FREE ROALD DAHL SHORT STORIES WINDOWS

(Even Anderson dispenses with it in little more than a paragraph.) His adult writing roughs out the smoothness of his edges. Even as we acknowledge his difficulties-he was, as Sam Anderson wrote in New York, in 2010, вЂњ a stereotypical mid-century wealthy imperial Brit-a bullhorn of prejudice and entitlement whose gaffes could be almost touchingly cluelessвЂќ-we want, it seems, for him to fit a kinder, gentler formula.

Writing for adults is not what we think about when we think about Dahl-it does not fit our caricature of him.

And yet these stories remain largely overlooked. Here, too, we find the irreverent pleasure in the telling, the attitude of moral justice, the pointedness of the voice. This is not the Dahl of the childrenвЂ™s books, but, at the same time, of course it is. A similar perspective marks DahlвЂ™s final collection, вЂњSwitch Bitch,вЂќ four longer stories of sexual indiscretion, first published in Playboy. The writing relies on wicked twists: the sickly infant, saved, who grows up to be Adolf Hitler the visitor to a taxidermistвЂ™s bed-and-breakfast who discovers, too late, the taste of bitter almonds in his tea. That book was followed, in 1954, by вЂњKiss, KissвЂќ and, in 1960, by вЂњSomeone Like You,вЂќ which together include, among other pieces, ten stories that originally appeared in The New Yorker.

The first, вЂњOver to You,вЂќ came out in 1946, and features ten not-quite-conventional combat stories, based on his experience as a pilot in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. I canвЂ™t help but read this in a different way, however, as if it were a coded reference to DahlвЂ™s four books of adult short stories. вЂњIвЂ™ve finished all the childrenвЂ™s books.вЂќДahl may as well have been writing about himself: вЂњMatildaвЂќ was the last of his childrenвЂ™s books to appear, just two years before his death. вЂњIвЂ™m wondering what to read next,вЂќ Matilda, another one of his beloved title characters, says, as if to make such an idea explicit. Still, as Dahl also understands, nostalgia only goes so far, for childhood is a passing phase. This suggests something, I think, about why his work for children lingers: a whisper of nostalgia, a bit of history, personal or otherwise. This is among my favorite Dahl books, in part because of the giantвЂ™s idiosyncratic language (he likes a drink called вЂњfrobscottle,вЂќ which causes flatulence, or вЂњwhizpoppingвЂќ) and in part because I used to read it to my daughter, also named Sophie, when she was small.

FREE ROALD DAHL SHORT STORIES WINDOWS

More than two hundred million copies of his books are in print, and they have inspired countless adaptations, most recently the Steven Spielberg film вЂњThe BFG,вЂќ based on DahlвЂ™s 1982 book of the same name, about an orphan girl named Sophie-bad fortune, complete with adversarial adults and minders, is a staple of his writing for young readers-who, one night, witnesses the BFG, or вЂњbig friendly giant,вЂќ of the title, blowing dreams into the windows of sleeping children. (This discovery may have had something to do with the role I played in вЂњCharlie and the Chocolate FactoryвЂќ: I was the narrator.)Дahl died, in Oxford, England, in 1990, at the age of seventy-four, and this September marks the centennial of his birth, in Cardiff, Wales.

But he made me aware that the narrator, whether third person or first, is not a neutral figure but an active, even directive, force. Put another way, reading Dahl was my introduction to the importance of the teller, the idea that a successful story was less a matter of narrative than of voice-or not less, exactly, for DahlвЂ™s writing is nothing if not plotted. I first encountered the work of Roald Dahl in third grade, by playing a character in a classroom adaptation of вЂњCharlie and the Chocolate Factory.вЂќ Not long after that, I read вЂњJames and the Giant Peach.вЂќ I was not a child who particularly cared for childrenвЂ™s literature, but even as an eight- or nine-year-old I was captivated by the way DahlвЂ™s fantasias took on their own logic, their own momentum, and were driven as much by the flow of language as by the absurdities of plot.

Free roald dahl short stories