Roald Dahl Children's Books Being Rewritten

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Hollow Man

They can go and try to "edit" Huckleberry Finn, and see how that goes over.

We're only a small step away from outright banning this stuff.

There's actual, current, accelerating bannings and banning advocacy to get worried about, primarily of books dealing with LGBTQIA+ identities and race and racism.

https://www.ala.org/news/press-relea...book-bans-2022

"The American Library Association (ALA) today released new data documenting* 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources in 2022, the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago. The unparalleled number of reported book challenges in 2022 nearly doubles the 729 challenges reported in 2021.

A record 2,571 unique titles were targeted for censorship, a 38% increase from the 1,858 unique titles targeted for censorship in 2021. Of those titles, the vast majority were written by or about members of the LGBTQIA+ community and people of color."

This climate of book banning has come hand in hand with violent threats to public and school libraries and librarians.

https://www.ala.org/news/press-relea...inst-libraries

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by meeera

There's actual, current, accelerating bannings and banning advocacy to get worried about, primarily of books dealing with LGBTQIA+ identities and race and racism.

Should books be criticized for not including any LGBTQIA+ characters? It should be the authors decision to include or not include certain people.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Should books be criticized for not including any LGBTQIA+ characters? It should be the authors decision to include or not include certain people.

That has nothing to do with what was being discussed. But this is all P&R ground.

Edit: I recreated my closed Jodi Picoult Book Ban thread in the P&R forum if you'd like to talk more about recent book bans.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

That has nothing to do with what was being discussed. But this is all P&R ground.

Edit: I recreated my closed Jodi Picoult Book Ban thread in the P&R forum if you'd like to talk more about recent book bans.

No, you misunderstand. The emphasis is "author". The author is the one and only entity that should be allowed to make changes. After death, there cannot be anymore changes. A publisher's editor may suggest changes to make a book acceptable for publishing, but ultimately the author needs to do it. The right that the author gives up temporarily, or permanently, should only be the right to publish, not the right to edit for other than typos.

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

No, you misunderstand. The emphasis is "author". The author is the one and only entity that should be allowed to make changes. After death, there cannot be anymore changes. A publisher's editor may suggest changes to make a book acceptable for publishing, but ultimately the author needs to do it. The right that the author gives up temporarily, or permanently, should only be the right to publish, not the right to edit for other than typos.

That would make public domain pretty useless.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

No, you misunderstand. The emphasis is "author". The author is the one and only entity that should be allowed to make changes. After death, there cannot be anymore changes. A publisher's editor may suggest changes to make a book acceptable for publishing, but ultimately the author needs to do it. The right that the author gives up temporarily, or permanently, should only be the right to publish, not the right to edit for other than typos.

I'm not that happy about the author deciding to retrospectively change their work, not if the changes are significant. (Time to argue over "significant" .) But in practical terms this would seems a suitable compromise that would not offend me too much - which is, of course, the important thing here.

But it's not going to happen. There is a continuum between minor edits and full adaptations and rewrites, and I cannot see how you can block one without blocking the other ... or opening a whole new realm of court disputes.

In general my reaction to most adaptations is "if you can't do it properly then make up your own damn story", but then I am forced to admit that some adaptations have been very good.

The search for easy answers continues.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

That would make public domain pretty useless.

Why? Once in public domain you can do whatever you want, you don't even have to give credit to the original. What you cannot do, I believe, is to use a PD work, rewrite or edit it, and republish it claiming it to be the original.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

No, you misunderstand. The emphasis is "author".

Okay. And the message you replied to (and quoted) was:

Originally Posted by meeera

There's actual, current, accelerating bannings and banning advocacy to get worried about, primarily of books dealing with LGBTQIA+ identities and race and racism.

What in the above quote relates to your argument about authors?

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

The author is the one and only entity that should be allowed to make changes. After death, there cannot be anymore changes. A publisher's editor may suggest changes to make a book acceptable for publishing, but ultimately the author needs to do it. The right that the author gives up temporarily, or permanently, should only be the right to publish, not the right to edit for other than typos.

The books in question are under copyright and the changes are not being pushed by the publishers, but rather by the author's heirs/rightsholders.

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Should books be criticized for not including any LGBTQIA+ characters? It should be the authors decision to include or not include certain people.

Authors should write what they want to write. I'm not really certain where that came from or who is saying anything different.

Once it is published, a book may be criticized for not including such characters. But of course, opinions are like body body parts... everyone has them.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Okay. And the message you replied to (and quoted) was:

Yes, I know what I quoted. You cannot have it both ways. Banning books, because they don't fit an agenda is the same as rewriting books, because they don't fit a different agenda. Both is the same kind of book banning. Neither is good.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Yes, I know what I quoted. You cannot have it both ways. Banning books, because they don't fit an agenda is the same as rewriting books, because they don't fit a different agenda. Both is the same kind of book banning. Neither is good.

Okay. I'm just going to assume I am not smart enough to follow your line of reasoning. Reading through the thread, your comment seems to come out of left field and seemed to misunderstand or dismiss the comment it was a response to.

Maybe it's just me.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Okay. I'm just going to assume I am not smart enough to follow your line of reasoning. Reading through the thread, your comment seems to come out of left field and seemed to misunderstand or dismiss the comment it was a response to.

Maybe it's just me.

You mean out of left field politically? Then you misunderstood. The radical extremes are going too far. I want the books to exist that are solely or partially about LGBTQIA+ communities, even though I do not want to read them as I have no interest, other than academic. Should books have age limits? Yes, parents should have the right to shelter their young children from reading about detailed sex, violence, hate, and religion. They should also have the right to allow their children access to the adult section, or part thereof, of the library.

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Why? Once in public domain you can do whatever you want, you don't even have to give credit to the original. What you cannot do, I believe, is to use a PD work, rewrite or edit it, and republish it claiming it to be the original.

I guess I misunderstood when you said this: "After death, there cannot be anymore changes."

[hildea]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

No, you misunderstand. The emphasis is "author". The author is the one and only entity that should be allowed to make changes.

In principle I agree with you. I'd have no problem with such a right being added to laws about intellectual property. The law would have to state that this right can't be signed away in contracts.

In practice, I suspect this kind of law would have little or no effect. A publisher would, after all, still have the legal (and moral) right to say: "We're considering reprinting one of your books, but we'll only do so if you'll agree to the following changes in the text: ..." I also suspect it's pretty rare that publishers actually bother with such changes.

After death, there cannot be anymore changes.

Why? How would the world be improved, what gain for society would there be, if during the first 70 years after an authors death, the text of their work has to be frozen in amber?

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Yes, I know what I quoted. You cannot have it both ways. Banning books, because they don't fit an agenda is the same as rewriting books, because they don't fit a different agenda. Both is the same kind of book banning. Neither is good.

I don't think this is the same thing at all, but that part of the discussion is probably better fitted for the Politics and Religion forum, so I wrote an answer there.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

You mean out of left field politically? Then you misunderstood.

No. I mean apropos of nothing. Like someone was talking about apple pie and you decided to start talking about Apple computers.

[John F]

I had a nice apple strudle the other day.