Jon Blake's Blog - Posts Tagged "dahl"

The news has quickly spread that supermarket chain Aldi has taken Revolting Rhymes from the shelves of one of its stores following compaints about the use of the word 'sluts'. Predictably there has been outrage of the PC-gone-mad variety over this act of censorship. I don't think censorship is the answer, but the problem is that no-one is even discussing the fact that Dahl was horrendously misogynist in both life and art (not to mention the other aspects of his reactionary nature). I don't stop my seven-year-old Jordi reading his books but I do discuss them with him and encourage him to engage with them critically. In the main I don't think they'll leave much imprint on him because they are such empty experiences - the literary equivalent of Macdonalds happy meals - and he reads widely enough to know that. Not all kids are like Jordi, however, and it would be an excellent thing IMO if this affair opens up a wider discussion of the ludicrous elevation of this man's backward, simplistic and often thoroughly nasty work to the status of classics of children's literature.