Ronald Dahl books being edited [split topic]

[Video Game Fan 2000]

i liked dahl growing up and it was simply because his books were the most shocking ones on the shelf in school

im sure someone else can write shocking and edgy books for kids that are just over the politically correct line without Dahl's racism and sexual sadism. correcting them for a modern audience makes about as much sense as selling white gollywogs. let them go.

[tomasrojo]

I don't think there's much sexual sadism in the kids' books? They're certainly full of reactionary attitudes, and horribly dated stereotypes. Kids do like them though. It's not that publishers have throttled the supply of anarchic kids authors to keep the Dahl estate in clover.

[bgmnts]

its shit. its about preserving a money making brand. i don't believe anyone should be defending this.

dahl was a wanker and his books are crap, probably would have been forgotten had it not been for Gene Wilder and the decent BFG animation. the character of Willy Wonka as everyone knows him is Wilder's creation, Dahl just wrote the name and gave him a top hat.

I'd say they're perhaps better than that, as good children's literature is hard to do, and to have so much adapted into film and be beloved means he must have captured the imagination.

I loved the James and the Giant Peach film growing up, and I quite liked the Matilda film. I never read the source material but I believe they must have been worth something to have spawned so many adaptations.

[Mr Vegetables]

I like Dahl's stuff a lot still, and will defend it while acknowledging the horrifying views of its author. I like that his work has a sort of unsentimental acknowledgment that the world can be very cruel and bleak, which sits alongside the fantastical because there's no reason it shouldn't.

I think it's good that a popular children's author was so uncompromising in that way, and it's not surprising that children are drawn to someone who writes a world like that? Because it is the reality of being a child, instead of writing the kind of childhood adults pretend children have.

Apparently Dahl hated children? But his work really gets them as an audience, I think. I guess a lot of authors who write for adults hate us, and we never think to remark on that. Maybe hatred doesn't matter as much as the just feeling seen

[Midas]

its shit. its about preserving a money making brand etc

Basically agree with all this

dahl was a wanker and his books are crap, probably would have been forgotten had it not been for Gene Wilder and the decent BFG animation

Henry Selick's stop-motion adaptation of James and the Giant Peach was good tbf

[Kankurette]

Yes! And The BFG cartoon was good until they changed the ending and made Sophie and the BFG go back to Giant Country. Fuck that shit.

[johnnyhandsome]

For all his views and shitty personal flaws, Dahl remains a great writer. Both his concepts and his technical skill are spot on.

There is a particular skill to writing prose that flows well and sounds natural. It's particularly necessary in kids' books, as they are often read aloud. Dahl did it brilliantly. Another example would be someone like Ian McEwan in his children's books, or Neil Gaiman. When you recite these works, you find yourself making no mistakes and getting the emphasis right every time.

I pretty much read to children for a living , and I can tell you there are so many books which are utter utter shit. Most of them. Usually the premise is awful, and even when it isn't, the writing is clunky, hackneyed, haphazard - dire.

So say what you like - but a shit writer? Way off the mark.

[Kankurette]

I'd certainly take him over David Walliams.

[DrumsAndWires]

Dahl's a fucking genius. No one comes close to him. Top short story writer + kid's story writer. An imagination beyond most people's comprehension.

Anyone who thinks he's antisemitic. I'd highly recommend you read his autobiography called Going Solo. He went to Palestine in the 40s and ended up meeting a Jewish/Zionist settler there
It's a super creepy/sinister moment and probably would have (wrongly or rightly) shaped his views later on.

He's essentially a witness to the prelude of the creation of the Zionist entity.

[bgmnts]

You could do that, or just have a look at what he said in an interview in 1983:

There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it's a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean, there's always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere.

Followed by:

Even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason

[Incy Wincy Mincey]

On a somewhat-related tangent I've been thinking about for a while but doesn't deserve it's own thread:

Quentin Blake's drawings - as a child I always thought they were shit and that I could do better, and while I appreciate the style better as an adult I still find them quite unpleasant to look at. Always thought it a shame they became the "standard" depictions of Dahl's characters.

That they've been anointed with "National Treasure" status (ahead of the infinitely more talented Raymond Briggs, for example) pisses me off more than it should as well. Just a marketing gimmick riding the nostalgia wave, or am I just a curmudgeonly exception and everyone else loves his messy scribbles?

[George White]

I do like his messy scribbles, but I do think that Michael Foreman captured something of Dahl that Blake didn't.

[FeederFan500]

He had to redo some of them if Dahl didn't like them so in some senses they are Dahl's idea of the characters.

[Pink Gregory]

I know what you mean, they're messy scribbles but in quite an acceptable way, like Ralph Steadman but polite.

[George White]

Yes! And The BFG cartoon was good until they changed the ending and made Sophie and the BFG go back to Giant Country. Fuck that shit.

It's David Jason, you know what he's like.

[Mister Six]

So say what you like - but a shit writer? Way off the mark.

He's an excellent stylist, but especially his early kids' books are a bit wank in terms of their plotting. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is gash - Charlie has no personality, he just sort of ambles along and witnesses some odd stuff, then gets a factory. The film's addition of the industrial spy and Charlie fucking up with the whizz-pop drink were so essential to making it a proper story, I wish Dahl had written it into the novel.

am I just a curmudgeonly exception and everyone else loves his messy scribbles?

Yes and yes. Blake's drawing are wonderful.

[idunnosomename]

I don't think it's necessarily bad if your main character is bland... he's kind of like Link in Zelda in that it's a conduit for the reader to self insert, a common device in children's fiction. And it's not like Dahl always does that. I like in The Witches it's in first person and we never learn the protagnist's name but ironically you get more of a sense of his agency and heroism than Charlie or James who just sort of, have stuff happen to them.

[Mister Six]

It's not that he's bland, it's that he doesn't do anything. He's a spectator. At least James actually solves some problems they encounter, and grows from a timid loner into a brave teammate

(James and Matilda are the best of Dahl's kids' books, I reckon.)

[El Unicornio, mang]

I'd forgotten he wrote the You Only Live Twice screenplay until I watched it today. Some really cringey lines like "why do Chinese women taste different to other girls?"

[Kankurette]

I do like his messy scribbles, but I do think that Michael Foreman captured something of Dahl that Blake didn't.

Also loved Blake's art because it suited the tone of the books, also agreed that Foreman's art worked with Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.

[Senior Baiano]

Dunno where to put this, but if that cunt Wonka actually cared about finding the appropriate child to hand on the factory to rather than bullshit morality plays, it's got to be Verruca Salt all day long hasn't it? The only kid with an outsize personality for what is such a personality driven company. In her huge sense of entitlement she's the kid who far and away most resembles Wonka. And she'd be able to call on a good deal of manufacturing expertise via her father. Unfortunately it'll be 2061 before I can publish my rewriting of the story, How Veruca Salt Took Over The Chocolate Factory

[Kankurette]

That squirrel-stealing whore.

[gilbertharding]

I'd forgotten he wrote the You Only Live Twice screenplay until I watched it today. Some really cringey lines like "why do Chinese women taste different to other girls?"

The book has a load of that stuff too, of course (iirc - it's been 40 years since I read it).

[El Unicornio, mang]

The book has a load of that stuff too, of course (iirc - it's been 40 years since I read it).

I haven't read it but from what I understand it's more like a travelogue type thing with Bond getting over the death of Tracy by getting shitfaced/bonking his way around Japan? Can imagine it was ripe for some awful stereotypes.

The novel deals on a personal level with the change in Bond from a depressed man in mourning, to a man of action bent on revenge, to an amnesiac living as a Japanese fisherman.

That's quite a twist though.

[gilbertharding]

I haven't read it but from what I understand it's more like a travelogue type thing with Bond getting over the death of Tracy by getting shitfaced/bonking his way around Japan? Can imagine it was ripe for some awful stereotypes.

That's quite a twist though.

There's a whole load of stuff musing on how fond Japanese people are, as a culture, to killing themselves. As I say, I read it when I was 14, and remember taking a lot of it (but not all of it) at face value. I'd be interested in having a flick through it now. The only one I'm actually keen to reread is Moonraker, but perhaps I should actually work my way through all of them.

[convulsivespace]

Wait, you're telling me a British man born in 1916 said some off colour things at various points in his life?

Burn all his books!

[Endicott]

There's a whole load of stuff musing on how fond Japanese people are, as a culture, to killing themselves. As I say, I read it when I was 14, and remember taking a lot of it (but not all of it) at face value. I'd be interested in having a flick through it now. The only one I'm actually keen to reread is Moonraker, but perhaps I should actually work my way through all of them.

I actually believed the shit about sumo wrestlers as a teen.

Moonraker is decent (plot is nothing like the film), and it's the only one where he doesn't shag anyone.

Live and Let Die is the most problematic, because of what Fleming writes about people of colour. I'm not sure I could get through that now.

[shiftwork2]

In idle moments I like to imagine Roald by the fireside his legs under a blanket, he indulges in a fizzy lifting drink and the cunt just flies off.

[The Crumb]

I haven't read it but from what I understand it's more like a travelogue type thing with Bond getting over the death of Tracy by getting shitfaced/bonking his way around Japan? Can imagine it was ripe for some awful stereotypes.

That's quite a twist though.

There's a whole chunk where Bond has to learn to become as a Japanese under Tiger Tanaka's tuition. Cue such and such edifying vignettes illustrating the Japanese indifference to human and animal suffering (eating live lobster, deadly ninja training etc.).
 
Related to Blofeld's villainy, there's a whole chapter just describing different plants.

The whole ending stretch from proto-weeaboo Blofeld to Bond's new life is incredibly daft.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Live and Let Die is the most problematic, because of what Fleming writes about people of colour. I'm not sure I could get through that now.

Oh yeah I had the 1960s edition of Live and Let Die (my Dad had most of the Pan edition novels) and remember getting to the chapter 5 title and did a Roger Moore eyebrow raise. Obviously renamed for the US market and presumably newer UK editions.

Actually want to read YOLT now hearing how ridiculous it sounds.