Dahling
The late Roald Dahl's publisher, Puffin, hired sensitivity readers to flap‑flap‑flap, and rewrite his works for a modern audience; presumably one of emotionally-fragile adults. And, thus, tiny minds at Inclusive Minds have gone through his collected works, excluding the unwords
and wrongthink
that triggered their butthurt detectors.
A spokesperson for the Roald Dahl Story Company stated: Our guiding principle throughout has been to maintain the storylines, characters, and the irreverence and sharp-edged spirit of the original text. Any changes made have been small and carefully considered.
Which suggests they either didn't understand the situation, or were blowing it outta their arse.
The problem here is not just one of politically-correct meddling; it's that Dahl chose his words very carefully, often for comedic effect. Changing them alters their meaning, and his creative expression, without his assent. It is, effectively, a work of cultural vandalism.
While sensitivity readers might excel in spotting double meanings and imagined slights, they show no understanding of how wordplay can be used to impart levity. In Matilda, for example, Her face, I’m afraid, was neither a thing of beauty nor a joy forever
has been replaced with Her face was not a thing of beauty
. The original humourously plays on Keats' Endymion; it's lyrical and witty, whilst its replacement is banal and clumsy in comparison. Similarly, the BFG's references to Eskimos as Esquimos
—because he mispronounces words, duh!—have been changed to Inuits, thereby erasing both the humour and the Yupik people in one stroke.
An emphasis on mental health has led to the removal of “crazy” and “mad”, which Dahl used frequently in comic fashion. A mention in Esio Trot of tortoises being “backward” - the joke behind the book’s title - has been excised.
Anita Singh and Ed Cumming, The Telegraph
And it's not just mental health that's of concern. It appears that describing Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as enormously fat
is insensitive, so now he's enormous
instead. I'm not sure how that's better for him, or the enormous members of the body positivity movement, but presumably Tess Holliday approves enormously.
Black and white are verboten. In The BFG, the giant's cloak is no longer black, while Mary now turns still as a statue
instead of white as a sheet
. The second of these actually changes the meaning, since white as a sheet
infers fear or shock, while still as a statue
does not. And I'm at a loss as to how a black cloak is offensive; now, if it were a blackshirt, I'd understand. (LOL)
The changes don't stop at colourful character descriptions. Genders have been neutralised; removed; or, in the case of Fantastic Mr Fox, his sons have gone full-fat trans and are now daughters…I'm not making this shit up, honest! I guess he should just be thankful that he's not the titular character in Fantastic Ms Fox.
Lest there were any doubt about the pedestrian thinking of Inclusive Minds, it's eliminated by their own prose.
Passages not written by Dahl have also been added. In The Witches, a paragraph explaining that witches are bald beneath their wigs ends with the new line: “There are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.”
Anita Singh and Ed Cumming, The Telegraph
Words truly fail me. (SMH)
The moral is clear: buy up all the literary works you treasure from your childhood before they too are butchered for a modern audience
. And, if they have any love for the rich tapestry of our language and culture, your children, and your children's children, will thank you later.
A full overview has been compiled by Ed Cumming; Abigail Buchanan; Genevieve Holl-Allen; and Benedict Smith for The Telegraph. It has to be read to be disbelieved. Some of the changes are so trite as to suggest that the service was billed by the hour, or word count. Among other trivialities, I'm curious as to why owch
[sic] should give way to ugh
. (confused)
I've never read Matlida. Nevertheless, I was saddened to find that this description of Mrs Wormwood has been expunged: She wore heavy make-up and had one of those unfortunate bulging figures where the flesh appears to be strapped in all around the body to prevent it from falling out.
It's regrettable that modern audiences will never get to appreciate it.
Whether the Yupik/Yup'ik peoples are Inuit or a separate division within the Eskimo-Aleut family is debatable, and I could find no authoritative citation. So, I decided to go with the Wackypeedeeya definition: that they are related to the Inuit and Iñupiat. Whether or not Eskimo
is offensive is also contentious, and not universally-accepted. Still, I think that Inclusive Minds could've given more consideration to Dahl's ideas by misspelling Inuit.
Poet and author Debjani Chatterjee offers her opinion, although she seems to know not of what she speaks:
She told the BBC World Service: "I think it's been done quite sensitively. Take the word 'fat'. They've used 'enormous'. If anything, I actually think 'enormous' is even funnier."
Paul Glynn and Ian Youngs, BBC News
According to Cumming et al. over at The Telegraph, the original description of Augustus Gloop was actually enormously fat
. So the funnier
was already there to begin with; the censors didn't increase the funny. You'd think that a poet would get it. (rolleyes)
In a rare moment of corporate-cultural sanity, Penguin, which owns Puffin, has backtracked on its butchery of Dahl's work. The publisher will continue to sell his books in their original form as The Roald Dahl Classic Collection
, alongside the bastardised versions.
I have no idea how the two are to be distingished, unless the covers are emblazoned with The Roald Dahl Classic Collection
, and customers are aware of the implication. It might be clearer if Inclusive Minds' sodomisations were similarly adorned: The Triggered Snowflake Collection
. So it probably comes down to caveat emptor.
And in an even rarer moment, I find myself agreeing with a member of the royal family. Specifically, a statement made yesterday, by the Queen Consort to an audience of writers and publishers: Please remain true to your calling, unimpeded by those who may wish to curb the freedom of your expression or impose limits on your imagination.
Indeed.