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

telegraph.co.uk

861–870 of 992 posts

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

#861

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It is, in fact, so thoroughly banned that it's available with free shipping from Barnes & Noble.

Even mentioning it indirectly gets my comment moved to shadow banned! That's why everyone is so confused where all this radical social change stuff came from. Anyone who even does research into this area gets shutdown with overwhelming force. There is no debate. Everything goes straight to censorship like an answer to the question I was replying to cannot exist. It is simply a mystery! The whole thing happened sponta…

Your comment is dead because it's unsubstantiated nonsense, and enough people downvoted or flagged it. (Reading someone else's unsubstantiated nonsense doesn't count as "research".)

The comments naming _The Transgender-Industrial Complex_ by Scott Howard aren't flagged/dead, just like the comments linking the major American book retailer with the book on sale, or the original publisher.

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

#862

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Being cancelled is very much a real thing, since a lot of people have, e.g., spineless bosses who will immediately capitulate to the Twitter mob's demands.

Yep; to say nothing of the psychological effects of being told that the whole world hates you. That sounds really traumatic. I'm not generally a contrapoints fan, but I really enjoyed the video she made about her experience with this on twitter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjMPJVmXxV8 Or the TED talk "How one tweet can ruin your life" from 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAIP6fI0NAI We studied To Kill a Moc…

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

#863
post #639
post #498

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There are tons of books that actually are a product of the current time. Why not read those, and support living writers, instead of changing the meaning of older works? Seems like your problem here is easier to solve without messing with the other writers and potentially confusing your child about what, say, a Ronald Dahl book is actually like.

Because they might not know the modern books or because they might like the older books, except for 0.001% of their content.

At least in the Dahl case, they're explicitly trying to change the tone of the works, and not just the "content" -- whatever that word is supposed to mean in the context of literature.

Everybody's family is different, but my childhood self would have been pretty disillusioned to discover my parents censoring books on my behalf. I really can't see how that's a good lesson for the kids, especially when you can just buy contemporary works that are as PC/woke (or not) as you want them to be.

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

#864
I’ll say reading the books to my kids, I can see the desire for some edits to keep up with the times. I have to censor a lot with my kids. Same with calvin and Hobbes.

It’s not that hard to make the edits yourself though and there is value in seeing the cultural changes.

It’s sort of like plastic surgery on an old person. Not fooling anyone but easier on the eyes I guess.

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

#865

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"Bewitched" is a classic tale of same-sex marriage, men in the closet, and uneasy gay-straight alliances. "E.T.: The Extraterrestrial" is a classic coming-of-age story of a gay man in the modern world. Dracula by Bram Stoker is the quintessential gay liberation epic.

> "E.T.: The Extraterrestrial" is a classic coming-of-age story of a gay man in the modern world. I don't know a single actual person who saw the film in that light. I can find references to the hypothesis online, but it seems like an incredible reach to me. More like an excellent demonstration of the human brain's ability to see patterns everywhere, even when they don't actually exist. E.g. conspiracy theories. > "B…

https://youtu.be/1it8-y4gWwg

Activist cast and crew. Especially Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick Sargent. No mistaking it.

Agnes Moorehead and Paul Lynde are gay icons from before anyone could be gay.

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

#866

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HN loves bringing up Orwell in contexts that are not comparable. This is bad, but not in an Orwellian way.

How is rewriting old texts to make them align with modern politics not Orwellian?

This is not the government rewriting old texts and destroying the originals to promote the image of always having the same ethics. This is an estate trying to sell the books they have the rights for.

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

#867
post #665

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In current American English, “female” has shifted to usually being an adjective, woman is a noun. Referring to people by noun-ing one of the adjectives that describes them is something considered reductive by a chunk of the population. If someone is a fan of “female” as a noun: I’m not going to change your mind. I get that changing language is annoying sometimes. I’m pointing out that “female” as a noun does bother s…

> Referring to people by noun-ing one of the adjectives that describes them The noun sense of female well precedes (going back to its Latin roots) the adjectival sense of the word. [1] The adjectival sense came from the noun, the exact reverse of what you are saying. And this pattern of adjectives coming from nouns (e.g. leafy , greasy , beautiful , harmful , dangerous , adventurous ) is common, while the reverse is…

I’ll make sure to keep that in mind if I encounter any ancient Romans.

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

#868

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is rewriting old texts to make them align with modern politics not Orwellian?

This is not the government rewriting old texts and destroying the originals to promote the image of always having the same ethics. This is an estate trying to sell the books they have the rights for.

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

#869

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, but how does an Indian child feel reading that, who has their name mispronounced every day (sometimes carelessly, sometimes with profuse apologies, sometimes deliberately), and knowing that Pondicherry could never be the name of an Indian prince?

How do children of any specific minority feel when they read historical accounts of racial injustice against their people? Probably really terrible, and maybe even scared. Should they not learn about that history because it makes them feel horrible? That would be extremely unwise since the mistakes of history tend happen again once society forgets. Old works of fiction also belong in historical narrative because it h…

The point of the book is to entertain, not to make someone feel scared and like an outsider. Dahl also made changes for this reason.

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

#870
A perspective that seems to have been snowed under so far: they're doing this for money.

That is: they are investing in their existing portfolio (of stories) to improve/sustain its value in the future. That is something that most folks here wouldn't begrudge a private business owner.

Basically, the owners of the copyright predict that, on average, more readers will be willing to pay for these stories if they make changes than if they don't - enough so to justify the investment and some anticipation of the inevitable backlash.

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