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Roald Dahl re-writes


Mosi Mynn
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14 hours ago, SeanF said:

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.

On the other hand, it's set in the early seventeenth century, and I don't think the characters involved would have considered it rape (an unpleasant deception, yes, but such things tended to be played as a comedy in older stories - the Reeve's Tale, for instance).

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1 hour ago, dog-days said:

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. 

The 'canonical' nature of these amendments is really only possible because of the silliness of modern copyright. Were public domain only twenty years after the death of the author, people could do all the amendments or fanfiction they want. It's just none of it would be official, any more than nineteenth century efforts to make Shakespeare family friendly were official.

Edited by The Marquis de Leech
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  • 3 weeks later...
On 3/2/2023 at 2:09 AM, 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.

Isn't that why when travelling to China you should turn off your network on your kindle? Because they've censored or adjusted heaps of books and they may all be edited.

Or is that an urban myth?

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9 hours ago, ants said:

Isn't that why when travelling to China you should turn off your network on your kindle? Because they've censored or adjusted heaps of books and they may all be edited.

Or is that an urban myth?

Actually, three week ago , after this discussion, I checked my kindle settings, and yes there is one entry about "always getting the newest version" and yes the default setting is "on". It could be switched off. Feeling a little better but still  suspicious.

About china , I have heard (also urban myth?) that you should never take your own phone when traveling there, and I know of a company that expressly forbids their staff from taking their phones when traveling to China. I have noting heard about kindles, and it shouldnt be a problem, because the version should switch back when back in your country?

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23 hours ago, ants said:

Isn't that why when travelling to China you should turn off your network on your kindle? Because they've censored or adjusted heaps of books and they may all be edited.

Or is that an urban myth?

As far as I'm aware it's a myth. I'm looking into buying a kindle here so I'll let you know but from talking to people who have them here they can connect even to the Amazon library without at VPN, but you do need a pre-existing Kindle account as you can't make one here. Given that Kindle is blocked here and Amazon doesn't ship here they are not super big. I don't think the government would go to the trouble of the kind of malware that hacking the Amazon kindle connection would require and editing is not really their style more blocking and banning. I suspect if there is a kernel of truth to it that Amazon.cn may have some edited material conform to "Chinese sensibilities" and the government doesn't care that much about stuff written in English anyway.

I still would assume they can see any sensitive books so I wouldn't have "touchy" materials on there thought that is stuff your probably not gonna have anyway Falun Gong literature and missionary materials being the big ones. 

13 hours ago, JoannaL said:

About china , I have heard (also urban myth?) that you should never take your own phone when traveling there, and I know of a company that expressly forbids their staff from taking their phones when traveling to China. I have noting heard about kindles, and it shouldnt be a problem, because the version should switch back when back in your country?

I'm curious the logic in this I would guess corporate espionage? Of course I would assume that they can read everything when you connect to a network and Chinese social media is all to some degree malware but I don't see the issue in using and then deleting it. Or not I don't really care if they read what I'm writing in the US haha.

I do think people overestimate the censorship a tad I'm in some "edgy"  wechat groups that have had multiple videos "of protests and anti  lockdown stuff“ remotely wiped and the groups and the accounts are still up these things are often done remotely with mass wipes and I think the level of personalized monitoring people expect just can't be done in a country of a billion people but of course all your data is no doubt being logged somewhere. And writing in English also changes the equation. 

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15 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

What’s the alternative explanation? I struggle to imagine there is this mass of readers who refuse to read Agatha Christie because of the terror of being offended by old books.

As I suggested upthread, the alternative is that publishers think that book readers are unable to put things in context.

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6 minutes ago, SeanF said:

As I suggested upthread, the alternative is that publishers think that book readers are unable to put things in context.

But there doesn't seem to be any evidence for that idea. I can only think of 2 things that are going on outside of it all being a scam to sell more books:

  • Publishers are terrified of Twitter outrage mobs and pre-empt them by taking these actions
  • People who work in publishing are activist by nature and feel they need to virtue signal by pushing these changes out and telling everyone about them

 

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22 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

But there doesn't seem to be any evidence for that idea. I can only think of 2 things that are going on outside of it all being a scam to sell more books:

  • Publishers are terrified of Twitter outrage mobs and pre-empt them by taking these actions
  • People who work in publishing are activist by nature and feel they need to virtue signal by pushing these changes out and telling everyone about them

 

It’s a bit of a bugbear of mine that some people who should know better can’t be honest about history.

You know what annoys me most about revisions to The Dambusters.  It’s not the removal of the Forbidden Word.  It’s cutting the scene that shows slave labourers of the Nazis perishing in the floods.

No one is rejoicing at their deaths, but the filmmakers are willing to be honest, and show that innocents perish in even the most just wars.

Likewise, there is a brilliant civil war film about guerilla warfare in Missouri, called Ride with the Devil, which failed at the box office because the characters used the Forbidden Word, which of course, any white person would have done in 1860’s Missouri.

Edited by SeanF
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On 3/27/2023 at 12:25 AM, Heartofice said:

 

  • People who work in publishing are activist by nature and feel they need to virtue signal by pushing these changes out and telling everyone about them

 

I think it's very much this. Plus the people who are attracted to such committees tend to be the las type of people you'd want on them. Look at some of the more out there university style guides and you can see where this is coming from.  

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Christie's work evolves over time. Her older stuff tends to have some very unfortunate handling of Jews, Chinese, and even Irish. But here's the funny thing - Christie learned from her mistakes. A 1950s Christie novel does not have the same... issues... as some of her 1920s stuff. By rewriting her stuff like that, you're basically flattening her out.

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Personally if there is language from a century ago that we find offensive now and wouldn’t use ..then.. good! It shows how far we have come and how different the world is now. 
 

I have a real problem with trying to erase history or control language to pretend bad stuff didn’t happen or eliminate any level of offense. 
 

With almost every attempt to cut out the past I think it’s far better to just put a note somewhere contextualising it rather than ban it or rewrite it. 
 

How can you understand the difference between those times and ours and their attitudes if you pretend they didn’t exist.

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