Roald Dahl's Books Being Altered

[8ball]

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

Reminds me of part of Bill Drummond’s advice for making a number one single, which was to basically finesse a situation in the studio that would lead to the creatively-frustrated sound engineer writing the whole thing.

 

[8ball]

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

It was Jeffrey Archer, wasn’t it?

 

[ska invita]

ive just had a flashback to the Hans Christian Anderson collection i had as a kid...haven't thought about that in 40 years i dont think...i didnt have much as a kid growing up so it was a book i poured over and over...there were some great painted pictures in there...but yeah the story of the Little Match Girl was particularly harrowing. Im going to look it up now but my memory is she just tries to sell single matches and then freezes and dies. Dark shit

 

[JimW]

Mary & Charles Lamb? Got my nans copy somewhere.

Heard of that but think ours were even lower grade.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

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.

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

Yeah all authors need editing, however good they are.

There are different levels to this imo regarding re-edits. Re-editing Ian Fleming means something different from re-editing Hemingway. Some 'storytelling' authors are substantially rewritten prepublication anyway to get their sentences (and plots!) in order. Jeffrey Archer famously so.

 

[8ball]

I wrote a chapter of a book about growing up with undiagnosed ASD and they cut out practically everything I had to say about the tabloid press.

 

[frogwoman]

wait till they see Hemingway

If the sensitivity readers are going to edit Hemingway, maybe certain other books like 'Watership Down' 'Fantastic Mr Fox' etc could get rewritten so as not to offend the bloodsport 'community'

 

[ska invita]

There are different levels to this imo regarding re-edits. Re-editing Ian Fleming means something different from re-editing Hemingway. Some 'storytelling' authors are substantially rewritten prepublication anyway to get their sentences (and plots!) in order. Jeffrey Archer famously so.

Yes i agree on the difference, which is why i think its a bit of a poll fail. Its basically a case by case thing

 

[JimW]

Though as a translator by and large I tend to try and match the register in English if it's a work of lit, so if it was e.g. sexist in Chinese I'll leave it as such unless I've expressly been briefed to edit too.

 

[DotCommunist]

ive just had a flashback to the Hans Christian Anderson collection i had as a kid...haven't thought about that in 40 years i dont think...i didnt have much as a kid growing up so it was a book i poured over and over...there were some great painted pictures in there...but yeah the story of the Little Match Girl was particularly harrowing. Im going to look it up now but my memory is she just tries to sell single matches and then freezes and dies. Dark shit

yeah thats the ending. Theres a bit where she looks through the window at others all warm and happy. Hans Christian had sadist streak imo. The Steadfast Tin Soldier is just maudlin.

 

[ska invita]

yeah thats the ending. Theres a bit where she looks through the window at oters all warm and happy.

yeah that bit was heartbreaking

*ah youve edited it now

 

[friendofdorothy]

I used to be a designer in publishing. All original Hans christian anderson books were scary as fuck, no one minded them being rewritten and made more wholesome.

 

[ska invita]

I used to be a designer in publishing. All original Hans christian anderson books were scary as fuck, no one minded them being rewritten and made more wholesome.

does anyone even know they're being rewritten? I didn't
now i know id quite like to read the original hardcore uncensored shit
i reckon carefully redesigned and labeled as the HCA texts they tried to supress would sell quite well

 

[friendofdorothy]

In the 80s when publishers just noticed that racism was not a big seller - I had the undignified job of overseeing the design and resetting work involved in getting rid of all the golly characters in the original Noddy books. There was an all white editorial team who somehow thought it ok to replace the garage owner/mechanic golly with a white doll and some of the background golly characters with random inuit, chinese or other racially stereotyped characters - or worse I kid you not - with monkeys.

Horrible job. Then on top of that Maxwell went and topped himself and I thought I'd never be paid. I fucking hate Noddy.

 

[ska invita]

Reminded of Agatha Christies
Ten Little N*****s
retitled
Ten Little Indians
now
And Then There Were None
"The book is the world's best-selling mystery, and with over 100 million copies sold is one of the best-selling books of all time. The novel has been listed as the sixth best-selling title (any language, including reference works)"

wow if you want to see the original cover...

 

[frogwoman]

Yeah noddy and just William are dodgy as fuck. I remember picking up random noddy books as a kid who had only watched the TV series and being shocked at all the racism. My school library had an out of print version (clearly written and published before the war) of a just William book where he dresses up as a nazi and goes and scares an old Jewish man.

 

[ska invita]

Yeah noddy and just William are dodgy as fuck. I remember picking up random noddy books as a kid who had only watched the TV series and being shocked at all the racism. My school library had an out of print version (clearly written and published before the war) of a just William book where he dresses up as a nazi and goes and scares an old Jewish man.

jaw dropping!

 

[frogwoman]

The right are way worse for censorship tho. Remember that before all the terf stuff with JK Rowling her books were being banned in the US for promoting witchcraft.

 

[Aladdin]

ive just had a flashback to the Hans Christian Anderson collection i had as a kid...haven't thought about that in 40 years i dont think...i didnt have much as a kid growing up so it was a book i poured over and over...there were some great painted pictures in there...but yeah the story of the Little Match Girl was particularly harrowing. Im going to look it up now but my memory is she just tries to sell single matches and then freezes and dies. Dark shit

It was truth though wasn't it? Little kids used to be used as slave labour. Orphans making a living selling matches... pick pockets... it was true then.
Its still true in many parts of the world. I dont see why that should be edited out? At very least it would open a discussion on childrens rights.

I liked the story of the little match girl. Yes it was very sad and made me cry. But it also made me think about children and their lives and how childhood was in the past . It made me appreciate a relatively happy childhood. And made me empathise with children who didnt have happiness or secure families.
I would argue that children need to feel all emotions.

Keeping children wrapped in cotton wool is not all its cracked up to be. It insulates them from reality.
Reading a story about a child whose life is not all roses is a way to learn empathy. It may be about how different life was in the past and how some children still have to live like this. It makes children think beyond themselves. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[frogwoman]

jaw dropping!

I know! As a 9 year old kid I was like wtf

 

[ska invita]

It was truth though wasn't it? Little kids used to be used as slave labour. Orphans making a living selling matches... pick pockets... it was true then.
Its still true in many parts of the world. I dont see why that should be edited out?

I dont know that it has been edited out
Ive no idea what the most recent publication of the little match girls story is but i cant see how it can be edited without being utterly rewritten. i would guess its much the same as ever

there's a huge difference between children's stories that create empathy (like little match girl) and children's stories that perpetuate or encourage 'hateful' attitudes (which arguably is what the roald dahl edits are about)

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It was truth though wasn't it? Little kids used to be used as slave labour. Orphans making a living selling matches... pick pockets... it was true then.
Its still true in many parts of the world. I dont see why that should be edited out? At very least it would open a discussion on childrens rights.

I liked the story of the little match girl. Yes it was very sad and made me cry. But it also made me think about children and their lives and how childhood was in the past . It made me appreciate a relatively happy childhood. And made me empathise with children who didnt have happiness or secure families.
I would argue that children need to feel all emotions.

Keeping children wrapped in cotton wool is not all its cracked up to be. It insulates them from reality.
Reading a story about a child whose life is not all roses is a way to learn empathy. It may be about how different life was in the past and how some children still have to live like this. It makes children think beyond themselves. Nothing wrong with that.

Lots of traditional kids' tales have included violence and general horribleness. Punch and Judy is an obvious example.

I saw a panto a while ago in which the baddie sees the error of his ways at the end (for no apparent reason) and is all smiles with everyone. I think this kind of thing is more confusing (even disturbing) if anything than an ending in which he is buried at the bottom of the sea for ever and ever inside a wooden trunk. At least that has a moral consistency to it.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I suspect that many of our notions of the innocence of childhood are rather modern notions.

 

[friendofdorothy]

CS Lewis Narnia! I absolutely loved it when some editor decided to 'improve' punctuation and consistancy in the soon to be republished series. It was a while ago but the original artwork was being rescanned or digitally cleaned up, was it being coloured in too? I cant recall. We were on a tight schedule with all 7 books at different stages of production.

Then the CS Lewis estate got wind of what was going on and insisted that every single comma was put back to the original. Huge hoo ha!
Publishers called in the whole editorial and design team in (more than a dozen of us if I recall) to reset all 7 books over a single weekend. Must have cost a fortune!

But the overtime was great!

 

[frogwoman]

Well there's that scene in Thomas the Tank Engine where one of the engines is misbehaving and so they brick up his tunnel and leave him there forever!

 

[8ball]

The right are way worse for censorship tho. Remember that before all the terf stuff with JK Rowling her books were being banned in the US for promoting witchcraft.

I don’t think there was ever an actual banning. Though they had several attempts and a few book burnings.

And in Pakistan there was a car bomb that was suspected to be related to the release of the final book (Islamic scholars weren’t all on side with the series).

 

[ska invita]

Lots of traditional kids' tales have included violence and general horribleness. Punch and Judy is an obvious example.

I saw a panto a while ago in which the baddie sees the error of his ways at the end (for no apparent reason) and is all smiles with everyone. I think this kind of thing is more confusing (even disturbing) if anything than an ending in which he is buried at the bottom of the sea for ever and ever inside a wooden trunk. At least that has a moral consistency to it.

i imagine there are enormous amounts written about this in academia around child development and how children process information. in the uk at least in the past children weren't really seen as children they were just silly little adults who needed to hurry up and grow up and learn how harsh the world was. education was a short sharp shock tactic. there's definitely a balance to be found between scaring and scarring children into having morals and presenting the world as a la la land

im happy to leave it to the professionals to work their way though it all

i do wish the artwork in kids books and cgi films wasnt quite so cartoony though

 

[littlebabyjesus]

i imagine there are enormous amounts written about this in academia around child development and how children process information. in the uk at least in the past children weren't really seen as children they were just silly little adults who needed to hurry up and grow up and learn how harsh the world was. education was a short sharp shock tactic. there's definitely a balance to be found between scaring and scarring children into having morals and presenting the world as a la la land

im happy to leave it to the professionals to work their way though it all

i do wish the artwork in kids books and cgi films wasnt quite so cartoony though

Baddies not getting a comeuppance is confusing, though. Bad storytelling imo. Are you scarring children with panto baddies who meet a sticky end?

 

[friendofdorothy]

does anyone even know they're being rewritten? I didn't
now i know id quite like to read the original hardcore uncensored shit
i reckon carefully redesigned and labeled as the HCA texts they tried to supress would sell quite well

Because they had been out of copyright for so long publishers could do what they liked with them. Having grown up on Disney versions of Cinderalla and all - when I read the original story I was shocked. It didn't end at the marriage and there was murder involved.

Am I getting Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson mixed up?
Edit to add: yes I am mixing them up Cinderella is Grimm.

 

[ska invita]

Baddies not getting a comeuppance is confusing, though. Bad storytelling imo. Are you scarring children with panto baddies who meet a sticky end?

Ive no opinion on that, it sounds pretty crap this panto - i was making a more general point
even now editors/writers dont always get it 'right' <of course