Roald Dahl's books edited to be more 'inclusive'

Modulok

As someone who loved Roald Dahl's books when I was a child, and who has bought his collected works for my own children last year, I was saddened and I have to say creeped out by the revelation that Penguin worked with a diversity / equity / inclusion entity to re-write sentences throughout his stories.

How on earth anyone thought this was a good idea I don't know. Will some DEI major take the scalpel to Dickens and Austen next?

Graces7

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058285211/roald-dahls-books-edited-to-be-more-inclusive

Utterly ridiculous and a form of sacrilege. Are they going to do this to the Bible? To Shakespeare?

anotherfinemess

Will these changes be made using AI? The Idiots In Charge won't be happy until they have stamped out any expressions of free thinking by real live humans.

Pauliedragon

The saddest thing about this is when I first read the story I wasn't a bit surprised.

mod this has been moved to Current Affairs/IMHO. Local Charter is now in force.

May as well just start burning books at this stage.

De Bhál

should be left alone, where does it stop?

In 100 more years the books would have little likeness to the original after multiple edits to keep everyone happy.

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120268391#Comment_120268391

To be fair, this has been done extensively with the bible and has also occurred with Shakespeare (not that I agree with what they have done with Dahl).

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120268404#Comment_120268404

Funnily enough, AI would be highly unlikely to make these changes and would probably make the books less "inclusive".

It's us humans that are the problem in this instance :)

If they don’t like what’s in the book why don’t they write a book they do like instead of ruining someone else’s creation.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120268391#Comment_120268391

The bible isn't suitable reading for kids - far too much gratuitous sex and violence 😉

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120269842#Comment_120269842

and not forgetting the incest.

SuperBowserWorld

All those old books, CDs ... will become very valuable until they come knocking looking for them to be burned.

Any subscription service or online connected digital media will be updated.

Also, wondering if publishers are doing this to generate free advertising and re sell old books.

Also, this always springs to mind

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak

archfi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120269921#Comment_120269921

This sort of shyte is making me rethink keeping me Kindle tbh, nevermind the fact I could be shut out of it on a whim of Amazon.

I'll have to look into ripping my ebooks and making them available to any other device.

Overheal

This is ridiculous.

Next will there be a trans-inclusionary edit of the Harry Potter series?

An anti-semitism-free version of the Merchant of Venice?

And Dahl wrote - a lot. Many of them adapted into movies. Why does he of all people get the treatment?

Perhaps it’s just a stunt to get people to preserve older books instead of banning and burning them 🤣

Why do a miniscule minority get to decide what all of humanity can say, do, read?

HeidiHeidi

Will the originals still be available (maybe on the top shelf or something)?

Or are they to be just re-written out of history?

This kind of shytery would make me go out and buy the entire collection just to spite them.

I have to say all this revisionism makes me really sad and a bit angry - stuff is of its time, leave it be. Fair enough, he (or Enid Blyton, or whoever else) wouldn't get away with writing it now - but times have changed, it was a different world back then. Do we just want to wipe it from the record altogether?

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120270578#Comment_120270578

Mr. Dahl was a pretty keen anti-Semite himself.

His works at this stage are incredibly dated - but are still a mega industry, more for nostalgia reasons than value I reckon.

I don't think removing the word "fatty" will make them better or worse TBH. But people love outrage.

There is some cracking works from Irish authors at the moment, best support them then to feed into the multiples of 100s of millions that Dahl empire makes.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120270626#Comment_120270626

If his characters or narrators even are fat shamers, then they are.

cruizer101

Fcuking ridiculous, some of the changes I found in various articles.

References to “female” characters have disappeared. Miss Trunchbull in Matilda, once a “most formidable female”, is now a “most formidable woman” I wasn't aware female was more objectionable than woman and what about preserving the alliteration

The character Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is no longer called "fat." Instead he is described as "enormous,"

Instead of being called "small men," Oompa-Loompas are now "small people," the article says

The Cloud Men in Roald Dahl’s book ‘James and the Giant Peach’ were changed to Cloud People 

Mrs Twit is no longer fearfully ugly

in “James and the Giant Peach,” Miss Spider’s head is no longer described as “black.”

Here is some more

https://twitter.com/incunabula/status/1626860237104857089/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1626860237104857089%7Ctwgr%5Ea67354bfc2c3b775988bd0a3ceb0b062d29e6c49%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.deseret.com%2F2023%2F2%2F21%2F23608371%2Fauthors-react-to-changes-to-roald-dahls-childrens-books

A lot of them are minor enough changes but its the f**king principle, you can't just go changing what was written.

Gatling

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120270578#Comment_120270578

It's going to happen every book will eventually be rewritten to change characters to a scobby gang ,black , asian,gay ,trans ,black , Latino, Muslim,vegans ,

To show how inclusive we are ,

Wonder when they will want historical painted to cover everyone who's a minority,I'm sure mona Lisa will be considered for a retouch

Overheal

Some of the edits

Jazz Hands

The world is fcuked when you re write history and pretend things didn’t happen.

ArmaniJeanss

It's usually a commercial decision taken by the publishers to head off potential controversy, and keep the book on school lists and library lists.

Has happened to most of the Blython books as mentioned, Agatha Christie with literally the best-selling crime fiction book of all time (Ten Little Niggérs now known as And Then There Were None), Mark Twain and some of his more colorful language in the Huck Finn books. Plenty of others too, I'm sure. And more regularly there'll be less controversial changes to replace obsolete words/expressions.

One of the basic objections (that the original first edition is sacrosanct as it was exactly as desired by the author) is curious really. As if editors back then just verbatim went with the authors draft/manuscript.

archermoo

Wait. So does this mean that the copyright holders of books aren't allowed to make changes to them? Because the changes were made by Puffin and The Roald Dahl Story Company (who manages the copyrights for Dahl's books) to update the books for modern audiences. It seems to me that if the copyright holder wants to make changes to the works that they own they have every right to do so.

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120270668#Comment_120270668

That's really, really annoying.

It's not Isis destroying Palmyra levels of iconoclasm, but it definitely feels like someone chipping away at a temple with a chisel - do it for long enough and the whole thing eventually won't look the same.

Gatling

The French say No !

https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2023/0221/1357968-roald-dahl/

Furze99

Disgraceful and just how the publishing industry loses respect and customers.....

cruizer101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120270707#Comment_120270707

Yes, just because you are the copyright holder that doesn't mean you should be allowed change the original content, copyright can be bought and sold. The owner of the copyright does not necessarily have the best intentions of the original author.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120270697#Comment_120270697

There is a rather obvious and chasm-like difference between an author agreeing to a suggested change by an editor and changes made without the input of the author.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120270707#Comment_120270707

Of course they are legally allowed - that is how they have managed to do it. This does not change whether or not it is a good, or desirable concept.

And though, in many ways irrelevant, it does not help that many of the changes are simply bad.

Larbre34

I really enjoyed the savagery with which other publishers, editors and authors have gone after Puffin and TRDSC (Netflix) over this decision. It is being treated with the opprobrium it truly deserves

The French language publisher came out today and said, 'we won't be editing the stories in this manner, now or in the future, as they would no longer be a book by Roald Dahl.'

Well said Monsieurs et Medames.

I wonder how long the U-turn will take and how much it will cost to pulp the early runs.

Probably less than the $1.5 Billion it will cost Adidas to scrap their Kanye trainers.

At least Puffin can console themselves with that.