It's good to see real societal pushback against this kind of insanity, and I hope it spreads.<p>A fun fact I remembered this morning - even in 1984, Kipling is allowed to remain in party sanctioned literature (albeit altered)<p><pre><code> I have been able to recall one possible ... indiscretion ... We were producing a definitive edition of the poems of Kipling. I allowed "God" to remain at the end of a line.
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This is Winston's colleague Ampleforth speculating as to why he was arrested.<p>Orwell was an optimist as they say...
I would be perfectly happy if they wanted to release a separate, clearly labeled version of this book that is adjusted for modern politically correct tastes.<p>The issue is when you rewrite history and pretend it had always been like that. That's in 1984 territory.
A couple of things jump out:<p>1. Dahl had already made changes to the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The early editions had African pygmies as his free labour. I don’t think the world was “woke” back then.<p>2. This is being done by a corporate publishing house in order to maximise the revenue of one of its key IP assets. It’s not mandated by government/regulation; there is no viral social media furore or press campaign. It’s not censorship nor anything like 1984 where works are being revised and all traces of the previous version cease to exist.
I really don't know why anyone thought this would be a good idea. Even in very left and "woke" circles I've seen very little support of this.
If I (Netflix) purchased a book brand, which is what Roald Dahl is and I wanted to make a TV series about it, which would likely push kids into reading those books. It does make sense to me that I might want to modify aspects of the books to make them fit for today and potentially remove things that would be considered offensive in today's world.<p>This is simply a company trying to maximise their revenue from their purchase by taking a brand and fitting it into today's world. This isn't some government conspiracy to suppress thought or push an agenda.<p>To me it's not too dissimilar from movies doing remakes and changing the narrative, character and language used.<p>I myself, would prefer the originals to be reproduced so that they remain Dahl's stories.
Seeing a bunch of people here saying Penguin is "perfectly within their rights" to do this<p>Likewise, the government is perfectly within their rights to punish Penguin for other, unrelated monopolistic behavior<p>For any other book, how do you know that Penguin hasn't "corrected" it? A publishing company with this little regard for historical accuracy doesn't deserve to exist
Obligatory 1984 quote:<p>>Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.