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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

#821

Post by wrp »

bazoom42 wrote: post #788
wrp wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...some gay character who is essentially 'straight acting'... I often see (edit: readers) mention that a story has gay/straight characters, even when (to me) there is no opening in the plot for characters to express their romantic inclinations. What exactly are you looking at when you perceive a character as $orientation?

You mean readers read the characters as gay even though it is never directly stated? Traditionally there are certain “tells” which are subtle enough that readers who are uncomfortable by queer characters miss the subtext. This is really a win-win. Hollywood was also a master of this, althoug these days they tend to do the reverse: explicity show a character is gay but without the tells, since having both would just b…

Exactly. I see a lot of book reviewers complaining about the presence/lack of characters of some type and I'm baffled, because in my reading of the text there was no revelation of that information. I want to know what particulars they are focusing on.

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

#822

Post by mdp2021 »

Nevermark wrote: post #819
mdp2021 wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes in general, but it is more complex than that. There exists a "tzarism" component, there exist others. And an umbrella is theoretically possible where those components are solved - but I have not seen such umbrella developed.

I am not sure what you mean by “umbrella”.

> I am not sure what you mean by “umbrella”

A descriptive framework in which the reasonable instances of all parts are explicit and organic.

It is missing (and missed) - and in fact, no diplomatic resolution has been possible.

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

#823

Post by cwmma »

unixgoddess wrote: post #708
bko wrote: post #15

Here'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…

I wonder when will they start editing Harry Potter, what with the Dursleys being caricature fatsos = villains.

Knowing the author, she'd probably try to update the book to make Dursley trans.

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

#824

Post by jbaber »

ZiiS wrote: post #792
koolba wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Fantastic Mr Fox a description of tractors, saying that “the machines were both black”, has been cut. In the new Dahl world, it seems, neither machines nor animals can be described with a colour. And removing any reference to color … for tractors.

I bet this is much more becase red tractors are easier to convey in the inevitable cartoon adaption. Or the hope John Deere will pay for them to be green.

It was made into a stop motion movie by Wes Anderson.

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

#826

Post by dchowe »

esperent wrote: post #640
tsol wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both groups can have a crisis of identity? Conservative women aren't looked upon very positively in popular culture, this isn't much of a reach.

Wanting to stay home and raise a family (as a man, a woman, or anything else) is not "conservative", it's a lifestyle choice. Maybe it's because I'm European but hearing the word "conservative" applied to a basic lifestyle choice so readily is really grating. There's more to life than conservative vs liberal and sometimes you just... don't need to give political labels to everything. There's more to life than identit…

"traditional" may have been the word closer to what he was looking for.

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

#827

Post by SaltyGoodness »

DonHopkins wrote: post #809
SaltyGoodness wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't. In fact, tptacek is right above you making a thinly veiled personal attack at me and others here. What is your relationship to tptacek dang? Every time I see him winding people up, you're there behind him, threatening anyone who stands up.

I'd hardly call dang threatening, unless you're threatened by him politely asking you not to break the rules. And you were. If you find being politely asked to follow the rules threatening, you can politely leave.

[dead]

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

#828

Post by regularjack »

brynjolf wrote: post #741
williamvds wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case you don't realize it, your behavior in this thread is patronizing (telling people how they should behave), degrading (not directly talking to the commenter), and from a clear place of closed-mindedness (writing as if teaching truths to an AI, not discussing). Your lack of empathy makes me assume you haven't been through similar experiences as the commenter you're "replying", either because you're not visibly…

I think the comment you wrote is better served to you. You ask for empathy and compassion where you offer none. I don't think you understood what is being written, and went for wiritbg a comment attacking rather than exploring.

Attacking is sometimes the appropriate response.

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

#829

Post by prepend »

WesternWind wrote: post #740
wrp wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...some gay character who is essentially 'straight acting'... I often see (edit: readers) mention that a story has gay/straight characters, even when (to me) there is no opening in the plot for characters to express their romantic inclinations. What exactly are you looking at when you perceive a character as $orientation?

They often describe eye color and hair color, which is very rarely pertinent to the plot, but nobody complains about that. Weird how people love to complain about non straight people existing in stories though.

> They often describe eye color and hair color, which is very rarely pertinent to the plot, but nobody complains about that.

I think because describing external characteristics is something that we all do as we experience the world. “That person has brown eyes. That person has red hair.” Are just part of moving through the world and I perceive this regardless of how consequential they are to the plot of life.

Sharing internal characteristics that aren’t easily knowable is unusual because I wouldn’t necessarily know this without some other information that reveals. If I’m seeing someone, I usually don’t know their sexual orientation so when the author describes them as gay, it can be offputting because that’s not something I would know as an observer. Of course there are many ways to do this properly, so it’s not always offputting, but it can be as it layers on information that’s more than we would normally know.

An example of this that I remember is in Lost, characters describe another character as “the Haitian” without any explanation in story that the person was from Haiti. Somehow, everyone recognized his accent and placed his heritage enough to know his country of origin. And sometimes they would still say “there was a Haitian there” when the Haitian didn’t even say anything so it stood out to me as odd that characters would know this non-observable info.

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

#830

Post by dchowe »

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #569
monkeywork wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. I can understand wh…

This ^^^ These situations are perfect for having actual, meaningful conversations with your kids. Not only will you clearly articulate expectations to your kids, but you'll grow closer.

Agreed. My 4 year old went through a phase where she loved the original Disney Peter Pan. Disney themselves have included a disclaimer at the beginning of the film now, but for my daughter I made sure to discuss with her that the portrayal of the Indians wasn't particularly nice.
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