Darkover censored, and Why One Should Not Let Certain Producers Near Roman Themes

I was having lunch the other day with an editor who works for Droemer & Knaur, a German publisher that now publishes, among other things, the German translations of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels. Who told me a bizarre and somewhat depressing tale, gossip with larger ramifications. In his words: "There is a feud going on between her last lover, the one who is writting more stuff under her name, and the last but one lover. Unfortunately, the last but one lover managed to get some sort of signature on the deathbed regarding the Darkover novels. And now she's found Christ and wants ALL of them rewritten, with same-sex relationships edited into heterosexual relationships, if necessary by switching the gender of characters. That's how they are already published in the US. We got the templates for the new editions, but pretended to have confused them with the old versions we received from Moewig. (The publisher that used to publish the Darkover novels.)"

Okay. No matter whether one likes MZBs novels or not - and I loved several of the classic Darkover ones, notably Heritage of Hastur and Sharra's Exile - isn't this one of the worst things that can happen to a deceased author? I mean, it's bad enough that more and more dead authors got turned into brand names with ghost written novels appearing for years afterwards under their name (see: V.C. Andrews, see: Isaac Asimov, and yes, see also: MZB). But posthumous censorship and rewriting?

One can try and be philosophical (it happened to Nietzsche, courtesy of his sister), but it really ticks me off.

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On a different note, I watched the recent tv version of Spartacus for research purposes. Bad mistake. Like Kubrick's film, it's based on Howard Fast's novel, which already takes several liberties with history, but manages to be captivating. This tv thing doesn't just offend my inner historian (who danced around the room screaming "Romans didn't wear clothes when taking a BATH, you repressed overseas puritans! There were always two consuls, even Sulla took care to observe protocol that much, heck, even the Empire kept the two consul system, but in the Republic they were elected, not appointed! That hair is all wrong! What are you thinking, having Pompey younger than Caesar and Crassus! No troops in the freakin' city, unless it's Sulla or much, much later Caesar, you idiots, that was the law! Arghhhhhh!"), but the entertainment-expecting viewer in me. Spartacus was nobler than noble, and you really need to be Russel Crowe or Kirk Douglas to pull that one off without being boring. Crassus getting obsessed with Spartacus and fearing him and making a play at Varinia came totally out of the blue. (It's also ahistorical, but never mind - that was Fast's thing which already made it in the Kubrick film, only the later had Olivier to make it credible.)

I mean, I get the basic problem. The tale of Spartacus might be captivating and heroic, but it's also tragic. He dies and fails to change the slightest thing (and it' s open to debate whether he wanted to beyond wanting feedom for himself and his followers, but then the problem with have with Spartacus is that there are only Roman historians telling his story). The Romans win. Rome continues to grow and expand for several centuries afterwards. And your modern tv audience, or so apparently the producers think, can't stomach true tragedy and seeing their heroes fail. So he has to get at least some victory. That's why Fast invented Varinia and the kid, and both films came up with a morally defeated Crassus. (In reality, the only thing that spoiled things for Crassus was that Pompey managed to steal the credit for the defeat of the slaves, but otherwise, things went splendily for him, and continued to until he managed to get himself killed when warring against the Parthians. There is no indication from any historian he ever gave Spartacus another thought.) But the tv version went and overdid but not only sparing Spartacus the cruxifixion (instead giving him death in battle) but by having the invented fellow named Agrippa, who takes the place of the equally invented fellow named Gracchus from the Kubrick movie, free Varinia, declare Rome to be a bad, bad place and the slaves the cause of the just, and sent her to an idyllic village. (Where that one should be isn't said.) Kubrick let Varinia and the kid survive as well, but they do so in the dubious company of the wily slave owner Batatius, which gave it some semblance of realism.

Oh yeah, and let's not forget that it was somewhat mysterious why the Romans won, because with we only ever saw their soldiers getting beaten by our heroes. William Shakespeare tried that one in the Henry VI. part that deals with Joan of Arc, and it didn't work there, either. By Jove, I want I, Claudius back. Can't think of another tv show or film dealing with ancient Rome or Greece that didn't leave me exasparated.