The "absurd censorship" (or sensitive edits) of Roald Dahl

You may have heard that Puffin, the British publisher of Roald Dahl's books, is rewriting parts of the books for more modern sensibilities, taking out some of the language they was considered perfectly acceptable in Dahl's day, but considered offensive by some today.

So, Augustus Gloop is no longer "enormously fat", but just "enormous"; Mrs. Twitter is jo longer "ugly and beastly", just "beastly"; Matilda reads the slightly more politically correct Jane Austen, rather than Rudyard Kipling, and the Oompa-Loompas (which, in Dahl's original version, were "pygmies" from "the very deepest and darkest part of the African jungle" before they became small orange people in a previous edit) are now gender neutral, for some reason.

Puffin maintains these are "small and carefully-considered" edits, designed to ensure that the books can "continue to be enjoyed by all today", even if some of them may seem somewhat random or pointless. Predictably, though, some critics, including some very well known names in the literary firmament, are accusing Puffin of "absurd censorship", "cultural vandalism" and "botched surgery", most of which seems rather over-the-top, but authors and critics get very hot under the collar over this kind of thing. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak weighed in with, "We shouldn't gobblefunk around" with Dahl's words (to use a Dahl neologism).

It should be pointed out that these kinds "sensitive text revisions" are nothing new. A bunch of revisions were made recently to Enid Blyton's beloved but irredeemably racist and sexist Famous Five books, and even the books of the "blatant and admitted anti-Semite" Dahl have been edited previously, as noted above.

Some critics suggest that a better solution would be, rather than carrying out wholesale edits to classic children's books which, over repeated iterations, could change the books substantially, leave the original text as is, and provide an introduction and explanation for parents and teachers, almost like a government health warning. 

Would that really be a better solution. Maybe. Or maybe some older books just deserve to fall out of general circulation, and be consigned to the dusty shelves of academia. It's not like there aren't many modern alternatives available, just as good if not better, and much more politically correct to boot.

UPDATE

And now Ian Flemings James Bond books are to receive the same politically correct treatment. Well, now they're really playing with fire! (Ian Fleming Publications claims that Fleming himself was on board with making changes to some of the more egregious racial epithets prior to his death in 1964.)