To think if you find a book this bad, best just not to read it?

[DemiColon]

I am just flummoxed by the changes Penguin publishing house have made to Roald Dhal's books.

I know not everyone likes them, and I really would very rarely change anything in a book, so that is my general approach, but I am shocked with what they have done with his stories:

"Mrs Twit’s “fearful ugliness” is cut to “ugliness”. The words “black” and “white” have been removed: characters no longer turn “white with fear” and the BFG cannot wear a black cloak.

The Cloud-Men in James and the Giant Peach have become Cloud-People. Matilda reads Jane Austen rather than Rudyard Kipling, and a witch posing as “a cashier in a supermarket” now works as “a top scientist”.

nationalpost.com/news/world/oompa-loompas-no-longer-tiny-sensitivity-readers-take-the-gnarl-out-of-dahl

What sort of dystopian snowflake shittery is this?!

Oh my god is this serious?!
What on earth!

Surely one of the reasons a witch would pose as a cashier is to get close to children.

Not sure top scientists get much time with them.

And as I said on the previous thread about this. Why have they changed Mr Fox's son foxes into daughter foxes? Is there something non PC about having multiple children of one sex?

When are they going to learn? Whitewashing the past, destroys the future.
It was what it was. If we hide from it, we're just doomed to do it all again.

Not that anything erased here seems particularly awful anyway tbf.

This is not ‘progressive’, it’s incredibly, dangerously regressive.

I have two boys. Is there somewhere I can report myself for being non-inclusive?

I've reported you

Oh, I didn't see that one, or I'd not have posted this.

I thought it seemed kind of classist, what is wrong with being a cashier? I've never been a top scientist, but I've certainly worked retail.

What in the world is wrong with describing a cloak as black? Did they simply run a search and delete every instance of the word, regardless of context?

I wouldn't make any of these changes, but that one is particularly befuddling!

What the actual fuck?! A minority of the population inflicting their total bat-shit nonsense on the rest of us....and somehow we have let them

I am speechless. Is this for real?

This is just astonishing.

Apparently its because e women don't have to be cashiers or secretaries (I think that was the other job listed) but can be scientists as well. So a feminist thing rather than a class one.

Oh dear. Rather Orwellian. I wonder which other pieces of literature the wokerati will choose to neuter next?

I think I'm actually not really as annoyed as this as I thought I'd be. Reading through those examples does remind me how focused Dahl was on making his villains either fat or ugly. He also wrote that obnoxious line about how if someone is beautiful inside you will see it on their face but if you have bad thoughts you'll look ugly etc etc (I'm paraphrasing!).

(I might be a bit sensitive to this at the mo as we're reading Enid Blyton at home and it's kind of crazy how many references there are to dark, swarthy strangers and gypsies 😳 and Julian is insufferably annoying, always telling Anne and George what they can and can't do.)

OMG if they don't like the books then write new ones. How arrogant to decide what's best for the public to hear.

This is ridiculous. DD is 5 and we’ve started reading Roald Dahl lately. We’ve read the fantastic mr fox, the twits and are now on the witches. But they’re my old copies so don’t have all the changes. I have read bits and thought well that wouldn’t be allowed nowadays but surely anything problematic can just be explained to the child? Not that any of those things are problematic. DD has found them hilarious and surely that’s the point of them, to keep children engaged and enjoy reading.

Lots have been changed in Enid Blytons books, and I know those are very obviously racist in parts. But we have all of my old copies of those as well so we will be reading those and I’ll just talk to DD about why it’s not okay.

Are they also going to go after Shakespeare for Shylock?

You're right, @Namechangedagain20, but I guess there will always be plenty of parents that won't have those age-appropriate discussions with their kids. I do agree though that painting over historical attitudes doesn't generally end well.

I wonder if the difference with Shakespeare, @DazzlePaintedBattlePants, is that it's considered sufficiently old now to be perceived as a sort of historical artefact, i.e. people won't automatically assume it adheres to present social and linguistic standards? I don't know - I guess schools are (hopefully) still highlighting the stereotypes used for Shylock and enabling discussions about this kind of thing, even if it's considered to be from another age.

I am also horrified at the arrogance of these changes - I trawled the charity shops near me yesterday to find old copies of the original Dahl books whilst they are still available.

Augustus Gloop is no longer refers to as fat, references to mrs twist terrifying ugliness and use of a stick have been toned down.

RD was an acknowledged anti-Semite - would people be as outraged if overtly anti-Semitic references in his books were now being changed? Or is it not viewed as comparable?

(Not meaning to stir the pot here but I think this is a really interesting subject worth debating - I know it opens up huge conversations about censorship, changing attitudes and state intervention, for want of a better term, and I'm really interested in what I generally perceive as a fairly left-leaning community thinks of it all.)

Dh read these out to me yesterday. Can't believe the changes. Mr fox having 3 daughters instead of sons! Why? The witch can't have a black cloak? Why?
Augustus Gloop isn't fat but is now enormous. Is that really any better?
They will become bland PC crap. No matter what someone writes I'm assuming there will be at least one person who could be offended by it, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be written!

"It was what it was. If we hide from it, we're just doomed to do it all again."

Absolutely.

Even though there are minor changes, the process is dystopian. How can it be said to be Dahl's words anymore? Are we going to start rewriting Austen to remove the misogyny of her male characters - aka the whole point?!

This makes me very angry. If you don't want to pass on Dahl to your children there are a wealth of wonderful modern children's writers. Why are we doing this?

It's interesting because Enid Blyton's books have been changed for years (certainly since the 90s) but many others haven't been.

Yes, there are some things that can be altered make sense and they don't change the story, but it seems like sometimes they get carried away and alter more.

The most stupid one I saw on EB was in the adventure books. The original says something along the lines of: (it's Jack thinking)
"Oh dear, it's just so frustrating. If I was Lucy Ann I would sit down and cry, but as I'm a boy I can't."

The altered version said.
"This is so frustrating. I'm glad I'm not Lucy Ann because girls have to be brave, but boys can sit down and cry if they need to."

Thing is, I can understand the altering of the original, but they could have either just dropped the line, or put "as I'm older" instead, which would make just as much sense.

I remember my dc's junior school made a list of five words that were "never to be used". They were something like "ugly" "stupid", "bad", "hate" and "black". I asked what they said if they wanted to borrow a "black crayon" and was seriously told they had to say something like "the dark crayon." I don't think it helped anyone/