Roald Dahl re-writes

[Ran]

1 hour ago, HTN02 said:

i have 2 editions of a classic book, first and fourth edition, published 1923 and 1930.

I expect that was because the author thought better of something and revised it?

But the issue, for me, is that I don't imagine Roald Dahl could ever have imagined that something like Netflix could exist, and that it in turn a massive international streaming platforum could purchase his literary estate, and in partnership with his publisher would make all of these corporate-driven changes to it after he was gone. 

 

[HTN02]

34 minutes ago, Ran said:

I expect that was because the author thought better of something and revised it?

But the issue, for me, is that I don't imagine Roald Dahl could ever have imagined that something like Netflix could exist, and that it in turn a massive international streaming platforum could purchase his literary estate, and in partnership with his publisher would make all of these corporate-driven changes to it after he was gone. 

 

While i dont know what the author thought, the changes where reversed in later editions (it took till 2005 for the last change to be reversed. The last was actually something akin of “out or ill kick you out” and “out or ill throw you out”)But as he was still alive in 1930, id imagine he was consulted.

thats what we do before changing stuff anyhow.

offcourse the book has also changed a few times when words stopped being used, to be replaced by words that are in use.

[HTN02]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I think the controversy is really due to the nature of the changes. Most people accept that works which are hugely offensive or outdated will probably need little tweaks if they don't gel with modern sensibilities.

With this Dahl stuff, its more that the changes seemed over the top and excessively 'nanny state'. Very few seemed necessary or likely to protect anyone, and it said more about the people making the changes than it did about the books themselves. 

But then, as suggested, this might all have been a ploy to create controversy and sell more books. Its the same fan baiting tactics used by movie companies to get more hype online for something.

Could you name a change thats “over the top” or “ nanny state”?

 

Most major ones i saw:

- about people being fat. lets me honest: especially on the american market, thats not really accepted. You are not appreciated for calling a certain writer “fat” on this board for example.

- that not all bald woman are witches. Lets be frank: children books are sold to parents. Parents dont like their children calling bald woman witches. And being (almost) bald is becoming a more accepted hairstyle nowadays.

 

[Heartofice]

19 minutes ago, HTN02 said:

Could you name a change thats “over the top” or “ nanny state”?

 

Most major ones i saw:

- about people being fat. lets me honest: especially on the american market, thats not really accepted. You are not appreciated for calling a certain writer “fat” on this board for example.

- that not all bald woman are witches. Lets be frank: children books are sold to parents. Parents dont like their children calling bald woman witches. And being (almost) bald is becoming a more accepted hairstyle nowadays.

 

Yes both of those I would say would be over the top and unnecessary changes for a start.

[Kyll.Ing.]

20 hours ago, HTN02 said:

Could you name a change thats “over the top” or “ nanny state”?

 

Most major ones i saw:

- about people being fat. lets me honest: especially on the american market, thats not really accepted. You are not appreciated for calling a certain writer “fat” on this board for example.

- that not all bald woman are witches. Lets be frank: children books are sold to parents. Parents dont like their children calling bald woman witches. And being (almost) bald is becoming a more accepted hairstyle nowadays.

The first one just replaces "fat" with "enormous", which is no less of an insult when the context is retained. It comes across more as wanting to avoid one "buzzword" than actually addressing anything problematic in the text. If there's a problem with having an obese and insufferable kid in a story, it won't be fixed by swapping the words of his description with synonyms. Augustus Gloop will still be an obese and insufferable character, just as "offensive" as before, even if the words are different. It feels like a ham-fisted change made for the sake of change.

As for the second, I think the line in question was rather botched by replacing a line that said something to the effect of "Don't you go around trying to pull the hair of old women, it won't end well" with "It's perfectly okay for a woman to wear a wig". It changes the meaning quite a bit. If the extra sentence was added instead of replacing the other, I think it would be much better. As it stands, it comes across as an inelegant attempt to take something away to make the "lesson" stand out more. I actually think there was a chance to improve something here, as the relevant paragraph basically says "Yes, the witches are bald, but checking whether a woman is bald is no good way to find witches." The line about there being plenty of valid reasons for women to be bald adds nicely to that message. But it's undercut by removing the line about how futile it is to look for witches by checking for baldness. The end result is that the message of the paragraph is taken away until only the "preaching" remains.

In a way, I'm not sure if it can be called "nanny state", but it's certainly inelegant and needlessly preachy.

[DaveSumm]

21 hours ago, HTN02 said:

Could you name a change thats “over the top” or “ nanny state”?

The low hanging fruit here is surely ‘black’ and ‘white’. The BFGs cloak was black because black is a dark colour, and he used it to sneak around unseen. People turn white with fear because the blood rushes from your face to other places, thus leaving your face whiter.

[Heartofice]

We could just go through a few of these changes:

 

• Augustus gloop isn't fat, he's enormous.
  if you are trying to protect the feelings of overweight kids I'm not sure you do it by calling them enormous. The only solution here is to remove the character altogether if you are that worried about it. I also don't believe we can just remove the word fat from the dictionary and pretend child obesity goes away or that we should shy away from it, this is from someone who was a fat kid when I was younger.
   
• Mrs Twit's “fearful ugliness” has become just “ugliness.
  I don't understand what the benefit of this change is at all. Who is it protecting? Is ugly now less offensive because fearful is removed? It's just odd.
   
• Mrs Hoppy in Esio Trot is now a “kind middle-aged lady” instead of an “attractive middle-aged lady
  Are women not allowed to be attractive now? Is it sexist to find middle aged women attractive? Should we only judge people based on the content of their character? 
   
• Miss Trunchbull in Matilda was once a “most formidable female” but is now a “most formidable woman” and Roald Dahl’s original description of her as having a “great horsey face” is now just called “her face”.
  Female is offensive now? To who? Should we tiptoe around being offensive to Miss Trunchbull? 
   
•  a witch posing as a “cashier in a supermarket” who now works as a “top scientist”.
  God forbid any girl ever works as a cashier! How humiliating! Anyone who isn't a brain surgeon is a total failure in life.
  
   

I can't see any real reason that any reasonable person would think there was a crying need to make these changes or that the words in the original texts were doing damage to anyone reading them. 

But yes, I think it's all cooked up to sell more books. But whatever.

[SeanF]

Bond's racial prejudice, along with his misogyny, snobbery, and nihilism,  is a part of what he is.  He's an anti-hero, not a boy scout.

In Live and Let Die, Bond ridicules the very notion of a black man being able to run a major criminal organisation, and gets called out on it by M.  Felix Leiter actually makes the point that certain terms (eg " a jigger of rum") that were common pre-war, are no longer tolerated by black Americans.  Remove the racial prejudice from that book, and I think that quite an important theme is lost.

Publishers seem to assume that readers are too stupid to contextualise unpleasant attitudes.

[lacuna]

"Most formidable woman" is better than "female" in that regard. Always cringy when someone uses male/female in the wrong context.

"Male" and "female" are fine if the intent is to convey some form of clinical detachment. I have no problem being part of the male demographic, or the male subset of the species, but if someone called me "a most formidable male" I'd tell them to go fuck themselves. It's dehumanizing.

[Rhom]

5 hours ago, SeanF said:

Bond's racial prejudice, along with his misogyny, snobbery, and nihilism,  is a part of what he is.  He's an anti-hero, not a boy scout.

In Live and Let Die, Bond ridicules the very notion of a black man being able to run a major criminal organisation, and gets called out on it by M.  Felix Leiter actually makes the point that certain terms (eg " a jigger of rum") that were common pre-war, are no longer tolerated by black Americans.  Remove the racial prejudice from that book, and I think that quite an important theme is lost.

Publishers seem to assume that readers are too stupid to contextualise unpleasant attitudes.

And the movie features one of the best lines “Take this honkey outside and waste him.”   A relic of its time for sure.  Nothing that would be used today; but a feature of the culture of the time. 

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Rhom said:

And the movie features one of the best lines “Take this honkey outside and waste him.”   A relic of its time for sure.  Nothing that would be used today; but a feature of the culture of the time. 

Obviously this is nothing new.  Until I read the unabridged version of The Three Musketeers a few years ago, I had not realised that D’Artagnan was a rapist (there is no ambiguity about the rape, in the text.)

The version I had read earlier had cut out that part of the text, with the result that Milady de Winter’s intense hatred for him appears irrational and unhinged.  When you learn that he raped her, it makes sense.

When you start removing stuff, in order to protect the reader from offence, you alter the story in unacceptable ways.

Come to think of it, Dumas was pretty racy for his time.  The Count of Monte Cristo features an obviously lesbian couple, who frequently got removed by the censors.

[The Marquis de Leech]

14 hours ago, SeanF said:

Obviously this is nothing new.  Until I read the unabridged version of The Three Musketeers a few years ago, I had not realised that D’Artagnan was a rapist (there is no ambiguity about the rape, in the text.)

The version I had read earlier had cut out that part of the text, with the result that Milady de Winter’s intense hatred for him appears irrational and unhinged.  When you learn that he raped her, it makes sense.

When you start removing stuff, in order to protect the reader from offence, you alter the story in unacceptable ways.

Come to think of it, Dumas was pretty racy for his time.  The Count of Monte Cristo features an obviously lesbian couple, who frequently got removed by the censors.

The scene in question is the one where he fucks Milady while pretending to be someone else, right?

[SeanF]

4 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

The scene in question is the one where he fucks Milady while pretending to be someone else, right?

Yes, that’s it.  Even in the 19th century, that would be understood as rape by deception.

One thing that’s clear from the text is that the musketeers are horrible people.

[Heartofice]

Funny I don't remember that scene from Dogtanian and the 3 Muskahounds. Must have missed that episode.

[SeanF]

15 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Funny I don't remember that scene from Dogtanian and the 3 Muskahounds. Must have missed that episode.

So many people are shocked when I tell them, because so many have read bowdlerised versions of the story.

[Heartofice]

Apparently online versions of the Dahl books are automatically being updated.

https://archive.is/KAJlT

 

Quote

Owners of Roald Dahl ebooks are having their libraries automatically updated with the new censored versions containing hundreds of changes to language related to weight, mental health, violence, gender and race.

Not cool if true.

[RhaenysBee]

There’s no excuse to censor/alter/change/update/modernize/[insert more verbs along the same line] a published piece of literature. If a piece of literature is no longer relevant or appealing to contemporary audiences, the market will take care of it and they will stop buying said piece of literature and instead purchase works of contemporary authors or whatever else they find relevant and appealing. 
I never read a Roald Dahl book in my life but I would be spitting fire if someone wanted to make these nonsensical changes to my favorite childhood books and I fully understand the outrage and the social media war against this ridiculous notion .

[JoannaL]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Apparently online versions of the Dahl books are automatically being updated.

https://archive.is/KAJlT

 

Not cool if true.

I have heard about this as well. Is that true? Can I not rely that the books on my kindle stay the same books? I think this most shocking if true  and a strong argumnet for print books instead of digital ones.

 

[Heartofice]

Just now, JoannaL said:

I have heard about this as well. Is that true? Can I not rely that the books on my kindle stay the same books? I think this most shocking if true  and a strong argumnet for print books instead of digital ones.

 

I think we all just assume if we buy a digital version of something online then we own it and its the same as buying a physical copy. That isn't really true though and you heavily rely on the corporation you bought it from to retain the rights and not decide to change things later on down the line. 

To be fair I never really 'buy' any media any more, its all subscriptions. If I lost a book on Kindle or Audible then I'd just shrug my shoulders. 

[dog-days]

I  don't have a problem with the idea of literature being changed and updated by successive generations. It just seems like part of the natural process. The UK's strong copyright laws are necessary to ensure an income for novelists, but in the long term seem more like a historical blip. Alcuin didn't object to the stories of Ingeld because he thought they were in breach of copyright.  I'm not even sure why the laws extend for seventy years after an author's death, long after the person who did the work has gone to look for Homer in the Elysian Fields. 

We have five legal deposit libraries in the United Kingdom, plus numerous children's literature archives, and with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of second-hand Roald Dahl books in circulation, I'm sure the work is quite safe for the future.