9 ms·
Roald Dahl: Rishi Sunak joins criticism of changes to author's books
- Convolutional 4y agoGlad he's doing important work.
- panxyh 4y agoMad world
- noobermin 4y agoHaving read the actual changes in the article, these are rather miniscule, which leaves me wondering why this is a big story.
- mock-possum 4y agoThink of it as the other side of the coin from book banning or book burning - why should readers be prevented from reading objectionable material in the first place? The decision rests with the reader, and no one else.
- amanaplanacanal 4y agoI would think the author might have something to say about it, or in this case the author's representative since the author in question is dead.
- faeriechangling 4y agoThe estate of the author does not have legitimate authority to change a dead authors work to increase its commercial appeal. They can legally do so, but I don't accept the legitimacy of this. The only exception is when it's implicitly or explicitly clear the author would have supported doing this, and even then I wouldn't suggest it but I wouldn't automatically call it illegitimate and would have to consider the context. If I write some great novel and then my asshole grandson decides to stop distributing the original and starts distributing a rewrite he feels will sell more copies I'll haunt his ass. I refused to watch the C.S. Lewis film adaptions because they were against the authors explicit wishes and there's a difference between having the legal right to do something and the moral right to do something. I recall that Roald Dahl LOATHED the changes to his story in the film version of Willa Wonka and refused to sell the rights to the sequel so I wouldn't at all take it for granted that he would have supported such extensive edits. If there's doubt if an author would have supported you editing their book, you should play it safe and not edit a dead authors book! If you must change it - you must continue distributing the original or make the original public domain to retain any SEMBLANCE of legitimacy.
- amanaplanacanal 4y agoMy take would be that once you are dead, you no longer have any say, but that is probably a minority position. I would like to see copyright shortened way up though. He died over 30 years ago now.
- JohnFen 4y agoRegardless of whether or not you should have a say, it seems clear to me that telling the world someone wrote something they didn't write is morally dubious at least.
- JohnFen 4y ago> I recall that Roald Dahl LOATHED the changes to his story in the film version of Willa Wonka And he was right. As much as I love the movie, and I do, it's very inferior to the book.
- croes 4y agoMany small changes add up to big changes over time. Beside the fact that changing books is just wrong, except for life threatening data.
- kelseyfrog 4y agoThis is overly reductive. For example, I just read American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition, a version changed from its original. Using this reductive model, that's wrong. However, it was changed by the author, which seems perfectly acceptable. Those two things are in contradiction. Either changing books isn't categorically wrong, or Neil Gaiman was wrong for changing his own book. Taking a bit of a detour, is it wrong to engage in death of the author style interpretations of text?
- jstarfish 4y ago> or Neil Gaiman was wrong for changing his own book. I'd argue so. Given enough edits, you've written the Book of Theseus.
- prepend 4y agoI think an artist making a derived work from their own work is totally different than a company changing an artists’ work to purely make more money. Also, there are multiple versions of American Gods in print and readers can choose which one to read. They are clearly marked. In this case the publisher is changing the only versions in print and no longer making the original versions. I think that people changing artists work is usually wrong. If a mural artist changes their mural, that’s very different from McDonalds deciding to add in milkshakes. That doesn’t mean that changing art is categorically wrong. It just means that the latter case is wrong.
- faeriechangling 4y agoPeople regularly crap on authors for changing their own work, “Han shot first” is an outright meme, and I’m going to predict there’s an overlap between people who don’t want authors to change their own work and people who don’t want other people to change author’s work post-humously. It’s just especially egregious to change a work when you aren’t the author because fundamentally any such editor is somebody who isn’t good enough to make their own classic but is arrogant enough to think they can improve an existing one. People see how people are abusing their legal right to something that’s part of the culture in the interest of their own greed and narcissism and see that as particularly egregious.
- polotics 4y agoWell come on it's not a big story, it is a "fat" story obviously... The disconnect between the reality of kids being subjected to shaming like never before thanks to social media, and the desire to remove the word "fat" and replace it by "enormous", makes my head spin. So this is a fat story because it teaches that hiding issues behind euphemism is the way, instead of confronting problems and helping fat people turn into fit ones...
- faeriechangling 4y agoI don't much care if people don't want to read stories where fat children are put into humiliating situations and portrayed as greedy animalistic cretin's, but the correct solution is to not read the book, not to have some hack edit it. Many fine and underrated children's books have come out since 1964 which are smothered by the popularity of a few classics which arguably teach children the wrong lessons. It's fine to not want to read such a book or read such a book to children. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is rather mean and dark for a children's book, that's a huge part of the appeal, I would just prefer a mean dark book to remain a mean dark book instead of trying to water down the story to cash in on it's existing commercial value while trying to make it blander and tolerable by more audiences. It's hardly just Augustus Gloop who is treated in a cruel way either, it's just that he by far seems to be getting the most sympathy from the editors, but the book doesn't really teach one to be kind to say... rich spoilt children either. Changes like “But Augustus was deaf to everything except the call of his enormous stomach” to “But Augustus was ignoring everything” takes the punch and wit out of the story while not actually making it so children can't read between the lines. You're replacing a line that'll make children laugh at a fat character with one that just won't make them laugh at all and calling it an improvement.
- JohnFen 4y ago> the correct solution is to not read the book, not to have some hack edit it. I'd even be OK with the existence of a hacked-up version, as long as it was made clear that it was a derivative work and not the original.
- JohnFen 4y agoChanging the work of an author and passing it off as the author's work is despicable and, I think, harmful. The extent of the changes don't alter the principle. At the very least, it's lying. If this is accepted practice, it means we can no longer trust that just because a work has the same title and author listed, that it's what the author actually wrote. It means that if you want to read the author's work, you can't just buy it. You'll have to engage in research to see if it had been altered at some point and identify when the alteration happened so that you can know which printings really reflect the author's intentions.
- lern_too_spel 4y agoPublishers frequently make changes in subsequent printings unless the author explicitly require that they do not. The authors are generally OK with whatever the publisher thinks makes the most money. https://www.hp-lexicon.org/differences-changes-text/ https://www.hp-lexicon.org/differences-changes-text/ The subsequent changes to the Harry Potter books, made both by the author and by the publisher, are not clearly marked.
- JohnFen 4y ago> The authors are generally OK with whatever the publisher thinks makes the most money. Which means that it is done with the author's permission. That's fair.
- sys32768 4y agoObligatory 1984 quote: >Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- someNameIG 4y agoI really don't know why anyone thought this would be a good idea. Even in very left and "woke" circles I've seen very little support of this.
- prepend 4y agoThe company will make more money this way. I’m guess Dahl books were selling less due to some groups not wanting to read about fat characters and whatnot so the estate and publisher wanted to make more money and stay on those reading lists. Dahl has been dead for 30 years, it’s messed up that copyright is so long that his works have decades more until in public domain. I don’t think this is woke, this is monopoly copyright maximizing for profit. I’m sure if Michaelangelo’s David was under copyright, they would add on a fig leaf to maximize sales. I think the quote that the family of Dahl should be ashamed is most apt. The publisher is some lame company, but there’s some nephew or other relative somewhere that wanted 5% more profit and defaced their relative’s art for a bit more money.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoNo they wont, but they probably don’t care about making money if they paid for a committee of over-educated elite to suggest these changes in the first place.
- lern_too_spel 4y agoOf course they will. They'll sell out the old copies to the people who simply must have the fat Aunt Sponge and can no longer be sure to get it from the library, and then they'll get to sell the revised version to people who do not like the word "fat" but already have the old version. Neither of these groups would have purchased the book otherwise. On top of that, the publisher gets free publicity from living rent free in your head over an insignificant change that harms literally nobody. You're free to boycott the publisher, and everybody else is free to make fun of you for making a big deal out of a nothing burger. Hence, the culture wars continue.
- trieste92 4y ago
- earthboundkid 4y agoSurely Sunak could just buy the publisher and force them to change it back.
- version_five 4y agoIt's good to see real societal pushback against this kind of insanity, and I hope it spreads. A fun fact I remembered this morning - even in 1984, Kipling is allowed to remain in party sanctioned literature (albeit altered) I have been able to recall one possible ... indiscretion ... We were producing a definitive edition of the poems of Kipling. I allowed "God" to remain at the end of a line. This is Winston's colleague Ampleforth speculating as to why he was arrested. Orwell was an optimist as they say...
- skinnymuch 4y agoI wonder how Orwell would feel about Rishi Sunak. I’m sure a socialist bordering on anarchist who fought against the right wing in Spain’s civil war would think anything positive of UK’s current govt. Doubt he would want his work associated with what right wingers do.
- tonfreed 4y agoHe was also highly critical of the Soviets. I doubt he'd have a problem with agreeing on something with the other side of the aisle. IngSoc was even a socialist party, he was perfectly aware of the authoritarian streak in his own ideology. Hell, in Road to Wigan Pier he talked about how he understood why a lot of the people oppose socialism, even though he thought it'd be a no brainer to support it. He wasn't one of the poorly read, middling IQ graduates yelling about socialism we see out in force today.
- dTal 4y ago>IngSoc was even a socialist party, he was perfectly aware of the authoritarian streak in his own ideology. A nitpick here - Orwell didn't have static views. The Orwell who fought in the Spanish civil war was not the same Orwell as the one who wrote 1984 - 1984 reflected his disillusionment with the ideology.
- skinnymuch 4y agoNo it didn't. Orwell was always a socialist. He was a flawed leftie, but he was always a staunch leftist. 1984 was a mix of his problems with the Soviets and capitalism and right wing ideology. People shouldn't white wash Orwell.
- FrontierPsych 4y ago[flagged]
- linksnapzz 4y ago[flagged]
- FrontierPsych 4y agohmmm....should I censor and delete what I wrote? I didn't think I was redditing, but if everyone says to delete it, or change certain words to make it acceptable and non-redditish, then I'll have to change it. ....Oh, dang, I can't anymore, the edit/delete choice isn't there anymore. I was just going to delete it anyways, just for you. Can't. Oh well. What can ya do?
- linksnapzz 4y agoOh, I'd hate to have you delete or edit anything. It can stand as a learning experience. Remember that brevity is the soul of wit; and that biblical exegesis and hermeneutics are a area of study in their own right, and worthy of looking into if you're going to comment.
- pavlov 4y agoWhat stops you from publishing the version of the Bible or the Quran with your edits? Nothing. Maybe nobody wants to read it, but that’s your marketing problem. If copyright were shorter, we could similarly have Dahl in any number of edits and adaptations. And personally I don’t see any problem with that.
- FrontierPsych 4y agoNothing, but I would think that if popular sentiment was so big, and that all the major bible publishers changed a lot of the "holy" books, it's much different than if I did my own. Sure, Thomas Jefferson created his own, too. But that's not what the issue is. It's about every bible publisher changing the bible, and in the bible, it would be a LOT more that needs to be changed/deleted than in Dahl's books.
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y agoI would be perfectly happy if they wanted to release a separate, clearly labeled version of this book that is adjusted for modern politically correct tastes. The issue is when you rewrite history and pretend it had always been like that. That's in 1984 territory.
- mc32 4y agoI think the Bowdlers would be proud of what we see happening.
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y agoEverything old is new again.
- JohnFen 4y agoAlthough even when Thomas Bowdler bowdlerized Shakespeare, he made it clear his was a derivative work. He didn't try to pass it off as the way Shakespeare wrote it.
- Symbiote 4y agoWould you like the first edition, where the Oompa-Loompas in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are African pygmies, labelled differently to subsequent editions where they are white-skinned with golden hair?
- JohnFen 4y agoThat was a change Dahl himself willingly made, so I don't see a serious problem with the fact that the altered text wasn't labelled differently. It's his work, he can do with it whatever he likes and it remains his work. The "definitive" version is whatever the author says it is. It'd be a totally different thing if the change was made by others without his permission.
- skinnymuch 4y agoIf Rowling changed Harry Potter to Voldemort being a bad person only because he’s trans and so are all his allies…I wouldn’t support that as any version. I hope to god the world would be the same way.
- sorokod 4y agoI wonder what the future holds for CS Lewis and Narnia stories.
- switch007 4y agoTories just can't resist a wading in to a culture war. Anything to distract from the NI/Brexit shambles
- dTal 4y ago"Politician chimes in on the overwhelmingly more popular side of an internet pitchfork mob" Nothing to see here folks.
- arooaroo 4y agoA couple of things jump out: 1. Dahl had already made changes to the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The early editions had African pygmies as his free labour. I don’t think the world was “woke” back then. 2. This is being done by a corporate publishing house in order to maximise the revenue of one of its key IP assets. It’s not mandated by government/regulation; there is no viral social media furore or press campaign. It’s not censorship nor anything like 1984 where works are being revised and all traces of the previous version cease to exist.
- serf 4y ago> like 1984 where works are being revised and all traces of the previous version cease to exist. in our e-book future that's simply not the case; older editions or 'per-correction' editions are hard to find, and often-times impossible without resorting to pirate channels. This type of thing is already happening, but it's not raising red-flags for people because it's not being done in an overtly malicious way as in '1984', it's being normalized via things like electronic-only distribution of media, and it's being explained and OK'd via 'corporate revenue' as an excuse -- but what's really happening is that older media is being thrown away at an alarming rate, and not only for the sake of correctness or moral balancing.
- catiopatio 4y ago1. The author changing his own work is in no way comparable to posthumously changing an author’s work. 2. How is this material? You don’t know the motivations of the people making this change, and there’s no evidence that editing via “sensitivity readers” actually increases revenue. There is, however, plenty of evidence of the ideological basis for these types of actions. As for censorship ala 1984? The previous version will no longer be sold and will gradually disappear, and for new readers, the previous version will have effectively ceased to exist. Never mind the potential automatic updating of ebooks.
- dTal 4y agoRegarding 2 - I think we need to regard these things with a holistic eye on centralization in general, rather than narrowly focusing on government / not government. True, government didn't order the change - however, government does forbid acquiring a copy from anyone except this single entity, through copyright law. The practical effect is the same - a small and unelected entity gets to unilaterally fiddle with shared culture, and I can't legally obtain or distribute an unmolested copy. That's censorship. Really, the core issue is copyright law again. There comes a point where something is so enmeshed in our culture that it can't be said to be "owned" by anyone anymore.
- NoPicklez 4y agoIf I (Netflix) purchased a book brand, which is what Roald Dahl is and I wanted to make a TV series about it, which would likely push kids into reading those books. It does make sense to me that I might want to modify aspects of the books to make them fit for today and potentially remove things that would be considered offensive in today's world. This is simply a company trying to maximise their revenue from their purchase by taking a brand and fitting it into today's world. This isn't some government conspiracy to suppress thought or push an agenda. To me it's not too dissimilar from movies doing remakes and changing the narrative, character and language used. I myself, would prefer the originals to be reproduced so that they remain Dahl's stories.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- trieste92 4y agoSeeing a bunch of people here saying Penguin is "perfectly within their rights" to do this Likewise, the government is perfectly within their rights to punish Penguin for other, unrelated monopolistic behavior For any other book, how do you know that Penguin hasn't "corrected" it? A publishing company with this little regard for historical accuracy doesn't deserve to exist