awesomeousme asked:
Hi Neil, what's your opinion on the rewrite of Roald Dahl's works in the name of "making it available for all"?
Thanks.
I’m a lot more comfortable with this kind of thing when it’s done by a living writer to existing work. I remember as a kid picking up a copy of John Masefield’s Collected Poems, and seeing a 1930s errata slip in the book, which said “in the poem London Town, replace
“‘And craftily fares the knave there, and wickedly fares the Jew.’
with
“‘But wretchedly fare the most there and merrily fare the few.’”
And I nodded my 9 year old head in approval. Someone had pointed out to the poet that that line was awful, and he had fixed it.
I can’t imagine anyone deciding to fix that line after the poet had died, though.
I removed a line from “The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish” (over the objections of my editor, who wanted to keep it) because too many people had reached out to me and told me it had upset them or their children on reading it, and I realised it was being taken in a way I hadn’t intended. So on later editions it went away.
And having said that, language changes. Enid Blyton’s children’s books have been rewritten, her children renamed (farewell Dick and Fanny) and so forth, with the idea that the Blyton estate is a commercial entity that wishes to remain viable. The Dahl estate is in the same place. So is the Dr Seuss estate – and they chose to simply let some of the earlier books go out of print. There comes a point where it’s not about art, but about sustaining a commercial entity. And I don’t know what I think about that.
