Time: “Why Rewrites to Roald Dahl’s Books are Stirring Controversy”

A British publisher has come under fire for rewriting new editions of Roald Dahl’s children’s books to remove language that today’s readers deem offensive when it comes to race, gender, weight, and mental health.

Puffin Books, a children’s imprint of Penguin Books, worked with the Roald Dahl Story Company (RDSC), which is now exclusively owned by Netflix, to review the texts. RDSC hopes that rewriting books by one of the world’s most popular children’s authors, whose books have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide, would ensure that Dahl’s wonderful stories and characters continue to be enjoyed by all children today.

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Among the critics of the rewrites are Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie, who spent years in hiding after Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 issued a fatwa because of the alleged blasphemy in his novel The Satanic Verses. On Feb. 18, Rushie tweeted, Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship. Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed.

Armani Syed

Rewriting an author’s work after his passing, with no input or approval on his part, is most certainly unacceptable for me – like covering up statues of Venus or Michelangelo’s David because their nudity offends some people’s modesty. From the news reports, the edits seem extensive and rather poorly done, in some cases changing the meaning of the original or erasing historical context. And who in their right mind would be offended by tractors being described as black!?

The Guardian: “Death of the narrator? Apple unveils suite of AI-voiced audiobooks”

Apple has quietly launched a catalogue of books narrated by artificial intelligence in a move that may mark the beginning of the end for human narrators. The strategy marks an attempt to upend the lucrative and fast-growing audiobook market – but it also promises to intensify scrutiny over allegations of Apple’s anti-competitive behaviour.

The popularity of the audiobook market has exploded in recent years, with technology companies scrambling to gain a foothold. Sales last year jumped 25%, bringing in more than $1.5bn. Industry insiders believe the global market could be worth more than $35bn by 2030.

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Before the launch, one Canadian literary agent told the Guardian she did not see the value from both a literary or customer perspective.

Companies see the audiobooks market and that there’s money to be made. They want to make content. But that’s all it is. It’s not what customers want to listen to. There’s so much value in the narration and the storytelling, said Carly Watters.

Leyland Cecco

Interesting tactic by Apple to attack Amazon’s market dominance in audiobooks through Audible. There is growing discontent against Audible’s terms, so perhaps Apple can convince some authors to move their titles to Apple Books. Then again, this wouldn’t be the first time Apple tried to shake Amazon’s stronghold on book distribution – and utterly failed because of their blatant collusion with book publishers. More recently, Spotify has also been investing in audiobooks as an additional pillar of its streaming service, and immediately clashed with Apple over its App Store commissions.

O’Reilly Media: “Frank Herbert: Chapter 5: Rogue Gods”

In Dune, Herbert used heroic myth elements from the Western tradition in an effort to awaken in his readers a sensitivity to the needs that prompt a messianic religion. But even so, it is too easy to see messianism as something that happens only to desert peoples like the Fremen. Less immediately apparent is the fact that to Herbert the neurotic use of science in modern Western civilization betrays the same pattern as messianic religion.

Herbert’s feelings about science are most clearly presented in Dune and in three short novels that followed its publication, The Green Brain, Destination: Void, and The Eyes of Heisenberg. Each of these works reveals the two faces of science: it may he used to help man come to terms with the unknown, or to help him hide from it. In the latter case, it is a kind of religion, whose false god inevitably turns on his worshippers.

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The irony is that Paul is not a freak but an inevitable product of the Bene Gesserit’s own schemes. Although he has come a generation early in the plan due to Jessica’s willfulness in bearing a son instead of a daughter, the real surprise is not his early birth but the paradox of the Sisterhood’s achievement: the planned instrument of perfect control, the Kwisatz Haderach, was designed to see further than his creators, He could not help but know the emptiness of their dreams. The universe cannot be managed; the vitality of the human race lies in its random generation of new possibilities. The only real surety is that surprises will occur. In contrast to the Foundation trilogy’s exaltation of rationality’s march to predicted victory, Dune proclaims the power and primacy of the unconscious and the unexpected in human affairs.

Tim O’Reilly

With the renewed interest in the Dune universe following the recent movie, I have discovered this book on its subreddit. While I have only read this chapter yet, the insights into Herbert’s thinking are fascinating. The parallels with Asimov’s Foundation were always apparent to me, but I considered its closest analog in Dune to be the Mentats’ abilities, Paul’s prescience, and later Leto’s Golden Path. Instead, the author reveals that the Bene Gesserit and their breeding program were intended as a commentary and reaction to Asimov’s psychohistorians – which does make a lot of sense in the context of Herbert’s themes for the series.

Marian Coman – Haiganu: Fluviul șoaptelor

Surghiunit dintre Cei Mari în lumea oamenilor în urmă cu nenumărate veacuri, zeul Haiganu rătăcește de atunci fără noimă printre aceste ființe inferioare lui, chinuit necontenit de vocile lor care‑i pătrund în minte, mereu, fără oprire, un fluviu de vaiere și durere pe care Haiganu trebuie să‑l asculte. Uneori, când gemetele lumii îl copleșesc, sau oameni nesăbuiți încearcă să‑l păcălească, puterea nimicitoare a lui Haiganu nu mai poate fi ținută în frâu, o lumină albă țâșnind din singurul lui ochi și arzând totul în cale‑i. Dar în ultima vreme din torentul năucitor s‑a desprins o voce, deosebită de restul, singura care îl alină pe Haiganu cu povești, ținând la depărtare corul chinuitor al celorlalți pentru prima oară de când pribegește printre oameni. Așa îl cunoaște Haiganu pe Zourazi, un fiu de mag prins de Dekibalos printr‑o vrajă a lui Moroianu, laolaltă cu mulți alții copii.

Romanul de față s‑a născut întâi sub forma unei benzi desenate, un proiect rar pe piața românească, care n‑a avut cine știe ce tradiție în acest sens din partea autorilor sau cerere din partea publicului. Inspirația a venit din folclorul românesc, în special din basmul lui Harap Alb și vechile zeități dacice, deși romanul se îndepărtează semnificativ de aceste surse. Cu singurul său ochi în frunte, Haiganu e modelat după Ochilă, dar, cel puțin deocamdată, nu îi întâlnim pe ceilalți însoțitori fantastici ai lui Harap Alb, și nici pe Harap Alb însuși. Împăratul Roșu în schimb este prezent la marginea povestirii, o amenințare care își țese pe ascuns planurile de a cotropi lumea. Dekibalos poartă numele celui mai faimos rege dac – ultimul de altfel, învins de împăratul Traian – dar setea lui de sadism și sânge are prea puține legături cu personajul istoric. Moroianu se leagă de folclorul mai recent, invocând moroiul, un soi de zombi autohton, atât cu numele, cât și prin comportament. Panteonul geto-dacic este prezent în numele Celor Mari: Gebeleizis, Derzelas, Pleistoros, Neris, Bendis; dar zeitățile în sine nu intervin în cursul acțiunii, ci sunt doar invocate în rugi și farmece.

The New York Times: “Kazuo Ishiguro sees what the Future is Doing to Us”

Speaking of his comparatively small output, Ishiguro said: I don’t have any regrets about it. In some ways, I suppose, I’m just not that dedicated to my vocation. I expect it’s because writing wasn’t my first choice of profession. It’s almost something I fell back on because I couldn’t make it as a singer-songwriter. It’s not something I’ve wanted to do every minute of my life. It’s what I was permitted to do. So, you know, I do it when I really want to do it, but otherwise I don’t.

When he does want to do it, he is capable of going flat out. He produced a first draft of “The Remains of the Day” in a four-week “crash”, during which he wrote from morning until night, stopping only for meals. The practice served him well at the time — he and MacDougall needed the money a new advance would bring — but Ishiguro’s crashing days are now firmly behind him. He has grown suspicious of the modern office and its imperative to be constantly on call. The way our capitalist society is organized, it accommodates the workplace as a kind of alibi, he said. If you’re trying to avoid difficult areas in your emotional life, you can just say, Sorry, I’ve got too much work on right now. We’re invited to disappear into our professional commitments.

Giles Harvey

I must agree with these reflections on the modern office, but at the same time they come off rather hypocritical and entitled coming from a man who did not have to work in an office for the past 40 years, like the rest of us. As others have come to realize about tech entrepreneurs, a large part of their success is not necessarily based on extraordinary abilities and innovation, but rather on the right set of circumstances. In this interview, after admitting that writing is not even his main interest, that is how Kazuo Ishiguro sounds: a man who has exploited favorable circumstances by putting in a minimal amount of effort. And, in my opinion at least, this lack of interest is well reflected in the declining quality of his work.

Reading insights in the Kindle Android app

As the pandemic has disrupted lives and economies across the world, I have felt its effects in an unlikely area of my life: my reading habits. I started working from home in the second half of March 2020 and ever since I have almost completely stopped reading! Part of the explanation is that I did most of my reading on my Kindle during my daily commute on the subway – no more commute, no more reading…

Chinua Achebe – O lume se destramă

Cândva la finalul lui 2019, pe vremea când încă citeam regulat, am împrumutat romanul O lume se destramă de la Bookster fără să știu prea multe despre carte sau despre autor. Considerat un exemplu de excepție de roman african, unul din primele care a atins renume mondial, ne prezintă viața tribală din Nigeria de sud‑est prin perspectiva războinicului Okonkwo din clanul Umuofia, a familiei lui și sătenilor.

Viața lui Okonkwo cunoaște numeroase întorsături și momente de cumpănă. Urmaș al unui tată leneș, care nu i‑a lăsat moștenire nici rădăcini de igname, nici o glie în care să le planteze pentru a‑și întreține familia, Okonkwo s‑a făcut remarcat de tânăr ca luptător și apoi prin hărnicia lui, aproape o furie încrâncenată de a se ridica deasupra reputației tatălui său. La maturitate devine un membru respectat și de încredere al satului, cu destule igname pentru mai multe soții și copii, dar în același timp sever cu fii săi, în care regăsește defectele și delăsarea părintelui.

Un incident neprevăzut în care omoară fără să vrea un membru al tribului duce la exilarea lui timp de șapte ani. La întoarcere însă viața din sat se schimbase într‑un mod neașteptat și irevocabil: sosirea misionarilor creștini crease o fisură între membrii comunității. Tot mai mulți se alătură misiunii nou-construite, inclusiv fiul lui Okonkwo, pe care acesta îl mustra constant din cauza „lenei”, iar bătrânii satului nu sunt siguri dacă sau cum ar trebui să reziste acestor străini cu obiceiuri atât de stranii pentru ei.