I’m not sure the changes are drastic enough for anyone to be getting upset about personally.
I’d suspect if Dahl was writing the same stories now he’d perhaps have made some of those changes himself.
We have them all in a box in the attic so if any Grandchildren come along at any point, they will be reading the originals anyway.
Slippery slope, though. Where do you draw the line? I can see footnoting for clarity or to warn people about potential for offense, the way showings of Gone With The Wind have recently been done. But to change the actual content? Bad idea.
After I read the book I asked my elder brother if Mark Twain was a racist because he used that word. My brother said that the writer is presenting the situation of that time. He went on to add that unless the writer did that, I wouldn’t have known the situation of that time.
The criticism of these things always seems to give away the game. For sure, debate the value of the specific changes (as some elements of the BBC article quoted people doing), but it always seems the reactionary right always jump straight to broad mischaracterizations of the what and why with these moves. People may not appreciate it about publishing, but to stay in print publishers and IP holders will routinely review the content for clean up prior to a new publication run. This story is about the author’s estate, the owner of the IP, directing a group to help them identify potentially problematic material in writing of a known bigot as part of this routine process.
Talking about “censorship” as Rushdie does is absurd, and is even harder to take seriously given his complete absence of commentary on actual censorship, and state retaliation that is occurring in the US from the right. See Banning ideas and authors is not a ‘culture war’ – it’s fascism | Jason Stanley | The Guardian
Last I heard they were giving DL’s a reprieve for the time being. Seems that’s been overturned
Christ almighty there is so much to unpack in the Ronald Dahl controversy.
Fuck off Rishi Sunak and the Tory Party. Fuck all the way off until even the BFG can’t hear you frantically scrambling your way onto this particular bandwagon in the hope it distracts us proles from state of the country.
By far the most sensible take has come from Phillip Pullman who has suggested that Dahl’s books just be allowed to fade away and Children instead read modern authors, while also lamenting that the Dahl juggernaut tends to crowd out newer authors.
Which sort of chimes in with my opinions on this, which also generally can be transposed onto any situation where people are suggesting a Woke Illuminati are having something cancelled. Too many people fall into the trap of seeing insidious wokeness when the reality is that a commercial enterprise with their wits about them, whether that’s Disney or Puffin books, can see the way the wind is blowing on inclusion issues and will want to adapt their stuff so they can keep selling it to us.
Of the changes I’ve seen none really leap out as being detrimental to enjoying the books. Some are totally justified in being changed (like the passage in the Witches explaining they could be be disguised as ‘a sectretary typing letters for a powerful businessman’) whereas some are WTF level absurd (like dropping the word ‘black’ from the descriptions of the tractors in Fantastic Mr Fox).
But let’s not be in any doubt that these alterations have been made by the Dahl Estate and Puffin because they are trying to protect this cash cow for the next fifty years. Pullman is right. If left alone these books would fade from cultural life as time would render them unpalatable to future audiences. That’s the Dahl estate’s worst nightmare, but whether you disagree or not, please don’t blame your imaginary woke bogeyman… sorry…bogeyperson for an entirely commercial decision.
We can’t know what Roald Dahl would say, as he died in 1990. However I reckon he’d be fine with it. After all he significantly changed the entire backstory of the Oompa Loompah, who were originally black Pygmy Africans on advice that it was racist. Then you’d have to get out of room sharpish before he got started on the Jews.
With the netflix deal they have recently signed, they are certainly gearing up for a renewed interest.
A key skill of reading aloud to a child is scanning ahead a couple of lines while also reading at the same time. Came in handy reading Dahl to the kids.
Great Glass Elevator had to be abandoned though. No amount of selective editing could (ahem) whitewash the racism in that book.
The films problematic any connection is best forgotten about.
As for Dahl this seems to be a publishers decision, the market will decide whether they rise or fall.
It’s certainly not pressing enough to have an intervention from the PM.
Well said.
In other news today, an old man shouted at a cloud.
The Critical Drinker is self-parodying borderline racist misogynist. You can do better.
I’ve never felt the need to ‘edit’ any book I’ve read to or given to my daughter to read, and magically she’s managed to grow up to be not a racist. The real key skill in reading aloud to a child is to actually talk about what you’ve read when there is something that may be considered problematic or outdated.
In your opinion which I disagree with. Did you watch the video or just rely on your dislike of him?
Yeah, we do that too. There was a lot of conversations around the Tintin books.
I’ve watched that video before. Critical Drinker stuff often pops upon my YouTube feed.
He occasionally makes good points, but his general analysis is deeply rooted in transparent misogyny.
I can imagine, having to explain they’re French…
Belgian, surely…