Hell, Augustus Gloop himself thinks it’s a dumb idea:
The best part of that article is that Augustus Gloop is described as “glutinous”.
The funniest thing about all this to me is that the reason this is being done isn’t out of some sense of propriety or duty to children, it’s just to sell more books. I saw someone online complaining about how they didn’t understand this decision and went on to say “If you don’t like the text as-is, don’t buy it and don’t read it” which makes me think they understand the problem better than they realize. This is exactly what’s already happening, because folks who don’t like the text as-is are already not buying it or reading it.
What do you suppose happens to books that nobody buys and nobody reads? And what do you suppose publishers will do to try and get people to buy and read those books again?
As a kid, I adored Dahl’s books, but as an adult, I re-read them and now all I could think was “agenda this, agenda that.”
I read a similar link.
Look Dahl had some strange and seemingly bigoted views. Sure, edit those out, like they did with the original Oopmas. But lets not get crazy.
Seemingly? Not saying I agree with with what the rights holders are doing, but seemingly?!
I don’t think there should be any question that he was a bigot, but the extent of his bigotry might be questioned. I believe much of the offensive content he had in his stories was unintentional, while at the same time he was obviously quite knowingly and unapologetically antisemitic.
Why not? They own the rights to the works, they can change them. George Lucas wants to change Star Wars? I don’t care (OMG, Greedo did not shoot first!). Neil Young wants to rerecord Mr. Soul using heavy synths? I don’t care (I actually love the version on Trans). If you are so against the reworking and want the original version, go buy it. It’s still out there.
Exactly so. They want to make some more money, so they are editing the books to make them more palatable to parents today. That’s all. How many of these people who are objecting have bought a Dahl book in the last few decades?
So the thing that makes this super sketchy, and should not be allowed, is that Ronald Dahl is dead, these works (with their problematic parts and all) are now part of the cultural fabric of society. The author can’t prevent this, move to a different publisher, or do anything register his displeasure.
Its completely ok for a publishing company to tell an author “take these problematic parts out of the manuscript or we aren’t publishing it”. It would infringe of the publishing company’s freedom of speech to force them to publish something they considered offensive.
But this is not that, this is someone who is not the author, changing a major piece of children’s literature after the author’s deaths. That is not acceptable. If they are not comfortable publishing it as is, the can simply let it go out of print.
It’s not acceptable to you; was it acceptable to Dahl? Did he sign a contract okaying this? If so, then he had a chance to prevent it, y’know, then.
I thought it was his children, those who now own the rights, who are doing this.
What about all the classical works transcribed into other languages, some with varying degrees of success? Should that be banned because the author is dead? Or, is it only off-limits until the copyright protection expires and then we don’t care what the author intended because they have been dead long enough?
Well, then, that seems fine, too, if that’s what Dahl done did.
Were you similarly outraged by Disney’s The Little Mermaid, given Hans Christian Andersen’s untimely death? Because they changed the crap out of that story.
What about Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Roald Dahl was far too dead to have meaningful input into those changes as well. Should the popo have come after Tim?
Dahl, as far as I understand, passed his copyrights on, in his will, to his heirs. As part of that, he passed to them the right to make decisions about future publications. They’re exercising that right, which he passed on to them.
Whether they’re exercising that right wisely is a matter for conversation; but I think it’s a very odd idea that it should be forbidden.
I am legitimately really surprised to have just now learned that Dahl died in 1990. I honestly thought he lived and died quite a bit longer ago than that.
Yeah, technically, I guess it is.
Hah! Oops, and thanks, and corrected.
Because, as I said, a lot of the changes simplify things and lose Dahl’s voice. I quoted the two examples where they actually wrote new stuff in Dahl’s style, and people seem to think that’s the norm. But it’s not. In fact, I believe that is the only such instance.
And it’s far from clear to me that the originals are still being printed. The article says these are the current (2022) printing. I’ve said before that I’m okay with altered versions as long as (1) they are clearly marked as altered and (2) the original is not suppressed. This already clearly fails (1).
Plus when I said that, I was often pilloried for accepting any censorship. That these things are part of the cultural canon and should not be altered. That at most there should be a disclaimer. No removing or even censoring the n-word in Huckleberry Finn, and only the original “Mammy” should be shown in Tom and Jerry.
And while I welcome a more nuanced position on this, it seems like some people are just switching extremes. I have to wonder if the fact that the right wing made these books part of their “culture war” has influenced people’s opinions.
I’d post some examples of the changes, but there are just so many. Is there any non-paywalled source that has the full list of changes?
Neither of these are remotely comparable as in both cases they are new modern works, created by a director or translator based on the original work. There is clearly a whole load of creative input and ideas that come from the modern day director or translator and have nothing to do with the original author. But that is absolutely fine as there is no sense in which they are replacing the original work and that is obvious to everyone who consumes them.
That is not the same as publishing a version of The Witches, that is “Ronald Dahl’s The Witches” purporting to the be the book the Ronald Dahl wrote in 1983, but in fact is not that book, it features some significant changes made after Ronald Dahl died. Someone buying that book in 2023 has no way of knowing that however (without cross referencing the edition number in the small print).