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cathgrin's review against another edition
3.5
Illuminating stuff. A terrible person with an incredible imagination.
barefootmegz's review
2.0
I am beginning to learn that if you read a biography of someone, you must be prepared to have them irrevocably changed in your eyes.
I knew very little about Roald Dahl before reading this biography, but I knew he was instrumental in my love of reading and so I thought he must be a wonderful person.
WELL.
There is now actually very little about him I find endearing. Even the analysis of his writing has left me wondering about how it came to be that I loved his writing so much.
Certainly he had an interesting and colourful life, but I can’t at all see him as likeable.
As for the biography itself: I found the writing rather slow and drab, and it took me very long to finish reading. In addition, this is an updated version of a 1994 print, and as such I would expect the information to have been updated too – which it has not.
Overall, a bit of a disappointing, if informative, read.
I knew very little about Roald Dahl before reading this biography, but I knew he was instrumental in my love of reading and so I thought he must be a wonderful person.
WELL.
There is now actually very little about him I find endearing. Even the analysis of his writing has left me wondering about how it came to be that I loved his writing so much.
Certainly he had an interesting and colourful life, but I can’t at all see him as likeable.
As for the biography itself: I found the writing rather slow and drab, and it took me very long to finish reading. In addition, this is an updated version of a 1994 print, and as such I would expect the information to have been updated too – which it has not.
Overall, a bit of a disappointing, if informative, read.
astroneatly's review against another edition
challenging
informative
medium-paced
4.0
Roald Dahl’s aim was to write short stories that were so perverse, you wouldn’t know even he was really a children’s author. He was a man who revered “Genius”, a Cadbury chocolates addict, insatiable tycoon and anti-Zionist. I used to read some of his stories for Playboy, as well as My Uncle Oswald. That book described Proust as a flaming homosexual and anti-semite. In fact, I recall that Oswald has some difficulty procuring his semen. And there were some historical fallacies in the novel, too…
Dahl was a fighter pilot of 80 Squadron, a major Pro-Palestine proponent. He survived the legendary British pilot Thomas Pattle in the same squadron, but not without some scrapes. Dahl’s skull was fractured and his nose was broken. He was being shot at in the sky above Palestine. After the war he became a collector of fine art, “Dahl was increasingly drawn to conspicuous wealth.” Even so, he was verbally abusive to his wife Patricia Neal, envious of her fame… they actually met through her friend, Dashiell Hammett. sometimes famous people don’t reap the wealth of their labors until later in life, Dahl didn’t start writing until his 40s, and prolifically a short story writer..
Well, you have to be a world shaker and a mover, Anyway. It’s all over when you succumb to inertia. I enjoy reading about famous people whose entire career is collaborating with more world renowned people. Its unfair that some great people can have so much fun. They get to create art AND make cashflow from it. Meanwhile, you have to work a dull job.
Dahl was a good friend of Alfred Knopf. He coined the term Gremlin which was sold to Walt Disney. Roalds arsenal included shock value, though critics said he was too predictable. When people comment that he’s a childrens author I am always quick on the draw, I remind them he was in fact quite successful writing fiction for adults too. I see him as more of a cartoonist. He wrote rather extensively these zaney characters in absurd predicaments and curious anecdotal fantasy. Children are wont to enjoy crudity, and he was that. Crude. Shrewd. Riveting and Arousing aficionado of storytelling. And a wild imagination to boot.
Dahl was a fighter pilot of 80 Squadron, a major Pro-Palestine proponent. He survived the legendary British pilot Thomas Pattle in the same squadron, but not without some scrapes. Dahl’s skull was fractured and his nose was broken. He was being shot at in the sky above Palestine. After the war he became a collector of fine art, “Dahl was increasingly drawn to conspicuous wealth.” Even so, he was verbally abusive to his wife Patricia Neal, envious of her fame… they actually met through her friend, Dashiell Hammett. sometimes famous people don’t reap the wealth of their labors until later in life, Dahl didn’t start writing until his 40s, and prolifically a short story writer..
Well, you have to be a world shaker and a mover, Anyway. It’s all over when you succumb to inertia. I enjoy reading about famous people whose entire career is collaborating with more world renowned people. Its unfair that some great people can have so much fun. They get to create art AND make cashflow from it. Meanwhile, you have to work a dull job.
Dahl was a good friend of Alfred Knopf. He coined the term Gremlin which was sold to Walt Disney. Roalds arsenal included shock value, though critics said he was too predictable. When people comment that he’s a childrens author I am always quick on the draw, I remind them he was in fact quite successful writing fiction for adults too. I see him as more of a cartoonist. He wrote rather extensively these zaney characters in absurd predicaments and curious anecdotal fantasy. Children are wont to enjoy crudity, and he was that. Crude. Shrewd. Riveting and Arousing aficionado of storytelling. And a wild imagination to boot.
tinareynolds's review
3.0
An interesting and clearly very well researched book covering Dahl's entire life. The section on Repton was of particular interest. Worth a read.
larrys's review against another edition
4.0
This was an enjoyable read -- probably because it confirmed everything I'd already surmised about Roald Dahl the man, after recently revisiting a few of his nastier works with my own 8 year old daughter.
Roald Dahl was an insufferable man. I'm so glad I never met him, even though I would love to have met him as a huge child fan of the 80s. I read all of his novels many times. In fact, I read nothing but Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton during my most impressionable primary school years, and although I'm generally a fan of 'reading, any reading', I do sometimes wonder if I'd be a nicer person if I hadn't been inhaling Roald Dahl on repeat. To give an example, I recently came across a piece of creative writing I did when I was about eleven years old. It was a very Dahl-esque piece, but only in the worst way -- it was a character sketch of a grotesquely fat woman whose very ugliness was indicative of her moral deficiencies. When I read it as an adult I was pretty horrified at my fat phobia. (My classroom teacher had praised it as an excellent example of a character sketch.) I can't blame Dahl entirely for that -- we live in a culture which judges women in particular for their looks -- but I do blame Dahl. I do. That man was definitely a phenomenon, and he had a heavy influence on child culture.
Have I grown crotchety as a 'middle-aged female librarian type' (the type Dahl abhorred -- though I'm not a librarian)? Or have I simply grown... nicer? Is it possible to write 'nice' books for kids which are also best sellers? I have no time for the view that children fail to pick nasty messages up from books. Of course they do. Children pick up everything. That's why books are so damn important.
Four characters interested me as much as Dahl himself did:
1. Stephen Roxburgh. Few people would recognise this guy's name. But reading the chapters on the development of Dahl's most successful chapter books in the eighties, it's clear (and comforting to those who write for children) to learn just how much better Roxburgh made Dahl's books as his young, enthusiastic and pedantic editor. This guy worked magic. Dahl's name gets on the cover, but The Witches and Matilda were vastly different stories before Roxburgh got his hands on them. (Naturally, Dahl ended up falling out with the guy.) It was fascinating to read how shit the stories were when Dahl dashed them off. (He also got shitty when required to change Matilda and didn't end up making all the recommended changes. Dahl hated being told what to do.)
2. Patricia Neal. The actress. Dahl's first wife and mother of his children. The woman who didn't seem to take Dahl's sexist shit. I'm now left wanting to know more about her. What's it like to be a Hollywood beauty and then suddenly fall from that position in your thirties? A telling bit of 20th century sexism: After Neal had her big stroke and was unable to work, the movie industry offered Dahl the job of writing the script for a Bond movie. Dahl looked down on movie writing and didn't even want it, but they paid Dahl more for the script than Neal had ever been paid for any of her actressing. (And yes, 'actressing' is the operative word here.)
I had never even realised that Dahl had been married to Patricia Neal even though I'm a longtime fan of the movie 'Hud', in which Neal shines.
3. Tessa Dahl. Treglown is particularly hard on Tessa. He calls her flighty and drug addicted and suggests her life is a complete mess, yet the readers are left unable to make our own minds up about Tessa as a person because apart from the biographer's brief snide comments, we are told nothing about her.
4. Rosemary Fawcett. Now here's a name I bet you've never heard of. My heart just breaks for Rosemary Fawcett. If you own a copy of Dirty Beasts, you probably have a version illustrated by Quentin Blake. But because Quentin Blake was already an established illustrator in the 1980s, and because Dahl required an extraordinarily high royalty (so the rightwing bastard could avoid paying tax on it in Switzerland), the publishers decided to go with a young woman, new to the field. (Treglown even notes a particularly sexist comment made about her -- innuendo about 'trying her out' -- not even clever.)
I think 'woman' is the operative phrase. They must have paid her in peanuts so they could pay Dahl what he ordered. Have a look for Rosemary Fawcett's illustrations for Dirty Beast on the Internet, because you can't buy the book now. You'll see they're fantastic. They are just as grotesque and scary as the rhymes themselves. Well, Dahl fucking hated them. He said so, too, and offered to buy all the copies up himself and incinerate them. (He didn't, because he was all talk.)
If you do look up Rosemary Fawcett on the Internet, you'll be disappointed to see she never produced another book. For anyone. Or if she did, it was nothing lasting. Roald Dahl, rather richly, accused Fawcett of creating illustrations that were too grotesque, and so her work was abolished after the first print run and the publisher reluctantly realised they would have to pay Quentin Blake to illustrate Dirty Beasts just as he'd illustrated Revolting Rhymes. That's what the public wanted. The truth is, Dahl requires a comic, kind-hearted soul to illustrate for him. His words are too scary otherwise.
But I really do feel for that Rosemary Fawcett. Imagine that. You're just starting out as a young illustrator and you get a great gig -- illustrating for the great and well-established, fabulously rich, best-selling Roald Dahl! You spend six months on your illustrations, get paid virtually nothing, and the Great Dahl Himself hates them. Rosemary Fawcett's career was halted through no fault of her own. The commissioning editor made the mistake. It was the editor who paired Dahl's macabre work with equally macabre illustrations, and no one could have predicted this would tip the public over the edge.
I am very sad that Rosemary Fawcett didn't find any more work, because her wonderfully grotesque illustrations would very well suit the work of a milder writer.
I wouldn't recommend this biography to lovers of Roald Dahl's work. I don't think I'll be able to re-read any more of his books with the same sense of wonder and admiration. I'd already lost it though, I think. If you are a huge Roald Dahl fan, there are a number of adulating biographies of him out there, one of which I read as a kid. The one where we imagine an affable old soldier with a crooked nose scribbling in a shed out the back, all the while alternating his smoking for chocolate bars. And those bits are technically true. This biography fills in the adult blanks -- his serial adultery, his anti-semitism, his patriarchal attitude towards the women in his life (reminiscent of Henry the Eighth, disturbingly), his unpleasantness to everyone who made his work better, and the fact that those pencils he wrote with in his shed had to be of a certain type, and he sent a junior publishing pro on a wild goose chase to try and find him some exactly the same, as nothing but a power trip.
After reading some of his short stories for adults I have always wondered, too, if Roald Dahl was a misogynist. I think after reading this I'll revise it upwards -- Treglown is no doubt right -- Roald Dahl was in fact a misanthropist. No doubt also on the sociopathic spectrum, or perhaps just narcissistic. Almost definitely dyslexic, on a different note. It's not like he didn't have his good points. He donated quite a bit of money to the dyslexic foundation in his later years.
And it's pronounced Roo-ahl. If only I can remember that.
Roald Dahl was an insufferable man. I'm so glad I never met him, even though I would love to have met him as a huge child fan of the 80s. I read all of his novels many times. In fact, I read nothing but Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton during my most impressionable primary school years, and although I'm generally a fan of 'reading, any reading', I do sometimes wonder if I'd be a nicer person if I hadn't been inhaling Roald Dahl on repeat. To give an example, I recently came across a piece of creative writing I did when I was about eleven years old. It was a very Dahl-esque piece, but only in the worst way -- it was a character sketch of a grotesquely fat woman whose very ugliness was indicative of her moral deficiencies. When I read it as an adult I was pretty horrified at my fat phobia. (My classroom teacher had praised it as an excellent example of a character sketch.) I can't blame Dahl entirely for that -- we live in a culture which judges women in particular for their looks -- but I do blame Dahl. I do. That man was definitely a phenomenon, and he had a heavy influence on child culture.
Have I grown crotchety as a 'middle-aged female librarian type' (the type Dahl abhorred -- though I'm not a librarian)? Or have I simply grown... nicer? Is it possible to write 'nice' books for kids which are also best sellers? I have no time for the view that children fail to pick nasty messages up from books. Of course they do. Children pick up everything. That's why books are so damn important.
Four characters interested me as much as Dahl himself did:
1. Stephen Roxburgh. Few people would recognise this guy's name. But reading the chapters on the development of Dahl's most successful chapter books in the eighties, it's clear (and comforting to those who write for children) to learn just how much better Roxburgh made Dahl's books as his young, enthusiastic and pedantic editor. This guy worked magic. Dahl's name gets on the cover, but The Witches and Matilda were vastly different stories before Roxburgh got his hands on them. (Naturally, Dahl ended up falling out with the guy.) It was fascinating to read how shit the stories were when Dahl dashed them off. (He also got shitty when required to change Matilda and didn't end up making all the recommended changes. Dahl hated being told what to do.)
2. Patricia Neal. The actress. Dahl's first wife and mother of his children. The woman who didn't seem to take Dahl's sexist shit. I'm now left wanting to know more about her. What's it like to be a Hollywood beauty and then suddenly fall from that position in your thirties? A telling bit of 20th century sexism: After Neal had her big stroke and was unable to work, the movie industry offered Dahl the job of writing the script for a Bond movie. Dahl looked down on movie writing and didn't even want it, but they paid Dahl more for the script than Neal had ever been paid for any of her actressing. (And yes, 'actressing' is the operative word here.)
I had never even realised that Dahl had been married to Patricia Neal even though I'm a longtime fan of the movie 'Hud', in which Neal shines.
3. Tessa Dahl. Treglown is particularly hard on Tessa. He calls her flighty and drug addicted and suggests her life is a complete mess, yet the readers are left unable to make our own minds up about Tessa as a person because apart from the biographer's brief snide comments, we are told nothing about her.
4. Rosemary Fawcett. Now here's a name I bet you've never heard of. My heart just breaks for Rosemary Fawcett. If you own a copy of Dirty Beasts, you probably have a version illustrated by Quentin Blake. But because Quentin Blake was already an established illustrator in the 1980s, and because Dahl required an extraordinarily high royalty (so the rightwing bastard could avoid paying tax on it in Switzerland), the publishers decided to go with a young woman, new to the field. (Treglown even notes a particularly sexist comment made about her -- innuendo about 'trying her out' -- not even clever.)
I think 'woman' is the operative phrase. They must have paid her in peanuts so they could pay Dahl what he ordered. Have a look for Rosemary Fawcett's illustrations for Dirty Beast on the Internet, because you can't buy the book now. You'll see they're fantastic. They are just as grotesque and scary as the rhymes themselves. Well, Dahl fucking hated them. He said so, too, and offered to buy all the copies up himself and incinerate them. (He didn't, because he was all talk.)
If you do look up Rosemary Fawcett on the Internet, you'll be disappointed to see she never produced another book. For anyone. Or if she did, it was nothing lasting. Roald Dahl, rather richly, accused Fawcett of creating illustrations that were too grotesque, and so her work was abolished after the first print run and the publisher reluctantly realised they would have to pay Quentin Blake to illustrate Dirty Beasts just as he'd illustrated Revolting Rhymes. That's what the public wanted. The truth is, Dahl requires a comic, kind-hearted soul to illustrate for him. His words are too scary otherwise.
But I really do feel for that Rosemary Fawcett. Imagine that. You're just starting out as a young illustrator and you get a great gig -- illustrating for the great and well-established, fabulously rich, best-selling Roald Dahl! You spend six months on your illustrations, get paid virtually nothing, and the Great Dahl Himself hates them. Rosemary Fawcett's career was halted through no fault of her own. The commissioning editor made the mistake. It was the editor who paired Dahl's macabre work with equally macabre illustrations, and no one could have predicted this would tip the public over the edge.
I am very sad that Rosemary Fawcett didn't find any more work, because her wonderfully grotesque illustrations would very well suit the work of a milder writer.
I wouldn't recommend this biography to lovers of Roald Dahl's work. I don't think I'll be able to re-read any more of his books with the same sense of wonder and admiration. I'd already lost it though, I think. If you are a huge Roald Dahl fan, there are a number of adulating biographies of him out there, one of which I read as a kid. The one where we imagine an affable old soldier with a crooked nose scribbling in a shed out the back, all the while alternating his smoking for chocolate bars. And those bits are technically true. This biography fills in the adult blanks -- his serial adultery, his anti-semitism, his patriarchal attitude towards the women in his life (reminiscent of Henry the Eighth, disturbingly), his unpleasantness to everyone who made his work better, and the fact that those pencils he wrote with in his shed had to be of a certain type, and he sent a junior publishing pro on a wild goose chase to try and find him some exactly the same, as nothing but a power trip.
After reading some of his short stories for adults I have always wondered, too, if Roald Dahl was a misogynist. I think after reading this I'll revise it upwards -- Treglown is no doubt right -- Roald Dahl was in fact a misanthropist. No doubt also on the sociopathic spectrum, or perhaps just narcissistic. Almost definitely dyslexic, on a different note. It's not like he didn't have his good points. He donated quite a bit of money to the dyslexic foundation in his later years.
And it's pronounced Roo-ahl. If only I can remember that.
tinareynolds's review against another edition
3.0
An interesting and clearly very well researched book covering Dahl's entire life. The section on Repton was of particular interest. Worth a read.
canada_matt's review against another edition
4.0
The joy of undertaking this two month stint of biographies is that I am able to learn a great deal about many people across the vast expanse of history. One other advantage is that I am able to peel back the onion of knowledge as it relates to anyone and discover just how little I knew beforehand. Roald Dahl is one such person, though I went into this book feeling I had a handle on his early life, having read both short pieces the man wrote about himself. Jonathan Treglown chose to delve deeper into the life of a man best known for his scores of children's stories, many of whom played a significant role in my early years. Treglown is first to acknowledged that there was a significant gap in Dahl's life story after the publication of both BOY and GOING SOLO in the early 1980s. However, Dahl's death and some argument with publishers left the majority of the man's life without a substantial biography all his own. Treglown solves that problem with his wonderful attention to detail and thorough analysis. The curious reader will find themselves surrounded with new information not gleaned from reading any of Dahl's work for children or the aforementioned mini-autobiographies. I am left with a significantly different image of the man and his life now, a mixed bag of emotions indeed.
In early chapters of the biography, Treglown recounts Dahl's young years in Wales and how he grew up without a father figure for a significant portion of his life. While Boy laid the groundwork for much of what the reader knows about Dahl (including his adventurous childhood and experiences at boarding school), Treglown explains that Dahl chose to add some selective memory to his hyperbole in recounting those years. Dahl admits that he was fully aware of this and had little desire to rectify the discrepancies after publication, which might add to his fanciful nature and ability to spin tales to entertain readers. A brief stint with the RAF during the Second World War left Dahl with many memories and some early ideas for writing projects. However, injuries kept him out of the cockpit and he was sent to Washington, where he served in the British Embassy. Many have wondered about Dahl's time in Washington, though Treglown offers little. There was one vignette about how Dahl discovered documentation of the American plan to takeover all civilian airlines after the war, monopolising the industry for their own benefit. Treglown also mentions that Dahl used his time in America to hone his skills with females, bragging of his conquests while dodging those who asserted any amorous intentions. Without a formal education after boarding school, Dahl needed a means of making money, especially after the end of wartime aggression and thought that he might be able to tap into his creative storytelling abilities.
Armed with a number of ideas and few people interested in his war-flavoured work (nuclear weapons, communism, Hitler), Dahl was put in touch with Walt Disney, who tried to create some films related to one of his few popular war stories that had been published. This project turned out to be less effective than either had hoped, the beginning of a string of failures with which Dahl would face over the next number of years. Dahl continued to work with the Knopf Publishing House, who remained curious about his work, though found it hard to find a market for his work. Treglown admits that Dahl was not committed to any publisher and would turn to whomever might have an interest in his work. Dahl enjoyed writing the more macabre story and did not tone down either language or content, as Treglown offers numerous examples of stories related to murder, rape, and extreme gore, all of which left many publishers less than eager to sign the author. In a twist of fate, Dahl was introduced to Hollywood actress Patricia Neal and the two soon gravitated to one another. Many felt that Dahl's name-dropping was annoying and out of sync with Neal's personality, but she began mirroring his ways and soured her relationship with many others. The two quickly married and became one of the oddest couples amongst their friends; Dahl would openly berate her and mock her southern roots while Neal passively allowed him to do so. It was only after Neal bore Dahl his first child that things became at least somewhat tolerable. While Dahl remained aloof and sought to publish his work, the family lived off Neal's roles and accompanying paycheques. After their brood grew even more, Dahl began to exemplify a strong paternal instinct, something that Neal admitted openly to anyone who would listen.
It was at this time that Dahl began concocting some stories to entertain his children. First, one about a young boy named James and his adventures riding on a giant peach, and eventually another about a young Charlie Bucket who won the chance to tour inside the town's chocolate factory. Dahl quickly found publishers for these two stories in America, though Britain was slow to publish. Of interest to the reader, the publication of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory faced a great deal of pushback, specifically due to Dahl's depiction of the Oompa-Loompas. Their 'pygmy from the depths of Africa' backstory proved highly problematic in a civil rights era America, though some massaging of the text eventually made it more palatable. Dahl still had little interest in gearing stories for children, though did agree to pen a few when approached by publishers for a series of books they had in mind. Playboy remained his most reliable source of income, publishing a number of his stories and paying decently. However, Dahl faced two significant personal tragedies that impeding his writing abilities and pulled his coping abilities to their limits. His marriage to Neal remained strained and she continued to be the primary provider, which surely irked the author. Their travel to shoot her films kept Dahl and his children on the move, though he tried to lay down some roots in both New York and rural England. And yet, he had still yet to find his niche for which he would eventually become so well known. Dahl did find himself expanding his horizons and ended up tackling screenplay writing, one of his own Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (title changed to remove vernacular mention of 'Charlies' and the racial implications) and then some of the James Bond saga, none of which were excitedly received. This earned him some decent financial payout, but nothing that could have let him retire.
The Dahl-Neal relationship continued to fray, as Dahl found companionship with a much younger woman, Felicity Crosland. He wrote to Neal and promised that there was no sexual component to it, though Neal speculates that this might not have totally been the case. Dahl's children were getting older and could see the cracks in their parents union, some of whom chose to act out and found their antics splashed across the tabloids. Dahl was, by now, beginning to find him momentum and had published Danny the Champion of the World, with moderate success. Treglown uses some of the latter chapters in the book to explore Dahl's eventual connection to Quentin Blake, illustrator extraordinaire whose work is likely best known to many readers who have read Dahl's work since the early 1980s. Additionally, the reader will find discussion of early manuscripts and story ideas of his most popular works (The BFG, The Witches, and Matilda) highly amusing, especially since Dahl's original plots took a backseat when strong editors got their hands on the work. Except for a few instances, Dahl's work was heavily rewritten, showing that while he was a master, his preeminence did not give him a pass when the red pen emerged. There was also a strong concern that Dahl was an admitted anti-Semite, something he never denied, though he did try to spin it as having issue with the Israelis during their battles in the early 1980s. He did go so far as to publicly draw parallels between Israeli PM Menachem Begin and HItler, which left many ill at ease. However, his agent and publishers continued to push back against booksellers who brought this up by citing that the stories themselves were not racially or culturally abhorrent, even if the author espoused his own set of beliefs. By his waning years, Dahl tired of criticism and interactions with the lowly reading public, which Treglown exemplifies in narrative full of off-colour comments made by the author. However, Dahl was sure to have much of his estate go towards helping the sickest of children and those who would be able to enjoy his work, in hopes that his stories could offer a dose of marvellous literary medicine. In death, Dahl was remembered for his stories and the wonder that they brought as new readers discovered them. However, his life was anything but a walk through the park or along the English seaside.
Treglown has surely taken on a significant and controversial task in trying to paint a complete picture of Roald Dahl. The man whose image is inedibly etched into the minds of millions (children and parents alike) is surely not the one that reality has to offer. By presenting Dahl in such a frank manner, the reader is able to see another side of the man. Offering detail where it is needed and skimming over other areas, Treglown weaves together a powerful piece that does dispel Dahl's "magical Willy Wonka" nature and offers, perhaps, the crueller side seen by many of the villains that end up slain in his books. Treglown offers another interesting aspect in the narrative that is worth mention; he contrasts many of Dahl's life experiences with children's stories he would eventually create. For example, Dahl's lack of a father figure (many of his stories only deal with a child and one parent or an orphan), boarding school cruelty (many stories have evil characters, both children and adults), and his Scandinavian lineage (there is a significant amount of witch, goblin, and other fairy mention in his stories). The reader is given this insight throughout the narrative and left to find other crumbs for themselves. Paced with decent sized chapters that provide enough for the reader to digest, Treglown has succeeded in offering the 'other side' to this author who sought greatness himself, rather than bask solely in the reactions of his fans. A should read by Dahl fans to balance out their previous sentiments.
Kudos, Mr. Treglown for keeping the story flowing and not candy-coating the narrative (pun intended). I have a much better view of the man and his development as an author, as well as some of the lesser known aspects.
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In early chapters of the biography, Treglown recounts Dahl's young years in Wales and how he grew up without a father figure for a significant portion of his life. While Boy laid the groundwork for much of what the reader knows about Dahl (including his adventurous childhood and experiences at boarding school), Treglown explains that Dahl chose to add some selective memory to his hyperbole in recounting those years. Dahl admits that he was fully aware of this and had little desire to rectify the discrepancies after publication, which might add to his fanciful nature and ability to spin tales to entertain readers. A brief stint with the RAF during the Second World War left Dahl with many memories and some early ideas for writing projects. However, injuries kept him out of the cockpit and he was sent to Washington, where he served in the British Embassy. Many have wondered about Dahl's time in Washington, though Treglown offers little. There was one vignette about how Dahl discovered documentation of the American plan to takeover all civilian airlines after the war, monopolising the industry for their own benefit. Treglown also mentions that Dahl used his time in America to hone his skills with females, bragging of his conquests while dodging those who asserted any amorous intentions. Without a formal education after boarding school, Dahl needed a means of making money, especially after the end of wartime aggression and thought that he might be able to tap into his creative storytelling abilities.
Armed with a number of ideas and few people interested in his war-flavoured work (nuclear weapons, communism, Hitler), Dahl was put in touch with Walt Disney, who tried to create some films related to one of his few popular war stories that had been published. This project turned out to be less effective than either had hoped, the beginning of a string of failures with which Dahl would face over the next number of years. Dahl continued to work with the Knopf Publishing House, who remained curious about his work, though found it hard to find a market for his work. Treglown admits that Dahl was not committed to any publisher and would turn to whomever might have an interest in his work. Dahl enjoyed writing the more macabre story and did not tone down either language or content, as Treglown offers numerous examples of stories related to murder, rape, and extreme gore, all of which left many publishers less than eager to sign the author. In a twist of fate, Dahl was introduced to Hollywood actress Patricia Neal and the two soon gravitated to one another. Many felt that Dahl's name-dropping was annoying and out of sync with Neal's personality, but she began mirroring his ways and soured her relationship with many others. The two quickly married and became one of the oddest couples amongst their friends; Dahl would openly berate her and mock her southern roots while Neal passively allowed him to do so. It was only after Neal bore Dahl his first child that things became at least somewhat tolerable. While Dahl remained aloof and sought to publish his work, the family lived off Neal's roles and accompanying paycheques. After their brood grew even more, Dahl began to exemplify a strong paternal instinct, something that Neal admitted openly to anyone who would listen.
It was at this time that Dahl began concocting some stories to entertain his children. First, one about a young boy named James and his adventures riding on a giant peach, and eventually another about a young Charlie Bucket who won the chance to tour inside the town's chocolate factory. Dahl quickly found publishers for these two stories in America, though Britain was slow to publish. Of interest to the reader, the publication of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory faced a great deal of pushback, specifically due to Dahl's depiction of the Oompa-Loompas. Their 'pygmy from the depths of Africa' backstory proved highly problematic in a civil rights era America, though some massaging of the text eventually made it more palatable. Dahl still had little interest in gearing stories for children, though did agree to pen a few when approached by publishers for a series of books they had in mind. Playboy remained his most reliable source of income, publishing a number of his stories and paying decently. However, Dahl faced two significant personal tragedies that impeding his writing abilities and pulled his coping abilities to their limits. His marriage to Neal remained strained and she continued to be the primary provider, which surely irked the author. Their travel to shoot her films kept Dahl and his children on the move, though he tried to lay down some roots in both New York and rural England. And yet, he had still yet to find his niche for which he would eventually become so well known. Dahl did find himself expanding his horizons and ended up tackling screenplay writing, one of his own Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (title changed to remove vernacular mention of 'Charlies' and the racial implications) and then some of the James Bond saga, none of which were excitedly received. This earned him some decent financial payout, but nothing that could have let him retire.
The Dahl-Neal relationship continued to fray, as Dahl found companionship with a much younger woman, Felicity Crosland. He wrote to Neal and promised that there was no sexual component to it, though Neal speculates that this might not have totally been the case. Dahl's children were getting older and could see the cracks in their parents union, some of whom chose to act out and found their antics splashed across the tabloids. Dahl was, by now, beginning to find him momentum and had published Danny the Champion of the World, with moderate success. Treglown uses some of the latter chapters in the book to explore Dahl's eventual connection to Quentin Blake, illustrator extraordinaire whose work is likely best known to many readers who have read Dahl's work since the early 1980s. Additionally, the reader will find discussion of early manuscripts and story ideas of his most popular works (The BFG, The Witches, and Matilda) highly amusing, especially since Dahl's original plots took a backseat when strong editors got their hands on the work. Except for a few instances, Dahl's work was heavily rewritten, showing that while he was a master, his preeminence did not give him a pass when the red pen emerged. There was also a strong concern that Dahl was an admitted anti-Semite, something he never denied, though he did try to spin it as having issue with the Israelis during their battles in the early 1980s. He did go so far as to publicly draw parallels between Israeli PM Menachem Begin and HItler, which left many ill at ease. However, his agent and publishers continued to push back against booksellers who brought this up by citing that the stories themselves were not racially or culturally abhorrent, even if the author espoused his own set of beliefs. By his waning years, Dahl tired of criticism and interactions with the lowly reading public, which Treglown exemplifies in narrative full of off-colour comments made by the author. However, Dahl was sure to have much of his estate go towards helping the sickest of children and those who would be able to enjoy his work, in hopes that his stories could offer a dose of marvellous literary medicine. In death, Dahl was remembered for his stories and the wonder that they brought as new readers discovered them. However, his life was anything but a walk through the park or along the English seaside.
Treglown has surely taken on a significant and controversial task in trying to paint a complete picture of Roald Dahl. The man whose image is inedibly etched into the minds of millions (children and parents alike) is surely not the one that reality has to offer. By presenting Dahl in such a frank manner, the reader is able to see another side of the man. Offering detail where it is needed and skimming over other areas, Treglown weaves together a powerful piece that does dispel Dahl's "magical Willy Wonka" nature and offers, perhaps, the crueller side seen by many of the villains that end up slain in his books. Treglown offers another interesting aspect in the narrative that is worth mention; he contrasts many of Dahl's life experiences with children's stories he would eventually create. For example, Dahl's lack of a father figure (many of his stories only deal with a child and one parent or an orphan), boarding school cruelty (many stories have evil characters, both children and adults), and his Scandinavian lineage (there is a significant amount of witch, goblin, and other fairy mention in his stories). The reader is given this insight throughout the narrative and left to find other crumbs for themselves. Paced with decent sized chapters that provide enough for the reader to digest, Treglown has succeeded in offering the 'other side' to this author who sought greatness himself, rather than bask solely in the reactions of his fans. A should read by Dahl fans to balance out their previous sentiments.
Kudos, Mr. Treglown for keeping the story flowing and not candy-coating the narrative (pun intended). I have a much better view of the man and his development as an author, as well as some of the lesser known aspects.
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