I'm normally sympathetic to 'wokeisms' but this sickens me. A lot of the value of reading is in learning to expand your mind, expand your perceptive. Take in the book, read it, make your own decisions on how to process it and how to feel about it. This is flat-out reducing stories so that nobody learns anything more than what they already know.
I've got plenty of issues with modern literature written to confirm the readers opinions rather than challenge them. Reducing books from the past to fit the same modern views just history-washing. Let us all naively believe that all authors in the past have our same identical values so we are never challenged to look beyond them.
It's revolting and frightening. No one is ever going to learn anything outside of their narrow world view if this trend continues, and I have a bad feeling that it will. Who's next? C.S. Lewis? Tolkien? I wouldn't be a bit surprised.
I would truly be happier if these books got censored. Let them remain on the list of corrupting literature because at least then the bold reader can seek them out.
Nobody's first rodeo. Bowlderization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expurgation
This whole issue only exists because of a generation of people trained to fear criticism and to avoid anything that might attract it.
So this was a publicity stunt by the publisher? As far as anyone can tell, no one ever asked for these changes to be made in the first place
When they say original, do they mean just without this round of bowdlerization or really original?
Are people looking for the Oompa Loompas as African Pygmies from the original version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, before they were removed in the 1972 edition?
Dahl edited his own works in future editions. The 1964 Oompa Loompas were wildly racist caricatures that he was forced to eventually step back from.
https://groovyhistory.com/oompa-loompas-the-original-ones
There are a lot of wonderful things in his works that don't change because of minor edits to bring things in line with a modern zeitgeist.
I agree with that the books "should be allowed to fade away", not changed if people judge them to be offensive, as it's said in the article.
It doesn't sit right to me that there is someone owning the rights of the deceased author's work and should try to profit maximize the catalog. That is kind of what is happening here, trying to change the text to sell a slightly different book. It is their incentive to try to keep their sales alive, but it feels like an artificial thing. I guess I'm not used to how this particular sausage is made.
An edited edition seems mostly a copyright renewal stunt, possibly combined with an attempt to reach the censored library market.
We still don't know the answer to the most important question, IMHO: why?
This is a very funny situation because it's the result of the mental shortcircuit caused by fetishizing both the past and the present at the same time for economic reasons
Let's say that I believe that past authors are problematic. Ok, then why reprint their works? Why not print children stories from modern and more sensitive authors? The job of the publisher is not to keep history alive, it's to provide customers with a good selection of children's content.
On the other hand the publisher knows that these books are cherished by the general population and are indeed immortal classics. So it would be stupid not to print them and leave a good chunk of money on the table.
So here comes the contradiction: we need to publish this author because we want the money, but at the same time we don't agree with him. The solution? Editorialize his works, not with footnotes but by destructively changing the verbiage of the stories! This way we can both get rich and alter history to our liking!
Before long we'll have AI 'sensitivity readers' to purify digital content in real-time.
I read recently a sensible comment on the situation that it was the publisher that decided to do the changes because parents were increasingly uncomfortable with it, thus long term unwilling to buy them. That they're backing out now is kind of a confirmation. I read Charlie and the chocolate factory with my son a couple years ago and, um, did not have a recollection of Oompa Loompas which were basically little slaves. I was fond of the book as a child, but some parts haven't aged well.
Speaking of Oompa Loompas, they were even originally tiny black people, but Dahl changed them to white himself in a later revision.
Forget picking on one particular line and let's talk about the pages of racist caricatures in Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator…
https://www.resetera.com/threads/so%E2%80%A6-willy-wonka-and...
like the oompa loompas aren't just a whoopsie, didn't realize that was racist thing. dude said some racist grandpa shit, there's no beating around the bush on that one lol... and boy he had some thoughts on the jews too... in 1983.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20160912-the-dark-side...
(stolen from down-thread:) https://groovyhistory.com/oompa-loompas-the-original-ones/2
so like yeah this is basically the "difficult literature from 50 years ago" question. Dude was kind of a racist and wrote some shit that would be pretty offensive to write today. On the other hand it's also good entertaining literature that's beloved by a lot of kids, minus some offensive pages and occasional themes. what do you do with that? answers vary - don't teach it, edit it to tone down a few things, or just teach it unfiltered with some flavor of "yeah, product of its time"?
I guess I personally fall into the "teach it as a product of its time" camp but I'm also not the one personally affected either, and over time it may fall more and more out of favor as sentiments on casual racism change, I'm sure there was a "teach it as a product of its time" for huck finn too and nowadays ehhhhhhh maybe we just find a better example for english lit. And that's really the danger if you don't want to tone it down (which, I'm not saying that's a good idea either), that it just falls into obscurity over time as people decide "nah african pygmies are a little too racist for 2050".
Besides being Orwellian, is this also a sneaky way to extend the copyrights?
I firmly believe social media is the cause to this even being considered. If words in a book offend you, don't read the book. Don't subject others to your limited world-view.
People should be exposed to all types of views on things, so they can better empathise with other people.
The original versions will be preserved on places like Library Genesis and similar electronic archives forever. They can try to hide the past, they can try to rewrite history but they will fail.
Score one for Library Genesis (et al.), -1 for these rewriters of history (et al.).
The market for used pre-2010 physical books will be huge.
Personally I've stopped buying online books because of this kind of shenanigans and reverting back to having local music and movies for similar reasons.
The idea that some remote working technocrats can change words of a book while I'm reading it just creeps me out.
This is all so double plus ungood.
Wow, that’s much faster than I expected.
> Words including "fat" and "ugly" were removed after being reviewed by sensitivity readers, who check for potentially offensive content.
What a fragile Society.
Ridiculous! What is the next? A revised version of Mein Kampf?
lol, the whole thing was a marketing op. Anyone looking for a deeper reason is lying to himself.
Damn fat ugly motherfucker. Sorry, I meant unattractive, average body-type mother lover.
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And the marketing stunt proceeded exactly as planned!
I think this is sensible. You have two markets one that is willing to read the original and one that prefers bowdlerized versions of works.
Music (used to?) do something like this. One version for Al Gore’s PMRC and one version for everyone else.
So long as the original is also available, why not?
To be more clear, here is a quote from another article
> The company said it would publish 17 of the author's books in their original form as The Roald Dahl Classic Collection along with the planned edited versions so "readers will be free to choose which version of Dahl's stories they prefer."
To me, it feels like a way to quell anger but still proceed forward and possibly even make money. I bet that the “classic” editions will be quietly discontinued in a few years.