… and they were regarded as being problematic even at the time.
I genuinely didn’t know anything about him prior to this, nor did I really care. Still don’t really either, if I’m being honest.
Thankfully, they weren’t. The ironic part was that the backlash was more of the supposed cancel culture than what is often regarded as cancel culture by the culture warriors.
This is what I have a problem with, because no one would really argue with this. But what so many people are portraying as cancel culture is often really just the free market working as it should. Which is ironic because the same people wilfully making the mischaracterisations also often claim to love the free market.
C’mon Dick, let’s leave Anne to do the washing up. She gets so upset when we get in the way and mess things up.
Stop scowling, George. You may dress like a boy, but your job is to look after the real lads, the ones who stand up to wee.
I’d forgotten that she did transgender kids back then as well…
GAH! You quoted me pre-edit!
‘YOU’RE’
How embarrassing!
Ironically Blyton will actually be studied in future because of these attributes.
Fixed it.
I read a Blyton to my then 6 year old (now 8) a while back - he was intrigued by George. She had anger issues too in that novel if I recall
What I find really odd is that exactly this kind of change was made (necessarily) while he was still alive, to reflect the predominant mores of the time. It really isn’t anything new. Dahl was a vicious, selfish, racist anti-Semite with little regard for others…somehow able to write brilliant stories for children. His publishers knew it then. Very, very few people have ever seen the original of Chocolate Factory, for example
Who cares? We read the books, we don’t have to live with the man. Bob Paisley likely had fairly ‘old fashioned’ views on gays which we aren’t celebrating by lauding his managerial greatness.
This is how we talk about this in Norway. We seem to be on a different planet.
I am also it seems on a different planet. I very much hope my planet wins in the long run as I view this to be just an incredibly dangerous development and I find it absolutely alarming that there are so many people defending this sort of censorship. Roald Dahl wasn’t necessarily a man of this age or even a very nice man (he clearly wasn’t of this age), maybe his books are not for this age either, but that’s for readers to decide. To fundamentally alter the langue and sometimes even the meaning of his work, is an intellectual crime against the authour. It is also alarming when it becomes culturally problematic to use the word fat or bald. A person can be fat or bald. I am quite fat these days. It is how it is. If i took offense at the word fat, then I would need to talk to a psychologist about that.
So yeah, I am a bit perplexed that so many think that such authoritarian meassures are some how defensible just because there may be a few persons that will find the words uncomfortable. That is just draconian sensitvity and goes against the very core of Free Speech and free thinking.
Fat or bald are not the real problem.
Yep. Also don’t really care for the ‘he wasn’t a nice man’ and thus we need to alter/read into what he has written. That fascist wokeism leads toward only ‘pure’ work by those without sin (or hidden from view) being accepted. Dahl’s work should stand (and fall) on its text alone without any need to reference his private life.
This isn’t authoritarianism. This is his publishers and estate doing this.
If it was the state that was imposing this and preventing books from going on sale or being available to the public then you would have a point. This has happened before and there is a notable history of censorship in the UK with things like blasphemy laws, the Obscene Publications Act and Section 28. However, there is no legal pressure for the publishers to act as they are. They are merely trying to maximise the profitable lifetime of their product.
I sympathise with this view to a certain extent. I don’t think the author’s person should have much to do with the work, after all it’s not like the Harry Potter universe (unless I’m much mistaken), is very transphobic. Racially insensitive perhaps, but transphobic it isn’t.
On the other hand, I don’t think you can fully divorce the author’s person from the work, because it would have informed their perspectives, their writing styles, and their views of the world.
Lastly, “fascist wokeism” is just a right-wing (not conservative) fantasy, and this bullshit needs to stop.
“on the other hand”
Stop rubbing your two-handedness in my face you inconsiderate ableist.
I disagree with your last point but would concede fascism (and wokeism) are terribly defined and frequently misappropriated terms
With Dahl, I think that is very much what has happened over the arc of his work. His publishers pruned off the really problematic parts at the time, and he became established as well-loved. But that love has always been premised on that ‘woke censorship’ on the part of his editors. It has never actually stood and fallen on his original text. An author who was less of a raging narcissistic bastard might even have acknowledged that at the time.
I get why authors like Rushdie are sensitive to the principle, and absolutely agree with that - but Rushdie’s fans are not suggesting there should be copies of his work read in kindergarten as a matter of course.
Just hanging washing out…mester wilkored08 asked for “some of those things that hold items on the line”…yep…really…I’ll do it myself…geez…
You’ve just been played
Yeah…but he can’t hang washing out so it drys straight…and who hangs jama bottoms , tracky bottoms and jeans by the leg???..DO IT MYSELF gawd…