Agatha Christie, an old lady too shocking, again censored by her publisher

Emmanuelle Ducros 08:47, March 28, 2023

A passage to the mill in order told by the British daily the Telegraph. That of the work of Agatha Christie. It is being republished in the United Kingdom, since 2020, by the publisher Harper Collins. He decided to submit Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot to the reading of "sensitivity readers". What is it?

These "readers of sensitivity", who could also be called literary minesweeper or "biblio-hygienists" are supposed to purge books of language, concepts potentially offensive to contemporary readership. As for current works, we are often in the preventive scrub of all rough edges so that no one feels the slightest discomfort while reading. When an author creates a character who suffers from discrimination that he himself does not know, be careful. He can fish by appropriating the suffering of others. He therefore needs a sensitive chiourme guard. This means that any literary license is now on probation.

That's true for forthcoming books, either. But it also concerns older works. Agatha Christie's, written between 1920 and 1976, has potentially become intolerable for part of the readership, at least that's what the publisher thinks.

What has been rewritten in Agatha Christie's work?

Remember, in 2020, it was the title of the book "Ten Little Negroes" which had been revised, became "There were ten", to, according to Agatha Christie's heir, "not hurt anyone". There, we go much further.

According to the Telegraph, many passages, entire paragraphs have been redacted or more radically deleted, in all books. We erased the descriptions, the ethnic references. Worse, characters who had the misfortune, according to the "sensitivity readers", of being black, Jewish or gypsy.

For example, the term "oriental" has been crossed out of the text of death on the Nile.

Like any reference to the Nubian people, yet structuring in Egyptian history. In this book, which dates from 1937, it is about a black servant initially described as smiling, when he understands that he must silence an incident, is no longer, in the "sensitive" version, neither black nor smiling, but a person who nods. In The Major Spoke Too Much, which dates from 1964, the description of the "beautiful white teeth" of the Indian bellhop of the hotel was simply erased. Examples in spades, Agatha Christie would not recognize her own investigations.

Why is this a problem?

Because this wave of prudishness and literary intolerance that pushes the rewriting of famous works is gaining ground in the Anglo-Saxon world. Children's author Roald Dahl, James Bond author Sir Arthur Flemming have already taken their little posthumous spanking by literary leagues of virtue. Fortunately, the France is spared by its copyright legislation, which protects the work.

Behind the hide-sex "it avoids factual errors of clichés", or, "these are simple recommendations" or "it's to be nice to everyone", what is at work is a rewriting of literary history and especially the affirmation that today's reader is devoid of any distance from a text. It is therefore necessary to chew the work by serving him a smooth puree, without pieces, as to a small child.

All readers, all those who love books, authors, should rebel. Publishers could easily present critical readings or annotated books that have sometimes aged badly. When they rewrite, they choose to serve readers warm water instead of tea. It is in fact, to put it with a language that would not pass the rewriting, take them for idiots.