Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered... Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right. - George Orwell
Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
231–240 of 992 posts
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#232[dead]
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#233Here's a good list of changes. Most are about removing any references to ugly or fat. But also other strange things like changing the author's Matilda likes to read to include Jane Austin and John Steinbeck, not calling people crazy, swapping screeching to annoying, removing brothers and sisters to favor "siblings" and using "folks" instead of "ladies and gentlemen" https://twitter.com/incunabula/status/1626860237104…
Ugh. I liked Matilda. But Steinbeck? Seriously? To each his own I guess. How Matilda would have been a fan of Steinback is beyond me. Much less Austin. Matilda would have been a fan of, er, uh, Dahl. And maybe Oz, Baum, Seuss, and Carroll. And any other author whose general vibe was "I kinda like to mess with the world." Definitely Orwell as she got older.
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#234Of every change the ones to Augustus Gloop not being called "enormously fat" and instead being called "enormous" are the most jarring as his story is a moral parable about the dangers of gluttony. Even if you think such moral parables are wrong, the phrasing change isn't simply just aesthetic, it's fundamentally changing the story's narrative.
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Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#235It turns out that Dahl was a real antisemite, to me that is more of an issue: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/dec/06/roald-dahl-fam...
I know very little about the beliefs or personal lives of nearly any artist whose work I enjoy, but I know that most people carry beliefs and histories that I would disagree with, so I have to assume that this is no less true of the artists. It seems like fretting over the occasional artist that’s been “outed” is a convenient way to pretend that rest of them are somehow saints, when in reality nearly all of them have…
Things do have a historic context, if one admits to hating Jews in the second half of the twentieth century then that speaks an awful lot about his attitudes as a writer.
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
Burn them, of course? Is that what you want to hear? No one involved cares about the old books. This isn't about the old books. They're still in libraries. They're still classics, and worth preserving and reading. Go check them out! What's happening here is that the owner of the copyright wants to sell new books to parents. And some of the content is a little off to modern parents, and they think they'll sell more if…
> Everyone here is thinking "ZOMG Political Correct Censorship Claims Another Victim", but what we actually have is "Han Shot First". "Han Shot First" is the artist changing his own work . That is entirely different. The reason everyone is yelling is they intuitively sense how wrong it is to posthumously edit an artist without permission. There's a moral question here that exists apart from copyright ownership.
The artist is dead. This is absolutely being done with the permission of the copyright holder.
But what if it wasn't authorized? What if it was public domain? Would you make the same argument about a modified Shakespeare performance?
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#237Contempt and patronization of modern human intelligence.
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#238Wow. This is so gross. I was a bit put out by the Dr. Seuss controversy a few years back, but at least in those cases, they just stopped printing the books (and, to be fair, the caricatures of various ethnic groups in If I Ran The Zoo are pretty bad). It feels much more disturbing, though, to just silently update the language in the books to be more in line with modern sensibilities. Dahl was a man of his time, and a…
It can be a hard choice with young children. I grew up watching Christmas Story every year. My son is two and I'm very hesitant to continue that tradition when he's a bit older. I don't want him to think that mocking people for their accents is something to be encouraged. It'd be nice to have a version of the movie where that scene is modified or redubbed because the movie is a creative treasure. Of course, once he r…
> It can be a hard choice with young children.
Is it though? A modified version of the scene seems like a dishonest solution to a problem that has good, straightforward solutions:
- Don't show them (if its a conversation you don't want to have yet)
- Show them and then discuss the scene
Norms change time... different people think different things are ok... these are lessons children need to learn just like any other.
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#239This is sickening
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#240It turns out that Dahl was a real antisemite, to me that is more of an issue: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/dec/06/roald-dahl-fam...
I don't want to downplay antisemitism - its a real problem. But why does that bother you, given he's dead?
Matilda was one of my favorite books when I was a kid. There's something in it that hits me right in the soul, even as an adult. I hear you when you say his antisemitism is an issue for you - but - I just can't see how that has any bearing on my relationship with his books. As a child I didn't understand, and now as an adult I can't bring myself to care. Its not like the royalties go to him - he's dead.
I struggle more with Scott Orson Card. Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead are fantastic books. Both different, and both absolutely excellent. I'd rather not support him financially given he's used his platform to attack gay people. But I also suspect it would have taken someone with a conservative outlook on life to write Speaker for the dead. There's ideas in that book I never hear anyone talk about. Hearing those perspectives has broadened my outlook a little. My life would be dimmer for not having read his books.
I also think a lot of the delight in Dahl's books comes from his unbridled wildness, and his unabashed delight in being a monster to his characters - in ways modern sensibilities don't approve of. I don't think he would have been on board with the modern insistence on political correctness in children's books. I understand the edits, especially if there's netflix deals in the works. But I suspect history won't look kindly on the edits made to his books. Its ok for Wonka to have slaves (so long as they're not african) and straight up murder annoying children, but he can't call someone fat? This all feels very of-the-moment.