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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

#461

Post by TchoBeer »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #443
bla3 wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm neither credible nor reputable, but I'm in favor of a weak version of this. When reading older books to my young child, I replace language that suggests that women are supposed to stay at home and men are supposed to go to work. One day soon he'll be able to read, and at that point I'll wish that books that were a product of their time would have been updated for the current time, so that he could just read the b…

Your decision may be contributing to the crisis of identity of women who do want to raise a family though, and who have been crushed by a culture who pushes college and helping capital owners as the meaning to life.

The only way to solve this identity crisis is to push the idea that women must stay at home, of course.

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

#462

Post by oska »

pessimizer wrote: post #341
stuckinhell wrote: post #3

Censoring old children's books. Yikes. This is frightening in more ways than one. Besides the obvious censorship, and rewriting the past being a bad thing. I can't wait to see what they do to "Brave New World", "Fahrenheit 451" and "1984". It'll be ironic and sad if they burn the old unedited Roald Dahl books. But also have we reached cultural stagnation, that old media still out competes new ones by such orders of m…

> I can't wait to see what they do to "Brave New World", "Fahrenheit 451" and "1984" You can see it with successive movie adaptations: the decorations are the same, but all the messages get reversed, they focus on action, and they add hopeful endings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451_(2018_film)

By the by, François Truffaut's 1966 adaptation is amazing, and well worth seeking out

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

#463

Post by zmgsabst »

Gigachad wrote: post #390
josephg wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > The Dahl estate owned the rights to the books until 2021, when Netflix bought them outright for a reported $686 million, building on an earlier rights deal. The American streaming service now has overall control over the book publishing, as well as various adaptation projects that are in the works. I suspect they're hoping netflix will make movies based on his books. Netflix seems pretty sensitive…

Surely the success of Hogwarts Legacy shows you can just completely ignore twitter and nothing happens.

Dior is up while WarnerMedia is down.

Not only can you make money while ignoring Twitter — but you can make money by ignoring Twitter screeching. Eg, by hiring Johnny Depp rather than engaging in misandry by supporting false accusations against him.

Hopefully, WarnerMedia eventually gets the memo — and stops discriminating against men while supporting abusers like Amber Heard (female) or Ezra Miller (non-binary).

I think a lot of companies have forgotten they need to treat people based on the content of their character rather than race/sex/gender/etc.

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

#464

Post by josephg »

Gigachad wrote: post #390
josephg wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > The Dahl estate owned the rights to the books until 2021, when Netflix bought them outright for a reported $686 million, building on an earlier rights deal. The American streaming service now has overall control over the book publishing, as well as various adaptation projects that are in the works. I suspect they're hoping netflix will make movies based on his books. Netflix seems pretty sensitive…

Surely the success of Hogwarts Legacy shows you can just completely ignore twitter and nothing happens.

Yeah; I don’t know why it’s taken people so long to realise this. I know it seems to people on Twitter that everyone is on twitter, but that’s really not true. About 10% of people in the USA use Twitter daily - which is a huge number of eyeballs. But that still leaves the remaining 90% of people choosing instead to enjoy our short time on this planet.

If anything, I wouldn’t be surprised if the outrage over Hogwarts Legacy increased sales of the game. I don’t know if I would have heard about it at all if not for the outrage machine.

Louis CK did a show here in Melbourne a few months ago and the show was sold out. For better or worse, being canceled doesn’t seem like a life sentence.

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

#465

Post by Animats »

faeriechangling wrote: post #209

Of 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.

Last year, it was the Fat Controller from Thomas the Tank Engine.[1]

[1] https://www.thesun.co.uk/tv/19487821/thomas-the-tank-engine-...

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

#466

Post by oska »

NateEag wrote: post #380
jemmyw wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But also have we reached cultural stagnation, that old media still out competes new ones by such orders of magnitude Where is the next Dahl? Why is there no modern Beatrix Potter? Kids still love those stories and style of writing, which is less trite than most of the modern children's books. It does feel like stagnation, with lots of content being churned out but none of it with great staying power. Instead the ol…

As a father of young kids, I cannot recommend John Klassen's "Hat" picture books enough: I Want My Hat Back This Is Not My Hat We Found A Hat The Rock From The Sky They're beautiful exercises in minimal, precision watercolor. They're written with delightful economy, and have a rather Dahlian sense of justice and consequences. He wrote them all within the last twelve years, IIRC. For older kids, Pax (illustrated by Mr…

> Great new classics are still being written - it's just that the winnowing function of passing decades hasn't yet run its course, so they're harder to find.

This is true, but I also think there are 'golden ages' for various genres of literature and I suspect we are not in a golden age for children's literature right now.

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

#467

Post by zmgsabst »

Nevermark wrote: post #282

So many classics hit us differently today I recently read all of Ian Flemming’s James Bond novels. The identification of race as correlated with strong personality and motive characteristics is pervasive, especially for the enemy in any narrative. Often negative, but often positive - the enemy is always “different”, but must always be respected, never underestimated. And foreign characters often team up with Bond, ad…

How are the James Bond stories different than the anti-Russian sentiments we see circulating today?

I think we should read such historical texts precisely so we can gain an appreciation for how those ideas happen — and can examine ourselves doing the same thing.

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

#468

Post by jquery »

Gigachad wrote: post #390
josephg wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > The Dahl estate owned the rights to the books until 2021, when Netflix bought them outright for a reported $686 million, building on an earlier rights deal. The American streaming service now has overall control over the book publishing, as well as various adaptation projects that are in the works. I suspect they're hoping netflix will make movies based on his books. Netflix seems pretty sensitive…

Surely the success of Hogwarts Legacy shows you can just completely ignore twitter and nothing happens.

[flagged]

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

#469

Post by Quarrelsome »

egonschiele wrote: post #441
nonethewiser wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you know, ladies and gentleman

I would guess the change was made because they felt ladies and gentlemen does not account for non-binary genders

does that matter when there don't appear to be any non-binary people in any of Roald Dahls works?

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

#470

Post by SaltyGoodness »

ckemere wrote: post #326

Semi-contrarian position here - I've never liked Dahl, and I was always annoyed by how he was pushed on me by the literary types in early school (the same ones that wanted me to read The Great Gatsby and The Stranger eventually). But I think that those people had some goal behind pushing him, and perhaps that goal is consistent with the rewriting? Something about kids who feel like outsiders (maybe???)? Very differen…

Even if you dislike Dahl, the idea that we need to "update" 60 yo books for the sensibilities of our time is dystopian, and dangerous.

Would you like your favourite author's work edited post mortem? Look at the changes made... They're asinine, and there's hundreds of them.

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