> A most formidable female -> A most formidable woman What is the reasoning for this? Not following what is "wrong" in the original.
The new one sounds more like people speak today.
Newspeak, if you will.
Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
171–180 of 992 posts
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#172Earlier 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…
Pretty baseless opinion. Julia Donaldson is an easy example but there are a lot of magical modern children's authors.
I've got all the Julia Donaldson books too. They're ok, aimed a little more at the pre reading level though. And the repetition: I get it helps kids learn but it's mind numbing. Also her books have terrible plot holes that kids see though, like if you're a princess captured by a wizard and you can change into anything turn yourself into a fucking dragon and spit roast the dude. Dahl just had a way with words and stories that speaks to children because he thought as they did, rather than like some adults think they do. Potter did world building with an extremely terse number of words.
I visit the bookstore with my kid regularly. She's 5. My older kids 11 and 14 do find plenty to read, but I disagree that there are plenty of magical modern children's authors capturing the 3 to 10 year old space. There are a lot of books, mostly dross.
And the stories... "I loved my cat/mom/dad then they died" I get it sad stuff happens and kids need to process it but these aren't books that are going to delight. "Your cat died so I got you a book about someone's cat dying"
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can be (and in fact am) empathetic. At the same time, I still take the position that non-binary people and other cultural minorities can simultaneously enjoy non-edited older fiction and understand that it may not have been written with them in mind (and may even be mocking or a little mean). Write new books. Make them as inclusive or exclusive as you want. I just think it's very telling that you hear so much about…
Yeah, that comment is just saying you can understand the changes empathetically. It's not saying they're good.
"That comment is just saying you can understand the changes empathetically"
That's not what they mean when they say empathy. They misuse empathy when they mean compassion.
I think they do it because even they understand it's indecent to say they pity all of these people.
empathy: The ability to identify with or understand another's situation or feelings
compassion: Deep awareness of the suffering of another accompanied by the wish to relieve it.
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
The technical/organizational details around implementation of this and how it came to be realized would probably also be interesting to a readership as nerdy as hn. I think I’ve seen a few of these posts but can’t seem to remember them.
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What book are you referring to?
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Dahl was a man of his time Everyone is a product of their time. People apparently need to be told this now.
Adults don't, but children might. These books arn't consumed by people who are particularly aware of the cultural context of the ear in which they were written. Things are going to very much taken at face value. A lot of things have changed in the last 60 years.
We gonna edit all books so kids don't take the crazy parts at face value? Swift? Dickens? The Bible? The Torah?
There have been thousands upon thousands upon thousands of children's books written in the last sixty years. Leave the classics the fuck alone, especially when the authors are unable to defend their work.
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, that comment is just saying you can understand the changes empathetically. It's not saying they're good.
... Maybe you should read GP's comment again. It's not asking for empathy, it's judgmental and imo a little unhinged. It claims saying words like 'shrill' are "gendered", and certain authors are "more agreeable" (what the fuck? ) as if that justifies these changes . Ask for empathy in a preface, or an introduction, if you have to. Stay the fuck out of Dahl's work. You don't have to like it, but changing it is obscene…
The word "shrill" (unlike "screeching") is absolutely gendered. It's still fine to use it, and I wouldn't have made, well, any of these edits, but there is nothing unhinged about the comment you're replying to. Don't go looking for enemies on HN threads!
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#177It 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...
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Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#178Here'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…
Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling wrote favorably about colonialism; they were replaced with more agreeable authors. Use of gendered language is marginalizing to nonbinary people. It's easy to figure out why these changes are being made in particular, once you take a position of empathy.
Ugh.
If it turns out these beloved stories become out of fashion because of stuff like this, so be it.
Twisting it into something it isn't, to fit current tastes doesn't seem right.
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#179It 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...
Turns out a person being something you dislike has no direct bearing on the quality of their writing and storytelling. If you can’t appreciate the latter on account of the former, that’s your problem.
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#180Media 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…
Does it still have Roald Dahl's name on it?