Miguel Sanchez Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 Roald Dahl: Rishi Sunak joins criticism of changes to author's books - BBC News Dahl's estate and publisher said works including The BFG and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory had been updated to be more suitable for modern audiences. Quote Augustus Gloop, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, is now described as "enormous", with the word "fat" removed from every book, according to the Telegraph Mrs Twit, from the Twits, is no longer "ugly and beastly", but simply "beastly" In the same book, "a weird African language" is no longer weird The words "crazy" and "mad" have also been removed as a result of an emphasis on mental health, the newspaper reported A threat to "knock her flat" in Matilda has become "give her a right talking to" References to colours have also been changed - the BFG's coat is no longer black; while Mary in The BFG now goes "still as a statue" instead of "white as a sheet" Game's gone. Is anyone here going to try and defend this? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carpetmonster Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gannonball Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 Funny I was listening to a podcast earlier today that the Tories were stoking the flames of a culture war to keep votes and detract from disastrous economic decisions, I'm guessing irrelevant pish like this is perfect for them. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Florentine_Pogen Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 Philip Pullman's suggestion sounds pretty good.................. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/20/roald-dahl-books-editing-philip-pullman Pullman, however, simply encouraged children simply to read “better” authors. “Let him go out of print,” the author of His Dark Materials said on Monday. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that people should instead explore writers such as Malorie Blackman, Michael Morpurgo and Beverley Naidoo. “Read all of these wonderful authors who are writing today, who don’t get as much of a look-in because of the massive commercial gravity of people like Roald Dahl.” He said Dahl’s work, if left alone, would not disappear overnight or be substantially changed in the public’s consciousness, because of the vast numbers of existing editions sitting on shelves in homes, school libraries and elsewhere. “What are you going to do about them? All these words are still there, are you going to round up all the books and cross them out with a big black pen?” 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bully Wee Villa Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 Will it make any difference at all to a single child reading the books? No. Will it annoy a bunch of gammon weirdos? Yes. I'm in favour. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miguel Sanchez Posted February 20, 2023 Author Share Posted February 20, 2023 10 minutes ago, Bully Wee Villa said: Will it make any difference at all to a single child reading the books? No. Will it annoy a bunch of gammon weirdos? Yes. I'm in favour. Utter shite, but you know that. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ICTChris Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 The thing that’s great about Roald Dahl is the playful nastiness of the stories. It’s what makes them fun for children, who love to read about evil witches, people being poisoned or eaten by crocodiles etc. Dahl himself did rewrite some of his work - specifically the Oompa Loompahs who were originally African tribesmen. The new edit adapts that a bit further though - old version in left, new one on the right. There are times that things need updated - no-one is going to die on the hill of restoring the original title of ‘And Then There We’re None’. But most of the changes here seem very clumsy and arbitrary. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Other Foot Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 44 minutes ago, Florentine_Pogen said: Philip Pullman's suggestion sounds pretty good.................. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/20/roald-dahl-books-editing-philip-pullman Pullman, however, simply encouraged children simply to read “better” authors. “Let him go out of print,” the author of His Dark Materials said on Monday. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that people should instead explore writers such as Malorie Blackman, Michael Morpurgo and Beverley Naidoo. “Read all of these wonderful authors who are writing today, who don’t get as much of a look-in because of the massive commercial gravity of people like Roald Dahl.” He said Dahl’s work, if left alone, would not disappear overnight or be substantially changed in the public’s consciousness, because of the vast numbers of existing editions sitting on shelves in homes, school libraries and elsewhere. “What are you going to do about them? All these words are still there, are you going to round up all the books and cross them out with a big black pen?” A real shame he’s said that, though perhaps it’s taken out of context. I’m all for a bit of snobbery, but this is completely misplaced. Dahl was an excellent author and - dare I say it - might stand the test of time better than Pullman. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theroadlesstravelled Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 Gather round kids and listen to the The Fantastic Genderless Fox. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newbornbairn Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
throbber Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 7 hours ago, Bully Wee Villa said: Will it make any difference at all to a single child reading the books? No. Will it annoy a bunch of gammon weirdos? Yes. I'm in favour. Being in favour of something because it annoys a group of people you don’t like is pathetic behaviour. Dear lord what a sad little life Bully. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101 Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 10 hours ago, Miguel Sanchez said: Roald Dahl: Rishi Sunak joins criticism of changes to author's books - BBC News Dahl's estate and publisher said works including The BFG and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory had been updated to be more suitable for modern audiences. Game's gone. Is anyone here going to try and defend this? Seems like the publishers intent on ensuring they remain on the primary school reading lists and as said previously this is basically like a band "remastering". If you want the old versions they must be some of the most published books ever written so you will have no difficulty in finding a pre-2023 version therefore it seems ridiculous for anyone to be that bothered by. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bully Wee Villa Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 Well, quite. The Tories have trashed the economy so it's understandable that they want to fight the next election on irrelevant nonsense like this. Anderson virtually said as much the other day and now Sunak is pandering to it. Don't fall for it. It's changing a few adjectives in some books about witches and giants. It doesn't matter. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dons_1988 Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 Oh good, another very important reason for folk on the internet, on all sides, to be raging. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melanius Mullarkey Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 Nice bit of platforming for this Kathleen Stock oddball (who appears to be related to "Spency") But clearly nothing to worry about. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottsdad Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 Will they re-shoot any scenes of You Only Live Twice? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnash Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 Surely there can be both? The original versions clearly labelled as containing outdated language that may offend; the new versions labelled as updated and won't offend. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savage Henry Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 Whatever this is, it isn’t “bonechilling”. It’s pretty ridiculous, and actually quite sad, but it’s nothing approaching the hyperbole of that tweet. Common sense would be, just like they do on old movies on Netflix, to put an insert at the beginning of the book explaining some of the potential issues. A trigger warning, if you will. Also; Roald Dahl’s kids books were, and remain, absolutely amazing. Pullman can do one. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savage Henry Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 5 minutes ago, Gnash said: Surely there can be both? The original versions clearly labelled as containing outdated language that may offend; the new versions labelled as updated and won't offend. I actually assume this will happen, but Twitter is not the place for rational reasoning like this. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ICTChris Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 (edited) Quite a lot of the changes seem to be taking out references to fat people and most of Dahl's books had villians who were big fat women. They changed the description of Mrs Twit to take out 'double chin' but keep in wonky nose and crooked teeth. My son went through a phase of watching old Disney movies on Disney Plus and some of them do have some stuff in it that's pretty jarring. Lady and the Tramp is a lovely movie but the Siamese cats sequence would not fly today. I also remember seeing a warning on Aliens (wasn't watching that with my four year old) advising that there were outdated and offensive attitudes in the movie. I racked my brains but I think it must refer to when the marines wake up from hypersleep and one of them makes a joke about Vasquez being "an illegal alien". Edited February 21, 2023 by ICTChris 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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