zlacker

>>GavCo+(OP)
Wow. This is so gross. I was a bit put out by the Dr. Seuss controversy a few years back, but at least in those cases, they just stopped printing the books (and, to be fair, the caricatures of various ethnic groups in If I Ran The Zoo are pretty bad).

It feels much more disturbing, though, to just silently update the language in the books to be more in line with modern sensibilities. Dahl was a man of his time, and as a general rule his books have good morals and values exhibited in them. They are perfect children's books, not afraid to dip into a little darkness or to poke fun at the adults who run the world, and that's a huge part of why they've been so successful and universally loved.

The mental attitude and sense of self-superiority it must take to feel comfortable taking the knife to something so well loved is really mind-boggling to me. I am very happy that I bought our collection of Dahl's books before this happened.

>>agentw+em
Perhaps they shouldn't silently update the new editions but... "Dahl was a man of his time" is a weak argument when millions of his contemporaries - also of his time, were aware of, and actively fighting, anti-semitism. He had access to the same information they had and made his choice. So he should be judged for it.

>>Sporkt+Y41
I must admit I'd never heard about his anti-Semitism until today. I looked it up and, well, his statements pretty much leave nothing to the imagination on that front. Shitty, to be sure, no argument from me.

Still, as a kid who read his books repeatedly, and as someone who has read most of them to my kids in the last few years, I feel comfortable stating that this anti-Semitic tendency doesn't come through on his work.

There might be room for arguments that other prejudices do come through. The Oompa-Loompas are definitely a little... problematic. And some of the language around women in The Witches hits the ear a bit oddly today.

When I say "he was a man of his time" I don't mean to excuse everything he said or wrote. I suppose maybe that's a junky phrase that kind of dodges what I actually mean, which is something like "he was who he was, and we should talk about what we find objectionable about him instead of papering it over."

There's also something funny about changing his writing in light of some of the worst things he had to say... By the same logic of the edits, maybe we should change the quotes where he expressed antisemitism to make them more palatable. (I'm being facetious obviously, but there is something worth thinking about in why one feels more reasonable than the other).