Roald Dahl's Books Being Altered

[Magnus McGinty]

In the edited version he is deposed, flees to Mexico but is later assassinated with a frozen Curly Wurly to the back of the head. Womka's leadership is replaced by a Soviet of Ompa Lumpas. Grandpa Joe acts as their enforcer and Charlie is sent to a reeducation camp. Instead of chocolate geegaws the factory become a beet processing part turning out in excess of 25 metric tonnes of beet products every day. In the sequel it transpires that, as an advanced space faring race, the Venimous Knids have, of course, ordered their society in accordance with the principles of Marxism /Leninism and they and the Ompa Lumpas engage in mutually beneficial peaceful discourse.

Don't be rude when comparing with The Wind in the Willows, unless you're the type of cunt that agrees with it.

 

[Chilli.s]

Turns out it was all a publicity campaign

 

[JimW]

Setting up an author and their text as something precious and immutable is a recent phenomenon in the long duree of human history. Adaptation by multiple retellers for different audiences and times never did Homer any harm.

 

[Pickman's model]

Setting up an author and their text as something precious and immutable is a recent phenomenon in the long duree of human history. Adaptation by multiple retellers for different audiences and times never did Homer any harm.

As anyone who has read of James / Jan Morris will know, the author is anything but immutable

 

[gosub]

Think point here is it's the publishers doing this as they're worried this is the course of action people will take otherwise and they want their intellectual property to keep earning.

The other being that paper still burns at 451 degrees Fahrenheit

 

[hitmouse]

Amazed we've had another two pages of this thread since the punchline got posted way back on page 9.
That LRB article also had some stuff on the ways that Dahl's work was edited for commercial appeal, with his agreement, while he was alive:

His publishers were also skilled at excising moments when the gambling, greyhound racing chancer in Dahl bubbled up too close to the surface of his children’s books. The Fantastic Mr Fox originally saved his family from starvation by digging his way into local supermarkets. Dahl’s publishers suggested that shoplifting might not be quite the thing to encourage kids to do, and that it might offer more in the way of poetic justice if Mr Fox instead dug his way into the cellars and henhouses of the farmers who are trying to kill him. Dahl – though he could be monstrously aggressive with publishers – obliged. The heroine of the manuscript version of Matilda was a vengeful nightmare of a child who tries to fix a horse race (again harking back to the series of adult stories about Claud, who tries to fix greyhound races), and the teacher who becomes the lovely, oppressed Miss Honey had originally lost all her money through compulsive gambling, not (as in the final version) through the plotting of the vicious headmistress, Miss Trunchbull. Dahl’s American publisher Stephen Roxburgh – with whom he fell out after taking his advice – suggested that he rewrite the story, and the revised, charmingly moralised vengefulness of Matilda, who channels her rage into telekinesis and frees darling Miss Honey from her horrible aunt, became something adults might feel happy to read to their kids. It sold half a million copies in its first six months.

I want them to release the edition of Fantastic Mr Fox where he goes robbing from Asda.

 

[Nine Bob Note]

I want them to release the edition of Fantastic Mr Fox where he goes robbing from Asda.

"Fucking hell, thought Mr Fox, they ain't even got any tomatoes or cucumbers. Who wants a Polaroid TV instead?"

 

[Artaxerxes]

Setting up an author and their text as something precious and immutable is a recent phenomenon in the long duree of human history. Adaptation by multiple retellers for different audiences and times never did Homer any harm.

Cervantes fucking hated it and so did Conan Doyle

 

[Wolveryeti]

The sensitivity reader stuff is more of an issue for new stuff being written, isn’t it?

For the old stuff, at least we have the original texts, for better or worse.

I’d say there’s a place for having those readers in cases where the author is trying to be flowery and drops a clanger they don’t intend. Another part of the editing process.

But who gets to decide what a clanger is? This is the crux of the issue.

There were some frankly bizarre edits to the Dahl texts where what was wrong with the underlying text was not obvious.

Who appoints these people? What playbook do they use to justify their ham-fisted censoring of language? I have zero desire to be disintermediated from the author's message by these people - nor do I want that for my kids.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

The edits all seemed a bit pointless to me, having seen them. I'd incline to leaving things the hell alone unless you have a living author who will permit it.

If the author was alive we would string them up from the lampposts to show how much we have progressed.
And the books were never going to be altered m,but they just squeezed another few years of earnings from books most have read with a false culture war narrative.
I don’t know why they claim the UK to be in a deficit, when they show time and time again how malleable the public are.

 

[hitmouse]

Cervantes fucking hated it

But what about Pierre Menard?

 

[Artaxerxes]

But who gets to decide what a clanger is? This is the crux of the issue.

There were some frankly bizarre edits to the Dahl texts where what was wrong with the underlying text was not obvious.

Who appoints these people? What playbook do they use to justify their ham-fisted censoring of language? I have zero desire to be disintermediated from the author's message by these people - nor do I want that for my kids.

Penguin, because it's the CEO who signs off on it and they do it because they own the copyright.

 

[Aladdin]

What will they do with The Bard?

 

[JimW]

What will they do with The Bard?

There's been "stories from Shakespeare" complete rewrites for kids since I was one.

 

[Aladdin]

There's been "stories from Shakespeare" complete rewrites for kids since I was one.

Oh...is the edting only happening to kids books? Or for kids ?

I recall reading Shakespeare when I was ten...it would be a pity to have children only reading kids books.

I remember having access to lots of books and nobody telling me not to read them..
Arthur Conan Doyle... Shakespeare...and the Russian classics to name a few, were all there to read. Nobody stopped us.
Would Dickens end up being edited for kids too?

 

[Spymaster]

So has this actually happened or was it all a publicity stunt?

 

[frogwoman]

It's not been done for 'woke' reasons, it's been done to make money. I loved his books as a kid and I think this is a bit silly but some people have properly overreacted to it. Also as someone who's done some of the work of a sensitivity reader for a publishing company, let me just say that if sensitivity readers didn't exist, you wouldn't be able to walk down the street without stepping on a book someone had chucked out of the window in a rage

 

[ska invita]

So has this actually happened or was it all a publicity stunt?

yes it has happened, but due to backlash they'll also publish a box set of unedited books, by Penguin not Puffin, for Telegraph readers to prove a point to their freinds

Now the wokerati are coming for our adult classic texts

James Bond Novels Edited to Remove Racist Content

After the Roald Dahl text editing controversy that erupted in recent days, it is now the turn of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels to be rewritten.

variety.com

though reading the changes suggested being made there it seems very thin stuff

 

[frogwoman]

But like look at the grimm brothers fairy stories for instance, they were full of very sexually explicit stuff and violent torture before they were rewritten by the Victorians iirc

 

[Chilli.s]

wait till they see Hemingway

 

[DotCommunist]

There's been "stories from Shakespeare" complete rewrites for kids since I was one.

Mary & Charles Lamb? Got my nans copy somewhere.

 

[frogwoman]

wait till they see Hemingway

Rewritten to show his love of fluffy calves, bunny rabbits and kittens?

 

[ska invita]

But like look at the grimm brothers fairy stories for instance, they were full of very sexually explicit stuff and violent torture before they were rewritten by the Victorians iirc

thats really interesting, id be curious to read the offending passages

theres recently been a reprint of the un-victorian-edited Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, which had all the gayer bits taken out from the start

The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde was born on this day in 1854. Here is a brief excerpt from The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray, edited by Nicholas Frankel.

hup.medium.com

"Wilde did not see these changes until his novel appeared in print. Wilde’s editor’s concern was well placed. Even in its redacted form, the novel caused public outcry. The British press condemned it as “vulgar,” “unclean,” “poisonous,” “discreditable,” and “a sham.” When Wilde later enlarged the novel for publication in book form, he responded to his critics by further toning down its “immoral” elements.

 

[8ball]

But who gets to decide what a clanger is? This is the crux of the issue.

Ideally (which may well only be in my head), this is agreed in conversation between sensitivity reader and author.

I’m thinking of something pretty clear where the author would see they had made a slip and said something which tripped over a trope or accidentally looked like they were creating a very dark analogy when they were just trying to be poetic.

 

[frogwoman]

The Ladybird 'abridged' versions of various classics also vastly different to the real thing.

 

[8ball]

It's not been done for 'woke' reasons, it's been done to make money. I loved his books as a kid and I think this is a bit silly but some people have properly overreacted to it. Also as someone who's done some of the work of a sensitivity reader for a publishing company, let me just say that if sensitivity readers didn't exist, you wouldn't be able to walk down the street without stepping on a book someone had chucked out of the window in a rage

I respectfully suggest you may be overstating the literary fervour of the great British public.

A few juicy and suitably-redacted examples wouldn’t go amiss, though.

 

[frogwoman]

Ideally (which may well only be in my head), this is agreed in conversation between sensitivity reader and author.

I’m thinking of something pretty clear where the author would see they had made a slip and said something which tripped over a trope or accidentally looked like they were creating a very dark analogy when they were just trying to be poetic.

It is yeah. and if at the end of the day they want to include something, well its your funeral mate

 

[ska invita]

But who gets to decide what a clanger is? This is the crux of the issue.

There were some frankly bizarre edits to the Dahl texts where what was wrong with the underlying text was not obvious.

Who appoints these people? What playbook do they use to justify their ham-fisted censoring of language? I have zero desire to be disintermediated from the author's message by these people - nor do I want that for my kids.

theyre called Editors and they are appointed by others in a publishing house. A good publisher builds up a strong culture and becomes a branding that can be trusted in because of the editorial work (including commissioning).

Editors play a massive role in any published book. We think of books as the work of one person but there are many great editors behind the scenes whose work at times can be highly creative and artistic

 

[DotCommunist]

the grimm bros published first as a scholarly work then later versions were cleaned up a bit by themselves as it was seen that the book was hugely popular with people raising children. Can't recall if the victorians added morals at the end or if that was hans christian's stories.

 

[frogwoman]

I respectfully suggest you may be overstating the literary fervour of the great British public.

A few juicy and suitably-redacted examples wouldn’t go amiss, though.

You'd be surprised at what people want to include in a book (and insist on including) whether it's weird sexualised anecdotes about themselves, chapters full of irrelevant and possibly libellous personal attacks that have nothing to do with the main topic etc