Talk:Roald Dahl

1. Redirect Template:Dated maintenance category

Semi-protected edit request on 30 May 2024

I WANT TO EDIT 172.116.189.114 (talk) 21:09, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

File:Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. M.Bitton (talk) 21:47, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Roald Dahl: change of first published writing

Hi! I noted an incorrect entry against Roald Dahl's biography, notably his first published piece of writing. The current entry states:

Dahl's first published work, inspired by a meeting with C. S. Forester, was "A Piece of Cake", on 1 August 1942. The story, about his wartime adventures, was bought by The Saturday Evening Post for US$1,000 (equivalent to $19,000 in 2023) and published under the title "Shot Down Over Libya".

HOWEVER, I have just recently re-read Dahl's autobiographies Boy and Going Solo. In Going Solo he recounts a story "Simba", in which one of their cooks in Africa is attacked by a lion and kidnapped, them chasing and rescuing the woman literally from the lion's jaws. He then wrote an article on this. I quote:

"The story of this strange happening with the lion spread all over East Africa and it became a bit of a legend. And when I got back to Dar es Salaam about two weeks later, there was a letter wating for me from the Eat African Standard (I think it was called) up in Nairobi asking if I would write my own eye-witness description of the incident. This I did and in time I received a cheque for five pounds from the newspaper for my first published work."

From: Roald Dahl, 'Boy' and 'Going Solo', Puffin Publishing1984 (2008 edition), from the chapter 'Simba' (p224)

This dates his article to 1939... three years earlier than cited. Kit Fennessy (talk) 01:17, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 November 2024

PLEASE ADD THE FOLLOWING TEXT AS A FINAL PARAGRAPH TO THE SECTION ON "Opposition to Israel and antisemitic comments"

Dahl’s antisemitism is explored in Giant, a play by Mark Rosenblatt that premiered at the Royal Court in September 2024, whose plot centres on Dahl’s August 1983 Literary Review article described above. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2024/sep/27/giant-review-royal-court-theatre-mark-rosenblatt-london ARothman61 (talk) 17:00, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

There would need to be a consensus here before adding text like that. That is, other editors would have to respond with opinions on whether such material would be WP:DUE and otherwise appropriate. It is often the case that other people have an opinion about a famous individual and the usual procedure to handle that is to put the person's opinion in an article about the person. Johnuniq (talk) 01:06, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Cause of daughter’s death incorrect

Currently in the article, the cause of Dahl’s seven-year-old daughter‘s death is listed as appendicitis. That is incorrect. It was encephalitis as a result of her having measles. Kirmogg (talk) 14:11, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Template:Yo Where do you see that in the article? I can only see one mention of his daughter's death, in the section "Post-war life" where it says "In November 1962, Dahl's daughter Olivia died of measles encephalitis, age seven", but I might be missing something. --bonadea contributions talk 14:22, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

It was in a people magazine article dated February 3, 2022 Kirmogg (talk) 15:49, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

No, Bonadea means where is "appendicitis" in this article: Roald Dahl. This article currently says "measles encephalitis" as noted by Bonadea. Johnuniq (talk) 00:28, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I propose merging Roald Dahl revision controversy to Roald Dahl. The former was a fleeting media controversy that does not need its own article. Much of the info is already summarized in the main article, and the child article is mostly fluff. The background section is redundant, the revisions section can be more appropriately summarized, the aftermath section is mostly an indiscriminate list of people who commented on it, and the entire Legacy section mentions Dahl only once in passing. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 23:39, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Concur that the revision article was unnecessary. Also, the info already is in this article so there's nothing to merge. That revision article falls into recentism and it was news for about 5 minutes so it should be removed. CC Bleechers (talk) 02:16, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

It was indeed excessive and only required a mention of it in the main article. Following a previous tag I've since moved the passages on it into the children's writing section. Think it's appropriate to remove the link in the bio and the sub article given there is no need to cover the subject twice. Gabriella MNT (talk) 05:27, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

Keep - There is plenty of evidence and information to support the page on its own. The "fleeting media controversy" is not dissimilar to the Barack Obama tan suit controversy. Rochambeau1783 (talk) 21:29, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Keep - Agree with Rochambeau1783, this is also not a recentism/fleeting or a one-off; the page highlights other attempts at rewriting/censoring/editing/corrupting history to appeal to currentism or a particular audiences views. This issue faces other authors, not just one of the most prominent British children's authors.Halbared (talk) 17:00, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Merge to Dahl's article as recentism, and merge the legacy section and any significant insights from "Reactions" to the wider general topic of expurgation. The issue of books being altered for modern audiences should be written about somewhere, but this article about a particular 2023 case seems an arbitrary place to do so, it was by no means the first time it had happened. Belbury (talk) 15:33, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Keep - Enough material for a separate article. --Austrian (talk) 12:33, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Keep - includes material unrelated to Roald Dahl, about other authors, which would be out of place here, plus it was a notable event that has many sources. Horsers (talk) 14:34, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Looks like there is no consensus to merge. Been over a month since this tag was added, over two weeks since the last comment, so it's become dormant. I'm going to add a link to the sub article to the text on the revisions. Some examples of revisions in the sub article are missing from the main article so will add that to it. Gabriella MNT (talk) 14:45, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Antisemitism

It looks like last year a good amount of information about his antisemitism was scrubbed to make it seem like he was merely a critic of Israel, including removal of his attempted justification of Hitler's hatred of Jews. I largely fix typos here and there and need to read up on more in depth editing, but also wanted to bring it up here instead of just altering the article HuzzahitstheDoctor (talk) 10:06, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

There is a fair bit of back-and-forth in the archives for this talk page. I do not recall any substantive arguments other than bland assurances that Dahl was obviously antisemitic, or obviously was not. At any rate, please add a reliable source for any new text. It would be helpful to copy some brief quotes from the sources to here because sooner or later any new text is likely to be challenged. It's years since I read anything about Dahl and I don't recall what was said about that topic. Johnuniq (talk) 10:25, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

What about reverting it to the March 23rd change and manually re-add anything modified since? The change says it was to trim info, but the new version removed a measurable quantity of information and gives a significantly different impression than the original. I'm not really clear on why the change was needed in the first place though. Manamanadodododo (talk) 00:25, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

I think this issue requires greater focus in the article - perhaps its own section. Dahl's antisemitism is currently the subject of a major West End play, Giant. Surely that deserves a mention too? TrottieTrue (talk) 00:55, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Dahl is an extremely well known writer who has been dead for over thirty years. Reliable sources have been published concerning Dahl and those sources should be used to add commentary to this article. An article about a play should mention its theme, and if that is an assertion of antisemitism, it should be included in the article on the play. A source about Dahl should be used to add commentary here. Johnuniq (talk) 07:28, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Any objection to just reverting it to the sourced section that was in place on March 23rd and manually adding any other alterations made since then? Manamanadodododo (talk) 23:14, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

"and manually adding any other alterations made since then" - if needed. I don't know if you revert something done a couple months ago if it keeps all other changes done since or puts everything back to that date. Manamanadodododo (talk) 01:29, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

I am going to follow "WP:BOLD" and add back the initial controversy section with the sources. We can then work on making it stronger and add more sources as needed. Apathyash (talk) 20:07, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Actually, as per "Wikipedia:Criticism" we should not have a criticism section... I will try to incorporate more into his legacy section instead. Apathyash (talk) 20:10, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

I took a look and it looks like most of the information from the March 23 section has been incorporated into other sections. The antisemitism discussion is included in the "post-war" life section and the "writing" section includes the racism/sexism/fatphobia criticisms. So, as per wikipedia policy, I believe the criticism section (which I initially created in October 2020, for transparency) should stay removed, and the contents have been distributed into the article. Apathyash (talk) 20:34, 8 May 2025 (UTC)