阅读罗尔德·达尔 Roald Dahl在小说之家的作品!!! | |||
他比较著名的作品有：查理与巧克力工厂（Charlie and the Chocolate Factory）、詹姆斯与大仙桃（James and the Giant Peach）、玛蒂尔达（Matilda）、女巫（The Witches）、吹梦巨人（The BFG）和Kiss Kiss。
一、生平
罗尔德•达尔在1916年9月13日出生于韦尔斯卡地夫的兰达夫，罗尔德的父亲是哈拉尔德•达尔（Harald Dahl），母亲是苏菲•玛德莲•达尔（Sofie Magdalene Dahl），都是挪威人。达尔一家在1880年代由挪威迁往卡地夫。罗尔德是因一个当时挪威的民族英雄北极探险家罗尔德•亚孟森而得名的。他在家中跟他的父母及姊妹说的是挪威语。达尔和他的姊妹在卡地夫挪威水手的教会施洗及命名，那里是他们父母上的教会。
在1920年，罗尔德3岁的时候，他7岁的姊姊艾丝翠得（Astrid）死于盲肠炎。大约一个月之后，他父亲死于肺炎，时年57岁。他的母亲虽然可以选择回到挪威与亲戚一起生活，但她还是决定留在英国，因为罗尔德的父亲生前一直十分希望他的儿女能在英国接受教育，他认为英国的教育是最好的。
罗尔德最初就读于天主教兰达夫学校（Llandaff Cathedral）。8岁那年，他和四个朋友放了一只死老鼠在“吝啬又讨人厌”的普莱契太太（Mrs. Pratchett）店中的糖果罐里，校长为此打了他们一顿。
于是，罗尔德被转到一所寄宿学校，但在那里他过得非常不愉快。他十分想家，几乎每天都会给家里写信，不过他从来都没有在信里显示出他的不开心。在母亲去世后，他才发现她收藏了所有当时往来的信件。
在德比郡的立普顿公学，他是级长的小跟班，在他的早年比较重要的一部份中，他拥有了他自己的小书桌。他的个子很高，在成年后有1.98米，他擅长运动，因而成为学校的壁手球和回力球队的队长，还是学校足球队的成员，这令他十分受人欢迎。那个时候，他逐渐喜欢上了摄影。在他就读这所学校期间，吉百利食品公司（Cadbury），一家巧克力制造厂，偶尔会寄新的巧克力产品到他的学校让学生测试味道。达尔常常想自己发明一些新的巧克力，希望得到吉百利食品公司的赞扬，而这也触发了他的灵感，并以此写出他的第三本书，《查理与巧克力工厂》。
在童年和青少年时期，他都会在暑假时回他父母亲的祖国挪威，多数时间都是去享受海岸边的峡湾。他自传体的作品，《男孩：我的童年往事》（Boy: Tales of Childhood）就主要是讲述那段童年时光。
在完成学业后，他用了3个月在纽芬兰与一个称为公学探险组织（Public Schools' Exploring Society）的队伍远足。在1934年7月，他加入了壳牌公司（Shell Petroleum）。经过2年在英国的训练后，他被调到坦葛尼喀（今属坦桑尼亚）的达累斯萨拉姆。他与其它两位雇员前往那里，居住在达累斯萨拉姆外围地区的高级房屋，有着一个厨师和私家仆人。在工作上，他得横越坦葛尼喀提供石油给顾客，他曾在途中遭到树眼镜蛇、狮子和其它野生动物的袭击。
1、第二次世界大战
在1939年的8月，第二次世界大战逼近的时候，有一个计划要将在达累斯萨拉姆的数百个德国人包围。达尔和14个达累斯萨拉姆的英国人，在坦桑尼亚被任命为军官，每人指挥一组英皇非洲步枪队（King's African Rifles）民兵。达尔对此和包围行动感到十分焦虑不安，但他还是完成了这命令。
之后，在1939年11月，他加入了皇家空军。在经过达累斯萨拉姆到奈洛比的600公里车程后，他获许与其它20个人进行飞行训练，他们当中有17人后来死于空战。他以DH虎蛾式飞机（De Havilland Tiger Moth）进行了7小时40分钟的单飞实习。在他的飞行过程中，他十分享受鸟瞰那些肯尼亚的野生动物。他继续往伊拉克巴格达附近皇家空军的海本尼亚空军基地（RAF Habbaniya）进行高级飞行训练。驾驶6个月霍克哈特式双翼飞机（Hawker Harts）后，他成为了一个空军少尉，被分派到皇家空军第80中队，驾驶老式的“斗剑者号”（Gladiator）。达尔在知道自己不会为空战而受训，甚至不会接受驾驶“斗剑者号”的训练时感到十分惊讶。
在1940年9月19日，达尔被命令驾驶他的“斗剑者号”由埃及的Abu Suweir到阿米利亚补给燃料，而后又到利比亚Fouka第二次补给燃料，再飞往马特鲁港南方30公里的第80中队小型机场。在最后一段航程，他找不到小型机场，而且夜色将近，燃料愈来愈少，他被迫试图降落在沙漠中。不幸地，起落架撞上巨砾，令飞机坠毁，他的头骨挫伤，鼻子陷到脸颊之中，两眼受伤。他勉力把自己拖出那燃烧着的飞机残骸。后来，他在第一本出版的作品（后叙）中提及过这一次飞机坠毁的事。皇家空军发现这一次飞机坠毁是因为达尔被通知的飞行地点完全错误，达尔错误地飞往英国与意大利势力范围间的缓冲地带，因而导致这次事件的发生。
达尔获救并被送往马特鲁港（Mersah Matruh）的急救站。他在那里恢复了知觉，但他的视觉没有同时恢复。之后他被送到了亚历山大港的皇家海军医院。他爱上了那里的一个护士，玛丽•威兰（Mary Welland），也是他8星期后恢复了视力后第一个看到的人。（在他还未能看见的时候只是爱上她的声音。恢复了视力后他决定不再爱她了）医生们说他再也没有机会飞行了，但在1941年2月，他被送往医院的5个月后，他被允许离开，又投入飞行工作。
在这时候，80中队在靠近希腊雅典的Elevsis，配备好霍克型的飓风式战机在希腊之战中与英国远征军并肩作战。他在1941年4月驾驶另一种战机代替飓风式战机飞越地中海，他只有少许操作指南和7小时的练习时间。在这个战争的阶段皇家空军只有18架战斗机在希腊，14架霍克型的飓风式战机和4架布伦海姆轰炸机。
4月15日，他在高昔斯（Chalcis）进行了他的第一次空战，与四架正在攻击船只的轰炸机对战，并操纵他的飓风式战机打下一架容克88型俯冲轰炸机。在4月16日的另一场空战中，他打下了另一架容克88型俯冲轰炸机。在4月20日达尔与空军中队长及他的朋友戴维•库克（David Coke）继续参与雅典之战，打下一些敌机。
在德国仍在对雅典进行压制时，达尔奉命撤回埃及。
80中队重新被召集到巴勒斯坦的海法（Haifa）。有四个星期，达尔每天都得进行飞行任务，在6月8日他打下了敌方的侦察型波泰63型战斗机；6月15日，打下了敌方的容克88型俯冲轰炸机，但之后他开始头痛，而且在飞机急速转向或变速的时候，产生短暂失明或昏眩的症状，他因此退役回到英国。这时他的军阶是空军上尉。
1942年，他在被调往华盛顿后开始写作。他第一本出版的作品是Shot Down Over Libya，描述他「斗剑者号」的坠毁事件，在1942年8月1日发表于《星期六晚报》（Saturday Evening Post）。福雷斯特（C.S. Forester）原先是希望达尔能先写一点皇家空军的趣事，他再加以润饰使其更具故事性。不过当福雷斯特读了达尔给他的故事后，他决定内文不需再经任何修改。原本的标题是 A Piece of Cake，后来的标题更具戏剧效果，但忽略了飞机坠毁与敌方行动毫无关系的事实。
在战争期间，福雷斯特在英国信息服务（British Information Service）工作，并为同盟国撰写宣传文宣，主要在于宣传美国人的消耗。这让达尔加入了间谍活动，隶属于英国安全协调处（British Security Coordination），他的上司就是以勇敢闻名的加拿大间谍头子威廉•史蒂芬逊（William Stephenson，或称Intrepid）。在战争期间，达尔提供华盛顿的情报给史蒂芬逊。当达尔回到英国，由于大使馆官员怀疑他对国家的忠诚，令他受到不合理的对待，达尔回忆道：“那些大男孩把我一脚踢出（情报单位）。”（大男孩此指年轻或经验不足的官员）。史蒂芬逊之后晋升了他的官职，并把他送回华盛顿的工作岗位。战后，达尔写了一些关于神秘组织的历史，他和史蒂芬逊即使在战争结束数十年后仍然维持着朋友关系。
战争完结时，达尔是皇家空军的中校。他5次空战胜利的记录经由战后调查证实，轴心国的记录也可以与此互相对照证实。
2、后期的生活
①家庭
达尔曾与奥斯卡金像奖得主的美国女演员派翠西亚•纳阿尔（Patricia Neal）共度了30年的婚姻生活（1953年－1983年）。他们有5个孩子：奥莉维亚（Olivia，7岁时死于麻疹）、泰莎（Tessa）、西奥（Theo）、欧菲莉亚（Ophelia）和露西（Lucy）。
当西奥4个月大的时候，坐的婴儿车被出租车撞到，导致他的脑袋受到重伤，得了脑水肿，眼睛也几乎瞎掉。罗尔德为此与几位专家共同研究出了WDT（Wade-Dahl-Till），一种可以使症状减轻的医疗品。西奥因而康复，之后顺利长大成人。
1965年，派翠西亚•纳阿尔在怀着第五个孩子露西时，曾三度中风。罗尔德试了各种方法让她慢慢地康复过来，中风一年后，纳阿尔又能重新行走、说话了，他们在1983年离婚。他其后娶了芙莉希蒂•克罗斯兰（Felicity Crosland），这场婚姻就一直延续至罗尔德逝世为止。
欧菲莉亚•达尔与医生保罗•法默（Paul Farmer）共同建立了健康伙伴（Partners in Health），一间旨在为那些贫困的小区提供医疗服务的非营利组织，她同时也是该组织的负责人。露西•达尔，是洛杉矶的一个剧作家。泰莎的女儿苏菲•达尔（Sophie Dahl，罗尔德作品吹梦巨人中的伙伴的灵感来源）是一位知名的模特儿与作家。她描述外祖父为“非常特别的人—非常强壮、总是处于主导地位……他不像米佛姊妹的父亲在屋子中大声叫喊，取而代之的是确凿而有把握的形式。”
②反犹太主义
达尔宣称他是反犹太主义者，为此他在以色列遭受到联合抵制。
1983年夏，他在《文学评论》写了一篇书评，批评通利•克里夫顿（Tony Clifton）发表在《新闻周刊》的《God Cried》——一本具高度争议性、描述以色列入侵黎巴嫩的图画书。达尔的批评指出在1982年6月的黎巴嫩战争时，“我们都开始恨以色列人”。这本书容易使读者采取极端的反犹太立场。根据传记作者杰瑞米•特雷格罗恩（Jeremy Treglown）的说法，达尔起初写了“我们都开始恨犹太人”，但《文学评论》的编辑基连•格林威（Gillian Greenwood）把达尔写的“犹太人”改为“以色列人”。根据此版本的译文，达尔顺理声称：“我不是反犹太主义者。我是反犹太复国主义者。”据称，达尔认为由于发表这些反犹太的言论，使自己不能成为一直很想当上的爵士。根据在2003年披露的政府文件所示，达尔曾经在1986年拒绝接受不列颠帝国官佐勋章，理由可能正是因为他太想要获得爵士头衔。
根据至少两位传记作家的说法，在达尔为自己的批评作辩护时，他告诉一位记者：“犹太人有一种特性，他们挑起仇恨……我的意思是，无论在任何地方反对任何东西，总是会有个原因；即使是像希特勒般可鄙的人也不是没有原因地选择他们的。”但是根据特雷格罗恩的说法，达尔仍旧与犹太人朋友私下保持友谊。
在晚年，达尔偶尔试图淡化一些对于反犹太主义的指责，在作品《单飞》（Going Solo）中，有一些插曲同情地描写了德国犹太人的流亡者；主张也与之前不同，宣称他反对的是不公正，而不是犹太人。他从不曾从他对于以色列强硬的立场退缩，但是在1990年，离他逝世不远之前他告诉英国独立报：“我无疑地是反以色列的，且我逐渐成为反犹太主义。”
③逝世与遗产
1990年11月23日，罗尔德•达尔于自宅死于一种罕见的疾病，白血病前期并发症（myelodysplastic anaemia），享年74岁。遗体葬于其所属教区的墓地。据他的孙女表示，家人为他举办了一场北欧海盗式的丧礼。陪葬物有snooker游戏、红葡萄酒、巧克力糖、HB铅笔和电锯。为了纪念他，于靠近艾尔斯伯里的白金汉郡郡立博物馆内设立了罗尔德•达尔儿童画廊。
2002年，一个韦尔斯首府加的夫的地标，Oval Basin plaza，将名称更改为“罗尔德•达尔广场”（Roald Dahl Plass）。 “Plass”即挪威语中的广场，这也是对于作家挪威籍的认同。也有许多呼声要求在公众场合为他竖立永久性的雕像。
达尔对神经学、血液学和文学的慈善捐赠在他过世后，持续由其未亡人藉由“罗尔德•达尔基金会”来给予赞助。在2005年6月，“罗尔德•达尔博物馆与故事中心”为了纪念罗尔德•达尔在文学上的贡献于Great Missenden开幕。
二、写作
藉由福雷斯特所激发的灵感，达尔出版了第一本作品 Shot Down Over Libya （后改名为A Piece of Cake），描述关于他在战争时期的历险故事。这篇故事被《星期六晚报》以900元买下，这带领他走向成为作家的道路上。耸动的书名其实与事实并不符合：达尔不是被射伤，而是在缺乏燃料的迫降时撞击地面而受伤。
他的第一本儿童文学作品是《小顽皮》（The Gremlins），内容讲述一种出现在RAF传统民俗中顽皮的小动物。华特•迪斯尼曾有意将其改编为电影，但终就没有成功，书于1943年出版。达尔继续创作一些20世纪儿童喜爱的故事，如《查理与巧克力工厂》、《玛迪达》和《怪桃历险记》。
他在创作可怕而恐怖的成人短篇故事方面亦十分成功，往往都有黑暗的幽默意识及令人惊讶的结局。很多本来发表在美国杂志，就像妇女居家杂志（Ladies Home Journal）、哈泼杂志（Harper's）、花花公子和纽约客，达尔之后将这些文章收录于文选集中发表，作品获得了全球性的赞赏。达尔写过超于60个短篇故事，这是一个十分巨大的数目，但只有一部分在他死后出版成书（见罗尔德•达尔短篇故事列表）。他的故事亦给他带来了三个爱伦•坡奖：在1954年，Someone Like You；1959年，故事The Landlady；1980年，以Skin电影为基础写作的的短篇故事Tales of the Unexpected 。
他较著名的成人小说，吸烟者（The Smoker），或称Man from the South，拍摄成影集Alfred Hitchcock Presents, 并改编成1995年电影Four Rooms中昆廷•塔伦蒂诺（Quentin Tarantino）的部分。他的短篇故事集Tales of the Unexpected 成功地改编为同名的电视影集。短篇故事中有一部分经猜测是出自于他虚构的叔叔奥斯沃的日记，这些故事中的主角，一位富有的绅士。
在达尔相较之下比较没那么成功的1960年代，他开始写电影剧本。其中两部由伊恩•弗莱明（Ian Fleming）改编为小说：詹姆士•庞德（James Bond）的You Only Live Twice和Chitty Chitty Bang Bang。他也改编自己的作品，如《威利旺卡与巧克力工厂》（Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory）。
与妻子芙莉希蒂合着的Memories with Food at Gipsy House于过世后在1991年出版，书内穿插着食谱—家人与达尔共同回想与沉思出的、以喜爱吃的食物为主的食谱，如巧克力、洋葱和红葡萄酒。
他的大部分儿童文学作品的插图都是昆丁•布雷克（Quentin Blake）画的。
达尔的儿童文学作品常常从一个小孩的观点记述，通常会包括成人反派角色—憎恨并虐待小孩的人，至少有一”好的”大人来减轻反派角色带来的影响（据一份或许遭到滥用的参考文献，达尔常将其在寄宿学校的经验融入作品中）。内容大多包含黑色幽默、古怪的情节和可怕的暴力。《女巫》与《玛迪达》即套用了这个公式。《吹梦巨人》遵守并加以推广这个公式：“好巨人”（the BFG或Big Friendly Giant）代表那些“好的”大人的原型，而其它巨人代表着“坏的”大人。这公式也出现在一部分达尔的剧本中，如Chitty Chitty Bang Bang。阶级意识的主题，如以是否带面罩决定身份地位，也出现在一些作品中如《狐狸爸爸万岁》（Fantastic Mr Fox）和《咱们是世界最佳搭档》（Danny, the Champion of the World）。在达尔书中的另一特色是，肥胖的角色通常会是儿童，如《查理与巧克力工厂》的古鲁（Augustus Gloop）、《女巫》的布鲁诺•詹金斯（Bruno Jenkins）和《玛迪达》的布鲁士•波格托（Bruce Bogtrotter），不过这也有例外：有一位“巨大”的要角Aunt Sponge出现在《怪桃历险记》。
达尔的母亲常常给他和他的姊妹们说故事，说关于传说中的巨人和其它虚构的挪威的东西，因此有一些他的儿童文学作品如《吹梦巨人》等都会出现这些巨人等虚构之物。
三、作品列表
1、儿童文学作品
①儿童故事
1943年：捣乱小精灵（The Gremlins）
1961年：詹姆斯与大仙桃（James and the Giant Peach）
1964年：查理和巧克力工厂（Charlie and the Chocolate Factory）
1966年：魔法手指（The Magic Finger）
1970年：了不起的狐狸爸爸（Fantastic Mr Fox）
1973年：查理和大玻璃升降机（Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator），《查理与巧克力工厂》的续集。
1975年：世界冠军丹尼（Danny the Champion of the World）
1977年：The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More
1978年：大大大大的鳄鱼（The Enormous Crocodile）
1980年：蠢特夫妇（The Twits）
1981年：小乔治的神奇魔药（George's Marvelous Medicine）
1982年：好心眼儿巨人（The BFG）
1983年：女巫（The Witches）
1985年：长颈鹿、小鹈儿和我（The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me）
1988年：玛蒂尔达（Matilda），或译《小魔女》
1989年：喂咕呜爱情咒（Esio Trot）
1991年：The Minpin
1991年：The Vicar of Nibbleswicke
②儿童诗歌
1982年：Revolting Rhyme
1983年：Dirty Beast
1989年：Rhyme Stew
2、成人小说
①长篇小说
1948年：Sometime Never: A Fable for Supermen
1979年：超完美情夫（My Uncle Oswald）
②短篇小说集
1946年：Over To You: Ten Stories of Flyers and Flying
1953年：Someone Like You
1960年：Kiss Ki
1969年：Twenty-Nine Kisses from Roald Dahl
1979年：达尔惊奇小说选一：南美怪客（Tales of the Unexpected）
1974年：Switch Bitch ISBN 0 1400 4179 6
1980年：达尔惊奇小说选二：开罗艳遇（More Tales of the Unexpected）
1978年：罗尔德•达尔精选集（The Best of Roald Dahl）
1983年：罗尔德•达尔的鬼故事（Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories）
1989年：啊，美妙神秘的生命（Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life: The Country Stories of Roald Dahl）
1991年：达尔短篇故事集（The Collected Short Stories of Dahl）
1986年：Two Fable
1997年：The Great Automatic Grammatizator
2000年：The Mildenhall Treasure
2006年：Roald Dahl: Collected Storie
3、非小说类
1984年：好小子—我的童年故事（Boy – Tales of Childhood）至16岁的生平数据，尤其在20世纪初在英国的学习生涯。
1986年：单飞（Going Solo）自传的续编，记述了他在贝壳石油公司和在坦尚尼亚战前的工作。
1986年：Measles, a Dangerous Illne
1991年：Memories with Food at Gipsy House
1991年：Roald Dahl's Guide to Railway Safety
1993年：My Year
1993年：The Roald Dahl Ominibu
4、剧本
1955年：The Honeys 创作于百老汇长亩剧场。
5、电影剧本
1967年：You Only Live Twice
1968年：Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
1971年：The Night Digger
1971年：威利。旺卡与巧克力工厂（Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory）
Born in Llandaff, Cardiff, to Norwegian parents, he served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, in which he became a flying ace and intelligence agent, rising to the rank of Wing Commander. Dahl rose to prominence in the 1940s with works for both children and adults, and became one of the world's bestselling authors. He has been referred to as "one of the greatest storytellers for children of the 20th century". In 2008 The Times placed Dahl sixteenth on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". His short stories are known for their unexpected endings, and his children's books for their unsentimental, often very dark humour.
Some of his better-known works include James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox, Matilda, The Witches, and The Big Friendly Giant.
Early life
Roald Dahl was born at Villa Marie, Fairwater Road, Llandaff, Glamorgan, in 1916, to Norwegian parents, Harald Dahl and Sofie Magdalene Dahl (née Hesselberg). Dahl's father had moved from Sarpsborg in Norway and settled in Cardiff in the 1880s. His mother came over to marry his father in 1911. Dahl was named after the polar explorer Roald Amundsen, a national hero in Norway at the time. He spoke Norwegian at home with his parents and sisters, Astri, Alfhild, and Else. Dahl and his sisters were christened at the Norwegian Church, Cardiff, where their parents worshipped.
In 1920, when Dahl was still three years old, his seven-year-old sister, Astri, died from appendicitis. Weeks later, his father died of pneumonia at the age of 57. With the option of returning to Norway to live with relatives, Dahl's mother decided to remain in Wales, because her husband Harald had wished to have their children educated in British schools, which he considered the world's best.
Dahl first attended The Cathedral School, Llandaff. At the age of eight, he and four of his friends (one named Thwaites) were caned by the headmaster after putting a dead mouse in a jar of gobstoppers at the local sweet shop, which was owned by a "mean and loathsome" old woman called Mrs Pratchett. This was known amongst the five boys as the "Great Mouse Plot of 1924". This was Roald's own idea.
Thereafter, he transferred to a boarding school in England: Saint Peter's in Weston-super-Mare. Roald's parents had wanted him to be educated at a British public school and, at the time, because of a then regular ferry link across the Bristol Channel, this proved to be the nearest. His time at Saint Peter's was an unpleasant experience for him. He was very homesick and wrote to his mother every week, but never revealed to her his unhappiness, being under the pressure of school censorship. Only after her death in 1967 did he find out that she had saved every single one of his letters, in small bundles held together with green tape. Dahl wrote about his time at St. Peter's in his autobiography Boy: Tales of Childhood.
From 1929, he attended Repton School in Derbyshire, where, according to Boy: Tales of Childhood, a friend named Michael was viciously caned by headmaster Geoffrey Fisher, the man who later became the Archbishop of Canterbury and crowned the Queen in 1953. (However, according to Dahl's biographer Jeremy Treglown, the caning took place in May 1933, a year after Fisher had left Repton. The headmaster concerned was in fact J.T. Christie, Fisher's successor.) This caused Dahl to "have doubts about religion and even about God". He was never seen as a particularly talented writer in his school years, with one of his English teachers writing in his school report "I have never met anybody who so persistently writes words meaning the exact opposite of what is intended," Dahl was exceptionally tall, reaching 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m) in adult life. He excelled at sports, being made captain of the school fives and squash teams, and also playing for the football team. He developed an interest in photography. During his years at Repton, Cadbury, the chocolate company, would occasionally send boxes of new chocolates to the school to be tested by the pupils. Dahl apparently used to dream of inventing a new chocolate bar that would win the praise of Mr. Cadbury himself, and this proved the inspiration for him to write his third book for children, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1963) and include references to chocolate in other books for children.
Throughout his childhood and adolescent years, Dahl spent his summer holidays with his mother's family in Norway. His childhood and first job selling kerosene in Midsomer Norton and surrounding villages in Somerset are subjects in Boy: Tales of Childhood. The main child character in his 1983 book The Witches is a British boy of Norwegian origin; his grandmother is still living in Norway.
After finishing his schooling, he spent three weeks hiking through Newfoundland with the Public Schools' Exploring Society (now known as BSES Expeditions).
Prewar career and fighter ace
In July 1934, Dahl joined the Shell Petroleum Company. Following two years of training in the UK, he was transferred to Dar-es-Salaam, Tanganyika (now Tanzania). Along with the only two other Shell employees in the entire territory, he lived in luxury in the Shell House outside Dar-es-Salaam, with a cook and personal servants. While out on assignments supplying oil to customers across Tanganyika, he encountered black mambas and lions, amongst other wildlife.
Roald Dahl
13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990 (aged 74)
Place of birth Llandaff, Cardiff, Wale
Place of death Oxford, England
Allegiance United Kingdom
Service/branch British Army (August–November 1939)
Royal Air Force (November 1939–1945)
Years of service 1939–1945
Rank Wing Commander
Battles/wars World War II
Other work Author
In August 1939, as World War II loomed, plans were made to round up the hundreds of Germans in Dar-es-Salaam. Dahl was made an officer in the King's African Rifles, commanding a platoon of Askaris, indigenous troops serving in the colonial army.
In November 1939, Dahl joined the Royal Air Force as an Aircraftman. After a 600-mile (970 km) car journey from Dar-es-Salaam to Nairobi, he was accepted for flight training with 16 other men, and was one of only three who survived the war. With seven hours and 40 minutes experience in a De Havilland Tiger Moth, he flew solo; Dahl enjoyed watching the wildlife of Kenya during his flights. He continued to advanced flying training in Iraq, at RAF Habbaniya, 50 miles (80 km) west of Baghdad. He was promoted to Leading Aircraftman on 24 August 1940. Following six months' training on Hawker Harts, Dahl was made an Acting Pilot Officer.
He was assigned to No. 80 Squadron RAF, flying obsolete Gloster Gladiators, the last biplane fighter aircraft used by the RAF. Dahl was surprised to find that he would not receive any specialised training in aerial combat, or in flying Gladiators. On 19 September 1940, Dahl was ordered to fly his Gladiator from Abu Sueir in Egypt, on to Amiriya to refuel, and again to Fouka in Libya for a second refuelling. From there he would fly to 80 Squadron's forward airstrip 30 miles (48 km) south of Mersa Matruh. On the final leg, he could not find the airstrip and, running low on fuel and with night approaching, he was forced to attempt a landing in the desert. The undercarriage hit a boulder and the aircraft crashed, fracturing his skull, smashing his nose, and temporarily blinding him. He managed to drag himself away from the blazing wreckage and passed out. Later, he wrote about the crash for his first published work.
Dahl was rescued and taken to a first-aid post in Mersa Matruh, where he regained consciousness, but not his sight, and was then taken by train to the Royal Navy hospital in Alexandria. There he fell in and out of love with a nurse, Mary Welland. An RAF inquiry into the crash revealed that the location to which he had been told to fly was completely wrong, and he had mistakenly been sent instead to the no man's land between the Allied and Italian forces.
In February 1941, Dahl was discharged from hospital and passed fully fit for flying duties. By this time, 80 Squadron had been transferred to the Greek campaign and based at Eleusina, near Athens. The squadron was now equipped with Hawker Hurricanes. Dahl flew a replacement Hurricane across the Mediterranean Sea in April 1941, after seven hours flying Hurricanes. By this stage in the Greek campaign, the RAF had only 18 combat aircraft in Greece: 14 Hurricanes and four Bristol Blenheim light bombers. Dahl saw his first aerial combat on 15 April 1941, while flying alone over the city of Chalcis. He attacked six Junkers Ju-88s that were bombing ships and shot one down. On 16 April in another air battle, he shot down another Ju-88.
On 20 April 1941, Dahl took part in the "Battle of Athens", alongside the highest-scoring British Commonwealth ace of World War II, Pat Pattle and Dahl's friend David Coke. Of 12 Hurricanes involved, five were shot down and four of their pilots killed, including Pattle. Greek observers on the ground counted 22 German aircraft downed, but because of the confusion of the aerial engagement, none of the pilots knew which plane they had shot down. Dahl described it as "an endless blur of enemy fighters whizzing towards me from every side".
In May, as the Germans were pressing on Athens, Dahl was evacuated to Egypt. His squadron was reassembled in Haifa. From there, Dahl flew sorties every day for a period of four weeks, shooting down a Vichy French Air Force Potez 63 on 8 June and another Ju-88 on 15 June, but he then began to get severe headaches that caused him to black out. He was invalided home to Britain. Though at this time Dahl was only an Acting Pilot Officer, in September 1941 he was simultaneously confirmed as a Pilot Officer and promoted to Flying Officer.
Dahl began writing in 1942, after he was transferred to Washington, D.C. as Assistant Air Attaché. His first published work, in 1 August 1942 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, was "Shot Down Over Libya" which described the crash of his Gloster Gladiator. C. S. Forester had asked Dahl to write down some RAF anecdotes so that he could shape them into a story. After Forester read what Dahl had given him, he decided to publish the story exactly as Dahl had written it. The original title of the article was "A Piece of Cake" but the title was changed to sound more dramatic, despite the fact that he was not actually shot down.
Dahl was promoted to Flight Lieutenant in August 1942. During the war, Forester worked for the British Information Service and was writing propaganda for the Allied cause, mainly for American consumption. This work introduced Dahl to espionage and the activities of the Canadian spymaster William Stephenson, known by the codename "Intrepid".
During the war, Dahl supplied intelligence from Washington to Stephenson and his organisation known as British Security Coordination, which was part of MI6. He was revealed in the 1980s to have been serving to help promote Britain's interests and message in the United States and to combat the "America First" movement, working with such other well known agents as Ian Fleming and David Ogilvy. Dahl was once sent back to Britain by British Embassy officials, supposedly for misconduct – "I got booted out by the big boys," he said. Stephenson promptly sent him back to Washington—with a promotion to Wing Commander. Towards the end of the war, Dahl wrote some of the history of the secret organisation and he and Stephenson remained friends for decades after the war.
Upon the war's conclusion, Dahl held the rank of a temporary Wing Commander (substantive Flight Lieutenant). Owing to his accident in 1940 having left him with excruciating headaches while flying, in August 1946 he was invalided out of the RAF. He left the service with the substantive rank of Squadron Leader. His record of five aerial victories, qualifying him as a flying ace, has been confirmed by post-war research and cross-referenced in Axis records, although it is most likely that he scored more than that during 20 April 1941 when 22 German aircraft were shot down.
Postwar life
Family
Patricia Neal and Roald Dahl
Dahl married American actress Patricia Neal on 2 July 1953 at Trinity Church in New York City. Their marriage lasted for 30 years and they had five children: Olivia, Tessa, Theo, Ophelia, and Lucy.
On 5 December 1960, four-month-old Theo Dahl was severely injured when his baby carriage was struck by a taxicab in New York City. For a time, he suffered from hydrocephalus, and as a result, his father became involved in the development of what became known as the "Wade-Dahl-Till" (or WDT) valve, a device to alleviate the condition.
In November 1962, Olivia Dahl died of measles encephalitis at age seven. Dahl subsequently became a proponent of immunization and dedicated his 1982 book The BFG to his deceased daughter.
In 1965, wife Patricia Neal suffered three burst cerebral aneurysms while pregnant with their fifth child, Lucy; Dahl took control of her rehabilitation and she eventually relearned to talk and walk, and even returned to her acting career.
Following a divorce from Neal in 1983, Dahl married Felicity "Liccy" Crosland the same year at Brixton Town Hall, South London, with whom he was in a relationship prior to this. According to a biographer, Donald Sturrock, Liccy gave up her job and moved into 'Gipsy House', Great Missenden, which had been Dahl's home since 1954.
He is the father of the author Tessa Dahl, grandfather of author, cookbook writer, and former model Sophie Dahl (whom Sophie in The BFG is named after) and father-in-law to actor Julian Holloway (son of actor Stanley Holloway).
Death and legacy
Dahl's gravestone, St. Peter and St. Paul's Church, Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire
Roald Dahl died on 23 November 1990, at the age of 74 of a blood disease, myelodysplastic syndrome, in Oxford, and was buried in the cemetery at St. Peter and St. Paul's Church in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, England. According to his granddaughter, the family gave him a "sort of Viking funeral". He was buried with his snooker cues, some very good burgundy, chocolates, HB pencils and a power saw. In his honour, the Roald Dahl Children's Gallery was opened in November 1996, at the Buckinghamshire County Museum in nearby Aylesbury.
In 2002, one of Cardiff Bay's modern landmarks, the historic Oval Basin plaza, was re-christened "Roald Dahl Plass". "Plass" means "place" or "square" in Norwegian, referring to the acclaimed late writer's Norwegian roots. There have also been calls from the public for a permanent statue of him to be erected in the city.
Dahl's charitable commitments in the fields of neurology and haematology have been continued by his widow since his death, through Roald Dahl's Marvellous Children's Charity, formerly known as the Roald Dahl Foundation. In June 2005, the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre opened in Great Missenden to celebrate the work of Roald Dahl and advance his work in literacy education.
In 2008, the UK charity Booktrust and Children's Laureate Michael Rosen inaugurated The Roald Dahl Funny Prize, an annual award to authors of humorous children's fiction. On 14 September 2009 (the day after what would have been Dahl's 93rd birthday) the first blue plaque in his honour was unveiled in Llandaff, Cardiff, Wales. Rather than commemorating his place of birth, however, the plaque was erected on the wall of the former sweet shop (and site of "The Great Mouse Plot of 1924") that features in the first part of his autobiography Boy. It was unveiled by his widow Felicity and son Theo.
In honour of Roald Dahl, Gibraltar Post issued a set of four stamps in 2010 featuring Quentin Blake’s original illustrations for four of the children’s books written by Dahl during his long career; The BFG, The Twits, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda. Dahl's influence has extended beyond literary figures, and he connected with film director Tim Burton with his "mixture of light and darkness, and not speaking down to kids, and the kind of politically incorrect humour that kids get". Regarded as "one of the greatest storytellers for children of the 20th century", Dahl was listed as one of the greatest British writers since 1945. He ranks amongst the world's bestselling fiction authors, with sales estimated at over 100 million. In 2003, the UK survey entitled The Big Read carried out by the BBC in order to find the "nations best loved novel" of all time, four of Dahl's books were named in the Top 100, with only works by Charles Dickens and Terry Pratchett featuring more.
Roald Dahl Day
The anniversary of Dahl's birthday on 13 September is celebrated as "Roald Dahl Day" in Africa, the United Kingdom, and Latin America.
Writing
Roald Dahl's story "The Devious Bachelor" was illustrated by Frederick Siebel when it was published in Collier's (September 1953).
Dahl's first published work, inspired by a meeting with C. S. Forester, was "A Piece Of Cake." in August 1, 1942. The story, about his wartime adventures, was bought by The Saturday Evening Post for $1000 (a substantial sum in 1942) and published under the title "Shot Down Over Libya".
His first children's book was The Gremlins, about mischievous little creatures that were part of RAF folklore. All the RAF pilots blamed the gremlins for all the problems with the plane. The book, which First Lady of the U.S. Eleanor Roosevelt read to her grandchildren, was commissioned by Walt Disney for a film that was never made, and published in 1943. Dahl went on to create some of the best-loved children's stories of the 20th century, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, The Witches, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, The BFG, George's Marvellous Medicine and Fantastic Mr Fox.
Dahl also had a very successful parallel career as the writer of macabre adult short stories, usually with a dark sense of humour and a surprise ending. The Mystery Writers of America presented Dahl with three Edgar Awards for his work, and many were originally written for American magazines such as Collier's, Ladies Home Journal, Harper's, Playboy and The New Yorker. Works such as Kiss Kiss subsequently collected Dahl's stories into anthologies, gaining worldwide acclaim. Dahl wrote more than 60 short stories; they have appeared in numerous collections, some only being published in book form after his death (See List of Roald Dahl short stories). His three Edgar Awards were given for: in 1954, for the collection Someone Like You; in 1959, for the story "The Landlady"; and in 1980, for the episode of Tales of the Unexpected based on "Skin".
One of his more famous adult stories, "The Smoker" (also known as "Man From the South"), was filmed twice as both 1960 and 1985 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and also adapted into Quentin Tarantino's segment of the 1995 film Four Rooms. This bizarre, oft-anthologised suspense classic concerns a man residing in Jamaica who wagers with visitors in an attempt to claim the fingers from their hands. The 1960 Hitchcock version stars Steve McQueen and Peter Lorre.
His short story collection Tales of the Unexpected was adapted to a successful TV series of the same name, beginning with "Man From the South". When the stock of Dahl's own original stories was exhausted, the series continued by adapting stories by authors that were written in Dahl's style, including the writers John Collier and Stanley Ellin.
He acquired a traditional Romanichal Gypsy wagon in the 1960s, and the family used it as a playhouse for his children. He later used the vardo as a writing room, where he wrote the book Danny, the Champion of the World.
A number of his short stories are supposed to be extracts from the diary of his (fictional) Uncle Oswald, a rich gentleman whose sexual exploits form the subject of these stories. In his novel My Uncle Oswald, the uncle engages a temptress to seduce 20th Century geniuses and royalty with a love potion secretly added to chocolate truffles made by Dahl's favourite chocolate shop, Prestat of Piccadilly.
Memories with Food at Gipsy House, written with his wife Felicity and published posthumously in 1991, was a mixture of recipes, family reminiscences and Dahl's musings on favourite subjects such as chocolate, onions, and claret.
Children's fiction
Dahl's children's works are usually told from the point of view of a child. They typically involve adult villains or villainesses who hate and mistreat children, and feature at least one "good" adult to counteract the villain(s). These stock characters are possibly a reference to the abuse that Dahl stated that he experienced in the boarding schools he attended. They usually contain a lot of black humour and grotesque scenarios, including gruesome violence. The Witches, George's Marvellous Medicine and Matilda are examples of this formula. The BFG follows it in a more analogous way with the good giant (the BFG or "Big Friendly Giant") representing the "good adult" archetype and the other giants being the "bad adults". This formula is also somewhat evident in Dahl's film script for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Class-conscious themes – ranging from the thinly veiled to the blatant – also surface in works such as Fantastic Mr Fox and Danny, the Champion of the World.
Dahl also features in his books characters that are very fat, usually children. Augustus Gloop, Bruce Bogtrotter, and Bruno Jenkins are a few of these characters, although an enormous woman named Aunt Sponge is featured in James and the Giant Peach and the nasty farmer Boggis in Fantastic Mr Fox features as an enormously fat character. All of these characters (with the possible exception of Bruce Bogtrotter) are either villains or simply unpleasant gluttons. They are usually punished for this: Augustus Gloop drinks from Willy Wonka's chocolate river, disregarding the adults who tell him not to, and falls in, getting sucked up a pipe and nearly being turned into fudge. Bruce Bogtrotter steals cake from the evil headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, and is forced to eat a gigantic chocolate cake in front of the school. Bruno Jenkins is turned into a mouse by witches who lure him to their convention with the promise of chocolate, and, it is speculated, possibly disowned or even killed by his parents because of this. Aunt Sponge is flattened by a giant peach.)
Dahl's mother used to tell him and his sisters tales about trolls and other mythical Norwegian creatures and some of his children's books contain references or elements inspired by these stories, such as the giants in The BFG, the fox family in Fantastic Mr Fox and the trolls in The Minpins.
Screenplay
For a brief period in the 1960s, Dahl wrote screenplays. Two – the James Bond film You Only Live Twice and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – were adaptations of novels by Ian Fleming, though both were rewritten and completed by other writers. Dahl also began adapting his own novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was completed and rewritten by David Seltzer after Dahl failed to meet deadlines, and produced as the film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971). Dahl later disowned the film, saying he was "disappointed" because "he thought it placed too much emphasis on Willy Wonka and not enough on Charlie". He was also "infuriated" by the deviations in the plot devised by David Seltzer in his draft of the screenplay. This resulted in his refusal for any more versions of the book to be made in his lifetime.
Influence
Not surprisingly, a major part of Dahl's literary influences stemmed from his childhood. In his younger days, he was an avid reader, especially awed by fantastic tales of heroism and triumph. Amongst his favourite authors were Rudyard Kipling, William Thackeray, Frederick Marryat and Charles Dickens and their works went on to make a lasting mark on his life and writing. Dahl was also a huge fan of ghost stories and claimed that Trolls by Jonas Lie was one of the finest ghost stories ever written. While he was still a youngster, his mother, Sofie Dahl, would relate traditional Norwegian myths and legends from her native homeland to Dahl and his sisters. Dahl always maintained that his mother and her stories had a strong influence on his writing. In one interview he mentioned, "She was a great teller of tales. Her memory was prodigious and nothing that ever happened to her in her life was forgotten." When Dahl started writing and publishing his famous books for children, he created a grandmother character in The Witches and later stated that she was based directly on his own mother as a tribute.
Television
Way Out
In 1961, Dahl hosted and wrote for a science fiction and horror television anthology series called Way Out, which preceded the Twilight Zone series on the CBS network for 14 episodes from March to July. Dahl's comedic monologues rounded off the episodes, frequently explaining exactly how to murder one's spouse without getting caught. In one introduction, Dahl ruminated about the popularity of the crewcut at the time and how it seemed to make some men feel tougher. The former fighter pilot dryly observed that "....it really doesn't help when the chips are down, though, does it?"
One of the last dramatic network shows shot in New York City, the entire series is available for viewing at The Paley Center for Media in New York City and Los Angeles.
Tales of the Unexpected
Tales of the Unexpected is a British television series that originally aired between 1979 and 1988, made by Anglia Television for ITV. The series had been released to tie in with Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected, which had introduced readers to many motifs that were common in his writing.
The series was an anthology of different tales, initially based on Dahl's short stories. The stories were sometimes sinister, sometimes wryly comedic, and usually had a twist ending. Dahl introduced on camera all the episodes of the first two series, which bore the full title Roald Dahl's Tales Of The Unexpected. Dahl also chose the stories not written by him to be adapted for the second series, and a small number of additional Dahl stories were adapted for the third series onwards following his departure.
List of work
Children's storie
The Gremlins (1943)
James and the Giant Peach (1961) — Film: James and the Giant Peach (live-action/animated) (1996)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)[nn 1] — Films: Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
The Magic Finger (1 June 1966)
Fantastic Mr Fox (9 December 1970) — Film: Fantastic Mr. Fox (animated) (2009)
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (9 January 1972)[nn 1] A sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Danny, the Champion of the World (30 October 1975) — Film: Danny the Champion of the World (TV movie) (1989)
The Enormous Crocodile (24 August 1978)
The Twits (17 December 1980)
George's Marvellous Medicine (21 May 1981)
The BFG (14 October 1982) — Film: The BFG (animated) (1989)
The Witches (27 October 1983) — Film: The Witches (1990)
The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me (26 September 1985)
Matilda (21 April 1988) — Film: Matilda (1996)
Esio Trot (19 April 1989)
The Vicar of Nibbleswicke (9 May 1990)
The Minpins (8 August 1991)
Children's poetry
Revolting Rhymes (10 June 1982)
Dirty Beasts (25 October 1984)
Rhyme Stew (21 September 1989)
Adult fiction
Novel
Sometime Never: A Fable for Supermen (1948)
My Uncle Oswald (1979)
Short story collection
Over To You: Ten Stories of Flyers and Flying (1946)
Someone Like You (1953)
Lamb to the Slaughter (1953)
Kiss Kiss (1960)
Twenty-Nine Kisses from Roald Dahl (1969)
Switch Bitch (1974)
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More (1977)
The Best of Roald Dahl (1978)
Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
More Tales of the Unexpected (1980)
Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories (1983). Edited with an introduction by Dahl.
The Roald Dahl Omnibus (Dorset Press, 1986)
Two Fables (1986). "Princess and the Poacher" and "Princess Mammalia".
Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life: The Country Stories of Roald Dahl (1989)
The Collected Short Stories of Dahl (1991)
The Roald Dahl Treasury (1997)
The Great Automatic Grammatizator (1997). (Known in the USA as The Umbrella Man and Other Stories).
Skin And Other Stories (2000)
Roald Dahl: Collected Stories (2006)
See the alphabetical List of Roald Dahl short stories. See also Roald Dahl: Collected Stories for a complete, chronological listing.
Non-fiction
The Mildenhall Treasure (1946, 1977, 1999)
Boy – Tales of Childhood (1984) Recollections up to the age of 20, looking particularly at schooling in Britain in the early part of the 20th century.
Going Solo (1986) Continuation of his autobiography, in which he goes to work for Shell and spends some time working in Tanzania before joining the war effort and becoming one of the last Allied pilots to withdraw from Greece during the German invasion.
Measles, a Dangerous Illness (1986)
Memories with Food at Gipsy House (1991)
Roald Dahl's Guide to Railway Safety (1991)
My Year (1993)
Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes by Felicity Dahl, et al. (1994), a collection of recipes based on and inspired by food in Dahl's books, created by Roald & Felicity Dahl, and Josie Fison
Roald Dahl's Even More Revolting Recipes by Felicity Dahl, et al. (2001)
Play
The Honeys (1955) Produced at the Longacre Theater on Broadway.
Film script
The Gremlins (1943)
36 Hours (1965)
You Only Live Twice (1967)
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)
The Night Digger (1971)
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
Television
Way Out (1961) Horror series hosted by Roald Dahl and produced by David Susskind
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: "Lamb to the Slaughter" (1958)
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: "Dip in the Pool" (1958)
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: "Poison" (1958)
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: "Man from the South" (1960) with Steve McQueen and Peter Lorre
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: "Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat" (1960)
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: "The Landlady" (1961)
Tales of the Unexpected (1979–88), episodes written and introduced by Dahl
^ a b Published in 1978 in an omnibus edition titled The Complete Adventures of Charlie and Willy Wonka
Controversie
In 1983 Dahl reviewed Tony Clifton's God Cried, a picture book about the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon depicting Israelis killing thousands of Beirut inhabitants by bombing civilian targets. Dahl's review stated that this invasion was when "we all started hating Israel", and that the book would make readers "violently anti-Israeli", writing, "I am not anti-Semitic. I am anti-Israel." Dahl told a reporter in 1983, "There’s a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity... I mean there is always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason." Dahl maintained friendships with a number of Jews, including philosopher Isaiah Berlin, who said, "I thought he might say anything. Could have been pro-Arab or pro-Jew. There was no consistent line. He was a man who followed whims, which meant he would blow up in one direction, so to speak." In later years, Dahl included a sympathetic episode about German-Jewish refugees in his book Going Solo, and professed to be opposed to injustice, not Jews.