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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

#771

Post by defrost »

zirgs wrote: post #699
defrost wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He had four or five confirmed kills with no indication that the German pilots of the Junkers Ju 88s over Greece were Nazis. He also killed at least one Vichy French Air Force pilot .. again there's no indication whether that pilot (or pilots) were Nazis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Dahl#Fighter_pilot

Every single German soldier who kept fighting ensured that death camps stayed open for longer. Every single piece of land that they managed to capture was annexed to the Nazi state and the SS could do their dirty work there. It doesn't really matter what those pilots thought themselves. My country is almost Judenfrei now, because of those German soldiers.

Sure.

Nazi ideals are bad, we can agree.

WWII is especially complex and resistes being reduced to black and white simplistics because of the same kinds of complications that exist today.

Back in the day the UK Royal Family was even more closely tied to their German cousins, many political groups in the UK were sympathetic to Nazi ideals even if opposed to the war expansion .. and the same was true for the USofA.

But, returning to the original point, I see no evidence that Dahl killed literal actual Nazi's.

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

#772

Post by lysozyme »

To me, the whole point of reading imaginative fiction like Dahl’s work is that it transports you to some other place. A different world with different people in it. The author created that whole world with language, and you’re getting it through just words on a page—that has always seemed to be part of the magic to me.

I think we ought to respect that, and treat suggestions to “improve” old literature by “updating” the language with the same mild derision that’s useful on those loons that wanted to paint over the cigarettes in old movies

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

#773

Post by jahnu »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #632
double2helix wrote: post #606

I'm a gay man and I think we are going to far with this PC nonsense. I had a hard time growing up in the 90s knowing I was different and being tormented by my peers, so I'm happy to see gay "normalized" in current pop culture more because I think it teaches the younger generation to accept themselves and others. However I feel that it's going to far, for example I started reading a novel the other day but gave up a t…

> I started reading a novel the other day but gave up a third of the way through because every character was some form of LGBT or interracial or something. It made the story seem fake and unrealistic. Sounds like a great book. Nearly all of my friends are trans, as I like to be around other trans people. It’s nice to be understood without constant questions. I’m an adult and I live in a very queer area. For younger q…

Thanks for sharing this perspective. Hearing such things directly from the people concerned helps turn my existing somewhat fuzzy thoughts on the subject into more solid real life experiences which I can reference when needed.

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

#774

Post by chaostheory »

bentcorner wrote: post #477
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…

> I replace language that suggests that women are supposed to stay at home and men are supposed to go to work I totally agree - my kids had Berenstain Bear's books (as random gifts and such) and I would avoid reading them because in particular the way they portrayed Papa Bear as a bumbling fool grated on my nerves. He's like a Homer Simpson without the heart. I'm certain mothers also don't appreciate the way Mama Bea…

Why not explain the historical context of these books instead? (That’s I what do with my children.) My children appreciate the transparency and extra discussion. That leads to a better longer term outcome for society than with the ease and convenience that censorship provides. History’s mistakes tend to repeat when society forgets them. We can’t rely on educational institutions doing our job for us since the same trend of censorship is happening in their realm.

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

#775

Post by ominous »

boyanlevchev wrote: post #744
ominous wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their thread started with: > Sounds like a great book. A great book because "every character was some form of LGBT or interracial or something". If you think it was a conversation to start with, you are simply wrong. It's closer to the delusions of someone who hypnotized themselves into their current worldview. It amuses me to engage in this way. I am very calm.

Offering a rebuttal, and then backing it up with a personal experience is a perfectly normal form of conversation. It is fine to amuse yourself with your speech, but it is worth recognising that it sounds like you are hosting a nature documentary about dumb animals, that exist beneath your own intelligence. To think this person is deluded, but that you have saved yourself from the delusion all humans go through, is d…

> do you only pick this fight with oppressed people?

Ah, a request that I also punch up... I do punch up as well. Do you require a balance of punches for this specific round?

> To think this person is deluded, but that you have saved yourself from the delusion all humans go through, is deluded.

It is, but I didn't claim that. Rather, I have my delusions, but not this one: framing society (western, J assume? but isn't that self-centered to assume western? this is an international forum) as a cisheteropatriarchal normative society, and from that segmenting people into oppressed and oppressor as defined by intersectional characteristics, and from that to reach into the oppressor group, pick their elements, and accuse them of perpetuating the status quo, and so remove from them the agency of existing as a group and having a voice other than to help the oppressed.

Do you see people like this? In particular, when observing that a book has only characters of the oppressed type and so it must be great?

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

#776

Post by jahnu »

Aeolun wrote: post #722
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I started reading a novel the other day but gave up a third of the way through because every character was some form of LGBT or interracial or something. It made the story seem fake and unrealistic. Sounds like a great book. Nearly all of my friends are trans, as I like to be around other trans people. It’s nice to be understood without constant questions. I’m an adult and I live in a very queer area. For younger q…

> it strikes me as totally realistic to have a book with primarily or only queer characters It doesn’t strike me as realistic at all. Queer people need to be able to deal with heteronormative people as much as the reverse. Otherwise you’re just self selecting into ghettos. I don’t think it can really be avoided, but to present it as desirable strikes me as wrong.

There is a massive difference between a ghetto that a group is forced to be in, excluded from the outside world, and a community built where one feels accepted and safe which one can enter and leave at will (free association). As long as outside this community is not properly welcoming and accepting its need to exist will be there. It’s the outside world that needs to change first. Discouraging such communities is basically asking those in need of that community to do most of the hard work.

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

#777

Post by bazoom42 »

double2helix wrote: post #606

I'm a gay man and I think we are going to far with this PC nonsense. I had a hard time growing up in the 90s knowing I was different and being tormented by my peers, so I'm happy to see gay "normalized" in current pop culture more because I think it teaches the younger generation to accept themselves and others. However I feel that it's going to far, for example I started reading a novel the other day but gave up a t…

Was the book Platos Symposium?

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

#778

Post by sensanaty »

Dalewyn wrote: post #479
ComputerGuru wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is forbidden to say being fat is unhealthy, undesirable or to pathologize it at all. Does that seem sensible?

There was a time, back about five hundred to a thousand years ago, when being fat was a positive trait because it was a social sign that you had the means to surplus nourishment. But whether it's acceptable to be fat or not, it's ultimately a social measurement that changes like the wind. Objectively and biologically, being fat is not good for one's health. Period. There is no room for argument here. Being fat is unh…

The version of Fat that was envied in the 1500s and earlier is a whole different beast to the morbidly obese blobs of fat that can barely stand up we're seeing today.

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

#779

Post by DonHopkins »

ominous wrote: post #707
jna_sh wrote: post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once again, the poster behaves Why are you writing this way? You’re in what is now an extended conversation with a person who is sharing their perspective with you, and you’re coming at it like you’re trying to humiliate them in front of an audience. You’re not jousting in some epic debate chamber, you’re in the replies of a message board. Calm down.

Their thread started with: > Sounds like a great book. A great book because "every character was some form of LGBT or interracial or something". If you think it was a conversation to start with, you are simply wrong. It's closer to the delusions of someone who hypnotized themselves into their current worldview. It amuses me to engage in this way. I am very calm.

[flagged]

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

#780

Post by sensanaty »

faeriechangling wrote: post #226
giantg2 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the intent of this change? "Enormously fat" is a subset of "fat". Ostensibly, this would insult more people since there are more fat people than there are enormously fat people.

I edited quickly since I misspoke. To be specific - they edited things like “But Augustus was deaf to everything except the call of his enormous stomach” to “But Augustus was ignoring everything”. It's not just the description of Augustus they toned down, they even literally removed lines from the book which explains he was motivated by hunger.

Wow, that reworked sentence doesn't even carry a hint of the original meaning, it basically rewrites the character entirely...
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