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Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#91

Post by nhchris »

ajross wrote: post #89
stuckinhell wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not simple republishing. The editing occurring is censorship because modern sensibilities are different today. Roald Dahl was notorious about hating people editing his works. Censorship via stealth editing is just extremely gross maybe even as bad as burning books. If those works don't meet modern standards, let new books be made. It certainly is Yikes territory to me and apparently thousands of others on red…

> This is not simple republishing. The editing occurring is censorship because modern sensibilities are different today. Good grief. That's simply not what censorship means. "Editting" happens all the time. Are journalists being "censored" when the published article doesn't match their words? In fact with translations, "editting" happens every time, by definition. How many times has the Bible been censored by now? If…

You are correct, it's not censorship. It's lying, fabricating a past that is more in line with the present. Creating a false consensus on modern sensibilities using the voices of dead authors.

Your mention of translation is apt - it often is used as a fig leaf for exactly this kind of deception. They call it "localization", and defend it by offering a false dichotomy between it, and literal word-for-word translation.

But in this case they don't even have that thin excuse to hide behind.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#92

Post by josephcsible »

whoopdedo wrote: post #59

When you rewrite a book like this, does it reset the copyright? Matilda was set to become public domain in 2060 (70 years after Dahl's death). With the books now owned by a corporation and essentially recreated by them, the copyright extends another fifty years.

The rewritten version gets a fresh copyright timer of its own, but the original's copyright still expires the same time it was always going to.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#93

Post by ajross »

nhchris wrote: post #91
ajross wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is not simple republishing. The editing occurring is censorship because modern sensibilities are different today. Good grief. That's simply not what censorship means. "Editting" happens all the time. Are journalists being "censored" when the published article doesn't match their words? In fact with translations, "editting" happens every time, by definition. How many times has the Bible been censored by now? If…

You are correct, it's not censorship. It's lying, fabricating a past that is more in line with the present. Creating a false consensus on modern sensibilities using the voices of dead authors. Your mention of translation is apt - it often is used as a fig leaf for exactly this kind of deception. They call it "localization", and defend it by offering a false dichotomy between it, and literal word-for-word translation.…

Meh. I still think you're just inventing Political Enemies Propagating Horrific Injustice when the simpler explanation is a publisher trying to sell more books. The kinds of edits here simply aren't consistent with the ideas you're trying to ascribe to them. It's just updating stuff like "jobs women do" to match modern standards. It's routine, and it doesn't change the art, and you know that.

It's just dumb. It doesn't have to be the end of the world, and we'd all be happier if people would stop with all the one-sided hyperbole. It's exhausting.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#94

Post by cornholio »

a2tech wrote: post #40

Media changes, art is reshaped by new generations. Roald Dahl is dead, the rights to his books have been sold and people are updating them to keep them relevant. This happens to translations (as an example) all the time as the popular lexicon changes. This is how media and art stays relevant. The world changes. The owners of the books have a vested interest in modifying them to continue to be relevant. The tweaks hav…

They are not modifying them to stay relevant, they are modifying them to avoid any possible controversy that would impact the revenue stream. Woke cancelation is a real threat and they would lose a very expensive asset, so they are effectively butchering the original works in a way the author would definitely not have approved of and with little regard to the quality of the resulting text.

It's a clear example of financially motivated self-censorship.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#96

Post by version_five »

petodo wrote: post #74
mediasavvy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where is the next Dahl? Why is there no modern Beatrix Potter Do you have a child? There are all kinds of amazing children’s authors, loved by parents and kids, that have been creating books over the last 20 years.

I think he is asking for list, not general statement like this. I have a child which likes Dahl's books, tell me names of these amazing authors on par with him.

I'd recommend John Bellairs in case he's not on anyone's radar. His books are from earlier in the 20th century though.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#97

Post by nhchris »

ajross wrote: post #93
nhchris wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct, it's not censorship. It's lying, fabricating a past that is more in line with the present. Creating a false consensus on modern sensibilities using the voices of dead authors. Your mention of translation is apt - it often is used as a fig leaf for exactly this kind of deception. They call it "localization", and defend it by offering a false dichotomy between it, and literal word-for-word translation.…

Meh. I still think you're just inventing Political Enemies Propagating Horrific Injustice when the simpler explanation is a publisher trying to sell more books. The kinds of edits here simply aren't consistent with the ideas you're trying to ascribe to them. It's just updating stuff like "jobs women do" to match modern standards. It's routine, and it doesn't change the art, and you know that. It's just dumb. It doesn…

> you're just inventing Political Enemies Propagating Horrific Injustice when the simpler explanation is a publisher trying to sell more books.

I only described their actions. You're talking about motivation. Though the publisher's motivation matters little when it's the "sensitivity readers" doing all the changes.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#98

Post by gjm11 »

dang wrote: post #88
gjm11 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but the point is that the Guardian doesn't have the same sort of right-wing-outrage-machine reputation that the Telegraph has, so (1) the tone of the article might be less annoying to those of a leftier bent, and (2) someone inclined to expect that the Telegraph would be outright dishonest on this subject might trust the Guardian more (even if it's citing the Telegraph as a source, one might hope that they've d…

HN's guidelines specifically ask people to " Please submit the original source*. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter. " - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html It's true that the provenance of an article sometimes leads to complaints, but I don't think we should let that be the high-order bit or train for it (in the way that repeated moderation decisions slowly train the…

For the avoidance of doubt, I wasn't at all suggesting that the original submission should have been to the Guardian article rather than the Telegraph one, and I don't think anyone else was either. I was just trying to explain why someone might have bothered to mention the Guardian article in response to a complaint about the Telegraph allegedly being a right-wing outrage machine.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#100

Post by tptacek »

I'd be interested in hearing the most credible/reputable sources speaking out in favor of these changes. I've exclusively seen commentators dunking on this (rightfully so), across the political spectrum. To be clear: I'm wondering if we can find specific people speaking up for this, not an analysis of whose side of the culture war is most culpable for it.
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