Roald Dahl Children's Books Being Rewritten

[Quoth]

I don't agree with Pullman's let it go "out of print". With ebooks and POD nothing should go out of print in paperback or ebook. The market can't choose if it's in copyright and not available. That's censorship too.

[Catlady]

I think it's insane to change the books. I have only a passing familiarity with Dahl's children's books, but the examples I saw (in a National Review article, no paywall) are completely idiotic. This is the kind of thing that undermines legitimate efforts at inclusiveness and understanding, because it makes sensitivity seem ridiculous.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I don't agree with Pullman's let it go "out of print". With ebooks and POD nothing should go out of print in paperback or ebook. The market can't choose if it's in copyright and not available. That's censorship too.

I'm unfamiliar with author and publishers contracts, but I assumed there was some sort of time limits, or some exit clauses. I assume a lot of stuff goes out of print because the parties don't see the value of keeping it in print.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by andyh2000

Phillip Pullman had an interesting take on it on the Radio 4 Today programme this morning. His view seemed to be let the market decide - leave the original wording and if people don't like it they won't buy the books, and they (the books) will go out of print and fade into deserved obscurity letting more modern, relevant authors come to the fore.

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

- How do we as customers know what version we buy ?

- Availability of the original text for those still wishing to read it.

Originally Posted by Quoth

I don't agree with Pullman's let it go "out of print". With ebooks and POD nothing should go out of print in paperback or ebook.

I feel like you guys misunderstood Pullman's argument. He was saying don't bowdlerize the books at all. Don't release two editions or anything. Leave the books as is and if they are so offensive to society, they will fall out of print on their own.

[andyh2000]

I'm not sure whether this belongs here or in the P&R version of the thread.


https://twitter.com/IamHappyToast/st...33733808291841

Andrew

[Quoth]

No, I didn't misunderstand. POD and ebooks should mean if there is no demand and no print run, then for whatever reason, someone can buy a copy while it's still in copyright. Doing no new print run because demand is low, or you claim it is, is a form of censorship.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Ned

Goodness me! That really was unnecessary of him. Especially given the poor quality of his own later offerings.

On the Dahl Bowdlerisation, seems to be another absurdity.

Current thinking ignores the fact that people actually choose to be offended - it is not a natural state - and if they choose to be offended by something Dahl or anybody else says, that's their problem. Say what you like and I won't be offended.

Why should it be necessary to avoid saying what offends them today (but didn't offend anyone years ago?) They could choose simply not to be offended.
And of course if they get their way with this, tomorrow they will be offended by something else and off we go again.

I'm not offended by the original wording. I am offended by the castration of Dahl's books.

[CathyA]

Lest anyone think this is some new trend ... I still remember when I found a first edition of an early Nancy Drew in a pile of old books and picked it up to reread. I was about 13 then (it was the mid-1970s) and I had grown up on the 1950s/60s editions of the books. The racism in the 1930s edition was completely unexpected and very shocking.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by CathyA

Lest anyone think this is some new trend ... I still remember when I found a first edition of an early Nancy Drew in a pile of old books and picked it up to reread. I was about 13 then (it was the mid-1970s) and I had grown up on the 1950s/60s editions of the books. The racism in the 1930s edition was completely unexpected and very shocking.

There's also the original version of what is now And Then There Were None.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

There's also the original version of what is now And Then There Were None.

Yeah, yeah, we know. Everyone knows. I think people keep citing that for the perceived shock value and not because it’s informative. Time to let it go.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by andyh2000

Attachment 199830
https://twitter.com/IamHappyToast/st...33733808291841

From a behind-the-paywall Telegraph story:

One of Dahl’s most popular lines from The Twits is: “You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams.” It has been edited to take out the “double chin”.

Here, the bowdlerizer did the opposite of what your link alleges — the bowdlerizer removed a passage suggesting we NOT fat-shame.

I get that the passage also suggests a double-chin might not be generally seen as positive. Sadly, heavy children already sense this, and bowdlerization can do nothing to change that.

[arjaybe]

Whoever owns the copyright should be able to do whatever they want with it. If they want to publish a revised version that they feel better reflects their current beliefs, then no one should should try to get in the way of their freedom of expression.

The old ones will always be there for the purists, so maybe they should just settle down and do what they can to ensure that, instead of railing on people.

There will be a lot of kettles calling pots black before this is over.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by CathyA

Lest anyone think this is some new trend ... I still remember when I found a first edition of an early Nancy Drew in a pile of old books and picked it up to reread. I was about 13 then (it was the mid-1970s) and I had grown up on the 1950s/60s editions of the books. The racism in the 1930s edition was completely unexpected and very shocking.

The Nancy Drew revisions eliminated overt racism and socioeconomic stereotypes by eliminating characters who weren't white and middle class--what's worse, being represented by a negative stereotype, or being erased? They also fed gender stereotypes by eliminating Nancy's independent rebellious streak--turning her into a more feminine, obedient, rule-following teenager. And they sucked a lot of the flavor out of the stories, dumbed down the reading level, and shortened the stories.

Since Nancy was the product of a conglomerate, the conglomerate had the right to modify its own creation. It's much for offensive for an individual author's work to be changed to fit some new criteria.

[issybird]

Under the old US copyright system, Dahl’s children books would have already started coming into the public domain, at which point the original versions would be free and accessible. It’s an advantage of shorter copyright that hadn’t struck me before, that books would run out their copyright while sensibilities were relatively stable, before wholesale calls for rewriting. And in any case, people wouldn’t be limited by the secondary market if they wanted to access the original text.

[Pjama]

I feel so strongly about this, I have just purchased the box set of his children's books, published in 2018. Absurd censorship. Will we have to go back to paper books in the future? I am very worried that in future, instead of amazon just mildly annoying me by changing the covers of my books, this will extend to revising editions to make them acceptable to "sensitivity readers"/thought police. Reading - and understanding - 1984 should be a prerequisite for anyone in any walk of life, but particularly for those involved in politics or media. It’s dystopian, what is happening.