Roald Dahl rewritten: the hundreds of changes made to suit a new ‘sensitive’ generation - "Language related to weight, mental health, violence, gender and race has been cut and rewritten. Remember the Cloud-Men in James and the Giant Peach? They are now the Cloud-People. The Small Foxes in Fantastic Mr Fox are now female. In Matilda, a mention of Rudyard Kipling has been cut and Jane Austen added. It’s Roald Dahl, but different... This is not the first time that his work has been controversial. The Oompa-Loompas, the diminutive employees of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, have been extensively reimagined over the years. In recent years Dahl has been criticised for anti-Semitism, misogyny and racism. The modern editor of Dahl faces a dilemma: how to retain Dahl’s compelling spikiness, which has enthralled generations of readers, while bringing it in line with the hair-trigger sensitivities of children’s publishing... These edits mute the original sense. Elsewhere, changes give a new meaning... In the earlier version, the narrator exclaims: “‘But what about the rest of the world?’ I cried. ‘What about ‘America and France and Holland and Germany? And what about Norway?’”. Now the sentence about America and France and Holland and Germany has been cut. The ‘rest of the world’ is evidently bigger now than it was... In Fantastic Mr Fox a description of tractors, saying that “the machines were both black”, has been cut. In the new Dahl world, it seems, neither machines nor animals can be described with a colour. Nor can anything be fat. “Bunce, the little pot-bellied dwarf”, is now plain old Bunce. The Small Foxes, previously sons, are now daughters, while Badger’s son has become a “little one”. Even the harmless Esio Trot has not escaped. Tortoises no longer come “mostly from North Africa” but from “many different countries”. Perhaps more egregiously, given the story’s punning title: “Tortoises are very backward creatures. Therefore they can only understand words that are written backwards” has become simply: “They can only understand words that are written backwards”. And so on. Hundreds of changes to some of the best-loved children’s books ever written. Even Quentin Blake’s illustrations do not make it through the sensitivity reading unscathed. Earlier editions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory include three sketches of Mike Teavee with 18 toy pistols “hanging from belts around his body”, but the guns have been scrubbed out by 2022, as well as a related sentence... Anthony Horowitz, the bestselling author, recently talked about falling foul of the censor over a Native American character attacking someone with a scalpel. “I made the changes, but I will confess they hurt,” Horowitz wrote in The Spectator. “It just feels wrong to be told what to write by an outside party, no matter how well-meaning.” Addressing the Hay Festival last year, Horowitz commented “children’s book publishers are more scared [of cancel culture] than anybody”... Matthew Dennison, who wrote a biography of the author, Teller of the Unexpected, published last year, says Dahl was particular about the language he used. “Dahl typically worked seven days a week for a year on one of his full-length novels and was drained by the experience, which involved extensive rewriting as he worked, followed by a lively back-and-forth with his editor,” he says. “The process of editing often focused on individual words or particular expressions, as Dahl kept faith with some of the interwar slang of his childhood, and aspects of his vocabulary up to his death continued to recall the enthusiasms of English prep schoolboys. This was both natural to him and deliberate, and he resisted interference... When it came to children’s books, Dennison says Dahl didn’t care what adults thought as long as his target readers were happy. “‘I don’t give a b----r what grown-ups think,’ was a characteristic statement,” Dennison says. “And I’m almost certain that he would have recognised that alterations to his novels prompted by the political climate were driven by adults rather than children, and this always inspired derision, if not contempt, in Dahl... Dahl is only a prominent example of a growing trend in children’s publishing for content that nobody can find offensive"
Salman Rushdie attacks Roald Dahl rewrites as ‘absurd censorship’ - "Sir Salman Rushdie has attacked the rewriting of Roald Dahl books as "absurd censorship" at the hands of “bowdlerising sensitivity police”. In new editions of Roald Dahl’s beloved stories, Augustus Gloop is no longer fat, Mrs Twit is no longer fearfully ugly, and the Oompa-Loompas have gone gender-neutral. The publisher, Puffin, has made hundreds of changes to the original text, removing many of Dahl’s classic, timeless and colourful descriptions and making his characters less grotesque. Sensitivity readers were brought in to review Dahl’s language so the books “can continue to be enjoyed by all today”, Puffin said. Sir Salman, who as author of The Satanic Verses has been a pioneer of free enquiry and lived under constant threats to his life, became the most high-profile person in the literary world to condemn the decision... Sir Salman later tweeted in response to a critic: "He was a self confessed antisemite, with pronounced racist leanings, and he joined in the attack on me back in 1989… but thanks for telling me off for defending his work from the bowdlerizing Sensitivity Police."... Comedian David Baddiel posted a screenshot of one of the changes to a passage in The Twits that removes the words "double chin", adding: "The problem with the Dahl bowdlerisation is it has no logical consistency. "Here, double chin has been cut, presumably to avoid fat shaming. But what about wonky nose or crooked teeth shaming? Once you start on this path you can end up with blank pages." Meanwhile, Suzanne Nossel, the CEO of literature and human rights organisation PEN America, said she was "alarmed" at the changes, which "could represent a dangerous new weapon". “The problem with taking license to re-edit classic works is that there is no limiting principle," she tweeted. “You start out wanting to replace a word here and a word there, and end up inserting entirely new ideas (as has been done to Dahl’s work). "Literature is meant to be surprising and provocative. That's part of its potency. By setting out to remove any reference that might cause offense you dilute the power of storytelling." Katharine Birbalsingh, a headteacher and Britain's former social mobility commissioner, added of the changes: "How is this even legal?"... The words “black” and “white” have been removed: characters no longer turn “white with fear” and the Big Friendly Giant in The BFG cannot wear a black cloak... Prof Frank Furedi, an expert in the sociology of fear at the University of Kent, told The Telegraph: "What we have here is a knee-jerk cleansing of the literature of the past and they are turning works of literature into recipe books for their own wokeish values. "This is only the beginning because the role of sensitivity readers is expanding all the time. "Whereas they were initially hired to read new books submitted to them, now they're going back through the literature of the past almost as grievance archaeologists, trying to unearth words that might offend them.""
Clearly Rushdie doesn't know how hurtful words can be and should check his privilege since he has (internalised) white supremacy and doesn't know what it's like to be a minority. He also doesn't know that books need to change to stay relevant
I remember when the left mocked bowdlerisation. Of course a lot of them are going on about Florida's "book bans". One pretended that not having some books in school libraries was bad because not everyone could afford books. But of course this is good
Rewriting Roald Dahl - "Contemporary authors know all too well the power wielded by “sensitivity readers”. The concerns of younger, activist employees at publishing houses too often end up moulding the final edit. But rewriting the works of long-dead authors is surely worse, even if those writers did hold some highly objectionable views. How much of The Witches can be changed before it is no longer truly by Roald Dahl?"
Meme - "It all started with some horrible words in Roald Dahl's books... *empty bookshelf*"
Someone claimed that this was the slippery slope fallacy, without realising how far we have already slid down it
Charlie and the Quinoa factory : awfuleverything
The race is on to buy Roald Dahl’s original books - "This might be bad news for young readers – subsisting on a diet of watered-down versions of The Twits and Esio Trot – but is proving a boon for secondhand book sellers. One reports that sales are up sixfold, while another has received orders for rare editions worth hundreds of pounds. On eBay, a six volume Folio society set of Roald Dahl books is listed for £250. Several bookshops say shoppers are hunting for secondhand copies of Roald Dahl, before the Oompa-Loompas went gender neutral and any references to “fat” or “mad” characters were purged. The versions that avoided being fed through the sensitivity mangle have, appropriately, become golden ticket items... “It’s no surprise that there has been a significant uptick in Roald Dahl sales over the last week but even we didn’t anticipate the six-fold increase that we’ve seen. It would seem that classic Dahl books may even become a bit of a collectors item.”"
Some people claimed that this showed it was a business decision to boost sales. But it's secondhand copies being snatched up. And even though classic editions are being re-released, they won't look like children's books
Roald Dahl's rewritten books will be released alongside classic versions - The Washington Post - "We have sailed far, far beyond changing the n-word in “Huckleberry Finn.”... “Rewriting novels — like efforts to rewrite history — has origins in authoritarian playbooks,” PEN America chief executive Suzanne Nossel said in a statement. “We need to learn from the perspective of the past, not eliminate viewpoints we no longer accept.”"
If you're concerned about your children reading offensive things, just get them to read other things
Let Kids Read Roald Dahl’s Books the Way He Wrote Them - "You may have read that Roald Dahl’s classic tales have been altered to be, well, nicer. Because as we all know, niceness is what Roald Dahl is all about. Forget the misanthropy, physical disgust, and delight in transgression and violence and extravagance that give his stories bite and edge. Forget, too, the dependence of wit and vividness on specific, concrete words, on their sounds and evocative associations. What matters is that no one in the whole world be offended and that no opportunity be missed for moral improvement. The Roald Dahl Story Company and Puffin, Dahl’s authorized publisher, have teamed up with a group called Inclusive Minds, “a collective for people who are passionate about inclusion and accessibility in children’s literature.” The organization turned the task of sanitizing Dahl over to their sensitivity readers, the oddly named Inclusivity Ambassadors, who have “lived experience” and can provide “valuable input.” If they sound like smooth-talking authoritarians, that’s not far off. In the world of children’s lit these days, sensitivity is king. But are actual readers—parents and children—calling out for the removal of the word “black” describing tractors or for replacing “North Africa” with “lots of different countries”? Do they object to describing a voice as “screechy” instead of “annoying”? I don’t know why Dahl is being censored—hopes of higher profits by Netflix, which owns the rights to his books and the movies made from them? Fear of social-justice Twitter? Did it start out as a few modest tweaks but got out of hand? In any case, there’s a loss in these changes—in vivacity, vigor, concreteness. As any good writer can tell you, we all know what a screechy voice sounds like, but an annoying one could be anything... The trouble is, once you start fiddling, where do you stop? Why not leave the books alone, and if people are so offended, they can stop reading them (which I doubt will happen any time soon)? The alternative is the falsification of history and the dumbing-down of great literature. Be that as it may, most of the changes have no such therapeutic rationale. They seem more like the work of an over-caffeinated undergraduate relying on those lists activists write up of Words to Avoid... The Witches wear wigs because they are bald, and they wear gloves to hide their claws. Touching their wigs would be a dangerous thing to do. Besides, the story takes place at a witches’ convention, where it is unlikely the child narrator is going to meet an ultra-orthodox woman in a sheitel or a chemo patient or a woman who simply enjoys playing with her appearance. But never mind the context: The important thing is to remember that wigs are okay! Be nice! Even if it means adding a preachy smiley face to a book written by an angry genius. And what about this change in Matilda? Dahl is describing the joy of reading... Take away those olden-day sailing ships and all the adventure is gone. I love Jane Austen, but the constrained world of Regency country gentry simply doesn’t convey the excitement and danger and unfamiliarity Dahl was going for. As for John Steinbeck’s California, it was a grim and prosaic place. What child has ever said, Oh, to be on the road with the Joads! And why is that old imperialist Kipling gone but not Hemingway, whose African stories heavily feature white men hunting now-endangered species and drinking too much? Isn’t Hemingway kind of a colonizer too? Perhaps the next edition will replace him with Mary Oliver. I’ve loved Dahl’s books since Mrs. Jesup read us James and the Giant Peach in the seventh grade. Back in those barbarous times, even delightful, wise teachers in an all-girls school thought nothing of references to the Cloud-Men, who are now Cloud-People (singular, Cloud-Person), or of calling the earthworm “pink” (now deleted, along with many color words which to a demented—I mean, silly—person might sound “racist,” even though earthworms actually are pink). The Ladybug no longer blushes—I suppose blushing is too stereotypically feminine. Gone too is the passage describing the Cloud-Men’s wives frying snowballs for their supper. Well, gender-neutral Cloud-People wouldn’t have wives, would they? Certainly not ones who cooked for their men. It’s as if the Ambassadors think children have no sense that the past was different, as if it cannot be explained to them... Each of these changes might seem small enough, but if you add them up, what you have is a weaker, duller, blander text. Dahl’s delicious dialogue loses its edge of rage. In places, the rhythm is destroyed. (The revised comic poems are a mess.) What gives these politically correct plodders the right to meddle with historical texts approved by their author and known and beloved by millions? Dah died only in 1990; he had plenty of time to rethink his literary choices, and in fact sometimes did so: The Oompa-Loompas in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory started life in 1964 as African pygmies content to work for cocoa beans. Dahl revised that in a 1973 reprint—but it was his decision as the author, not that of some anonymous committee. In the late 17th century, Nahum Tate rewrote King Lear with a happy ending. In the early 19th century, Henrietta and Thomas Bowdler made Shakespeare safe for women and children by taking out all the sexy bits. History has not been kind to either project. It is my dearest hope that the Inclusivity Ambassadors will meet a similar fate"
When even The Nation is upset
UK fury as Roald Dahl books rewritten, but French publishers say ‘non’ to edits - "“Change a text today without (the author’s) consent? No,” Hedwige Pasquet, director of Gallimard Jeunesse, said in an interview with Le Figaro newspaper... Contextualising and updating some published works could necessitate the revision of all texts, and in that case, then “why not change fairytales?” Pasquet asked. She said that Dahl, who died in 1990, would not have accepted such changes as “it causes us to lose the flavour of his writing” and that his style was ironic and witty. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spoke out against the changes, saying “it’s important that works of literature and works of fiction are preserved and not airbrushed.”... Laura Hackett, a childhood Dahl fan who is now deputy literary editor of London’s Sunday Times newspaper, had a more personal reaction to the news. “The editors at Puffin should be ashamed of the botched surgery they’ve carried out on some of the finest children’s literature in Britain,” she wrote. “As for me, I’ll be carefully stowing away my old, original copies of Dahl’s stories, so that one day my children can enjoy them in their full, nasty, colorful glory.”"
The case against rewriting Roald Dahl | Financial Times - "What are the consequences of a more censorial culture? Is it even necessary? In India, I have seen how the current government’s active role in censoring the media, including documentaries and academic papers, has had a chilling effect. Offence laws have forced many writers to self-censor for fear of legal or other trouble if they “hurt sentiments”, particularly around religious content. Other countries should be wary of censorship creep, even if propelled by corporations rather than the state. If the revision of texts becomes the norm — and if authors’ preferences, the historicity of books and readers’ own choices are ignored — the door is opened to more frequent and sweeping acts of erasure. Far better to leave the decision of whether to engage, or not, with individual readers. One of my first jobs was as an apprentice nursery school teacher. The kids in my care loved all of Dahl’s ingenious but often gruesome tales — giants eat “human beans”, children are bullied by vicious adults, and the wicked meet gory ends. I skipped some of the most outrageous bits — but the choice remained with the kids and me. Rewrites may be well-intentioned, but they can also date rapidly. One of the most famous revisionists, Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825), set about expurgating the works of Shakespeare, citing “delicacies of decorum in one age unknown to another age”, and arguing that there were passages that “a father could not read aloud to his children, a brother to his sister, or a gentleman to a lady”. Today, his concerns seem fussy and old-fashioned; so may our good intentions to future readers."
Camilla tells authors to ‘remain true to calling’ amid Roald Dahl row - "Camilla, the Queen Consort, has urged authors to resist curbs on freedom of expression in an apparent reflection on the backlash against changes to Roald Dahl’s books. Speaking at a Clarence House reception to mark the second anniversary of her online book club, Camilla told authors: “Please remain true to your calling, unimpeded by those who may wish to curb the freedom of your expression or impose limits on your imagination.”... Rishi Sunak also portrayed the changes as an attack on free speech. The prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “When it comes to our rich and varied literary heritage, the prime minister agrees with the BFG that we shouldn’t gobblefunk around with words.” The spokesperson added that it was “important that works of literature and works of fiction are preserved and not airbrushed. We have always defended the right to free speech and expression”."
Ian Fleming’s James Bond books rewritten to remove ‘offensive’ references - "Racial references have been removed from Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels following a sensitivity review. Terms such as the n-word, which featured in his writing from the 1950s and 1960s, have been edited out of new editions of the 007 books, which are set for reissue in April... It comes after Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, which owns the rights to his work, commissioned a review by sensitivity readers of the James Bond series"
"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. History has stopped."
I’m Ian Fleming’s biographer – there’s no way James Bond can be made ‘PC’ - "it’s never a good look to change what an author originally wrote. It smacks of censorship, and there’s seldom much mileage in that... I feel strongly that what an author commits to paper is sacrosanct and shouldn’t be altered. It stands as evidence of that writer’s – and society’s – attitudes at a particular moment in time, whether it’s by Shakespeare, Dickens, or Ian Fleming. The only changes to the text should come from the author. So Fleming himself allowed the title of a chapter heading in Live and Let Die, published in 1954, to be altered in subsequent editions because it used an offensive racial stereotype. But there's no way Bond's character in the Fleming books can be modified to make him politically correct. Fleming created a sexist, often sadistic, killer, with anachronistic attitudes to homosexuals, and to a range of people of different nationalities. These stand as evidence of how Britons (or at least some of them) thought at a particular moment in time... Films have more licence in this regard. Consequently EON, the producers of the James Bond movies, have tried to make the central character more sensitive – and even a family man – in the latest instalment of the franchise No Time to Die, which appeared in 2021. But often in the past, when they have attempted any softening of the character, they have returned to the original hard man of Fleming’s books... [Kipling's] output has found new favour in modern India, not least as a historical source which is studied for its vivid description of the late colonial period. Similarly, Fleming can be read – along with his contemporary Kingsley Amis – for his sophisticated journalist’s take on the mindless materialism of a society emerging blinking into the world after the deprivations of war, eager for new experiences which include foreign travel and sensual pleasure. He stated uncompromisingly that his books were “written for warm-blooded heterosexuals in railways trains, aeroplanes and beds”. In other words, he was writing for adults on the move in a modern society. The Roald Dahl stories which recently publicised this issue are aimed almost exclusively at children. While young minds should not be exposed to unnecessary cruelty, characters such as the tyrannical Miss Trunchbull in Dahl’s Matilda have emerged unscathed. Children enjoy the frisson which comes from a sense of naughtiness. Otherwise, the pantomime Punch and Judy would not exist."
