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.
Everyone is a product of their time. People apparently need to be told this now.
There have been thousands upon thousands upon thousands of children's books written in the last sixty years. Leave the classics the fuck alone, especially when the authors are unable to defend their work.
People act like this is the end of Dahls legacy, yet his stories have probably been discussed more in the past 24 hours than the past few years combined.
I recommend the book Graveyard clay on the death on languages, and how the dead are still as chatty as the living- in many ways the dead are harder to silence.