Roald Dahl- the sexist man alive

I love Rhald Dahl. I always have loved his imagination and honour. As a child I appreciated his ability to expose his readers and characters to truly scary things. The reality of deceit (The Witches). The fact that people who are supposed to love you do not always love you (Matilda).

I have been reading his adult novels in the last few years. Dahl's Tales of Uncle Oswald are rip roaring and give me a masculine character of Wimsey that is usually regulated (in literature) to characters lie Aunt Mame or Aunt Augusta (from Graham Greene's Travels with My Aunt). It is the most surprisingly sexiest thing I've ever read.

I was at a Steeplechase in the beautiful country of Tennessee. It was my kind of Steeplechase as these people were in the book world and gave all of the guests books. I found Roald Dahl's book of short stories- Skin and other stories and in reading these I really realised the complicated yet simple, funny and truthful (revealing?) tales that Dahl told. I read Skin aloud to my family in the car. The plot is here- read it. I was struck by the truthful moral in the story about knowing your audience and recognising how valuable information in and that you are to be aware and responsible and use discretion with how much information (about yourself) you give away- and to whom. Not everyone cares for you.



All these wonderful things made me really appreciate what I found yesterday in the Houston airport. Jennet Conant has written a book that adds to the Myth of Roald Dahl, a myth that I like and will carry with me. The book is The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the Brittish Spy Ring in Wartime Washington. I only just started it yesterday (and tried to not be too zealous so I can work on finishing my other book for book club; and finish a fantastic book Ive been working on, T.J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt.

The curator of the CIA's historical Intelligence Collection, Hayden B. Peake, reviewed the book and found it to have little intelligence value. But the point, the fantastic point, is that "For those interested in WW II Washington society and politics, however, The Irregulars has much of significance and Dahl is the centerpiece of attention." It all sounds delightful to me!