Except, of course, that all of the works you mention are in the public domain, which means that the unbowdlerized versions are freely available. In any reasonable non-corporately-dictated definition of copyright, Dahl’s work would either be already PD or pending within a reasonably time, instead of 2060.
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If only we hadn’t burned all of the existing copies of Roald Dahl’s books that contain the original language!
Wait, what’s that you say?
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I never knew that until now as I probably read later versions of the book that Dahl either made or approved himself. I’m happy that Dahl made that decision, but I also don’t want those types of decisions made for an author in the future by others.
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Oh, but part of the deal when you are allowed to maintain copyright for years past your death is that the copyright belongs to your estate. They can do whatever they want with it.
ETA: and of course once it’s entered the public domain anyone is free to add zombies to it
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And if copyright ended with the death of the creator, the whole world could do what they wanted to with it.
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Your timing is perfect I had just edited The Post to mention that! In the most sarcastic way possible!
We discussed that one way back in 2011:
(It was actually pretty amazing how a simple replacement of the n-word with “robot” worked in that context. And, of course, since the original is in public domain and widely available, no claims can be made about that edition erasing history.)
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What would be left if you took all the archaic language out of Moby Dick?
I always struggled with Conrad, so this is a genuine question: was he a colonialist? I was always under the impression that Heart of Darkness was a criticism of colonialism, rather than an apology for it. But I don’t think I ever finished it (and, of course, it was hardly his only work).
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Yes, that’s how I’ve interpreted it anyway. And you can always watch Apocalypse Now which is basically the same story transposed to the Vietnam War where the anticolonial subtext is made more blatant.
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If Dahl had been hit by a bus in 1971 I’d say his publisher and estate still should have made the change.
The problem with the new revisions is that they suck.
The changes that I saw seemed pretty minor, both unobjectionable but also kind of pointless. Like if the whole point was to gin up controversy in the hopes of more book sales, rather than any actual purpose.
I didn’t go tracking down all the changes, so it’s likely I only saw the ones singled out for being the “most absurd” but take changing the description of Augustus Gloop from “enormously fat” to “enormous.” Do they think kids won’t know what that means? The entire point of that character is that he is gluttonous and therefore bad. If your goal is to avoid body shaming and fat phobia, you are going to need to completely rewrite or remove that character not just change the wording.
On a tangentially related note, I feel like some of this is a problem with our current general attitude of copyright maximalisim. The idea that a work of art has to be one way and unchanging for all time wouldn’t even exist if his works were out of copyright and anyone was free to create new versions, mashups, and other derivative works without anyone’s permission. That’s the way for something really worth saving to keep modern and stay part of our culture.
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Anyone here remember a short story called “The Midnight Visitor” by one Robert Arthur? I remember we covered it in fourth grade. The protagonist, one Mr. Ausable, was described as fat and we were assigned to draw him. The results were predictable and, in retrospect, kind of sad. But then, there wasn’t much else in the story to fall upon. A rather curious exercise on the whole. Such was elementary school.
Anyway, previously:
Replete with cannibalism, explosive gas, and inspiring nightmares, it is hard to believe that anyone thought The BFG was appropriate for children, other than a sixth sense that it was something anyone might enjoy.
On the whole, Roxburgh’s editorial advice was more up Dahl’s alley. He knew how to approach Dahl - like a tenured elder - and Dahl incorporated his substantial rewrites of the book’s dialogue verbatim.
I distinctly recall reading The BFG in my youth and thinking that there were some dramatic tonal shifts in the text, especially compared to his older work.
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Well, a criticism of colonialism that has racism as a counter theme to the anti-colonialism.
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Ah. I do seem to recall, from what I read of it, that the criticism was concerned more with the effects of colonialism on the colonisers than on the mostly anonymous and faceless colonised.
(Got a similar vibe from what I saw of Apocalypse Now, come to think of it.)
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To be fair, there is some concern with the nasty effects on the colonized, but, yeah, the bulk of the concern seems to be how Africa corrupted that once noble Mr. Kurtz.
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Priorities.
Also I would argue that was always Kurtz, he just finally had the opportunity to show himself fully and without restraint
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That was done overa decade ago.
Oh? In the US it literally just means the plaster-like stuff for fixing holes in walls. Very common.
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i’m not quite sure what you mean about the bronte novels. jane eyre at least is pretty racist.
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