Roald Dahl

Introduction

This year marks 100 years since the birth of the children’s author Roald Dahl, who has been awarded the moniker “Greatest Storyteller of All Time” by his publishers. Having written over 30 books, many stories, plays, and screenplays, the prolific writer translated his passion for life into the dark startling fantasy of “James and the Giant Peach”, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, and “The BFG”. The film adaption of “BFG” is being released in theaters July 1st to celebrate the mysterious power of summer in the year of Dahl. The man is the myth, and his works live on with the force with which he made his days. 

“We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.” 1

Dahl’s personal history must have influenced the fantastic and often dark corridors of his stories. A a direct descendant of William Wallace, the Scottish hero emblazed in the film Braveheart. His family was ran and hunted out of Britain in 1305, after Wallace’s martyrdom. Ending up in Norway, “centuries later, Dahl’s great-great-grandfather, a Norwegian pastor, escaped a church fire by stacking Bibles against a wall, climbing them, and throwing himself out a stained-glass window” (Anderson). Having his arm amputated after a mishap with a drunk doctor, Dahl’s father when a child must have developed a sardonic approach to life. While his uncle first met his aunt through rescuing her from a devastating fire which killed 100 people (Anderson). 

Let it never be said that one’s heritage does not truly laid the foundation for the future wondrous possibilities of their life. However, so often the possibilities for greatness are carved out by the depths of suffering. Dahl had a string of terrible luck which would help chart the course for his life, and help give his stories the dark cast of reality mingling with the tingles of fantasy. Throughout his life it was bad turned to worse: Dahl had an idyllic childhood until the age of 3, when his older sister suddenly died and was followed, weeks later, by her heartbroken father… When he was a boy, his nose was cut off in a car accident. (A doctor sewed it back on.) Then he was shipped off to boarding school in England, where he suffered all the traditional miseries. In World War II, he became one of the RAF’s most promising pilots—only to crash his plane, on his first official day of flying, in the Libyan Desert. As he lay there fighting for consciousness—his skull fractured, his spine wrenched out of place, his eyes swollen shut by burns, his poor reattached nose driven back into his face—his airplane’s machine guns, stoked by the heat, started shooting at him. (Anderson)

This string of truly unfortunate events would continue throughout his life, and they would color how he perceived his world, and the nature of his personal character in response to it. He came to storytelling by chance, “came to believe that his desert plane crash had literally changed his brain in a way that made him start writing stories” (Anderson). The nature of his character reflected the dangerous duplicity of fate, and while he could be maddeningly mean he could also be the most tender and magical. For instance, Dahl once wrote his daughters’ names on the front lawn, at midnight, with weed killer, then told them in the morning that it was the work of fairies. He gave much of his time and massive literary profits to charity. And he responded to family crises with almost incredible courage and ingenuity—virtues he assigned, not incidentally, to all the heroes of his stories. (Anderson).

However, at the same he would make spectacles and scenes, bully his editors, and insult his children. He appeared to be at war with himself over the question of the righteousness of life, which is evidenced in the whirlwind fates which beset his characters. While Dahl took his turn at adult stories and novels, it is in children’s stories his genius really shines through. His dark humor translated well to the fantastical page of children’s stories, creating characters which transcend logic and live and breathe humor. The spice of life moved through the great storyteller, also reflecting itself in his life. While the endings of his stories are always surprising, his own ending proved to have the same twist: In a hospital, surrounded by family, Dahl reassured everyone, sweetly, that he wasn’t afraid of death. “It’s just that I will miss you all so much,” he said—the perfect final words. Then, as everyone sat quietly around him, a nurse pricked him with a needle, and he said his actual last words: “Ow, f**k! (Anderson)

“Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” 2

Roald Dahl believed in magic, the force of it, and strived to live his life magically. This often led to confusing and contradictory actions based on values which were out to this world. 

“So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookshelf on the wall.” 3

Growing up during the age in which the television was beginning its dominion over the minds of man. He wrote is a small cottage in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, which the author called the writing hut (Tablot). Secluded in this hut of one’s own, the six foot six man must have felt like his own BFG (Big Friendly Giant) in the realm of smallish candy colored possibility. Dahl remained always a child at heart, and was able to speak the language of children, which eschews adult values in favor of the weird, the grotesque, and the fun. When children are invited to the writing hut today they marvel: [Dahl] unsatisfied with desks, had designed a baize-covered writing board, to balance on his lap just so. And they loved that he kept, on a side table, a jar containing gristly bits of his own spine, which had been removed during an operation on his lower back. Next to the jar was a waxy-looking knob that turned out to be Dahl’s hip bone, along with a titanium replacement.

Dahl made a practice of sticking the of the chocolate he ate with lunch into a ball, and over the years it has turned into a weighty cannonball concoction. However, more than any curiosity or treat, the visiting children are enthralled and excited to see Dahl’s books lined up in the writing hut. These books are the tangible reflection of the fantasies which they enable for children, whose imaginations are untainted by brutal reality. His books offer a viewfinder to the infinite, and it is likely Dahl will always be beloved by children. His fantastic creations include:

(List redacted for preview. Available via download).

Contrary to what civilization called progress and culture, Dahl believed that real progress was a spirit which could remain young and alive, continuing to have fun with life until the very end. A life well lived translated also into a life well read, and to this end contemporary culture could use a reminder from Dahl from the character of Matilda, whose “strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone” (Goodreads). This must have been the message Dahl himself found when he read, and felt led to translate literary wonders into the realm of children. 

“Don't gobblefunk around with words.” 4

With the child’s passion for self-expression and unfettered bravery, Dahl made up words to fit his expression, creating his own language, called Gobblefunk. These words sound like what they mean and create a visceral response for the reader/imaginer. A sample of Gobblefunk:

(List redacted for preview. Available via download).

Many parents/adults do not like Dahl for this reason, for his Gobblefunk has a way of dismantling culture, revealing the inanity and possibility which lay just under the surface of custom. Dahl’s characters are often menaced by those adults who put manners and customs before love and fun, turning their children into little slaves if they can. Thus, his commentary of society is waspishly clear. For example, “Matilda (1988) is the story of a prodigiously bright little girl who suffers at the hands of her boorish mother and father. The book offers a bracingly disdainful commentary on neglectful, selfish parents” (Tablot). In all the ways Dahl wanted to get back at the forces of fate which had played the meanie with him, he wrote. 

In The Twits, the nasty Mr. and Mrs. Twit receive their just comeuppances by the very monkeys and birds they torment, being glued upside down to the floor. Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge receive their just rewards in James and the Giant Peach when they are crushed by the peach rolling down the hill (Tablot). However, Dahl does not doll out justice to only nasty adults, for the spoiled children in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” get what’s coming to them as well. However, Dahl did not start writing children’s books until he had children of his own, and in this way he rediscovered his own childhood (Buckinghamshire County Council).

Conclusion

In celebration of this year, 100 years since the birth of a master, each person can look for the child within themselves, and look at the children in life, wonder for a moment how their innocence can be protected even better. Children are being drawn out of childhood in ever more sped up and violent ways, but the spirit of play and discovery can be reborn at any time. However, far better that it never dies in the light in a child’s eyes in the first place. Exposing children to the work of Roald Dahl is a good way to help that happen.

Endnotes

1: Goodreads. “Roald Dahl> Quotes.” Goodreads, n.d.

2: Goodreads. “Roald Dahl> Quotes.” Goodreads, n.d.

3: Goodreads. “Roald Dahl> Quotes.” Goodreads, n.d.

4: Roald Dahl Nominee Limited/Quentin Blake. “Roald Dahl titles.” Roalddahl.com, 2015. 

5: Goodreads. “Roald Dahl> Quotes.” Goodreads, n.d.

6: The Wonderful World of Roald Dahl. “Goblefunk: Dahl Dictionary.” Wonderfuldahl, n.d.

7: Tablot, Margaret. “The Candy man.” The New Yorker, 11 July 2005.

Works Cited

Anderson, Sam. “Big Sometimes Friendly Giant.” New York Magazine, 5 Sep. 2010. Retrieved from: http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/67962/

Buckinghamshire County Council. “10 facts about Roald Dahl.” Buckscc.gov.uk, n.d. Retrieved from: http://www.buckscc.gov.uk/leisure-and-culture/libraries/childrens-library/10-facts-about-roald-dahl/

Goodreads. “Roald Dahl> Quotes.” Goodreads, n.d. Retrieved from: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/4273.Roald_Dahl

Roald Dahl Nominee Limited/Quentin Blake. “Roald Dahl titles.” Roalddahl.com, 2015. Retrieved from: https://www.roalddahl.com/global/roald-dahl-titles

Roald Dahl Nominee Limited/Quentin Blake. “The gloriumptious Roald Dahl Rose.” Roalddahl.com, 2015. Retrieved from: https://www.roalddahl.com/blog/2016/may/the-gloriumptious-roald-dahl-rose

Tablot, Margaret. “The Candy man.” The New Yorker, 11 July 2005. Retrieved from: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/07/11/the-candy-man

The Wonderful World of Roald Dahl. “Goblefunk: Dahl Dictionary.” Wonderfuldahl, n.d. Retrieved from: http://wonderfuldahl.blogspot.com/p/dahl-dictionary.html