It was reported this week that new stories are to be published featuring characters created by Roald Dahl. The BFG, Matilda, Fantastic Mr Fox and the Twits will return in new stories by new writers. This comes off the back of his books still selling many copies, various theme park rides inspired by his works and successful musical editions of his works Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
As the partner of an author who has written some books that are (in my own highly biased opinion) pretty fantastic, I have some issues with repeatedly rehashing new versions of old stories. I feel that there are a lot of great new works released who don't get anything like as much shelf space as authors that have been around forever, and it would be great to give a few of these a go. Having said that, it doesn't have to be an either/or, and I wouldn't say that there's no longer a place for Roald Dahl. He was undoubtedly one of the most talented children's authors there has ever been, with great imagination and an exceptional skill for making up words. I grew up on Roald Dahl, and even though I'm a completely different kind of writer to what he was, I definitely think that this had a positive impact on my enthusiasm for making up stories.
But it's been obvious, over the last few years, that certain people have had something to say about Roald Dahl. First is the fact that he was extremely anti-Semitic. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that he was - he held absolutely disgusting views about Jewish people, and even heavily implied that they deserved what happened to them in the Holocaust. I don't believe in the view that someone was 'a person of their time'; making sweeping derogatory statements about entire ethnic groups is quite an original sin in my book, something that deserves utter condemnation no matter when it was done. There is no excuse I can make for Roald Dahl expressing a view like this apart from the fact that he's dead - if he were alive and profiting from sales, I might seriously consider boycotting his works and materials relating to them in the same way that I do with JK Rowling and her positions on transgender rights. Having said that, I do find it quite troublesome to selectively choose statements that have been expressed by someone who's dead, and use them to form a concrete opinion of that person's character when they are no longer alive to respond. I believe that if we don't know someone personally, we can't form opinions on who they are or were, only on what they do or did. And there are other things that Roald Dahl did that I very much do approve of - for example, he was vocally opposed to corporal punishment in schools, something that we now consider to be child abuse, when this was still a common practice. It seems wrong to me that we've decided to single out the very worst of Roald Dahl's views and completely ignore things that show him as a more sympathetic character. (In the interests of being fair and balanced, I would also hold the same opinion if it were the other way around - if Roald Dahl was consistently held up as a pioneer of pain-free education, I would make an effort to remind people that he was also very anti-Semitic).
But aside from Roald Dahl's personal views, there has also been a lot that has been said about the content of his actual books. Early last year, it was announced that hundreds of edits to the text of his books would be made. From reading through the exact edits, I think that almost every descriptive word, no matter what it's of, has been removed, just in case it might cause offence. I can acknowledge that there are some things (like depictions of the Oompa-Loompas) could be seen as quite racially insensitive. But there are other things that have been edited that really don't make any sense - for instance, the BFG's cloak has been changed from 'black' to 'dark', and I highly doubt that anyone thought the previous word was insensitive. Likewise, a comment in George's Marvellous Medicine where the main character's grandmother encourages him to eat caterpillars and he refers to how his mother washes them down the sink, this has been changed to 'Mummy and Daddy wash them down the sink', presumably to suggest that cleaning and hygiene aren't just for women. I can understand the logic, but I think most rational people will think this is a bit of an extreme reaction, and I think if I wrote a line about a female character cleaning something no one would bat an eyelid.
Actually, the full list of edits feels like it was done by AI - words are changed with very little regard for the actual context that they were intended. And I'd be against this in any situation, but it feels particularly egregious to do it with Roald Dahl, an author who was so incredibly imaginative and creative with his use of language. I don't believe that if I was a child, reading the current editions of the books would inspire or excite me at all. Actually, they don't feel like they're aimed at children now at all. I also think that as a member of the generation who grew up to be woke lefty snowflakes (I'm generalising, but who cares?) it's quite evident that in spite of some of the slightly risqué humour in the kind of books we read, this hasn't made us insensitive and slightly racist human beings. If anything, I think it's that creative streak that most causes us to think critically (this is also why a lot of JK Rowling's most ardent critics were huge Harry Potter fans back in the day, myself included).
I'm conscious that a lot of what I've said sounds a little like I'm making excuses for someone who was actually really dodgy, so I want to summarise a couple of things. Firstly, books are different to statues. I do not subscribe at all to the idea that statues commemorate history. Statues celebrate history. I come from very near where the statue of Edward Colston was pulled down, I grew up seeing how hated that statue was and I was delighted when it was taken down. If a community wanted to pull down a statue of Roald Dahl for similar reasons, I say go ahead - I'll come and cheer you on. But that's not the same as censoring books. I don't know if Edward Colston wrote any books, but if he did, I think what he said would be worth reading. I don't believe that books are a celebration of the author in the same way that statues are. I'm currently reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, and I certainly don't share her views - but it's still interesting to learn what she believed in her own words, because then we can have an intelligent conversation about it. We can't have conversations about things that have been censored.
Secondly, I'm aware that I am quite possibly looking at Roald Dahl with too much nostalgia. If someone thinks I am, you're welcome to tell me and I'll have the humility to accept that. But if I'm wrong in what I've said, and actually Roald Dahl has left behind a legacy that is so harmful that his work deserves to be censored, then actually it shouldn't still be published at all. That isn't the option that I would personally choose, but it would be more appropriate that releasing work under his name that is not what he wrote. There are many modern-day authors who could be given his shelf space instead - authors who are still alive, who could benefit from a bit more promotion. But this is not what we're doing. We're continuing to promote him like mad. I challenge any reader to walk into any bookshop in the country and not find Roald Dahl in pride of place in the children's section. We make films, plays, musicals and theme park rides inspired by his works. We repeat the old adaptations of things on the telly. We re-record new audiobook editions read by modern actors. We continue, in short, to have a thoroughly inconsistent relationship with this man - we constantly attack him for his views with one hand, whilst with the other continue to try to make profits from his work.
Why is any of this important? Well, it's important because it demonstrates the fact that capitalism has made it impossible for us to sit down and have a serious and fair conversation about anything. Capitalism is capable of taking completely contradictory positions on things - trying to appeal to progressively-minded proponents of equality, AND still make money out of people who had views that were the complete opposite. And if it can do it with something fairly innocuous like a children's book, it demonstrates that it can do it with pretty much anything. A politician might fall from grace and lose their job, and then make a huge amount of money from a book deal telling their side of the story. Which is it? Do we detest them and want to distance ourselves from them, or respect them enough to want to hear their side of the story?
I think that right now in society, we have some important opportunities to really learn from the mistakes of the past and have these conversations, particularly with the people who have most been silenced. But in doing that, we need to be aware of this fallacy, because the two sides are like Eurasia and Eastasia - capitalism will back both of them at once, and they'll take turns at winning depending on which one is more profitable at any one time. We can, and should, do better than this.
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