Ransome and Race


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Posted by Duncan on August 12, 2009 at 10:10:25 user Duncan.

Gosh, just finished reading the very interesting (if at times rather heated) thread that came to be about the use of racially-offensive language in some of the SA books.

What interests me most is that, though the words mentioned do jar with me every time I read these books (my favourite books ever written by any writer), the possibility of editing them out had never previously occurred to me.

Somehow as a child I missed them, or didn't understand them (the word picaninny is now such an old word that no children get that 'joke' anymore anyway). It is as an adult reader that they jar, but then as a historian I contextualise them and remember that Ransome was an anti-imperialist liberal lefty who supported China over Nato and that if you read Tony Benn's diaries from the 1940s he uses the odd bit of language he never would now!

The controversy, I suppose, (such as it is - I'm inclined to agree with ACB) is purely that AR can't be consulted on the change! He made changes between editions himself. He recommended them to others (later editions of the Hobbit are very different, thanks to suggested changes from AR) - initial texts are not sacred, and he was a great believer in multiple revisions, and rarely felt that something was perfect and finished when he sent it to the publishers (if ever). The little bits of language referred to are rare in Ransome's books for children. There isn't the slightest hint of racial prejudice in Ransome's work (other than some crude stereotyping in Missee Lee I suppose, but we are persuaded to like and sympathise with several Chinese characters in a way that other books of the era would not have persuaded us to) - so the tricky thing is that when they are used, they do have a 'purpose'. It's not just casual language. It is generally used for humour, but also for realism and characterisation ('dagos run thin' we are told - this odd stereotyping differentiates Bill from the Swallows and Amazons, as well as being another piece of humour, questioning how 'stout' Cortez would really have been) - so a bowdlerization would need to seek to avoid making it dry. 'They're black' is a perfectly reasonable replacement for the original text. As I said the 'picaninny' one could probably be removed entirely without changing anything much. There's also the 'only white in a crowded camp of hottentots' which would need to be considered.

Yes the books ARE a historical record. And yes you COULD use those elements of them to have a serious discussion with your children (especially if you're reading aloud) but it's a serious issue. I would never give a child a Biggles book for a present, I often give them Ransome books. But I have had pause for thought occasionally, just because of those rare bits of language usage that nobody is suggesting Ransome used maliciously or meaning offence, but now do cause offence (or have the potential to do so).

I have no truck with the idea that 'political correctness' has 'gone mad'. I don't really understand where people who say it has are coming from - why do people want to cause offence? Or want the 'right' to? There is a different issue here - I think there is a perfectly legitimate argument that it is right to keep the texts as they were, frozen in time like other works of art; they tell the time, they are what Ransome made them. But I think ACB makes a very convincing challenge to that argument, and I'm inclined to be convinced.

Ransome was most proud of a letter that came to him saying that his books were extremely popular with the working-class children in a town library (countering a newspaper suggestion that he wrote just for those with easy access to boats, lakes and farmhouse summers). There is no doubt that Ransome wanted his books to be read as widely as possible and by children of all and any background - if there is a barrier to that, even if it's in the text, I think there's a strong case to be made for moving it. We are fortunate that it is such a small barrier compared with many writers of the era.


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