Rewriting Roald Dahl's Works and Sensitivity Readers - Making Literature More Inclusive or Sanitising the Past?

There may not be a right or wrong answer to this debate, but it is one worth having.

A number of online newspapers and digital magazines ran the same story, although I believe it first appeared in The Telegraph and I then read it in The Guardian and Rolling Stone. The story highlighted that there had been a variety of small, but actually significant changes to reprints of Roald Dahl's books to make them more inclusive and less offensive.

Puffin, the publisher that owns the rights to release the Welsh author's works, hired so-called “sensitivity readers” to take their beady eyes and weak constitutions and suggest edits that should be made. These edits did not just involve the removal o certain words but sections of Dahl’s words being altered and rewritten.

N.B. To stay on the subject I am not going to discuss Roald Dahl’s questionable anti-Semitic comments in this article. I am merely going to discuss the subject of sensitivity readers.

Before we go any further and consider some of the changes that were made, let’s clear up what sensitivity readers are.

What are Sensitivity Readers?

Sensitivity readers basically function as additional editors who work in partnership with the publisher. Compared to other editors, sensitivity readers do not focus on grammar and spelling, they are more interested in weeding out anything that could be deemed insensitive, outdated or just inoffensive.

So, What Has Changed?

Now that we are all on the same page as to what sensitivity readers are, you’re probably wondering, if you’ve not read one of the articles yet, what has actually been changed in Roald Dahl’s books?

Well, there are 100s of small changes that have been made to many of the author’s children’s books.

Some of the most notable edits have been made to the physical descriptions of characters. For example, Augustus Gloop is no longer referred to as being fat. Instead, in the newer editions of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, he will be referred to as “enormous”.

The word ugly has also been removed. In the classic The Twits, Mrs. Twit is referred to as simply “beastly”, and not “ugly and beastly”.

In James and The Giant Peach, where the Centipede once sang “Aunt Sponge was terrifically fat/ And tremendously flabby at that,” followed by “Aunt Spiker was thin as a wire/ And dry as a bone, only drier.”

Now those verses have been removed and replaced with “Aunt Sponge was a nasty old brute/ And deserved to be squashed by the fruit,” and the second part “Aunt Spiker was much of the same/ And deserves half of the blame.”

Puffin worked along with the Roald Dahl Story Company and the specialist group Inclusive Minds to make the changes. All the altered and latest prints of the books will feature a notice from Puffin that reads “The wonderful words of Roald Dahl can transport you to different worlds and introduce you to the most marvellous characters. This book was written many years ago, and so we regularly review the language to ensure it can continue to be enjoyed by all today.”

There are a lot more changes like these, and while I can, to an extent, understand them, there’s a part of me that is a little incensed.

Why these Changes and the Concept of Sensitivity Readers Irk Me

I am not anti-progressiveness or things being altered to be more inclusive moving forward. What I disagree with is changing books that have already been written, published and are of their time.

Surely older books, aside from their plots, characters and all the other great qualities that make them classics, offer a looking glass into the past.

It's not a surprise or shock to anyone, surely, that in 1000s of years of human existence, not everything in our ancestral past is worth celebrating. When you alter those books, it’s like you are cleansing the history books a little and trying to cover over and forget the way things were. That doesn’t sound very progressive to me. Surely, it’s better to learn from the errors of the past and avoid doing them again.

Who Do the Changes Really Benefit?

Besides, who is being helped with the change of a word like “fat” to “enormous”? Wouldn’t it still be better to use “fat” and then parents can enter discussions with their children about why some people don’t like that term and why it’s not good to focus on their body size or shape in the first place?

With The Twits part…surely the whole idea of The Twits is that they are despicable and horrible, ugly people. Not just ugly on the outside, but ugly on the inside too. That is the point.

Perhaps I am the one that is over the top, though. I do get that modern books should reflect changing social norms etc. But I just don’t see it as okay to go back and alter books published many years ago by authors who are not even alive now.

I know that The Roald Dahl Story Company approved the changes and are fine with it, but it just feels like it’s chopping and changing someone’s work.

Conclusion

So, while I am sure that sensitivity readers believe they are doing a fine job and with modern published works, I may even be able to see that they should have a place in the industry.

However, when it comes to older books and those that are of their time, I can’t help but think we are simply censoring and sanitising the past a little too much. Children need to learn the good, the bad and the ugly (or beastly, as a sensitivity reader might put it).

Sources: The Telegraph, The Guardian, Rolling Stone

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Thank you, as always, for taking time to read my work. I hope you enjoyed this piece or at least found it interesting. If you did, please click the heart, leave a comment or do both.

I wanted to open the conversation/debate up to all of you reading this - what do you think? Do you think publishers should be free to, with the clear okay of the estate or owner of the rights to the author's works, hire sensitivity readers to change works already published just to make them more "okay"?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

If you have the time or inclination, here are a couple of other pieces you might find interesting:

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