and
Canada are Wahabis--very militant and very fundamentalist,
sympathetic to spreading Islam by force.
Even if we were willing to use nuclear weapons (and I hope we are
not), they have no vital targets. We have Washington DC as a
target, but what is the equivalent center of Islamic militancy?
There is none. Knocking out Washington would pretty much disable
our forces. That makes that city a very tempting target. What do
they have? Fundamentalist Islam has no similar center. Big
weapons in this conflict expose our vulnerabilities and not
theirs. This is the formula for what is at least and the very
least a long conflict and very likely one we cannot win.
Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have been criticized for not
responding quickly and decisively to pre-2001 terrorist attacks.
I am less willing to criticize either President, at least on that
score. It is not clear to me what an intelligent response to a
terrorist attack is. When a wasp stings you, is the proper
response to sock the wasp nest? You can, but you probably will
not get the result you want.
Killing Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden does not mean victory.
It is not a matter of getting them and we will be mostly done the
way it was with Hitler. Getting them will only make more people
angry with us. And if we fight them even more will join the fray.
We are putting our faith in a military system that is very
centralized and hierarchical fighting a system that is not. That
is a very bad faith.
I recently read Stephen Ambrose's D-DAY. Dwight D. Eisenhower,
our supreme commander in the invasion, gave not one order on D-
Day. All the decisions were made fairly locally that day and the
days that followed based on local conditions. Through much of the
invasion of Europe that command was very decentralized. That was
not the approach of the Germans. Their command was centered on
Hitler and specifically on Hitler's orders. The Germans thought
that the more organized and coordinated they were the better. But
centralized command was just not responsive enough to fight an
enemy with distributed intelligence. Now it is our side that is
hierarchical, organized, and coordinated. The other side is just
a loose association of militants. They need little coordination
and that little bit is all that Al Quaeda does. The name "Al
Quaeda" means "the center" and that is its function. Just to be
the center is not command. What we are facing is already turning
out to be a worldwide guerilla war. That is a very frightening
concept.
So what am I suggesting? Certainly I have no long-term strategy.
In the short term I suggest we just wake up and realize that the
situation is very, very serious in ways that will affect each and
every one of us. We are in a conflict in which we are very likely
the underdog. I suggest in the coming election you should know
each candidate's foreign policy. Perhaps that should be the most
important issue. I think our next President may well be the most
important in American history and it is almost certain he will not
be the best. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: HELLBOY (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Mike Mignola's comic book character Hellboy comes to the
screen in high visual style but none too coherently. Guillermo
del Toro does a better job directing than adapting the story from
the comic book to the screen. This is a film that is sullen and
dark, and those are its good points. The grim humor is ironically
enjoyable and makes this film worth seeing. But neither del Toro
nor Mignola knows who Hellboy should be. Rating: high +1 (-4 to
+4) or 6/10
The biggest problem with HELLBOY is that Guillermo del Toro's
direction is wasted on Guillermo del Toro's (and Peter Briggs's)
script. The adaptation is visually very nice. Its images very
well match the story's very dark tone and the artwork in the comic
book. The problem is that while we know Hellboy is in a mammoth
fight, we never have much of an idea of what Hellboy's powers are.
I don't think we really know what Hellboy's goals are either. And
we certainly do not know what constitutes "winning" in his fight.
In THE GUNS OF NAVARONE the goal is to destroy the guns. In
GOLDFINGER it is to kill Goldfinger. Hellboy is called into a
conflict and I didn't know what would end it. If he kills the
monster, is that enough? If he kills the villain, is that
sufficient? If a good guy is killed does he stay dead? It is
like an American watching a curling match. You can get a rough
idea of whether it is going well, but that is about all. In the
end Hellboy wins because the evil side stops spawning new threats.
Come to think of it, perhaps an ill-defined struggle is really a
lot like what happens in the real world.
It seems that in 1944 the Nazis were once again fooling around
trying to turn the mythic supernatural into a weapon. This time
there is no Indiana Jones to stop them. They open a large portal
to a big, evil space-going whatsis. Think of it as an
interstellar version of H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu. But the portal
is also open to hell and through it comes something not expected
by anyone. It is a little baby demon from hell, still young and
innocent and very impressionable. The American military (did I
mention that they were on hand to blow up the Nazis and their
portal?) capture the baby and raise him as their own weapon.
Flash-forward to the present and Hellboy (now played by Ron
Perlman, veteran of del Toro's CRONOS) is big and red and smokes
cigars. He has sliced off the two huge ram's horns growing out of
his forehead so from a distance he just looks like he is wearing
goggles. (That was my impression when I first saw the comic book
and Guillermo del Toro had the same reaction.) Hellboy is needed
to stop an invasion of a very Lovecraftian tentacled monster.
This is the kind of thing that when it dies, two take its place.
Hellboy has a sidekick, Abe (Doug Jones) who is sort of a fish-
man. (I kept asking myself why the fish-man looked so familiar.
I had seen a very similar race depicted in the 1973 French
animated film FANTASTIC PLANET.) The other major figure in
Hellboy's life is Professor Trevor 'Broom' Bruttenholm (John Hurt,
as always a joy to see on the screen). Broom has raised Hellboy
and is the father figure in his life.
The problem with this script is that while it has some nice ideas,
borrowed from the comic book, and a nice visual style, the writing
is really not very good. The story adds just about nothing to the
standard good-guy-going-after-bad-guy plot. The writers have not
thought out the implications of scenes. Like Bigfoot, Hellboy is
supposed to be just a legend, the subject of a few fuzzy
photographs. Yet hundreds of people see him in big spectacular,
destructive (not to say ultimately boring) fights like one shown
in the subway.
Hellboy should be an interesting character torn between positive
and demonic impulses. Instead he is basically just one more wise-
cracking superhero. Fighting a monster he will make a comment
like "no tongues on the second date." That is a joke from popular
culture, not from the mind of a demon from hell. I don't think
that del Toro had a clue who Hellboy is or should be. I will take
that a step further. After reading two "Hellboy" comic books I
don't think that Mignola has a clue who Hellboy is or should be.
Both Mignola and del Toro have a good feel for the visual
atmosphere, but neither shows much interest in looking inside the
mind of a Hellboy. Such a character would be tormented and
revolted by unspeakable memories of what it was like in Hell in
half of his personality. The other half of his personality would
be telling him that what he remembers of Hell is really the way
things ought to be. What he has seen of Earth would be pitted
against his demonic instincts. These stories would have resonance
and they would have allegorical meaning. Instead we have just
another sardonic superhero. It is such a waste.
As it happens I would call Guillermo del Toro one of the two
greatest horror film directors alive. (Kiyoshi Kurosawa is the
other.) His last two films have been disappointing mixtures of
the horror and super-hero genres. (BLADE II is the other.) But
for these two films the horror has been compromised and is much
less effective. And there is not much new to do in the superhero
genre. My advice to del Toro would be to go back to making those
wonderfully inventive horror films and leave superheroes alone for
a while until he gets some fresh new ideas. I rate HELLBOY a high
+1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Hugo and Retro-Hugo Nominations (announcement)
The nominations for the 2004 Hugo Awards (for works from 2003)
were recently announced, as well as for the 1954 Retro-Hugos (for
works from 1953). Most of the short fiction for the current Hugos
will probably be available on the Internet; for now, the best
place to check for details would be
. For the Retro
works, I've listed one or two anthologies or collections where you
can find each one--assuming you can find the books. I'd like to
think that they'd be available in your library, but I'm realistic
enough to know that may not be true. Still, they'll be easier to
find than the magazines.
NOVEL
BLIND LAKE, Robert Charles Wilson
HUMANS, Robert J. Sawyer
ILIUM, Dan Simmons
PALADIN OF SOULS, Lois McMaster Bujold
SINGULARITY SKY, Charles Stross
NOVELLA
"The Cookie Monster", Vernor Vinge (Analog Oct 2003)
"The Empress of Mars", Kage Baker (Asimov's Jul 2003)
"The Green Leopard Plague", Walter Jon Williams
(Asimov's Oct/Nov 2003)
"Just Like the Ones We Used to Know", Connie Willis
(Asimov's Dec 2003)
"Walk in Silence", Catherine Asaro (Analog Apr 2003)
NOVELETTE
"Bernardo's House", James Patrick Kelly (Asimov's Jun 2003)
"The Empire of Ice Cream", Jeffrey Ford (Sci Fiction 02.26.03)
"Hexagons", Robert Reed (Asimov's Jul 2003)
"Into the Gardens of Sweet Night", Jay Lake
(WRITERS OF THE FUTURE XIX)
"Legions in Time", Michael Swanwick (Asimov's Apr 2003)
"Nightfall", Charles Stross (Asimov's Apr 2003)
SHORT STORY
"Four Short Novels", Joe Haldeman (F&SF Oct/Nov 2003)
"Paying it Forward", Michael A. Burstein (Analog Sep 2003)
"Robots Don't Cry", Mike Resnick (Asimov's Jul 2003)
"A Study in Emerald", Neil Gaiman (Shadows Over Baker Street)
"The Tale of the Golden Eagle", David D. Levine (F&SF Jun 2003)
RELATED BOOK
THE CHESLEY AWARDS FOR SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY ART:
A RETROSPECTIVE, John Grant & Elizabeth L. Humphrey
with Pamela D. Scoville
DREAMER OF DUNE: THE BIOGRAPHY OF FRANK HERBERT, Brian Herbert
MASTER STORYTELLER: AN ILLUSTRATED TOUR OF THE FICTION OF
L. RON HUBBARD, William J. Widder
SCORES: REVIEWS 1993–2003, John Clute
SPECTRUM 10: THE BEST IN CONTEMPORARY FANTASTIC ART,
Cathy Fenner & Arnie Fenner, eds.
THE THACKERY T. LAMBSHEAD POCKET GUIDE TO ECCENTRIC &
DISCREDITED DISEASES, Jeff VanderMeer & Mark Roberts, eds.
DRAMATIC PRESENTATION: LONG FORM
28 DAYS LATER
FINDING NEMO
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL
X2: X-MEN UNITED
DRAMATIC PRESENTATION: SHORT FORM
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: "Chosen"
Firefly: "Message"
Firefly: "Heart of Gold"
Gollum's Acceptance Speech at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards
Smallville: "Rosetta"
PROFESSIONAL EDITOR
Ellen Datlow
Gardner Dozois
David G. Hartwell
Stanley Schmidt
Gordon Van Gelder
PROFESSIONAL ARTIST
Jim Burns
Bob Eggleton
Frank Frazetta
Frank Kelly Freas
Donato Giancola
SEMIPROZINE
Ansible, David Langford, ed.
Interzone, David Pringle, ed.
Locus, Charles N. Brown, Jennifer A. Hall & Kirsten Gong-Wong,
eds.
The New York Review of Science Fiction, Kathryn Cramer,
David G. Hartwell & Kevin Maroney, eds.
The Third Alternative, Andy Cox, ed.
FANZINE
Challenger, Guy H. Lillian III, ed.
Emerald City, Cheryl Morgan, ed.
File 770, Mike Glyer, ed.
Mimosa, Rich & Nicki Lynch, ed.
Plokta, Alison Scott, Steve Davies & Mike Scott, eds.
FAN WRITER
Jeff Berkwits
Bob Devney
John L. Flynn
Dave Langford
Cheryl Morgan
FAN ARTIST
Brad Foster
Teddy Harvia
Sue Mason
Steve Stiles
Frank Wu
John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer [Not a Hugo]
Jay Lake (second year of eligibility)
David D. Levine (second year of eligibility)
Karin Lowachee (second year of eligibility)
Chris Moriarity (first year of eligibility)
Tim Pratt (second year of eligibility)
Retro Hugo Awards Nominations
NOVEL
THE CAVES OF STEEL, Isaac Asimov
CHILDHOOD'S END, Arthur C. Clarke
FAHRENHEIT 451, Ray Bradbury
MISSION OF GRAVITY, Hal Clement
MORE THAN HUMAN, Theodore Sturgeon
NOVELLA
"...And My Fear Is Great", Theodore Sturgeon
(Beyond Fantasy Fiction Jul 1953) (A WAY HOME [first
edition only]
"A Case of Conscience", James Blish (If Sep 1953) (first
section of the novel A CASE OF CONSCIENCE)
"The Rose", Charles L. Harness (Authentic Science Fiction
Monthly Mar 1953) (published as a stand-alone book)
"Three Hearts and Three Lions", Poul Anderson
(Fantasy & Science Fiction, Sep-Oct 1953) (probably also the
first section of the book--I haven't checked)
"Un-Man", Poul Anderson (Astounding Jan 1953) (UN-MAN, F-139)
NOVELETTE
"The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound", Poul Anderson
& Gordon R. Dickson (Universe Dec 1953) (EARTHMAN'S BURDEN)
"Earthman, Come Home", James Blish (Astounding Nov 1953)
(SCIENCE FICTION HALL OF FAME 2B; last two chapters of
the novel EARTHMAN, COME HOME)
"Sam Hall", Poul Anderson (Astounding Aug 1953) (THE BEST OF
POUL ANDERSON)
"Second Variety", Philip K. Dick (Space Science Fiction
May 1953) (THE BEST OF PHILIP K. DICK, SPECTRUM II)
"The Wall Around the World", Theodore Cogwell
(Beyond Fantasy Fiction Sep 1953) (ISAAC ASIMOV PRESENTS
THE GREAT SF STORIES: 15 (1953))
SHORT STORY
"It's a Good Life", Jerome Bixby (STAR SCIENCE FICTION STORIES
#2) (ISAAC ASIMOV PRESENTS THE GREAT SF STORIES: 15 (1953))
"The Nine Billion Names of God", Arthur C. Clarke
(STAR SCIENCE FICTION STORIES #1) (ISAAC ASIMOV PRESENTS
THE GREAT SF STORIES: 15 (1953))
"A Saucer of Loneliness", Theodore Sturgeon (Galaxy Feb 1953)
(ISAAC ASIMOV PRESENTS THE GREAT SF STORIES: 15 (1953))
"Seventh Victim", Robert Sheckley (Galaxy Apr 1953) (UNTOUCHED
BY HUMAN HANDS; IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE)
"Star Light, Star Bright", Alfred Bester (F&SF Jul 1953)
(STARLIGHT)
RELATED BOOK
CONQUEST OF THE MOON, Wernher von Braun, Fred L. Whipple
& Willy Ley (Viking Press)
MODERN SCIENCE FICTION: ITS MEANING AND ITS FUTURE,
Reginald Bretnor (Coward-McCann)
SCIENCE-FICTION HANDBOOK, L. Sprague de Camp (Hermitage)
DRAMATIC PRESENTATION, SHORT FORM
THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS
"Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 the Century"
INVADERS FROM MARS
IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
PROFESSIONAL EDITOR
Anthony Boucher
John W. Campbell Jr
H. L. Gold
Frederik Pohl
Donald A. Wollheim
PROFESSIONAL ARTIST
Chesley Bonestell
Ed Emshwiller
Virgil Finlay
Frank Kelly Freas
Richard Powers
FANZINE
Hyphen, Chuck Harris & Walter Willis, eds.
Quandry, Lee Hoffman, ed.
Science Fiction Newsletter, Bob Tucker, ed.
Skyhook, Redd Boggs, ed.
Slant, ed. Walter Willis, art editor James White
FAN WRITER
Redd Boggs
Lee Hoffman
Bob Tucker
James White
Walter A. Willis
Three categories were dropped [from the Retro Hugos] for
insufficient nominees: Best Dramatic Presentation -- Long Form,
Best Semi-Prozine, and Best Fan Artist. Rules for awarding Retro
Hugos require categories to correspond to those currently defined
for Hugo Awards, which is why 1953 film nominees appear in the
"DRAMATIC PRESENTATION, SHORT FORM" category -- since they are
shorter than the 90 minute divide that separates the current
"short form" and "long form" dramatic presentation categories.
[Early lists had Judith Merril's "Daughters of Earth" in the
novella category for the Retro Hugos, but it was pointed out that
it actually had a 1952 copyright date, so it was replaced by the
next-highest vote-getter. -ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I'm starting to fall behind on books I've read, partly because a
few long airplane flights have boosted my reading. So a few of
these comments will be briefer than usual.
Alan Wolfe's THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN RELIGION looks
primarily at Christianity and Judaism, and even in Christianity
skimps on the various Orthodox churches and the Mormons. Wolfe's
contention is that far from leaning toward the "old-time religion"
of the song, Americans have transformed religion into a self-help
program, a social club, a community service organization, or just
about anything except a theology that gives its members rules to
live by and a belief in a strong theological underpinning based on
divine revelation. People are looking to stay within a "comfort
zone" (e.g., evangelicals often end up "witnessing" only within
church groups and other areas where they will be met with
acceptance, rather than by going out into the larger community and
risking rejection or hostility). And people "shop around" much
more for churches these days--a hundred years ago, almost everyone
stayed within the religion they belonged to as children, while now
large numbers change religion. I recommend this book.
Frances Sherwood's VINDICATION is a novelization of Mary
Wollstonecraft's life. This is Mary (Wollstonecraft) Shelley's
mother, not Mary Shelley (as I think I claimed in an earlier
column). While Wollstonecraft was an early campaigner for women's
rights, there was still a bit too much of it in the novel for my
tastes. I suppose I have become so tired of seeing it in
completely fictional novels, that when it actually makes sense--
particularly if the situations described by Sherwood are
accurate--I still find it annoying.
I had heard that Richard Condon's THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE was
different from the film primarily in that the sexual undertones of
the film were made explicit in the book. This is true, and while
the book is well-written, I'm not sure it adds that much if you've
seen the movie. (By the way, director John Frankenheimer gives a
great commentary track on the DVD. There is a new release of the
film on DVD scheduled for July 13 with some additional features,
but the older release also has the commentary.)
Tennessee Williams's CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF is another work where
the sexual content is more explicit on the printed page. Though
for this work, stage performances would also maintain this. It's
only the classic film with Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, and Burl
Ives that turns the explicit discussion of homosexuality into
veiled references. Such was Hollywood in 1958. On the other
hand, plays are meant to be seen rather than read, so read the
play but see the movie. (I haven't seen the newer version with
Jessica Lange and Treat Williams.)
And while we're talking about bowdlerizing, Agatha Christie's TEN
LITTLE INDIANS has certainly been cleaned up. For starters, when
it was first published in 1939 it was TEN LITTLE NIGGERS. The
island in the novel was "Nigger Island", the figurines were
"niggers", and the poem was "Ten Little Niggers". I'm not sure
when the book was re-titled, and whether or not it was re-titled
on both sides of the Atlantic; my British copy from 1969 still has
the original title and text. But a recent United States edition
titled TEN LITTLE INDIANS has the events taking place on "Indian
Island", with Indian figurines, and the poem "Ten Little Indians".
(This is *not* "One little, two little, three little Indians, ..."
but rather "Ten little Indian boys went out to dine....")
However, the expression "a nigger in the woodpile" was retained,
probably because there was no easy way to change it.
There was another change made as well, though. The original text
had several derogatory references to Jews in the first chapter,
and these were taken out or modified to refer only to the specific
character. So "That little Jew had been damned mysterious"
became "Morris had been damned mysterious." And "that was the
damnable part about the Jews, you couldn't deceive them about
money" became "that was the damnable part about Morris, you
couldn't deceive him about money".
I suppose this is all rather mild--after all, the Nancy Drew
novels are apparently re-written entirely from scratch and the
only thing retained between editions is sometimes the title.
Still, it does tend to deceive readers as to attitudes in the
early part of the 20th century. I commented a while ago on the
anti-Jewish attitude in George Orwell's DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND
LONDON, and one finds similar slurs in G. K. Chesterton's FOUR
FAULTLESS FELONS and some of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes
stories. Those have not been sanitized for modern audiences. Is
it because Christie herself was still alive and wanted the changes
made, while the other authors were no longer around to approve
changes? Perhaps. But it is telling that the anti-Jewish remarks
in TEN LITTLE INDIANS were apparently removed only when the
derogatory references to blacks were removed. Clearly the latter
was a publishing necessity, at least in terms of the title, and so
it was easier to make the former changes at the same time as well.
[-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
A lifetime of happiness! No man alive
could bear it: it would be hell on earth.
-- George Bernard Shaw
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