An apparently recent controversy has come on my radar, and as I daily contemplate sitting down and writing stories that no one, except my Arts Editor – under duress – will read, I can’t help taking an interest:
News broke last week that in the latest editions of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Matilda” and other Dahl classics, hundreds of changes have reportedly been made to align his language with modern standards of inclusion, diversity and accessibility.
After a week of international uproar about these “fixes,” Dahl’s publisher is now hoping to change the narrative again. On Friday, Puffin U.K. announced it would release the original texts of Dahl’s stories as a separate “Classic Collection,” alongside the newly updated editions. A spokesperson for the publisher said that by making both versions available, “we are offering readers the choice to decide how they experience Roald Dahl’s magical, marvellous stories.” [Ron Charles, Book Critic, WaPo]
In other words, someone’s – plural – treasured stories have suddenly seemed besmirched by words and attitudes that are now considered politically incorrect.
I’m not unsympathetic to their plight, to their feelings. I’ve run across a few movies that I greatly enjoyed in their day, but, to use the terminology of my Arts Editor and I, make us cringe on recent viewing. For example, Blazing Saddles (1974) made me hoot with laughter when I saw it back in the 1970s. But when my Arts Editor and I viewed it around 2010, there was certainly some cringing. It didn’t age well.
But. For those of us who read about archaeology or paleontology, there’s a critical concept called provenance, which roughly refers to the matrix in which a find is discovered. While this usually refers to the physical matrix, meaning its location and what is nearby, it’s also important to remember its cultural provenance.
And stories, in their glorious themes and messy details, are part of that provenance. You want to know why the American Army was segregated during both World Wars? The answer may partially lie in the stories told prior to those wars. By diluting these stories, and their memories, we mangle that cultural matrix, making it harder to understand, setting up young readers for shocking disappointments, and dabbling in historical revisionism.
Let’s take this a step further. Consider Homer’s Odyssey and Illiad. These are marvelous adventure stories rife with a sheaf of clever morality tales. So how often do masses of children, teenagers, and adults sit down to read them? I don’t mean that one teen you happen to know, destined for a Classics professorship at Harvard, I mean as a voluntary mass exercise.
Yeah. Doesn’t happen.
But other stories in the same vein are so consumed. Raiders of the Lost Ark might qualify. Star Wars. Grapes of Wrath. So what’s going on?
The cultural matrix is constantly changing, that’s what’s happening. The Odyssey involves arrogant Kings and lovelorn Queens, jealous gods and goddesses. The cultural matrix is unfamiliar and, while fascinating to a certain segment of readership, may leave most everyone else cold and puzzled.
But translating tales to a new idiom and culture is a long-established custom. It keeps the stories alive, even if the connections are obscure. They keep storytellers employed and paid. And they keep up the stories’ instructional role through transformation. Or not. Not all lessons apply in all cultures.
So, while I understand the frustration, I can’t agree with the solution. Not even that of Dahl’s publisher. Stories, once published, form a part of the cultural matrix, and by changing them, an unnecessary historical revisionism takes place.
The unvarnished truth is more useful, no matter how repugnant. New lessons can even be drawn, new debates indulged. Leave them alone.
