The censorship of Roald Dahl

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute." George Orwell, 1984

Quoting fiction about the of editing fiction.

This is what humans do, we create and share stories. The only reason is matter is because of the ridiculously modern idea that once something is in print then it’s fixed. But humans have been fudging details to make old stories feel more relevant from the start.

Also, capitalism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let's just touch up the Mona Lisa, why don't we?

And to those people who are pointing to the Bible--the equivalent would not be an updated *translation*--the equivalent would be altering phrases from the Koine Greek. Roald Dalh is not here to approve of changes to his text. Living authors sometimes update their books, as Judy Blume has done with some of her OWN books.

I am a lefty liberal academic, PhD in the humanities, tenured professor at an R1 institution, and I am outraged. Children's literature is not just kids' books, it's also primary source material with specific historical context, especially when we are talking about books from a significant author with wide reach.

The Mona Lisa has probably been touched up several times in its 500 year life. Loads of painting have been altered throughout their lives.

No one is hiding the fact, not are the old copies being removed. These revisions are part of the story of the story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute." George Orwell, 1984

Except Orwell is talking about the GOVERNMENT, not a private company and the estate of the deceased.

I agree that Puffin and the Dahl estate shouldn't change the original works. How "shouldn't" is effected is a whole other matter that I'd just as soon the government stay out of entirely.

So many people seem to be missing this point. This is the publisher and estate. There has been no pressure from anywhere to do this. My cynical guess is that they think it will help sell product produced before the change goes into effect

I bet they were under pressure from Netflix and other media companies. They want to mine that IP for multiple franchises.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Roald Dahl books are banned in my house because they’re so offensive. Lots of talk about people being fat, or ugly, or something else that I really don’t need my kids reading, and the writing isn’t very good anyway. There are so many books out there that are much better choices.

This is bizarre and sad. Dahl’s books are incredibly popular for a reason. So I guess you’re in favor of banning books? Unless they contain pornographic images, then it’s all good, amirite?

Puf­fin func­tionar­ies and hired “sen­si­tiv­ity read­ers” have combed through Dahl’s works for chil­dren—in­clud­ing whizbang nov­els such as “Matilda,” “The Twits,” and “James and the Gi­ant Peach”—and cut all ref­er­ences to fat­ness, crazi­ness, ug­li­ness, white­ness (even of bed­sheets), black­ness (even of trac­tors) and the great Rud­yard Kipling, along with any al­lu­sion to acts lack­ing full and en­thu­si­as­tic con­sent. Some male char­ac­ters have been made fe­male; fe­male vil­lains have been made less nasty; women in gen­eral have been so­cially el­e­vated; while moth­ers and fa­thers, boys and girls have dwin­dled into sex­less “par­ents” and “chil­dren.”

Dahl, who died in 1990, didn’t agree to these changes—con­sent came from Net­flix, which bought Dahl’s es­tate in 2018. Many of the ed­its re­veal a to­tal fail­ure to un­der­stand why chil­dren love the spiky and opin­ion­ated British writer and why they gob­ble his sto­ries as fast as his porcine char­ac­ters eat sweets. Dahl’s writ­ing flashes with men­ace and ten­der­ness; it’s funny, ex­cit­ing and un­pre­dictable.

The bowd­ler­iz­ing of Dahl fits a broader trend in chil­dren’s books. Every­thing is get­ting less spe­cific, more di­dac­tic and more bor­ing. Writ­ers and il­lus­tra­tors, ter­ri­fied of caus­ing “harm” by fail­ing to be “in­clu­sive” and “ac­ces­si­ble,” are sac­ri­fic­ing speci­ficity, beauty and fun. Most new pic­ture books de­liver a les­son rather than risk telling a story, and they in­creas­ingly fea­ture young pro­tag­o­nists of in­de­ter­minate sex rather than boys or girls.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/woke-roald-dahl-will-put-kids-to-sleep-sensitivity-readers-telegraph-puffin-social-jusitce-censorship-lessons-3a1db485

“ Ray Bradbury, a 20th-century writer who knew the value of sharp description, saw his anticensorship novel “Fahrenheit 451” stealth-edited to placate his feminist critics. He was enraged. “There is more than one way to burn a book,” he wrote, “and the world is full of people running about with lit matches.””

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute." George Orwell, 1984

Except Orwell is talking about the GOVERNMENT, not a private company and the estate of the deceased.

I agree that Puffin and the Dahl estate shouldn't change the original works. How "shouldn't" is effected is a whole other matter that I'd just as soon the government stay out of entirely.

So many people seem to be missing this point. This is the publisher and estate. There has been no pressure from anywhere to do this. My cynical guess is that they think it will help sell product produced before the change goes into effect

I bet they were under pressure from Netflix and other media companies. They want to mine that IP for multiple franchises.

I hadn’t realized Netflix owned the Dahl works now!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Person 1: No Roald Dahl books in my house.
Person 2: YOU WANT TO BAN BOOKS!

Person 1 is just parenting. They are making a choice about what they want in their house.

Person 2 can do the same thing. If you want to scoop up The Witches in current format, know yourself out. If you ware made that a publisher is going to make a business decision to edit the books, don't buy them.

I think the point is that future generations will not be reading Roald Dahl as he intended. They'll be reading a watered down, bland version and will never have the thrill and joy of reading his original work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's just touch up the Mona Lisa, why don't we?

And to those people who are pointing to the Bible--the equivalent would not be an updated *translation*--the equivalent would be altering phrases from the Koine Greek. Roald Dalh is not here to approve of changes to his text. Living authors sometimes update their books, as Judy Blume has done with some of her OWN books.

I am a lefty liberal academic, PhD in the humanities, tenured professor at an R1 institution, and I am outraged. Children's literature is not just kids' books, it's also primary source material with specific historical context, especially when we are talking about books from a significant author with wide reach.

The Mona Lisa has probably been touched up several times in its 500 year life. Loads of painting have been altered throughout their lives.

No one is hiding the fact, not are the old copies being removed. These revisions are part of the story of the story.

You know nothing about art history. The Mona Lisa has not been retouched.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's just touch up the Mona Lisa, why don't we?

And to those people who are pointing to the Bible--the equivalent would not be an updated *translation*--the equivalent would be altering phrases from the Koine Greek. Roald Dalh is not here to approve of changes to his text. Living authors sometimes update their books, as Judy Blume has done with some of her OWN books.

I am a lefty liberal academic, PhD in the humanities, tenured professor at an R1 institution, and I am outraged. Children's literature is not just kids' books, it's also primary source material with specific historical context, especially when we are talking about books from a significant author with wide reach.

The Mona Lisa has probably been touched up several times in its 500 year life. Loads of painting have been altered throughout their lives.

No one is hiding the fact, not are the old copies being removed. These revisions are part of the story of the story.

You know nothing about art history. The Mona Lisa has not been retouched.

I know a little. The Mona Lisa was unfinished when da Vinci died and the family that owned her did in fact “retouch” her.

However, she has not been even cleaned in 200 years due to the fragile glazing techniques that were used by da Vinci.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Person 1: No Roald Dahl books in my house.
Person 2: YOU WANT TO BAN BOOKS!

Person 1 is just parenting. They are making a choice about what they want in their house.

Person 2 can do the same thing. If you want to scoop up The Witches in current format, know yourself out. If you ware made that a publisher is going to make a business decision to edit the books, don't buy them.

I think the point is that future generations will not be reading Roald Dahl as he intended. They'll be reading a watered down, bland version and will never have the thrill and joy of reading his original work.

Eh, the old books still exist and those seeking the thrill and wonder of reasons about fat will be able to do so. Future generations can even choose to bring back the original language. Or even publish Road Dahls adult books as kids books on day. It’s up to them.

Netflix is “disneyfying” the library. Probably extending the copyrights in the books so they can make money. Go back and read all the original fairy tales written by Hans Christian Andersen. Talk about thrill and wonder…

[Anonymous]

The only piece of writing of Roald Dahl’s that I consider genuinely, heartbreakingly, essentially to the zeitgeist is the piece he wrote following the death of his daughter Olivia.

Everything else he’s written I feel like is better done by others, a position I came to after reading what just a genuinely abusive man he was. My daughter is of the age where we discuss the authors of her books and I really struggled to think why she should read Dahl over any of the other great children’s authors and concluded she didn’t need to.

It’s the place of his family and his publisher to make that call (and I imagine it’s because of how much scrutiny authors get these days!) but it won’t change my purchasing choices.

[Anonymous]

A famous book antiquarian in London has a slew of Tiktok posts about this topic.

Just one of them: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRnX7jm4/

[Anonymous]

Final Revival of Ned and Opal. Great story, also it has multiple narrators which I appreciate more than the narrator shifting their voice to shift characters, genders, etc.

[Anonymous]

This wouldn’t be happening if conservatives hadn’t targeted books they don’t like for removal from school classrooms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Person 1: No Roald Dahl books in my house.
Person 2: YOU WANT TO BAN BOOKS!

Person 1 is just parenting. They are making a choice about what they want in their house.

Person 2 can do the same thing. If you want to scoop up The Witches in current format, know yourself out. If you ware made that a publisher is going to make a business decision to edit the books, don't buy them.

I think the point is that future generations will not be reading Roald Dahl as he intended. They'll be reading a watered down, bland version and will never have the thrill and joy of reading his original work.

Seriously what are you whining about? The originals will still be available.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Person 1: No Roald Dahl books in my house.
Person 2: YOU WANT TO BAN BOOKS!

Person 1 is just parenting. They are making a choice about what they want in their house.

Person 2 can do the same thing. If you want to scoop up The Witches in current format, know yourself out. If you ware made that a publisher is going to make a business decision to edit the books, don't buy them.

I think the point is that future generations will not be reading Roald Dahl as he intended. They'll be reading a watered down, bland version and will never have the thrill and joy of reading his original work.

Seriously what are you whining about? The originals will still be available.

Some of these responses are from before the compromise was announced.