worst editor ever

[Feliks, Moderator]

I'm really enjoying this insider-account of the Bolshie revolution by British spy George Hill (he went around with Sidney Reilly during the tumult).

However, the edition I purchased (while otherwise handsome) is marred by perhaps the most foppish editing I've ever seen. What planet is this guy writing from? What a jackass.

Hill's memoir

Michael Smith, ('editor' of Dialogue Espionage Classics) says this in his Foreword:

"Hill's sexist description of his recruitment of his female agents might even have embarrassed James Bond. His main base was a house in Ulitsa Payitniskaya, Moscow's pre-revolution equivalent of Knightsbridge, and his main assistant was a half-English, half-Russian musician

"...who could turn her hand to anything which required skill. It was essential that the people about us be entirely trustworthy. Evelyn and I discussed the matter and decided to ask two friends of ours, girls of English birth but Russian upbringing, to join our organization....Sally was one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen. She had raven-black hair, a peach-like complexion, and the most sensitive, pale, hands. Annie, her sister, was not so good-looking but was a plump, cheerful, good-natured soul. We wanted another ally to run messages for me...after a great deal of thought we decided to enroll a young Russian girl we knew, an orphan who had just reached the mature age of seventeen. Vi was a tall blonde with blue eyes, and the most appealing ways, and time proved she was full of pluck. The couriers (who included the centre-half of a leading Russian football side) rested up between missions in the flat owned by a high-class prostitute. What could be more natural? Our weary couriers could rest in safety in one of the rooms there."

First, Smith doesn't even reprint it faithfully. Unbelievable. You're gonna criticize an author without even quoting him correctly?

Next: this passage, according to Smith, would "embarrass James Bond". No, it certainly wouldn't you schmuck. Heck, in one of Fleming's novels, James Bond comments that lesbians are 'sadly misguided' and 'simply have yet to be with a real man'. Something ridiculous to that effect. *That* is how misguided and outrageous Fleming got at times.

So why the hell would anything above (from Hill) 'embarrass' Fleming's hero? I'm damned if I can see a single grievance. Is it 'sexist' to comment on a woman's attractiveness? If so, then you'd have to censor 40% of Fleming's writing. Probably need to excise 60% of all thrillers ever written. Probably need to redact 75% of all literature, period. From any genre!

Since when is it wrong for a man to comment on a woman's looks. Don't answer that. Because it's 'never' as far as I'm concerned. Geez. Is there some government-run neutering program going on which I'm unaware of? Last time I checked, humans still have sexual organs. Last time I checked, humans reproduce via this system. Last time I checked, desire and attraction are needed to make it all function.

Smith possesses absurd political correctness combined with lack-of-perception combined with just plain stupidity.

It gets worse. Later on in Hill's story, we actually do see a rank, blatant, sexist remark:

"For the first time, I understood the old saying that there are occasions when one needs to slice a woman's throat to make her stop talking..."

Outrageous! But this instance apparently doesn't even rate a raised-eyebrow from 'editor' Michael Smith. He doesn't even mention it!

Bottom line: this is why I simply do not very much trust anyone writing today. Thriller or otherwise. They are getting the most basic, fundamental, judgements completely wrong.

[Feliks, Moderator]

More's the pity. 'Water, water, everywhere--but not a drop to drink'

I'd go so far as to style him a popinjay