There are numerous reasons to dislike the radical “woke” Marxists and their propaganda. But most of these flaws pale in comparison to one major thing the far left enjoys doing: mutilating the English language.
Such mutilation can now take many different forms, ranging from the totally absurd “pronoun” mania to arguing that your precise uttered words aren’t what you said, all the way to whatever the hell “misgendering” is.
But, a worrisome new trend has evolved within this odoriferous assault on the English language. Leftists are no longer satisfied with simply corrupting modern language; they want to apply the same concepts to the most iconic works of the past.
According to the United Kingdom’s The Telegraph, Ian Fleming’s classic James Bond books have been rewritten to better mesh with modern nonsensibilities.
Ian Fleming Publishing Ltd. actually commissioned “sensitivity readers” to review the class spy thrillers, which is about as dystopian a phrase as there is.
So, what has changed? Words like the n-word were substituted with the phrases “black person” or “black man” in Fleming’s masterpieces, which were released between 1951 and 1966.
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELOn top of the revisions, each new Bond novel will also feature the following disclaimer: “This book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace. A number of updates have been made in this edition, while keeping as close as possible to the original text and the period in which it is set.”
Surprisingly, the majority of these modifications center on the portrayal of black people.
Bond describes the black men engaged in the gold and diamond markets in Fleming’s 1954 novel “Live and Let Die” as “pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought, except when they’ve drunk too much.” That piece of speech now will read, “pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought.”
Similarly in “Live and Let Die,” Bond enters a Harlem nightclub and is described as thus; “Bond could hear the audience panting and grunting like pigs at the trough. He felt his own hands gripping the tablecloth. His mouth was dry.” A specific passage of noir-style prose has been replaced by the far more general, “Bond could sense the electric tension in the room.”
Even a reference to an accent – “straight Harlem-Deep South with a lot of New York thrown in” – has been removed.
While those so-called “sensitivity readers” seemed to be primarily concerned with Fleming’s undoubtedly archaic (but not by 1950’s standards) terminology about black people, they didn’t appear to be nearly as concerned with women or other minorities.
So, what remains constant? The phrase “sweet tang of rape” is still used. Complaints about “blithering women” doing “man’s work” continue to circulate. Homosexuality is still referred to as a “stubborn disability” in the literature. Bond’s scathing assessments of Oddjob, Goldfinger’s well-known Korean assassin, are similarly unaltered. Derogatory terms for East Asians are also used.
To be clear, I am not asking that any of the aforementioned phrases or words be eliminated from future James Bond novels. When you consider how much effort was placed into making sure James Bond novels didn’t offend black people in 2023, against the seeming lack of care or effort put into those who might be offended by potentially racy language, it’s a stark contrast.
Of course, Fleming is far from the only author whose works have been modernized through rewrites and revisions.
Roald Dahl, the acclaimed children’s creator of stories such as “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “James and the Giant Peach,” was recently scrutinized for using grossly insulting phrases such as “fat.”
Thankfully for admirers of Dahl’s original works, the public outcry over these posthumous (Dahl died in 1990) editions forced Penguin Random House to publish “classic” editions of Dahl’s books.
Ian Fleming Publishing appeared to try to get ahead of the outrage that those Dahl edits generated when it spoke to The Telegraph.
“We encourage people to read the books for themselves when the new paperbacks are published in April.”
