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What are your thoughts about authors revising their older works to make them more modern? (alien.top)

submitted 9 months ago by Melenduwir@alien.top to c/books@metacritics.zone

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Probably the best example I can think of is Diane Duane reworking her Wizards series to make it modern-day, but there are others, including owners of a literary estate altering books left to them to make them compatible with current standards.

What do you think? Does it matter if it's the original author or an inheritor?

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[–] Greenglassblue@alien.top 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Don't you think children's book are a separate issue? What as an adult, for your reading, do you think about revising books you, as an adult, would read today?

[–] BeeTheGoddess@alien.top 1 points 9 months ago

I think to a large extent that’s a false binary- or at least there’s a great degree of overlap. I was definitely reading adult books at an age where I was still developing my understanding of the world and my place in it. So I don’t think there should necessarily be ‘rules’ about revision that only apply to childrens books and not adult- though I suppose if it’s a matter of prioritising then maybe the distinction makes sense.

As for now- reading a book laced with casual sexism/racism/isms vs reading the same book that doesn’t have them? Freaking bring on the latter, I’ll enjoy it more. If i want to know what’s in the old version I’ll look it up. This is obviously distinct from reading books that set out to tackle an ism- but the difference is i can make a choice to read them if I want to, not have some randomly offensive depiction turn up in my face unexpectedly.