“Roald Dahl’s wonderful words can transport you to different worlds and introduce you to the most wonderful characters. As this book was written many years ago, we regularly review the language to ensure it can continue to enjoyed by everyone today”: such is the discreet notice at the bottom of the copyright page of the latest editions of Roald Dahl’s books released in their original language by the British publisher Puffin Books.
Many references to weight, mental health and ethnicity have effectively been redacted or rewritten, scenes deemed too violent cut, many negative qualifiers for the fairer sex deleted and various notions linked to the traditional vision of gender rewritten, if is indignant on Friday the conservative daily Daily Telegraph, which listed “hundreds of changes” in the stories of the famous author of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, “The Good Big Giant”, “The Magic Potion of Georges Bouillon” or even ” Matilda”, died in 1990.
Less violent, less divisive, less gendered
Roald Dahl, Matilda [DR]
Among other examples, the term “fat” is no longer used to describe Augustus Gloop of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, and the Oompa-Loompas are featured in much less detail. In “Sacred Witches”, “a flock of ladies” is replaced by a “group”. “He needs to go on a diet” (he has to go on a diet), he goes by the wayside. In “Matilda”, Agatha Legourdin’s “great horsey face” becomes simply a face, and a reference to Rudyard Kipling has been replaced with one to Jane Austen.
In “Les Deux Gredins”, the “weird african language” is no longer bizarre, and Commère Gredin is no longer “ugly and beasty” (ugly and bestial), but simply bestial. In “A Turtle’s Love”, where “turtles are very backward creatures. Therefore, they can only understand words written backwards”, only the second sentence (“turtles can only understand words written upside down”) is retained, to the detriment of meaning.
The film adaptation of The Good Big Giant. [Walt Disney – AFP]
In “Le Bon Gros Géant”, there is no longer any question of printing the sentence “No giant eats Greeks, ever. Why not? asked Sophie. The Greeks of Greece all have a taste of fat, says the giant”. No more than the one presenting the Japanese, in the eyes of the giants at snack time, as “very small beans, so a giant will have to swallow about six Japanese beans before feeling full. Others, like the Norwegians and the Yankee-Doodles, are much bigger and two or three of them usually do the job”.
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Working together with a collective for inclusion
These changes are “reduced and carefully considered”, defended a spokesperson for the Roald Dahl Story company, who says he has worked with Inclusive Minds, a collective for the inclusion and accessibility of children’s literature. The review was launched in 2020, before the 2021 acquisition by Netflix of the author’s catalog.
“When reprinting books written years ago, it’s not unusual to review the language used and update other things like the cover and layout,” the doorkeeper continued. -word of the Roald Dahl Company. And to raise their desire to keep, according to them, the story, the characters, and “the irreverence and the sharp spirit of the original text”.
“Absurd censorship” for Salman Rushdie
“Roald Dahl was no angel”, reacted on Twitter the British writer Salman Rushdie, icon of freedom of expression and victim of a violent attack six months ago, “but it’s censorship Absurd. Puffin Books and Roald Dahl’s heirs should be ashamed.”
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Suzanne Nossel, the patron of PEN America, an organization bringing together 7,000 writers for freedom of expression, judged that “selective editing to make the words of literature conform to particular sensibilities could represent a dangerous new weapon” .
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the words should be “preserved” rather than “retouched”, his spokesman said Monday during a regular press briefing. “If Dahl offends us, let’s not reprint it,” writer Philip Pullman told the BBC on Monday.
A provocative author
“Roald Dahl has a very appetizing provocative touch,” Nadina Radeva Girod, a fan of Roald Dahl, told RTS in 2016, English teacher at the Voltaire College in Geneva.
Roald Dahl is not afraid to confront children with trauma, death, cruelty.
“He is a magician who has the art of always surprising us, even after several readings. His little heroes, like Matilda or Charlie, break the rules of behavior in society”.
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Vincent Cherpillod with the ats and the Daily Telegraph