Sarah Harte: Sanitising literature serves to cover up critiques of hateful attitudes

The brouhaha around the edits made to the late Roald Dahl’s books is interesting, in how it has provoked a diverse array of comments from a varied cast of characters

A scene in the Broadway production of Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, by Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin is widely regarded as a master storyteller, but has been critiqued for his liberal 'tendency to write around facts that contradict his overall argument' so 'he can come out on the right side of history'. Picture: Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty

The brouhaha around the edits made to the late Roald Dahl’s books by his publisher Puffin is interesting, in how it has provoked a diverse array of comments from a varied cast of characters.

Last Saturday in this paper, Séamas O’Reilly (a childhood fan of the books), questioned if we wanted Dahl’s books “frozen in amber” and thought the changes were made in a commercial context by the publishers and were long overdue. But Michael Moynihan saw it as a “dangerous precedent” and wondered who might be censored next.

Referring to novelist Salman Rushdie’s description of the editing as “absurd censorship” and PEN America’s “alarm”, Moynihan said that there was something more honest about “right-wing nuts” attempting to ban their kids from reading To Kill A Mockingbird because they are open about their prejudices. He makes a valid point.

Left vs right

Liberals don’t tend to go for full-frontal book bans, they edit out content that doesn’t suit their worldview — which is arguably another form of censorship. I always hated Dahl’s books as a child so I have no nostalgic investment in them. 

These particular edits — which related to language around race, weight, gender roles, and mental health — don’t seem a big deal to me. But as a writer I think the background to the changes is interesting.

The banning of books has accelerated in the USA. Last month, PEN America — a community of writers that advocates for freedom of expression — reported that around 50 groups are working to remove books they object to from American libraries. There are currently “86 educational gag orders” in place: meaning legislative bills that may result in the censorship of books and materials in American schools, colleges, universities, and libraries.

Florida has led the charge, with governor Ron DeSantis’ ‘Don’t say gay’ bill signed into law last year and aimed at removing LGBTQ content from being discussed in classrooms. Texas is not far behind. In Missouri, schools have removed works about Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, and visual depictions of Shakespeare’s works.

For the most part, it’s conservative-leaning groups that are attempting to ban books. In particular, they are targeting books that discuss race, racism, and gender themes, with the aim of redesigning curriculums and library collections.

But there are books that liberals want to restrict. They generally have racist language viewed as being harmful to black students. Classics that have drawn liberal ire are Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry by Mildred D Taylor, and To Kill a Mockingbird.

A current example of recasting literature to suit contemporary tastes is an adaption of Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which is running in London’s West End. 

This take on the original novel comes courtesy of the much-feted screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. He wrote the hugely popular TV series The West Wing.

Author of To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee, in local courthouse while visting her home town. She authorised Sorkin to adapt her novel but in 2018, two years after her death, her estate sued the producers of the play.  Picture: Donald Uhrbrock/Time Life Pictures/Getty

Harper Lee authorised Sorkin to adapt her novel but in 2018, two years after her death, her estate sued the producers of the play because of a lack of fidelity to the novel.

The case was reportedly quietly, settled and both sides made concessions so the show could go on.

A new scene sees lawyer Atticus Finch taken to task by his black maid Calpurnia. Given that To Kill a Mockingbird is set in Alabama during 1933-1935, it’s highly unlikely both in race and class terms that Finch’s maid would have told her employer some home truths.

Other black characters have their parts beefed up and are allowed to express anger and frustration. It was reported one cut that Lee’s estate wouldn’t cede on was an entirely invented character, a black doctor testifying at the rape trial.

Sorkin is widely regarded as a master storyteller. However, he has been critiqued for his liberal “tendency to write around facts that contradict his overall argument” so as one critic put it “he can come out on the right side of history”.

And yet the tills are ringing. The Broadway production was previously a smash hit and the play’s season in London has been extended until May.

Over a decade ago, Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn was sanitised by a publisher wanting to make the book available to school readers. The 219 uses of the word ‘n*****’ in the text were replaced with ‘slave’. At the time, Kai Wright, a black American journalist and editor who has focused on racial and social justice throughout his career, said that the liberal well-intentioned effort, ironically “papered over the relevant lesson”.

In a provocatively titled article “Why Jim Needs to Remain Huck Finn’s ‘N*****’, he suggested that the tragedy was not that the word appeared in the text, but that it was considered inappropriate to discuss America’s racism until college.

The novel in its uncensored form provided young people with an insight into racism showcasing its full ugliness as the anti-racist Mark Twain had intended. It also explained the historical background of the modern-day taboo around the word. To elide this term meant swerving the reality of racism.

The much-garlanded writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is highly critical of a literary culture that panders to “safe spaces”, seeing it as part of “a larger addiction to comfort”. Adichie, a black African who lives in the US, has written brilliantly about race and feminism.

At a literary event in Washington last year, she reportedly blamed “the American left” for “creating a culture of intolerance”.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a black African writer who lives in the US and has written brilliantly about race and feminism, believes censorship incites more intolerance than it stops. 

This, she said, narrows the scope for writers to write truthfully. Her view is that one day we’re going to wake up and realise that the rush to make everything safe was “mad”.

More pertinently, she questions what literature we’re going to leave behind as a result.

One thing that almost certainly got people’s backs up about the Dahl edits, was that the language review was conducted with Inclusive Minds, an organisation that supports diversity and inclusion.

On Monday, Suzanne Harrington in this paper wrote “stop ruining culture by sanitising it”. Like O’Reilly, she thought money was the driver behind the edits.

The relatively new practice in the publishing industry of submitting books to ‘sensitivity reads’ is unpopular with many writers who feel it’s censorship through the back door. A sensitivity read is where a book is checked for offensive content, misrepresentation, stereotypes, and bias.

A riposte to this gripe might be that an overwhelming number of published writers are privileged white people who have a lot to learn about what it means to be marginalised by virtue of gender, race, or class. Or that sensitivity reads are simply another form of editing.

Gregory Peck in a courthouse scene from the 1962 film adaptation of 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. Picture: AP

Last week, one commentator on Virgin Media, happy with the edits opined, “that’s just the way the world is now”.

It’s more complicated than that. The arts don’t exist in a vacuum they should be independent, not some weathervane for changing sensibilities.

A pertinent question to be asked, perhaps on a case-by-case basis, is where editing of a work of literature ends and censorship begins. How far from the source material can you go before meaning is fundamentally altered? And what is lost if you go too far, as Kai Wright asked.

Culturally, it’s interesting that the French are not tying themselves up in knots about the offensive implications of specific words. Last week, Roald Dahl’s French publisher Gallimard said ‘non!’ It does not intend to change the texts of Dahl’s children’s books.

There are many purposes to literature. It entertains us but it also gives writers the liberty to address essential and difficult questions that society may struggle to ask.

We need writers to shine a light on the darkest aspects of human nature, on the self-deceptions we practice, to interrogate what we feel, and to educate us, not solely to keep us happy.