Roald Dahl Children's Books Being Rewritten

[Pjama]

Originally Posted by meeera

My reaction pretty much boils down to "not my circus, not my monkeys". The rights-holders have probably decided they'd sell more books when they put out the edited editiions - probably some more books to (for example) some schools who may have decided they prefer the updated editions, and some more to the people who are so outraged that they'll go buy a whole set of the old ones just to say they did. (If you don't already have the set, were you really that big a fan?)

Yes, I already had most of them in the house already. This pushed me into getting the complete set. (ETA. It just struck me this is a forum about ebooks, so the above comment is doubly strange. Most books I buy are electronic. Weird…. And time to stop thinking about this comment for me.)

It’s incredible how the most innocuous comments on this most innocuous of forums brings out preposterous replies such as this.

And one day it will be your circus and your monkeys, but you will have already given in.

[Ned]

Originally Posted by Pjama

And one day it will be your circus and your monkeys, but you will have already given in.

That's what it's all about.
They push, you try to see their side, and compromise.
They push again. You give some more.
And again, till you have nothing left to give.


Extremists beat regular people every time.

[Pjama]

Pretty funny timing that the package with my box set has just been delivered! I hope this editing fiasco has not set a precedent. I really don't want to go back to paper books.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Pjama

It’s incredible how the most innocuous comments on this most innocuous of forums brings out preposterous replies such as this.

I was thinking the same thing. Except I was thinking it the other way 'round.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by meeera

The rights-holders have probably decided they'd sell more books when they put out the edited editiions - probably some more books to (for example) some schools who may have decided they prefer the updated editions, and some more to the people who are so outraged that they'll go buy a whole set of the old ones just to say they did.

Sounds reasonable, and could be absolutely correct, but I'm wondering.

How much of the revenue from Roald Dahl copyrights is for books as opposed to derivative works like movies and cartoons? And where did the Netflix executives who paid, over several years, almost US$2 billion for the copyrights, think there is the most possibility of future revenue? And what is the revenue stream they worry about? Books? Really?

Perhaps they either thought it business sense to bring the books into alignment with upcoming cartoons, or decided to send their scriptwriters a message, through the revised books, as to what is acceptable in future Netflix productions.

[gmw]

ABC Australia had this article today: Revisions to Roald Dahl's books stokes anger about censorship, but authors say change is justified.

The headline is a bit misleading, as the authors give a rather more nuanced response.

Will Kostakis notes that it has happened before:

"[...] British author Enid Blyton's books have also been subject to changes.

"Those books were quietly edited over the course of years, sometimes not quietly," Kostakis told ABC News.

In Blyton's The Magic Faraway Tree series, Fanny is now Frannie and cousin Dick is now cousin Rick.

Nobody told me that! No Fanny and no Dick? The world has ended! ... Seriously though, the original names give the stories some historical context, and unless you think modern readers have grown so obtuse as to not recognise that, then what is the possible justification? Anyway, back to Kostakis...

"I don't own my books anymore," Kostakis said.

"I've sold the rights to publish them to a publisher, and they can edit and tweak however they see fit. That's just the way that it works.

"No story remains static. And if we believe that, then we're kidding ourselves."

True enough, I guess, sort of, close enough, but I think it misses the historical aspect to Dahl's works. At the time a story is first being published it seems appropriate that it be edited and manipulated to best achieve the desired effect (sell books, make a statement or whatever). I think that one of the issues with Doald Dahl's stories is that they have accumulated significant history which includes a context you risk destroying or obscuring by applying edits that are centred around social acceptance rather than modern understanding. Do we really want to white-wash the past? (Well, I guess maybe some do.)

Kostakis goes on to talk about "writing out of my experience", but that's a whole other argument I won't start here.


Jackie French offers various examples as to why changes might be considered acceptable, but noted some changes to an American edition of one of her books that changed the essential nature of the character:

French said she's "worried" about those changes.

"That showed a very deliberate kind of change. We know life is not like that. But we're going to pretend to children and to adults that life is like that.

"And I think that is a very, very dangerous belief for readers, whether they are four years old, or 40 or 104, we should read what life is really about, not what we'd like it to be like."

It may be dangerous, or it may simply be stupid and presumptive and be a way to turn readers away by being overly condescending. One thing I found difficult as a writer was to learn to trust the reader - I'm still learning it. What I fear about some of the edits being described is that we are losing that trust. We are being patronising and dismissive, and that's not a good thing.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by meeera

My reaction pretty much boils down to "not my circus, not my monkeys". The rights-holders have probably decided they'd sell more books when they put out the edited editiions - probably some more books to (for example) some schools who may have decided they prefer the updated editions, and some more to the people who are so outraged that they'll go buy a whole set of the old ones just to say they did. (If you don't already have the set, were you really that big a fan?)

They are selling more books. books are selling before the castrated versions are the only ones available.

[haertig]

This kind of reminds me of the battles back when they started colorizing old B&W movies. The outcry against it faded over time as they found that most people simply did not care one way or the other. And weren't watching many of the old movies in the first place.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Pjama

And one day it will be your circus and your monkeys, but you will have already given in.

If the rights holders of my books are editing my books after my death... I'll be dead.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by meeera

If the rights holders of my books are editing my books after my death... I'll be dead.

You could add a 'I will Haunt you' clause to your rights contracts.

[Quoth]

And my ghost writers will also haunt you!

Sorry couldn't resist. Leslie Charteris (The Saint /Simon Templar books) employed ghost writers for years after he became successful). OTOH, Laura Lee Hope, Carolyn Keene and Franklin Dixon were not ever real. People suspected Enid Bylton, but she was just a fast typist that could do a story as fast as she could type (portable on a board on across her knees outdoors when possible).

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by Pjama

Pretty funny timing that the package with my box set has just been delivered! I hope this editing fiasco has not set a precedent. I really don't want to go back to paper books.

The whole editing thing has gone on for years with paper books. Occasionally one might see some statement about text being completely unabridged and original, but that is rare!

What is not rare is ongoing edits for one reason or another. Sometimes, the edits are improvements. Perhaps a too favorite word or phrase of the author's appeared a few too many times, becoming increasingly annoying and got re-written slightly.

Most times, it's just changes to modernize language, maybe replace something like "bunk house" with the compound "bunkhouse." In some instances, particularly children's books, it's to dumb them down, simplify, or shorten. One of my old childhood books was purchased as an ebook, only to find that "fedora," used several times in the original, was now a generic "hat," ugh!

These days, seems most changes are to cater to "sensitive groups" of various sorts. Double ugh!

So if you do go back to paper books, look for early editions!

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by haertig

This kind of reminds me of the battles back when they started colorizing old B&W movies. The outcry against it faded over time as they found that most people simply did not care one way or the other. And weren't watching many of the old movies in the first place.

I've always cared. If I can, when watching old movies (which I do like to do occasionally, I try to find the B&W version. But if I can't, I don't stress over it.

But yeah, I suppose most folks neither watch old movies or read public domain classics. I'm the proverbial fuddy-duddy, I guess.

I really hate 3-D movies and will not bother with them at all.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by graycyn

I've always cared. If I can, when watching old movies (which I do like to do occasionally, I try to find the B&W version. But if I can't, I don't stress over it.

I watch old movies all the time and didn't know they were still colorizing movies, aside from PD stuff like Little Shop of Horrors and Night of the Living Dead.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by graycyn

The whole editing thing has gone on for years with paper books. Occasionally one might see some statement about text being completely unabridged and original, but that is rare!

Yeah, but editing for typos, grammar, timeline mistakes, etc., is not the same as editing out the "flavor" of a character or characters.

One good thing that has come out of this, for me, is that I found out who wrote the original story for one of my favorite family movies, Matilda (1996 version). I just assumed someone wrote an original script for the movie. Now I was able to borrow the original book from the library and I'm enjoying reading it.

This brings up another issue. Amazon has (in the past) automatically exchanged the book I bought with later editions. If I depended on Amazon (and didn't remove DRM from my books) could I now expect my books to be drastically "re-engineered" by the "clean up" committees? In other words, if I bought the original version of Matilda, would they automatically replace it with the new Netflix version at some future date? I wouldn't be very happy about that.