It was done so poorly that this thought had already crossed my mind. A bunch of the changes were obviously unnecessary by any standard, and they didn't even pay attention to things like meter when editing poems.
I'm not even necessarily against this (we do this to kids' literature all the time and basically always have—as longs as the originals can still be had, not a big deal) but this was so lazy and awful that it's hard to believe they were serious—this was straight-up an illiterate editing effort.
It was a real initiative using a real company which specialises in this. They just aren't very good at preserving the intent of the author and the nuance of the text. Which is exactly what we should expect of any censor.
In France, nobody asked for dumbed down versions of books, yet the publishers rewrote many of them removing subjunctive mood and past simple over the last 15years.
Worse, most kid, young teenager books are using a "simplified" grammar and vocabulary.
Unless exception, one needs to reach translated books to get a normal grammar and vocabulary.
All that to say I am actually surprised they went back on their announce.
The US version of this is the shift of juvenile and young-adult literature to the first-person POV, which has been so complete that kids coming up now find the third-person off-putting and difficult to read.
Do you have sources for this or do you have personal experience with people affected? I haven't heard this before and I'd like to know more. Sounds strange to me that considering that most of the popular books I know of targeting that age group are 3rd-person perspective.
Writer Twitter/Blogosphere/Youtube (including publishers) where this trend's been much-remarked-upon for years, know some writers and what publishers/agents are saying to them, know some English teachers and what they say about juvi-fic and YA trends and kids' reactions.
If you want another sad-making observation, the teachers say teens are increasingly finding late-20th-century kids' books hard to read, because the language is too complex for them to follow—they're used to first-person with very simple sentences with redundancy for anything important (so it's harder to miss), and publishers are chasing simplicity/clarity-at-all-costs hard for fear of alienating any of their shrinking reader-base, which of course re-enforces that decline in ability to handle sentence- and paragraph-level complexity—even goes for "advanced" readers, I'm told. This part's been heading that way for a while, but I guess has gotten much worse fast over the last 5ish years.
Basically, the genres that people still read (YA and romance) are trending hard toward first-person and very simple language. If you write in third publishers and agents will either tell you to switch outright, or you'll get a lot of "seems too distant and impersonal" and such, which is just them asking for first person without saying it. Some get through anyway, especially from authors who got their start 10+ years ago and have more sway, but first is strongly preferred.
> the teachers say teens are increasingly finding late-20th-century kids' books hard to read
That doesn't surprise me at all, I'm sure 20th century teachers found the same trend in 20th century students trying to read 19th century books. It's a shame, but it is what it is. I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from this, except that we should do what we can to encourage kids to read the classics despite (or even because) of the difficulty.
I think what's so shocking is these books are already so damn simple—they weren't considered challenging to their target age group even 20 years ago—but they're still too complex for 'em. It's like if there are two clauses they can't keep the first one in their head long enough to make sense of the whole thing, and god forbid you need to track an idea across multiple sentences.
I have a suspicion that the trend dates back much earlier (60s? 70s?), and owes to de-emphasizing poetry in English classes, since reading poetry requires heavy tracking of complex context over long stretches of text, making even fairly-complex prose mostly seem easy by comparison. This may just be a continuation of that trend—kids' lit gradually getting simpler in response to declining literacy that is itself due to shifts in curriculum focus, causing an ongoing, further decline.
You may be right, but I'm not convinced. I believe many Jules Verne novels were once considered "young adult" fare, but (in the original unabridged forms) became challenging for young adult readers in the 20th century. I think natural drifts in language are a major factor in this. The stories and characters are generally simple, but the texts themselves become more challenging as time passes.
Or take Shakespeare for example; he wrote for the unwashed masses yet his writings are considered sophisticated and challenging today. I have an anthology of English renaissance drama from various playwrights that I revisit from time to time. The stories are usually quite crude and funny (example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Tis_Pity_She%27s_a_Whore), but understanding them well enough to appreciate that humor can be a chore. I don't think these stories were considered difficult originally, but became so over time.
Do you have a link where I can read more about this? I'm surprised kids find third-person difficult. My eight-year-olds and their friends are all starting the Harry Potter books, and I haven't heard this complaint.
I've got some young advanced-reader kids (I think my eldest had read all but the last couple Harry Potter books before turning 7? And they did understand them, we quizzed 'em quite a bit to make sure) like that and the difference is we're handing them older books we're familiar with before they'd ordinarily get to them. Most kids track closer to normal graded reading level and will learn largely on newer, first-person books provided by teachers and librarians who are desperate to get kids to read anything.
I haven't heard of this trend before, what you say seems very strange to me since I've always found first-person novels to be more than a bit odd and uncanny.
We Olds tend to, since it used to be (not even that long ago) rarely-used, and almost never without some good motivation or framing narrative demanding it. Kids coming up find it normal.
I heard recently that some people predict that the subjunctive will disappear from current French in another decade or so. Could this be true? Seems bizarre.
Subjunctive mood has 4 different tenses, present, passé, imparfait and plus-que-parfait.
The last one is rarely used and has been for at least 30years. It's also similar to the conditional past 2nd form. e.g. "(que) j'eusse fini".
For the other tenses, they are still used in sentences like "il faut que je fasse" and similar.
Now, if we are speaking about the past simple (passé simple), it could disappear within one more generation. For mine (born in the low 80s), it was already "deprecated" when speaking.
That negative public response came from all sides of the political spectrum, of course. If this hypothesis is accurate, it seems as if the problem might have been that the publisher uncritically accepted the hostile framing of "woke." Turns out it's not actually about censorship.
That’s an interesting point. Of course, corporations are willing to accept socially progressive language as a business matter, but they aren’t really “of the progress movement” so to speak.
“ It feels like a bait and switch, ignoring the very real issues with the writer while labeling as bad, wrong or offensive words that have no such inherent value.”
I read this as: editors are changing just some words in order to save Dahl, who should be banned completely. And Salon author calls their own stance “against censorship”. Hm.
Honestly, more like a malicious compliance way of doing it; designed to generate that backfire and aim atleast part of the blast at the "wokies" or whatever bullshit term you want to label non-conservatives.
As I said on reddit about this:
Warner Bros. have done fine with the pre-amble to their older cartoons that says something to the effect of "yo, this was written back when attitudes were different, they were shitty attitudes, but to erase them is to pretend it never happened."
A similar preface in the books would have worked much better, but wouldn't give you any amount of PR like this.
It's not about the specific books, it's about the principle of people other than the author rewriting books, whether fiction or non-fiction, to fit with present-day politics and sensitivities.
Should we edit Shakespeare to remove all that hard-to-read 'olde English'? Maybe edit Romeo and Juliet to give it a happier ending, and get rid of that nasty violence with daggers and poison? (that's much worse than Roald Dahl describing characters as 'fat' or 'female' isn't it?)
Even if it is it's not the sort of thing you can remove by changing a few words.
I liked his books quite a lot as a kid, and haven't prevented any children in my care from accessing them. But on revisiting as an adult there is a kind of... meanspiritedness to them. It's hard to describe but almost like, spiritual viciousness or a deep nasty pessimism about people.
Part of this may be why they appeal to children anyway. I didn't consciously notice as a kid but I suspect they registered as slightly transgressive in some way, and were alluring for that reason. Anyway none of the edits really address that, or could. To a significant extent that feeling is a fundamental part of the books and can't be removed.
> there is a kind of... meanspiritedness to them. It's hard to describe but almost like, spiritual viciousness or a deep nasty pessimism about people.
Yes, I felt this way about his books when I was a kid. I did like the books despite it, but there was always an element of grotesque cruelty to his books that I didn't particularly care for.
Still, removing that from the books is wrong. Read different books, or write your own books. Editing his books to remove the author's distinctive style is just plain wrong. What's the objective, to trick kids into thinking Roald Dahl was a different sort of man? To what end? Whatever the problem, deception is not the answer.
> Part of this may be why they appeal to children anyway. I didn't consciously notice as a kid but I suspect they registered as slightly transgressive in some way, and were alluring for that reason.
Oh, yeah, that is absolutely why they were so popular. This is arguably an example of what TVTropes calls "Seinfeld is unfunny" (the inventor of a new style of media seems derivative or at least uninteresting to modern audiences); today it maybe doesn't stand out so much, but Dahl was probably the first modern childrens' writer to write stuff like this.
Yeah even his biographical books (Boy and Going Solo) had that style of writing.
Personally I didn’t mind it. A lot of British comedic writing and entertainment was similar in vein. There’s a lot of emphasis places on barbed wit in a lot of their media (even as far back as Shakespeare), and I think Dahl essentially took that and formed it into a kids book.
Even when I was a child though, I felt any mean spritidness was always directed in a way towards the antagonist or received from a bully. It was largely in adversarial relationships. Maybe I misremember though.
Either way, I think his overall stories are almost always so incredibly charming , coupled with Quentin Blake’s wonderful art, that they’re a must read for children.
Kind of a tangent, but is it fair to define ppl up in arms about this as “anti-woke”?
Im basing this on the fact that anti-woke usually is considered right-wing/libertarian etc
Whereas nobody I talked to who opposed these changes would consider themselves “anti-woke”.
Im not trying to pick a bone with you, but I’ve been lately thinking about a common trope where if someone opposes a change/policy , they get labeled “anti-this” or the worst is they get hit with a question of “why do you care” Where the goal isn’t to debate the merits of the change but simply shun the other person.
Anyone that uses terminology like "woke" or "anti-woke" to label others is not concerned with what a fair definition of a person is until they themselves are targeted. I would go further to say most people don't consider what is fair when defining people in general. 99% of people who get called "woke" don't consider themselves "woke" or even use the word so I assume the same to be true of whatever the hell "anti-woke" is supposed to mean.
Maybe the problem you're trying to point out is that, like most labels, anti-thing leaves no nuance. To what level is a person against something? Are they questioning that thing to gain better understanding? Or are they trying to justify their bias?
> Im basing this on the fact that anti-woke usually is considered right-wing/libertarian etc
Maybe in your mind but not mine. Good liberals are anti-woke because woke is anti-liberal. It's a coercive force that any decent person should be against. At least anyone who critically examines it and the methods it uses to manipulate and gain unjust and unearned power over others.
Woke's are completely morally incoherent and no better than the Catholic inquisitors. Just a godless and soulless version of it suited to the modern day as it's people that think they are an authority on morality and decency and have some special insight into it that legitimizes their coercive methods to assume a better perch, without merit, in the social hierarchy they claim to hate.
People like you have always existed, suited in different skins, based on whatever gullible plebs could fall for or cowards could be frightened into.
Well you definitely have that certainty of your own righteousness we all know and love.
It's funny that you mention religion, because yes I am a christian and so I understand that one day I will stand before god in judgement of my actions. I have no certainty that I am able to do what is required of me, only that I must try and this is what drives me to fight for "the least of these." Why do you lick the boot?
can you be up in arms but not be considered anti-woke?
I get what you’re trying to say, I just wonder how many people decided not to be up in arms about this and other subjects similar to this and decided to keep quiet so they would not be considered anti-woke.
I say this cause in my work env, people are heavily pushing language shift recommendations and it seems like nobody dares speak up about it (me included) to stay polite/be considered part of the good ones. But in reality most people are not for the change at all.
And it’s usually a minority of people pushing for changes like this.
At the end of the day it sounds like you're trying to do what you think is right but are worried about becoming a pariah. These conversations can be hard because they're built upon core feelings about human behavior and what is "better" for us.
If the problem is that you want to have a thoughtful conversation about an issue but are worried about being labelled, first identify if being thoughtful or critical is the what the group wants or has the propensity to do. If you're lucky then you will be around people willing to have a discussion and can frame a lot of the conversation around you filling in your understanding (when in fact you're trying to get others to start thinking critically). Asking a lot of questions about the results of outcomes is also a great way to stop people from auto-piloting into popular opinions.
“Up in Arms” implies a furor about the response. The definition is “protesting vigorously”.
It seems like you’re conflating objecting to something with being up in arms about it.
A reasoned objection is very different than the over the top reaction from some people, even on here, saying “wokeness is the end of literary freedom etc”. Analyzing it on a case by case basis vs jumping to extreme conclusions based on one’s biases.
> Kind of a tangent, but is it fair to define ppl up in arms about this as “anti-woke”? Im basing this on the fact that anti-woke usually is considered right-wing/libertarian etc
You're right that one of these is unfair, but it is the latter not the former. "Woke" is the progressive fringe, not the mainstream. Opposition to woke is a set that includes both the moderate mainstream and the right fringe. Liberal enlightenment values, which represent the moderate majority today, are distinctly "anti-woke".
I wonder if part of the problem is a confusion of meaning for "woke", coupled with a tendency to misuse moderate criticism as full-throated support for the extreme opposition.
The classic liberal stance is "don't be shitty to people", and, in turn, "call out people for being shitty". But "shitty" is pretty subjective, and it runs the gamut from "going out of your way to be specifically, personally aggressive and hurtful" to "using a word that in a different context might potentially be understood as critical to someone". It seems like the most vocally anti-woke people clutch their pearls in equal dismay for any attempt at avoiding either case.
I think there is a performative element to a lot of "woke" efforts, but I have to be very careful about saying that, lest I inadvertently carry water for someone who wants to use my words to justify racial slurs or deliberate mis-gendering or any number of other things that I think are shitty. It should not be "this self-described liberal said that 'woke' is performative, therefore there's no real objection to me calling black people [racial slur]".
> Liberal enlightenment values [...] are distinctly "anti-woke".
How so? Enlightenment values include the commitment to universal human dignity and the rejection of prejudice and discrimination. This is consistent with the goals of social justice movements.
There is nothing liberal about censoring books. Stripping the word "fat" out of children's books is progressive, but certainly not liberal, and certainly not mainstream.
Enlightenment values place rejection of prejudice and discrimination far lower than the ability to express things freely even if these things contain prejudice and discrimination - e.g. "The right to free speech is more important than the content of the speech." by Voltaire.
The changes were meaningless. Things like "fat" to "enormous." If you called a obese person "enormous," they would find it more offensive, not less. The only people who would care are culture warriors, and they predictably made enough of a stink to make this marketing campaign work out just fine.
Netflix is doing a bunch of adaptations, which will naturally draw a bunch of renewed interest to the books. They probably wanted to avoid discourse criticizing the books when the new shows came out.
Not a publicity stunt, and not something anyone asked for.
The publisher does not have a rational unified will. It is made of up people and its actions are a product of internal politics.
In this case, as is usual, a tiny group of hyper-motivated woke ideologues would have banded together to push for these changes, and deployed the usual array of ideological superweapons that the woke have access to in our culture-space (there are no antibodies to their power plays unlike traditional religions, and pushback against woke ideas in institutional contexts is often legally punishable by various mechanisms related to civil rights law).
This tiny group swung the publisher to its will, because they care with the self-destructive fervor of religious zealots, and everyone else is just trying to get along, so they win despite being a microminority.
It's another step in the long march through the institutions; basically all our academic, corporate, cultural, military, and scientific establishments have fallen under woke control by the same mechanisms.
I wouldn't characterize it as a stunt. I believe this review was initiated around 2020, back when "woke" was still a compliment. They brought in a firm that specializes in sensitivity readings, and they've now announced the results of the process that began several years ago. I'm sure they planned for the possibility that there would be a loud backlash, and they are now walking back their initial announcement.
This may result in some additional sales, as people scramble to get the old versions. But it also puts egg on Puffin's face, and may hurt their reputation among buyers and authors. Overall, it seems more like inertia and incompetence rather than a finely-tuned publicity stunt.
