I am writing this article on the 97th anniversary of Roald Dahl’s birth (September 13). You’ll read it a few days later. That’s okay — as Dahl’s storytelling is timeless.
Dahl’s own life was full of great stories, with summer vacations in Norway, hiking in Newfoundland, spotting wildlife while working in Kenya and Tanzania and serving as a pilot and spy in the second world war. He was a tall, rangy man, very much the image of the ‘Big Friendly Giant’ of one of his most beloved books, and a natural storyteller, as he discovered in 1942. The writer C S Forester had asked Dahl to send him an account of his war experiences so that he could write them up for a newspaper, as part of an effort to tell Americans about the British war effort. When Forester received Dahl’s description of his experiences, he wrote back to him saying he was publishing it as it was, and said, “Did you know you were a writer?” This was Dahl’s first publication, but he didn’t start writing for children until his own children were born, in the 1960s.
Instead, he started writing short stories for grown-ups. These stories can broadly be described as horror, but they generally don’t use any stock horror elements: haunted houses, vengeful spirits, undead creatures or anything like that. Instead, they usually deal with more or less ordinary, everyday people into whose apparently normal lives something horrific and macabre intrudes. I’ll never forget his story Lamb to the Slaughter in which — spoilers ahead — a policeman’s wife beats her husband to death with a leg of lamb, and then gets rid of the evidence by cooking it and feeding it to the policemen who have been sent to find the killer.
I apologise for giving away the plot of this fine story, but I wanted to give you a sample of the darker side of Dahl’s imagination, a dark side that isn’t without its own element of dark humour. Many of his stories have turned up in horror collections and there are many collections of his stories available.
Penguin has a collection of his best stories, which is a good place to start exploring this side of his fiction and the Everyman series includes a collected edition of all his short stories, including an early set of stories inspired by his experiences flying in the second world war.
When his daughters Tessa and Olivia were little, Dahl used to amuse them by making up bedtime stories. These soon became his first few children’s books: James And The Giant Peach, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and The BFG.
His book Matilda became the best-selling children’s book yet. These books were not just a passing fad. Even though more and more of them are being made and remade into movies, all the books are still in print, still being read by children — and adults — all over the world. What gives them their enduring appeal?
In many ways Dahl was a pioneer of the kind of fiction fans of JK Rowling or Lemony Snickett are used to. He always wrote from the child’s viewpoint — not the most common way to write a children’s book back in the ’60s or earlier, when children’s fiction was all too often written by people who were consciously ‘writing down’ to their audience and trying to teach them lessons.
Instead, Dahl captured the way the world looks to a child, with wonders and monsters lurking around every corner, with weird adults who seem more like cartoons than real people and with real things happening to the children, who could get into perils as dire as those of their adult counterparts, but would always come through with a little wit and wonder. Dahl also used his amazing imagination to create memorable characters. Just look at Charlie and the Chocolate Factory — the ebullient, unpredictable Wonka, Charlie’s bedridden grandparents, the wicked little children who win the other golden tickets and their parents — each one is vivid and unforgettable. The wicked sense of humour evident in his work for adults also appeared in a form that was irresistible to children in these stories, as you can see in his poetry for children, collected in books like Revolting Rhymes, Dirty Beasts and Rhyme Stew.
So if you haven’t any Dahl, be sure to pick up something by this enduring storyteller — you’re in for a real treat. And maybe next year, on Dahl Day (September 13, remember?) you can join with Dahl fans of all ages, all over the world, and dress up like your favourite Dahl character! As for me, it’s time to go see if that BFG costume still fits...