What the f*ck was that?

September 3, 2013 11:31 AM

Is censorship of words in american novels common now?

I used to read a lot of novels when I was younger, but I really haven't read much in the last decade or longer. However, I was recently lent a book and there was a passage where someone was talking to another person and the word motherfucker was written as motherf***er. This was rather disconcerting to me, as it was the first time I've even seen such a thing in a novel.

I then began to wonder if perhaps the entire book was dumbed down so as to not offend anyone, or if I somehow got a censored version. It was a hardcover.

In case anyone wonders, the book was The Avenger, by Frederick Forsyth.

Thanks.

posted by eas98 to Writing & Language (18 answers total)

I used to read a lot of novels when I was younger, but I really haven't read much in the last decade or longer. However, I was recently lent a book and there was a passage where someone was talking to another person and the word motherfucker was written as motherf***er. This was rather disconcerting to me, as it was the first time I've even seen such a thing in a novel.

I read a lot, including over the last decade, and I've never seen this, except in a couple of cases where it was for a younger audience (and then usually it was goofy wingdings, not asterisks). Damned if I know why a Forsyth novel got censored, but I've never seen it myself. Nor have my friends in the book world - writers and editors alike - mentioned this even for a moment.
posted by Tomorrowful at 11:41 AM on September 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

I too read quite a bit and haven't seen this. What edition did you read -- could it have been a condensed version or a book club edition that was targeted for a specific audience?

(Book club editions generally have a mark on the bottom right hand corner of the back cover)
posted by janey47 at 11:44 AM on September 3, 2013

I read a lot and have never seen this. Was there anything else unusual about this particular book? Was it large print (I am wondering if they would do this kind of thing for an older, large printier audience)? Does the publisher's info on the front inside page (the one with all of the copyright statements) say anything special about this edition?
posted by snorkmaiden at 11:44 AM on September 3, 2013

I've also never seen this, and I read a lot and widely.

Is there anything in the context that suggests the character might not have actually said the word? I have a friend that says "mother-ugnh-gnh" (it's impossible to translate the sound she makes into text, just roll with me) instead of that word, because she likes the vehemence of it as a swear word, but as a mother doesn't like saying it. Maybe Forsyth was trying to show that the character was censoring him/her self in a similar manner?
posted by OrangeDisk at 11:55 AM on September 3, 2013

While it's nothing new for different regions to have differently printed editions (see US version vs rest of the world's version of the first book in the potter series), I have never seen asterisked-out swears unless it was specifically a style choice of the author. And I can't imagine it from Forsyth.
posted by elizardbits at 11:57 AM on September 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Well not so much for swear words, but the N-Word has been excised from such classics as Huckleberry Finn since about 2011.
posted by Gungho at 12:01 PM on September 3, 2013

Response by poster: Thanks for all the answers. Looks like it's not common. As far as I know, the book came from Costco, but I'll have to make sure. I'll check the inside cover and whatnot to see if it's some kind of special edition, and I'll post the results here.
posted by eas98 at 12:03 PM on September 3, 2013

Odd. A special Costco-reprinted version perhaps?

Usually when I've seen after-the-fact editing, it's been cases like Gungho mentioned about the N-word and Huck Finn. (I've destroyed my old worn Nancy Drews from the 1940s-1950s because of their built-in casual racism, to be sure they don't get passed on to unsuspecting kids: things like 'Mammy Johnson' in a kerchief speaking slang --- sho 'nuf! --- is now Mrs. Johnson in a shirtwaist speaking properly.)
posted by easily confused at 12:10 PM on September 3, 2013

Costco refused to carry a book by Joan Rivers because it had profanity on the back cover. Perhaps this is a special, bowdlerized edition for them.
posted by brianogilvie at 12:11 PM on September 3, 2013

That's interesting. Maybe it's high sensitivity censorship but it might be a cultural shift. It's hard for me to know whether this is my perspective as a mother of a small child but I've noticed a lot more verbal usage of 'a-hole', 'effing', 'freaking', 'jag' etc than I used to--just kind of have-your-cake-and-eat-it-fucking-too kind of linguistic softening.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 12:33 PM on September 3, 2013

It looks like there is a Weekend Reader Edition of Avenger that is "selected and edited by Reader's Digest". Is it possible that you have that version?
posted by oulipian at 2:34 PM on September 3, 2013

Reader's Digest has done this forever --- you ever see those monthly collections of 3-4 books they put out through their bookclub? The 'condensation' basically cut each of those books in about half, and the stuff that was removed always included anything that could possibly be considered sex, drugs and/or rock&roll (the work of the devil!).

So: is this book eas98 picked up "condensed", a la Reader's Digest? Or just 'cleaned up' by somebody who works for Costco (or their printer) who is way too easily offended?
posted by easily confused at 3:50 PM on September 3, 2013

Well, that bowdlerization is present in the Amazon "look inside" text [note: search for "motherf"], which appears to be scanned from the St. Martin's Paperbacks edition (2004). Also found in Google Books, same edition. So it isn't unique to Costco, however it happened.

(Note to OrangeDisk, as well as Googlers/those without access -- one character is explaining the term "REMF" to another.)
posted by dhartung at 5:53 PM on September 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: This appears to be part of the original text. From a 2003 review (the year the book was published): "Once it all comes together (like a heist film, plans within plans unfold spectacularly in the final reel), we forgive Forsyth for depriving us of the main character for long stretches. We also smirk at his prudishness -- he has no problem describing the brutal details of a fatal rape, but won't spell out motherf***er. How quaint."

Reminds me of Norman Mailer's Naked and the Dead. His publishers pursuaded him to substitute "fug" for "fuck" and since this is a WWII novel the word appears on most pages. Allegedly when he was introduced to the actress Tallulah Bankhead, she said, "Oh, you're the young man who doesn't know how to spell 'fuck'." (Mailer himself played that report various ways. In an interview with Malcolm Muggeridge, he said Bankhead's press agent invented it. In a conversation with Paul Krassner, he said that he responded to Bankhead with "Yes, and you're the young woman who doesn't know how to." The spelling quote is also attributed to Dame Edith Sitwell and Dorothy Parker.)
posted by beagle at 6:32 PM on September 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

If you're looking for other examples, Hemingway similarly self-censors in For Whom the Bell Tolls, replacing foul language with obscenity or unprintable:

'That we blow up an obscene bridge and then have to obscenely well obscenity ourselves off out of these mountains?' [...] 'Go to the unprintable,' Agustín said. 'And unprint thyself.'

From Wikipedia: "The Spanish expression of exasperation me cago en la leche repeatedly recurs throughout the novel, translated by Hemingway as "I obscenity in the milk.""
posted by oulipian at 6:43 PM on September 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks for all the answers. Just to follow-up.. It appears to be a normal full version hardcover, and as beagle noted above, it appears to have been done that way on purpose. I'm still bewildered for the reasoning, though.
posted by eas98 at 6:44 PM on September 3, 2013

The "censorship" is an embodiment of Forsyth's disinclination to spell out profanity. The author is simply imitating Forsyth's action and showing how quaint it is. If you wanted to call attention to some other characteristic, such as a tendency to write in a dialect for example, then you might use a word written in that dialect as an embodiment of the observation. Or if you were imitating a poor speller then you might misspell a word. Think of this as the author essentially aping Forsyth to make a point. It certainly called your attention to the "quaintness" of the practice, though the author may have been a little too dry with the mockery.
posted by jeffhoward at 3:55 AM on September 4, 2013

As a follow-up, it's basically the same thing you did with the title of your question.
posted by jeffhoward at 3:58 AM on September 4, 2013