Cloud Atlas 'astonishingly different' in US and UK editions, study finds (2016) | Hacker News Reader

Cloud Atlas 'astonishingly different' in US and UK editions, study finds (2016)

theguardian.com

20 pointsTomte14 comments

> “Given that so much literary criticism has now been produced on the subject of Mitchell’s novel, 12 years after its publication, these version variants are potentially problematic as they have not previously been noted.”

Ouch.

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12274092

The most surprising thing about this is that academics write research papers on Cloud Atlas. Is that really a good use of research money?

It's pretty standard to simplify things for the US market isn't it? Hence the Philosophers stone becoming the Sourcers stone etc...

The article is pretty explicit that it was the result of poor version-control.

And it's standard to "translate" i.e. minorly adapt, but not to abridge or "simplify" as you suggest.

I don't see anything in the piece about simplification, just the the trouble of tracking changes across two editions while still finishing the edit for each.

Well Mitchell claims it was the other way around: the copy editor made it more complex for the UK but the US version was unedited.

I haven't reviewed the (pages and pages apparently) of differences, but the example they give is this:

>In the UK text, for example, Mitchell writes at one point that: “Historians still unborn will appreciate your cooperation in the future, Sonmi ~451. We archivists thank you in the present. […] Once we’re finished, the orison will be archived at the Ministry of Testaments. […] Your version of the truth is what matters.”

>In the US edition, the lines are: “On behalf of my ministry, thank you for agreeing to this final interview. Please remember, this isn’t an interrogation, or a trial. Your version of the truth is the only one that matters.”

It sat unedited for some time, then they got a new editor (next paragraph).

Doesn't actually say they did any editing though, does it? I ask because I thought the point was it was a simultaneous release and that they ran out of time in the US? Sorry if I've read too much into that...

I think you did. The article makes it sounds like there were more or as many changes to the US version:

"Mitchell was presented with a substantial list of changes for the US edition".

And the article makes clear that the author was uninterested in tracking the changes: "'It’s a lot of faff – you have to keep track of your changes and send them along to whichever side is currently behind – and as I have a low faff-tolerance threshold, I’m still not very conscientious about it, which is why my US and UK editors now have their assistants liaise closely.... I really never dreamed back then that anyone would ever notice or care enough to email me about it, or that the book would still be in print 13 years later, let alone sell a couple of million copies and be studied or thought about by academics.'"

Related: I'd done a diff[1] on Rowling's new book (The Ickabog) - UK v/s US editions (using the text published on the website which I was compiling[0]). The differences were fairly minor and mostly down to standard US/GB differences. Most of it was just quoting and punctuation.

[1]: https://gist.github.com/captn3m0/7d5dae42769e575676708560399...

[0]: https://github.com/captn3m0/ickabog-ebook/

Is "sorcerer" any more simplified than "philosopher"? They just seem to be two different things with perhaps slightly different meaning (or perhaps just stylistically different) between US and UK.

Yes because the philosopher’s stone is a particular (mythical) object whereas a sorcerer’s stone is merely a stone owned by a sorcerer (perhaps with some special powers or perhaps not).

I presume the editors assumed that most uk kids would have heard of the philosopher’s stone while (so I have been told) the analysis was that American kids would see “philosopher” and say “yuck”.

Out of curiosity which country are you from? Sounds like you haven’t heard of the philosopher’s stone — would be amused at the editors’ judgement if you turn out to be from the UK.

I am from the US, and I did have to lookup what a philosopher's stone is.

Though I don't know if I would agree that knowledge of such a fictional or mythological object is any more or less sophisticated, so much as a cultural difference in what types of fiction or mythology are more culturally common.

I also don't know anything about what my "sign" is in astrology and I don't think that makes me less sophisticated than those who do. I just have different kinds of useless knowledge.

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