But the Roald Dahl Story Company said “it’s not unusual to review the language” during a new print run and any changes were “small and carefully considered”.
So, Roald Dahl's family and the company they still control are perfectly happy with this. Why aren't we?
If you look at the actual changes, the careful consideration resulted in aesthetic atrocities, reverting the punchy use of language that makes Dahl's work so wonderful and entertaining.
People are outraged because the actions are outrageous. I reject the notion that I shouldn't be upset.
Or the plot of Esio Trot which is a guy tricking his downstairs neighbor into falling in love with him by swapping out her pet every few weeks with a larger one?
Or the whole plot of George’s Marvelous Medicine which is a boy who mixes up a potion with everything he can find in his house, and feeds it to his nasty grandmother?
He’s got a whole lot of crazy stuff, and I can only speak of things I’ve read to my kids recently.
> Unsurprisingly given The Witches’ subject matter, many of the edits are to do with depictions of women. “Chambermaid” becomes “cleaner”. “Great flock of ladies” becomes “great group of ladies”. “You must be mad, woman!” becomes “You must be out of your mind!” “The old hag” becomes “the old crow”
There is some removing of fat as insult. There is that too. But pretty much all changes in above paragraph sound better then old ones.
This is the first time I heard of this kind of language 'update'. That's not normal.
Shakespeare is genuinely hard to read and understand but we don't just change random phrases and words to match modern sensibilities. Even modern English translation will keep the original for reference.
>As presented it is just designed to generate outrage,
Because it is outrageous.
> So, Roald Dahl's family and the company they still control are perfectly happy with this. Why aren't we?
If I'm reading a book by Dahl I want to read it as he intended. If you read the article you'll see how idiotic the changes are and how they literally change the meaning of the passages when considered "problematic".
They can write their own books if they want.
Censorship sucks generally. Stop flame baiting.
I'm guessing you've never met an English person then. Your grammar suggests this to be the case.