Bastardising Ronald Dahl

[Pasithean]

Is it not really wrong to change his descriptions in his books as reported in the guardian today. I’m so cross that people think they can change the classics

Agree.
Literature is like a little slice of history. We should look back and definitely discuss what is wrong etc, but to change them is like rewriting history in some way. He was racist etc but a lot of people were during his era. It was wrong. We should look at his books and use them as discussions to educate people on why this was wrong, not just make it disappear.

Hope this makes sense, I had some gin after breastfeeding for past 3.5yrs so it’s gone straight to me! Hic

Viewed through a modern lens there are some pretty objectionable passages in many of Dahl's books. Let's face it, he was a pretty unpleasant man so it's no surprise some of that crept in. Most of it though I think is fairly harmless with the one exception of what is basically an entire chapter dedicated to racism in (the otherwise completely awful anyway) Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.

This approach of simply re-editing away the problems though is completely ill-conceived. Firstly it misses the entire appeal of the books in the first place - kids love them because they are dark and slightly subversive. Polish that away and you lose a great deal of the charm of the books. More importantly, kids can't learn about certain things being unacceptable unless they are exposed to them. The correct approach is to read the books and then talk about why certain phrases and opinions belong in the past and to put things in the the context of how attitudes have changed over time.

@neverknowinglyunreasonable 🤣🤣 I'm howling here!

I'm pretty sure the Ronald is a result of autocorrect.

@BellatrixLestrangesHeatedCurlers 🤣

I know, I think everyone knows that, but it's still funny😄

@MyopicBunny definitely! But some of the replies have had me giggling!

I can't believe that people want to change history but changing these books. They are part of the past.

To be honest, I'm not too bothered about changing Mrs Twit and Augustus Gloop, although if he's "enormous" and still punished for gluttony then I don't see how that will make any overweight children feel any better about it.

Cloud People and gender neutral Oompa Loompas are a bit pointless but don't really offend me. For all his faults, Dahl was a feminist. He wrote plenty of strong female characters and protagonists.

They are of their time and fine; people need to grow a thicker skin. I'm more concerned by David Walliams who spews out things far worse in the present day, he did it with Little Britain too, which isn't aging well.

I don't know, it sets a precedent that he was up for updating the texts for changing sensibilities/to maintain sales.

I'm not keen on all the changes that have been made, personally, but I'm not the rights holder...

A few scalpel strokes to terminology in literature isn't new, though, is it? It's happened to Agatha Christie (And Then There Were None has had two prior titles, both of which are unprintable now) and countless others. The Biggles books were twiddled with in the 50s (probably not enough) and again in the 70s and 80s.

Personally, I'd rather tweaks were made than books disappeared altogether.

I don’t think he’s books have aged well to be honest. I cringed at some of the misogyny when I read them to my kids. But I won’t be buying the sanitised versions.

My Mum knew him, says he was a miserable git.

Not won won (Harry Potte reference)

I don't agree with changing literature. Where will this 'editing' end? I think it's dangerous TBH. Will we start to rewrite history?

'Some of it can understand but some of it is crazy. Cloud men are now cloud people, Augustus gloop isn’t fat, mrs twit isn’t ugly, Esio Trot isn’t backwards and the Oompa Loompas are gender neutral
Has this happened?'

Yeah, it has...

Why can't Esio Trot be backwards?

If you've got to find something offensive about that story (I don't, to be clear!), you could say the guy's an irresponsible pet owner and he wins a woman over by lying to her. Why does the backwards spell matter?

My partner told me about this last night. So glad we bought the complete collection two years ago. Apparently Mrs Twit is no longer ugly. I vividly remember to this day the bit that explains she became ugly because she was ugly on the inside, and how beauty on the inside shines through physical flaws.

'My Mum knew him, says he was a miserable git.'

He was famously cantankerous - look at how horrible many of the adults in his stories are, and some of the kids... he just didn't like people very much and struggled to form relationships of any kid probably because he was sent to boarding school at 9 years old.
In his biography 'Boy' he recalls being beaten so severely by teachers that they drew blood.
James & the giant peach is about an orphan who is sent to sadistic aunts who starve him and eventually escapes by crushing them to death to gain his freedom... all from the mind of a man who as a boy suffered at the hands of adults in an institution... his stories are dark, that's why kids love them.

'A few scalpel strokes to terminology in literature isn't new, though, is it? It's happened to Agatha Christie (And Then There Were None has had two prior titles, both of which are unprintable now) and countless others. The Biggles books were twiddled with in the 50s (probably not enough) and again in the 70s and 80s.
Personally, I'd rather tweaks were made than books disappeared altogether.'

Completely different though, no? Having the N word in a title or book isn't the same as calling the fat kid fat.

Nothing offensive enough to change imo. It’s stuff that was accurate at the time 🤷🏼‍♀️

Och it’s just a ploy to sell more books with a new edition surely.

they are of their time.

hopefully David Walliams will get the message and not spew forth any more of his books.

Ive just read through the article and don’t see what’s wrong with it. I think it’s a very good idea.

As pp said, perhaps they should offer the original text and the amended version for sale. Hopefully, in time, they’ll see a decline in the sales of the original text.

My position is broadly what @Frabbits said. Children love Dahl precisely because it’s dark and irreverent and subversive; change that and you change the entire character of the books. Kids don’t want ‘safe’, sanitised versions.

But my main issue with the bowdlerising of books is the loss of historical context. New readers coming to these books for the first time will see them as Dahl’s own words and ideas and won’t realise they’ve been tampered with. How can we learn from the past and reflect on how society has progressed when we insist on whitewashing history and removing any content we now find unsavoury?

Not to mention the fact that some of the changes seem completely nonsensical. Why bother replacing references in ‘Matilda’ to Kipling and Conrad with Austen and Steinbeck? Yes, these authors are arguably less problematic from a post-colonial point of view, but is the average 8 year old even going to pick up on this in a passing reference?

Quite pleased now that I still have my own childhood copies of Dahl in the loft to share with DD.

I grew up reading about 'Melinda', I remember going to see the movie adaptation of 'The Bitches' and still have my original copy of 'Male Child: Hero of the Earth'. Children of today are going to have to contend with The Stunning and Brave General-Neutral Woodland Creature and The Extra-Special Hand Digit.