Dahls and Don'ts

[steepholm]

Well, no one's been asking my opinion of the latest Roald Dahl controversy, so here it is. Or rather, here they are, for I have several.

First, context. Here's a link to the original Telegraph article, which lists all the emendations. Let's just acknowledge that the whole issue has been very consciously taken up by the Tory press as a culture-war

Comments

[callmemadam]

I see that Philip Pullman weighed in, saying that Dahl should be allowed to 'fade away' rather than be changed. Fading away seems unlikely for such a popular author (not with me), although my daughter, being exactly the right age for them at the right time, read them all. I noticed that she didn't keep any, though, so obviously not favourites

[pinstripe_bindi]

I don't have super-strong opinions about it either, especially since it's something that the estate did, likely (as you said) so they could continue to make money off the property. It's funny that the conservatives who are most opposed to it are also ferociously in favor of the "free market". But ideally, only changes like changing the sanitary napkin "belt" system to the modern adhesive style in Judy Blume's Are You There God, It's Me Margaret would be made. I read it in the mid-1980s, before they did so, and was completely baffled at what was being described.

[wellinghall]

I remember being vaguely puzzled at age ?12 that Biggles, who was clearly a grown-up, would regularly risk his life for the chance of a case of lemonade; then reading, much later, that this had been changed from whisky in the early editions.

[steepholm]

They could have gone for a crate of beer, at least!

[intertext]

I never could stand Roald Dahl, even before I found out what an unsavoury person he was. I think my chief hate on him was after taking all credit for nursing Patricia Neal back to health after her stroke, taking off with her nurse, but that was when I was a teenager and before I knew about his racism etc. Interestingly, although my mother was, on the whole, wonderfully non-pressure about my reading material, the two authors she didn't like me reading were Blyton and Dahl. She said she could never read me the Noddy books when I was a very young child because they were so awful, but she did buy me one or two of the Adventure books when I got into those.

So, I think I side with Philip Pullman, in the idea that they should be allowed to die gracefully. It seems clear that the cleaning up is a marketing ploy to make them more palatable to current readers, especially now he's getting a Netflix series and all sorts. tbh, I'm not sure they're worth it.

[howlin_wolf_66]

It's a complicated issue and this is a reasoned post... Although I tend to lean towards the view that 'censorship' is bad - I can't bring myself to get TOO outraged about this, as the original editions will still be available, for those who want them ...

You might have to search a bit harder - but such is the way for ALL things that one intensely covets!