From: henry999@eircom.net   
      
   SKID-DAT-DE-DAT    
   wrote:   
      
   > What he [Hitchens] was suggesting - in a rather hysterical bit of   
   > reasoning - that because I said we shouldn't censor the n-word from   
   > productions made when the word was in common use then the f-word should be   
   > inserted into books where milder epithets were used.   
      
   The recent death of John Fowles reminded me of something interesting   
   that is tangentially relevant here.   
      
   In 1966 he published _The Magus_. In 1969 came _The French Lieutenant's   
   Woman_ and it was just, you know, like _so_ revolutionary because it had   
   alternative endings!   
      
   Then, in 1977, he took 'alternative endings' or alternative plot   
   development or simply playing-fast-and-loose-with-the-novel to a new   
   dimension, with _The Magus--A Revised Version_.   
      
   In a Foreword, he gave out this incredible waffle about how (O tempora!   
   O mores!) he had not been able to publish the book that he really wanted   
   to, back in the repressed '60s, and it was only 11 years later that he,   
   the author, could 'insert' into _his own text_ the rude material that   
   society forbade him at the first go. What a load of ballocks.   
      
   I mean, reference books are updated, as the information changes.   
   Textbooks have 'revised' editions; novels don't (not in this sense,   
   anyway). He lost a lot of credibility as an artist with that move.   
      
   He who controls the present _controls_ the past?   
      
   cheers,   
      
   Henry   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)