The kid gloves are off

How a bid to clean up Roald Dahl’s language backfired

How a bid to clean up Roald Dahl’s language backfired
Nicola Ferrarese
How a bid to clean up Roald Dahl’s language backfired

The kid gloves are off

A huge controversy has arisen over whether it is correct to handle kids’ psyches with kid (i.e., very soft) gloves. On the principle that no job is too small when it comes to cleaning up our culture, a new profession has been born: that of the ‘sensitivity reader’.

There has been a huge kerfuffle over their suggested corrections to the works of Roald Dahl. In the new, expurgated version, Gloop – who appears in ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ – is no longer described as fat. Instead, ‘enormous’ is considered more appropriate.

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Author Roald Dahl autographing books in Dun Laoghaire shopping centre, 22/10/1988

Elsewhere, ‘beastly’ rather than ‘ugly and beastly’ is used to describe Mrs Twit in ‘The Twits’. A sentence was added to The Witches, who are bald underneath their wigs, explaining there are many reasons why a woman might wear a wig and that it’s not a bad thing.

As Francine Prose has pointed out: ‘It's the kind of sentence that loses readers. When you’re reading to a group of kids, you can watch their attention drift away and never come back’

I still remember the first time I heard of sensitivity readers. It was in relation to adult fiction, and the proposal was for books to be run past such people, even as their authors were writing them, to make sure they did not contain anything that might be deemed offensive. Since no one would ever know if what they removed could raise a tut from any ordinary person, no one batted an eyelid.

The first time I heard of sensitivity readers was in relation to adult fiction, and the proposal was for books to be run past such people, even as their authors were writing them, to make sure they did not contain anything that might be deemed offensive.  

But their latest interventions, being targeted at children's fiction, have raised a whole chorus of tuts.

The outrage has even reached the very highest stratum of British society, with Rishi Sunak's spokesperson declaring: "When it comes to our rich and varied literary heritage, the prime minister agrees with the BFG that we shouldn't gobblefunk around with words."

This is the only recorded instance of Mr Sunak displaying verbal eccentricity, albeit somebody else's.

His predecessor, who has never been able to resist any verbal eccentricity that sprang into his head, treated his audience to a rendition of the Oompah-Loompahs' song "about Augustus Gloop, which you all remember: Augustus Gloop, Augustus Gloop, the great big greedy nincompoop." One might have expected the former prime minister to make this all about him.

Boris went on, dare I say fat-headedly, to remark that "people should be vigilant about freedom of speech when we're bowdlerising Roald Dahl."

Meanwhile, the queen consort, Camilla, mindful of the impartiality befitting her royal status, was more circumspect in her implied criticism of over-sensitive readers.

Speaking at a Clarence House reception to mark the second anniversary of her online book club, Camilla told authors: "Please remain true to your calling, unimpeded by those who may wish to curb the freedom of your expression or impose limits on your imagination."

She then looked up with a smile and said: "Enough said", which was… greeted by cheers of "hear, hear."

Please remain true to your calling, unimpeded by those who may wish to curb the freedom of your expression or impose limits on your imagination.

Queen Consort, Camilla

For good measure, Salman Rushdie has joined the chorus of objectors, admitting that Dahl was no angel (the children's author was an acknowledged bigot), but decrying what he called 'absurd censorship.'

Philip Pullman, on the other hand, suggested that Dahl's works be allowed to fade away and new children's writers take his place, which was not so much damning with faint praise, as referring an ageing oeuvre to Dignitas.

Who knows which, if any, of these interventions led to a partial volte-face from the publishers, Puffin, but their plan now is to publish the originals alongside the bowdlerised versions, denominating the former as classics. So, we can safely say that Mr Pullman's view did not prevail.

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A child reads a Roald Dahl book at Roath Park Primary School on February 23, 2021 in Cardiff, Wales.

According to LBC, fairy tales are next in line for the treatment. The publishers of Ladybird books are bringing the sensitivity readers in: "Themes like handsome princes falling for beautiful princesses in classic tales like Snow White and Cinderella could prove problematic… as they promote physical attractiveness and heteronormative romance."

Themes like handsome princes falling for beautiful princesses in classic tales like Snow White and Cinderella could prove problematic… as they promote physical attractiveness and heteronormative romance.


LBC

The report continues: "Characters presuming other people's pronouns and discussing social class could also be problematic, as could lack of diversity among protagonists."

All of which makes me think the time is ripe for 'Ladybird' to go. I know it's the name of an insect, one that people find pretty (a few alarm bells ought to be ringing there) and harmless, but has anyone thought to look at this from the aphid's point of view?

As for the whole lady thing, can it really be beyond the wit of man, woman or non-binary person to find a less triggering title for a well-loved line of mass-market children's books? The scientific classification has an innocuous ring to it. There's nothing remotely heteronormative about Coccinellidae Books.

But perhaps I'm missing the point. According to Zoe Dubno, in the Guardian's latest appraisal of this whole vexatious question, the serious reason behind employing the censors is to sanitise books that have become intellectual property assets in the publishing and film industries.

She claims it is no coincidence that this happened just before a massive sale of Dahl's works to Netflix: "As books become assets, publishers become asset managers trying to future-proof their toxic investments, like BP investing in green energies."

Finally, spare a thought for the humble sensitivity readers toiling at the coalface of all this selective sanitising. A firm called Inclusive Minds, which provided the Dahl edits, employs a network of 'experts by experience' who tend to be in their thirties and to work freelance.

One reader Dubno spoke to was mixed race and non-binary and was earning 0.009 cents per word. "This compensation was impossible to live on," Dubno says, "meaning they were trading on their otherness for a precarious foothold in publishing."

Sensitivity readers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your pronouns.

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