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

I'm in favour of updating books to appropriately reflect the time. 90% of what's there in the classics is incredibly wonderful writing, marred and made unreadable by stuff that was totally acceptable at the time but not anymore.

Either these classics have to die or they can be reborn and treasured by future generations by tweaking a few paragraphs to reflect modern sentiments.

It's different if the point of the book and the author were offensive or even evil for their time. (Eg Hitler's Mein Kampf should always be kept as horrific as it always was, because its point is a historical testament to that). But if the author was simply a product of their time and their stories are lost to next generations due to a few sentences that they would not have written if born in a different time, then I think it's good to update.

Eg I wish they would do this with Georgette Heyer and Enid Blyton.... !

I reread Esio Trot to my daughter recently and tbh it bothered me a lot. Mr Hoppy totally manipulates and gaslights Miss Silver and then she marries him and they live happily ever after. I know all the books have awful characters and this is a huge part of their appeal. I don't have a problem with the Twits, or George and his big saucepan of poison, but this one really stuck in my craw.

This one got me. I would much rather be called fat than enormous. Who thought of that

It's a story, not real life. I am sure you will get over it.

@dollymixtured Yes I'm fine, thank you for your concern.

Been trying to remember the name of a film from a few years back, where a society existed that had sanitised history and art etc and was medicating it's population so that everything was black and white., and emotions were suppressed. In fact the first part of the film was in black and white. The hero was the boy whose designated career path was being allowed to access everything from the past in order to understand why it had to be censored.

The film ended in colour.....

Anyway, this is what this kind of thing puts me in mind of....

Pullman said if the books were so problematic then he'd be happy for them to fade into obscurity and would encourage kids to read contemporary children's authors instead.

Well quite. If you don't like the content or style of a book, don't read it. The sheer arrogance of people 'improving' other people's original works astounds and worries me. And the changes to the Dahl books seem unnecessary and in some cases pretty arbitrary. There are lots of children's authors from the 70s and earlier whose books are still pretty widely read. Presumably there's no move to sanitise the rest? In which case the motive clearly isn't to protect children.

Pleasantville

@dollymixtured you keep on trying to pretend you're better than people on the internet..... Goodness, what a patronizing, insecure twat you must be to come up with that kind of response!

Some of these books are so old that you'd have to totally rewrite them to make them "relevant" to modern kids. I always used to wonder why the Famous Five never watched TV. Nowadays kids probably wonder why Hansel and Gretel don't use Google Maps to find their way home instead of relying on a trail of breadcrumbs.

Oh my God, you sound so intelligent and cultured!

Is the Oompa Loompas being gender neutral thing real?

Guaranteed absolutely no one was sitting around thinking, “you know what, it really fucks me off that those Oompa Loompas have specific genders!”

That is like when, apparently, gingerbread men had to be gingerbread people. Literally no one gives a fuck. There are so many more important things.

I don't remember any female Oompa Loompas in the film (the good one from the 1970s).

Either these classics have to die or they can be reborn and treasured by future generations by tweaking a few paragraphs to reflect modern sentiments
It's not an either/or.

Many people who enjoy reading are more than capable of reading a book and accepting it's a product of it's time.

This sort of editing is going to make GCSEs of the future fun.
Now then children we are going to be studying Book A. Marks are given for understanding the context of the book and your ability to analyse language. No I'm afraid we aren't going to study the actual author's words. Some people in the 2020s decided it was for our own good that books were censored.

@StrychnineInTheSandwiches

Thank you for trying but it was actually called the Giver..... I just typed longest question into Google and finally found it ☺️

Many thanks for your efforts though x

The phrase to describe what has been done to the books is “Bowdlerised” not bastardised.

Ah, never heard of that one! Must look it up.

Miss Trunchbowl was a formidable female - it’s the alliteration that lifts it above the ordinary.
Miss Trunchbowl was a formidable woman - dreary, I could have written that 🤷🏻‍♀️

Also, if we’re removing female are we also removing male? 🤔

Where all this is headed if left unchecked is beyond anything that I can tolerate.

😂😂😂

@AnybodyAnywhere / yes you remove the crackle on the page if you change the language. This stuff is done by adults for adults, not children

Yes, most of the others I can follow even if I don't approve...but why can't she be a formidable female? As well as the alliteration, it also dehumanises her a little and makes her sound more animalistic and base, which is very appropriate. I don't understand why they did that one.

Totally against editing books to reflect current values. If we did this all books would be a constant 'work in progress' as cultural values and language use constantly shift and change.

Books should remain as a cultural reflection of their time and as they become irrelevant then new books by new authors will replace the old ones in popularity.

And getting rid of words like 'fat' and 'ugly' is beyond ridiculous- they are perfectly valid adjectives to describe a character!

What on earth needs 'updating' with Georgette Heyer ?!