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Carol She's So Novel ꧁꧂ 's Reviews > And Then There Were None
And Then There Were None
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& Christie was so right to be pleased with this book! It is her mistresspiece and my favourite mystery of all time!
Brilliantly plotted and tightly planned - for tension and thrills you can't go past the moment when (view spoiler) My only plot criticism is (view spoiler)
That won't take away from my enjoyment. But the casual racism in some of the text pretty shocking.
I'm not a fan of sanitising an author's work. Everyone has to go into a Christie prepared for racism (& classism & sexism in the way female servants are often portrayed - although not in this particular book.)
But speaking of sanitising - the original title has been removed from the original title field for this book here on Goodreads. Given that a quick search will show other books with the same word in the title I find this puzzling. I know in my own country the word was still in use in the sixties (my mother quietly pulled my sisters & I aside & told us not to use it in games of tag.) & I do believe Christie didn't know how offensive it was in the States. (her publishers' apparent ignorance though is beyond baffling)
Edit: Realised I never updated this. Problem was solved with original title (was Librarian error)& I try to check every week to make sure it hasn't been changed/deleted again.
Edit 21/04/19 Oh boy, I hope this is mistake!
I haven't checked for a month or so, then noticed the original title had gone.
I went into the changelog & found this note;
This makes zero sense, since editions of this book featuring the original (very offensive) name are still catalogued. & a simple search will show other books with this word in their title still listed here.
I have emailed Support. I'm hoping this is a case of a staff member acting against policy, rather than more evidence that GR can no longer be trusted with our reading records. :(
Edit: 24/04/19 Have heard from Goodreads & this was a staff error. Original (offensive) title has been put back in the system by another librarian. Good news, but I wonder if GR has ever given any thought to hiring experienced volunteer Librarians rather than the raw recruits they use now.
I'll try to keep a better eye on this. :)
by
"I had written this book because it was so difficult to do that the idea had fascinated me. Ten people had to die without it becoming ridiculous or the murderer being obvious. I wrote the book after a tremendous amount of planning, and I was pleased with what I had made of it...
...the person who was really pleased with it was myself, for I knew better than any critic how difficult it had been."
& Christie was so right to be pleased with this book! It is her mistresspiece and my favourite mystery of all time!
Brilliantly plotted and tightly planned - for tension and thrills you can't go past the moment when (view spoiler) My only plot criticism is (view spoiler)
That won't take away from my enjoyment. But the casual racism in some of the text pretty shocking.
He had fancied though that the little Jew had not been deceived - that was the damnable part about Jews, you couldn't deceive them about money - they knew!
I'm not a fan of sanitising an author's work. Everyone has to go into a Christie prepared for racism (& classism & sexism in the way female servants are often portrayed - although not in this particular book.)
But speaking of sanitising - the original title has been removed from the original title field for this book here on Goodreads. Given that a quick search will show other books with the same word in the title I find this puzzling. I know in my own country the word was still in use in the sixties (my mother quietly pulled my sisters & I aside & told us not to use it in games of tag.) & I do believe Christie didn't know how offensive it was in the States. (her publishers' apparent ignorance though is beyond baffling)
Edit: Realised I never updated this. Problem was solved with original title (was Librarian error)& I try to check every week to make sure it hasn't been changed/deleted again.
Edit 21/04/19 Oh boy, I hope this is mistake!
I haven't checked for a month or so, then noticed the original title had gone.
I went into the changelog & found this note;
librarian note for this book (last edited by Goodreads at Apr 16, 2019 09:58AM)
Please do not change this book's original title field. Failure to comply may result in the loss of your librarian status. Thank you, The Goodreads Team
This makes zero sense, since editions of this book featuring the original (very offensive) name are still catalogued. & a simple search will show other books with this word in their title still listed here.
I have emailed Support. I'm hoping this is a case of a staff member acting against policy, rather than more evidence that GR can no longer be trusted with our reading records. :(
Edit: 24/04/19 Have heard from Goodreads & this was a staff error. Original (offensive) title has been put back in the system by another librarian. Good news, but I wonder if GR has ever given any thought to hiring experienced volunteer Librarians rather than the raw recruits they use now.
I'll try to keep a better eye on this. :)
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March 4, 2018
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Dolors
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Mar 05, 2018 12:17AM
Loved the trivia about the title, Carol!
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I read a battered 1950s paperback edition of this book which had the original title on the cover. I can understand why the title was changed but wiping out the edition’s details from GR is a bit OTT.
Yes, the casual racism is upsetting, but sanitising is at best naive, and the do gooder who removed the original title is an ignoramus, especially since the book under its original title does appear as an edition.
Carol....one of my all time favorite Agatha Christie reads. Great review!
The racism is more than casual. The original name of the book was Ten Little Niggers. Christie was well aware that this was an unacceptable title in the UK in the thirties but insisted on it. In 1939 it was judged too racist for US publication under that title. At some point it was renamed to Ten Little Indians (for American publication I believe, but not sure). Eventually it was renamed .. Then There were None. She didn't like Jews, Blacks, Arabs, Orientals, anyone really who wasn't white and Christian and preferably from the UK as she was xenophobic as well. Nasty woman, but talented.
I can't think of another word to express my meaning for the word casual. I meant she just came out with these things like it was quite normal. A couple of remarks of Phillip's were quite clearly meant to be the beliefs of the character (because of the way the other characters reacted to them) but not that one.
Carol Clouds ꧁꧂ wrote: "I can't think of another word to express my meaning for the word casual. I meant she just came out with these things like it was quite normal. A couple of remarks of Phillip's were quite clearly me..."That was the way I have always interpreted this as well.
Carol Clouds ꧁꧂ wrote: "I can't think of another word to express my meaning for the word casual. I meant she just came out with these things like it was quite normal. A couple of remarks of Phillip's were quite clearly me..."Nicely done review, and I agree. One of those books that inadvertently challenges modern sensibilities through its casual but quiet racism (once the title was changed) though a clever tale and well-written.
I hadn't seen that quote from AC before Carol, but I'm not surprised she was so proud of the plot in this book, it's ingenious!
It is one of her most popular books written.It doesn't help that it comes out of a nursery rhyme - one that she would have known, and possibly why she stuck her heels in to keep it.
I don't condone her behaviour, but I do put her into context, and she was expressing what the average English person thought. Go hunting the trivia regarding Oliver Twist with Guinness as Fagan. It had to be refilmed before being released in the US. I try not to put contemporary opinions onto historical culture. Hell- eugenics was still being bandied as an intellectual way of improving the world's peoples.
I'm old enough to remember older relatives talking in ways about race that would shock us today. It was a normal thing then, and even the "nicest" people were guilty of it. We live in such a different world today that it's easy to forget, or to whitewash how people were then. In a way it's heartening to me to read older fiction where that's apparent, and to see people shocked by it now. It just shows how much progress we've made overall. I don't like sanitizing because that prevents that realization - allows people to imagine things were always as they are now.
Barbara wrote: "I'm old enough to remember older relatives talking in ways about race that would shock us today. It was a normal thing then, and even the "nicest" people were guilty of it. We live in such a differ..."GR is doing some sanitising themselves! A staff member has removed the original name from the original title field.
Great review and follow up, Carol! I don't believe in censoring authors from long ago, either. It isn't their fault that the world was the way it was 'way back then - and, in fact, it gives us extra perspective on the history of racism and religious biases of the time. It is, after all, part of our collective history and censoring (or sanitizing) author's works is not going to change that. In fact, reading these novels should make us feel good about how far we have come in those years. (Not far enough, but further than any other time in history.)
Thanks for the comment Jaline - & sorry I was so slow getting back to this.Years ago I took part in a group read of a Golden Age author. Of course all of us who prefer uncensored got the censored version, readers who preferred cleaned up got censored copies! It was quite an entertaining discussion - as I remember it, one of the best I ever had on GR.
Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ wrote: "Thanks for the comment Jaline - & sorry I was so slow getting back to this.Years ago I took part in a group read of a Golden Age author. Of course all of us who prefer uncensored got the censored..."
This is wonderful!! I bet it challenged quite a few readers - and thus it was rightfully so. I hate bowlerised versions. I agree with Jaline, best to understand why things are in place to recognise previous conditions and thoughts, how they have improved, and how much more needs to be done.
