Issue 203

News: The Results of my Roald Dahl reading.
It's been a strange, eventful semester, with problems ranging from having a Queeg-like professor in one class to having to take some time off for mental health reasons, but that's not what I want to talk about here. For a while, although I haven't actually written anything about it here, I decided to spend some of my spare time re-reading the 14 major children's books of Roald Dahl (excepting "The Vicar of Nibbleswicke", "The Gremlins", and "The Minpins,"), often on audiobook (to ensure a steady pace and some balance with my other reading queues), with supplements from printed books (with Quentin Blake's illustrations whenever possible; His books aren't the same without them). I started during some weekends reading/listening to some of the shorter books (7 of the books can easily fit on a single CD each, incidentally)

I may as well give some impressions of ten of the books I've read, with some of my opinions enclosed. If I didn't find one for the other four, just rest assured that it was because I didn't think of a catchy enough title for each of them:

#1) The best: Matilda.
This is not only my favourite book by Roald Dahl, but it may probably be my favourite kids' book, (sorry, Tom Sawyer, and Phantom Tollbooth). Maybe it's because of the fact that, apart from the neglectful parents, finding an understanding kindergarten teacher, stopping my cruel teachers through telekinesis, and, of course, the telekinesis, it's pretty much the story of my early life. But that's not just it. It's simple wish fulfillment fantasy which just happens to truly reach its apotheosis in this particular form. Dahl's writing for kids truly reaches its greatest level of refinement in this book, just as Hemingway's reached its own in "The Old Man and the Sea." It's a love letter to reading, and a story about child abuse which doesn't weigh itself down in sentimentality, horror, or just plain meanness to any real degree. If "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is like his "Seven Samurai", "Matilda" is his "Ran."

#2) The worst: The Giraffe, The Pelly, and Me.
It was a tough call trying to choose between this and The Magic Finger, but the Magic Finger is merely short and unremarkable. I chose this because, even though this is one of those books he wrote that could fit on a single audiobook CD, it still feels like it's long as Hell. It's about a boy who meets up with a giraffe, pelican, and a monkey, and they start up a window-washing company. They wash a Lord's windows and they move in with him. That's it. It feels like Quentin Blake sent him a drawing of a boy standing next to a giraffe, a pelican on his head, and a monkey in the pelican's beak saying "The Ladderless Window Washing Company" and told him, "Write a story about that," and failing to do so, wrote this.

#3) The most overrated: The BFG.
Apart from the fact that the name recalls a weapon from "DOOM," the story doesn't really go anywhere for much of it, and, unlike some other books, it's not really that fun; it's just some explorations of human (and giant) nature that's not particularly deep. The BFG isn't particularly endearing, even with his dialect, and given that he's half the size of the other giants, his name "The big friendly giant" doesn't make much sense, and the climax of the "Story" includes the most inexplicable cameo by the Queen of England since Axe Cop and Light and Dark: The Adventures of Dark Yagami. The worst thing is that it seems to be his third most popular book, right behind Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Matilda.

#4) The Most Underrated: The Twits.
What can I say? It's simply a fun little book. Sure, Dahl might have used it as a way to vent his prejudice against bearded guys like me (and possibly another group he has been known to be prejudiced against), and sure, there's not much of a proper plot, and sure, the Twits have no redeeming qualities, but the book still remains a contender for the most fun I've ever had reading a book. The early, prank-centered section of the book is hilarious; especially listening to Simon Callow read the character of Mr. Twit, and it's simply amazing to see how the Twits are so mind-bogglingly stupid that the minute they return to see their furniture upside-down, they stay upside-down until they shrink into themselves. And, because Roald Dahl included a questionnaire for hairy-faced men in the early chapters, I'll answer it.
I wash my face twice a day, once after I wake up and once during my bath. I shampoo it during the bath. I don't use a hair dryer (unless you count a towel) or hair tonic, although I might consider it, and I trim it using scissors in a mirror.
 
#5) The most WTF: Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.
The book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory hasn't held up as well as the movies, but I think a lot of the flaws I found in the book are directly tied to the fact that it contains a sequel hook for this book, and boy, is it a messed-up book with very little of the charm of its predecessor. But there's still quite a few things about this book that are just bizarre, and not in a good way. Like how the first half of the book seems to rip off two of Kubrick's films: (Dr. Strangelove and 2001). Or how Charlie's grandma is suddenly American. Or how, while they try to flesh out the grandparents, Dahl couldn't think of anything better than chew toy of the universe. Or how Willy Wonka has an elevator to "minus-land." Or...

#6) The Book I'm ashamed to admit I accidentally ripped off for a story: George's Marvelous Medicine.
The book itself is a pretty good short novel. A boy tries to fix his nasty grandmother by making her a new medicine made from all the medicines in the house. She grows to a gargantuan proportion and, in an attempt at replicating the effect, shrinks to nothingness. Where I come in is that, for my fiction tutoring class, I decided to rewrite a story I had written earlier which involved a girl who bludgeoned another girl to death with a turkey leg (I ripped off one of his more adult stories in the process, but that was intentional.) The book comes in because, after rewriting the story, one of the details I added included a scene where she tried to remove the blood from the kitchen floor using any chemicals which she thought might be useful, which is, incidentally, the M.O. that George uses when trying to create the Marvelous Medicine. My tutor complained about it (more on grounds that it might not end well: Bleach and ammonia create mustard gas), and I decided that, later, I would word it better when finishing it.

#7) The darkest book even by Roald Dahl's Standards: The Witches.
This is one of Dahl's longest works, but it's pretty dark even by the standards of Roald Dahl. Even in the case of Matilda, The Trunchbull is never shown to have killed a kid. She may have killed Miss Honey's dad, and she may cause permanent damage to kids for mild offenses, but she's never stated to have killed any kids. The witches, on the other hand, seem to live for killing kids. Hell, their plan essentially amounts to genocide of all kids.  And even then, when the protagonist gets turned into a mouse, he's never turned back. Unlike any of his other books, this doesn't really have a happy ending. The happiest thing about it comes when 500 witches (turned into mice) get decapitated. Not only that, but the protagonist's grandmother states that, as a mouse-boy,  he had less than ten years to live, and he's actually okay with this, because they're going to spend the next couple years doing one thing and one thing only: killin' witches.

#8) The best early draft of a film treatment masquerading as a fully-drafted novel: The Fantastic Mr. Fox.
This is one of his shorter works, and it's okay, but I don't remember reading the book as a kid, but I do have the DVD of the film. Reading the book, it just feels like a dry run for the film version. Wes Anderson evidently put a lot of meat on the bones of the script, from fleshing out the world to putting a lot more personality into the characters, and even giving it the ending that the book never had.

#9) The most Jarring book in the Roald Dahl canon: The Enormous Crocodile.
Unlike the other 14 books I read, it's not really as much an illustrated novel or even a short story. It's really a picture book more than anything else. Its plot is simple: a crocodile wants to eat a child, and whenever it tries, whatever animals he's told of his plan try to stop him. An elephant then decides to throw him into the sun. It's repetitive and its darkness isn't really couched in humour, like his other books. Huh.

#10) The most fitting end to a career: Esio Trot.
This isn't one of his best works. It's not even as dark as some of the other books, and its story is simple, but in the end, it has a certain charm that isn't found in one of his other books. A man falls in love with a woman whose tortoise won't grow. So he slowly replaces him with other tortoises until she's satisfied and they marry. And then, the original tortoise starts to grow when given to a new owner. Somehow, it has its charms, and it all works. I might have put it in the most underrated spot, but where would I have put the Twits if I did? I wound up liking it so much that I seriously considered bringing it into my last tutoring session and reading from it.

Tract Review: Why Should I? Because Rondo Hatton won't leave you alone until he tells you about God's plan for your life, and spend more time on what he plans to do for your life if you don't accept God now.