Roald Dahl Children's Books Being Rewritten

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Statistically all of us read so little of the rest of the Internet, that we can all hardly be said to read the rest of the internet. There is a lot of it.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Ding-Dong (er. Tick-Tock) are the rest of the Internet.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But colorizing is changing the feel and the look and the artistic integrity. Think of colorizing as publishing books with comic sans.

I guess you have a point there. I'm just saying that, in my personal opinion, It's a Wonderful Life seemed better to me in color than B&W. It should be noted that film does not store well, so even movies that haven't been colorized often have to be restored.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by graycyn

Where the heck does this end? Why can't people just accept that books were written in different time frames, become dated, and need to be read with that in mind?

Absolutely agree.

[Quoth]

More pointless Bowdlerising?
https://www.euronews.com/culture/202...ngs-007-novels

Is this more about trying to make money out of them or what? They are what they are. Not much relation to the films. Also applies to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang books vs Film. Roald Dahl was suppose to do the screenplay, but most of it was probably or allegedly by Ken Hughes, the Director. The Child Catcher is certainly not in Fleming's stories and is pure Dahl.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitty_Chitty_Bang_Bang (film)
The stories are in 3 parts on Fadedpage, published after Fleming's death:

Fleming’s tales were about a flying car restored by Caractacus Potts, an inventor and retired naval commander. The title was later changed to Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, which was based on the real cars Chitty-Bang-Bang 1, 2, 3 and 4 built by the eccentric motor enthusiast Louis Zborowski in the 1920s.

Fleming suffered another heart attack on 11 August 1964, following a long lunch at Royal St George’s Golf Club in Kent. He died the next morning, on his son’s 12th birthday. Fleming never got to see the printed versions of his children’s stories, which came out in October that year.

From https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...-a8680251.html
The film is now nearly 55 years old.

The biggest bone of contention was how many of Dahl’s own creations remained in the film. Vulgaria, the place where kidnapped children are taken, and the character of the creepy, long-nosed, net-wielding Child Catcher do not appear in Fleming’s stories and were said to have been created by Dahl. In an article for Johns Hopkins University Press, however, the late Hughes was quoted as claiming he wrote “every f**king word” of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’s script on his portable typewriter.

“The Child Catcher was my invention – his cage and everything,” insisted Hughes.

Make your own judgement if you've read Dahl and seen the film!

Article mentions Roald Dahl controversy.

As he died in 1964 they'd be long out of copyright if it wasn't for Disney and friends.

I've still a couple of books by his brother Peter Fleming.

[gbm]

Reason who knows what number to allays side load your kindle and keep it in airplane mode.


Roald Dahl ebooks ‘force censored versions on readers’ despite backlash

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.
Readers who bought electronic versions of the writer’s books, such as Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, before the controversial updates have discovered their copies have now been changed.
Puffin Books, the company which publishes Dahl novels, updated the electronic novels, in which Augustus Gloop is no longer described as fat or Mrs Twit as fearfully ugly, on devices such as the Amazon Kindle.

This "publisher" is stupid, if your are gonna publish new editions then leave the one people have already purchased alone.

bernie

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I guess you have a point there. I'm just saying that, in my personal opinion, It's a Wonderful Life seemed better to me in color than B&W. It should be noted that film does not store well, so even movies that haven't been colorized often have to be restored.

It's a Wonderful Life was restored/cleaned up and looks very good in 4k/HDR in B&W (aka grayscale).

Yes, film does degrade. But if it's not too bad, it can be cleaned up and converted to digital. It's a Wonderful Life is a very good example of this.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by rcentros

It should be noted that film does not store well, so even movies that haven't been colorized often have to be restored.

Color film degrades much faster than B&W. (Technicolor uses 3 B&W negatives, so it holds up better than other color films.)

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Color film degrades much faster than B&W. (Technicolor uses 3 B&W negatives, so it holds up better than other color films.)

Pre 1950s Technicolor used 3x B&W, but they switched to colour negative single film. So indeed original 1916 Technicolor might give better colour than a 1960s colour negative, if the film hasn't fallen to bits.
Various bases used. Original is cellulose nitrate which is unstable, can become brittle and may burn explosively. Safety Film might be polyester aka Mylar aka PET and is less problematic.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It's a Wonderful Life was restored/cleaned up and looks very good in 4k/HDR in B&W (aka grayscale).

Yes, film does degrade. But if it's not too bad, it can be cleaned up and converted to digital. It's a Wonderful Life is a very good example of this.

When I bought it from Vudu it came with both versions, B&W and Colorized. One of these days I may compare the two a little closer.

[Fat Abe]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

The way I read the original Telegraph story, there might have been a rare and isolated extremely-ugly-word change before Netflix took over, but all, or almost all, of the changes were not in the published books until after Netflix owned all the rights.

Netflix produces content throughout the world. Let me hypothesize about which story they would like to muck with. One obvious candidate is, The Visitor, whose surprise ending contains the 'L' word. The ethnicity of some of the characters might also be unflattering, when the reader makes the connection between behavior of the characters and the shocking outcome. In the country where part of the story happens, the government could put a ban hammer on a series production.

The only group that can be safely mocked are members of the Third R**ch, and only in the right context. I refer the kind reader to Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities.

[JSWolf]

The next author to be screwed/ruined/damaged/mutilated is Agatha Christie.

Now Agatha Christie novels are being rewritten: Author's Poirot and Miss Marple mysteries have had original passages reworked or removed by publishers to avoid offending modern audiences

Agatha Christie's novels are the latest works to be rewritten to eliminate verbiage that has been deemed insensitive or inappropriate, it has emerged.

Several of the passages in the author's Poirot and Miss Marple mysteries have reportedly been reworked or stripped altogether from new editions of the books.

Publisher HarperCollins eliminated text containing 'insults or references to ethnicity', as well as descriptions of certain characters' physiques, The Telegraph reported.

Ms Christie's works are the latest to undergo politically correct rewriting. It comes after books by Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming and Enid Blyton were edited over sensitivity concerns.

[Quoth]

Mutilated, or Bowdlerized.

It's bonkers.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The next author to be castrated is Agatha Christie.

Ah, so you choose to refer to a female author in strictly male terms. Nothing denigrating or sexist about that. Good to know.

Moderator Notice
Please let this be the last time you use this term in this context on the board.

[hildea]

I'm reminded of a scene in Houses of Stone by Barbara Michaels (a gothic novel about, among other things, gothic novels). The protagonist is an English professor who has been voluntold to talk about Jane Austen for a local literary society.

The faces of Mrs. Fowler and the Colonel blended into the mass. With a few exceptions most of them might have been blood relatives, not because of a particular physical resemblance but because they bore the same stamp of complacency. Well-fed, well-dressed, warm and comfortable, they now awaited the confirmation of their own self-satisfied sense of intellectual superiority. Half of them would doze off before it was over. The other half wouldn’t understand what she was talking about.

It felt like a sudden rush of water pouring into a container, filling something that had been empty before, rising from feet to body to throat till it overflowed her parted lips—anger, cold as melted snow, consuming as flame. It was unlike anything she had ever felt before, but it was not alien. It felt…right. Clearing her throat, she said, slowly and deliberately, “The Pen as Penis.”

She paused, expecting a gasp of collective outrage from the audience. There was no sound at all. The faces that stared back at her were like masks, unblinking, frozen. She saw Peggy clap her hand over her mouth.

“In 1886 Gerard Manley Hopkins—he was a poet, by the way—wrote, in a letter to a friend, ‘The Male quality is the creative gift.’ Ruskin—I’m sure you’ve all heard of Ruskin—was more direct. He described the ‘Penetrative Imagination’ as a ‘piercing mind’s tongue.’

“This image of the male quality, symbolized by the male member, as the only true source of literary and artistic creativity permeated nineteenth-century criticism and nineteenth-century attitudes.

“It is such an obvious pun, such a childishly irresistible symbol, that modern critics have been unable to abandon it. A book review that appeared in The New York Times in 1976 remarked that women writers ‘lack that blood-congested genital drive which energizes every great style.’ Well, of course they do, don’t they? Castrated by nature, lacking that essential instrument, they are by definition incapable of originality or a great style. Another critic, writing a decade later, employs an even more emphatic metaphor. Creativity, he says, arises from ‘the use of the phallic pen on the pure space of the virgin page.’ That metaphor certainly excludes women writers; it makes literature a variety of rape.”

Two women at a table near the door pushed their chairs back and stood up. Their faces were crimson with rage or embarrassment, or a blend of the two. Karen half expected they would rush at her, swinging their big black purses like clubs. Instead they turned as one and stamped out of the room.

Karen’s eyes moved coolly over the faces of the audience. Most were the same angry shade as those of the defectors, and their expressions were equally outraged. No one else left the room, though. They’re waiting to hear more dirty words, Karen thought. I mustn’t disappoint them.

“But what, you may ask,” she went on, “does all this have to do with Jane Austen? According to certain giants of criticism, her novels are not worthy of inclusion in the lofty canon of true literature. They lack—and I quote—‘a strong male thrust.’”

The paralysis that had held the Colonel immobile snapped; his face swelled like a big red balloon and he leaned toward Mrs. Fowler, muttering in her ear. Across the table Peggy sat quietly, hands folded, eyes fixed on Karen’s face. Meyer’s face was equally impassive, but the corners of his mouth were quivering.

The lecture was one Karen had given on several occasions, tailoring it, as experienced speakers do, to the particular audience. The only concession she made to this audience was that of simplification. They wouldn’t have recognized the names of the modern critics she had quoted, so she didn’t mention them. She gave them Jane from a feminist perspective—the subtle digs at male vanity, the cynical resignation of women who were passed from one male guardian to the next, without independence or legal identity—and ended by quoting one of Jane’s few overt protests against masculine domination. “Men have had every advantage of us in telling their story…The pen has been in their hands.”

She didn’t have to belabor the point. Dirty old man, she thought, smiling sweetly at the Colonel, whose complexion had darkened from crimson to purple. With a polite “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” she gathered up her unused notes.

[arjaybe]

For the most venal of reasons. Money. They want to sell books so they try to cater to their potential customers. Had I wanted to criticize it, I would have used "pander" in place of "cater." Another windy teacup, in my opinion.