“the essence of [Roald] Dahl is his willingness to let children triumph over adults”

A fantastic in-depth article about Roald Dahl in The New Yorker. You won’t want to miss this one, if you’re a fan of his books. What IS it about Dahl’s work that is so enduring? And why is it so often that the kids get the joke, while the parents are unamused? Dahl’s books are creepy, hostile, and filled with cruel adults. Not just mean adults – but CRUEL. Think about how the aunts treat James in James and the Giant Peach. Dahl’s children heroes and heroines live in a Dickensian universe … Adults are uniformly awful in Dahl’s books – except for Willy Wonka, who, if you think about it, is really a person suffering from arrested development. A haunted tormented recluse, who makes his living by creating CANDY – the overriding passion of most children. And even Wonka is not really what you would call a sympathetic character. He’s bossy, he’s unpredictable, and he does not suffer fools gladly. He thinks the little brats in the entourage get what they deserve – even if they blow up like a blueberry or are transformed into a 2-inch tall version of themselves. That’s what you get for being a big fat spoiled brat – haha!! (evil cackle). Dahl creates a callous universe filled with moments of transcendence – and the transcendence always comes from the actions of a particularly special CHILD. There is no adult to rescue anyone in Dahl’s world. Children are the key.

From the article:

And yet the essence of Dahl is his willingness to let children triumph over adults. He is a modern writer of fairy tales, who intuitively understands the sort of argument that Bruno Bettelheim made in his 1976 book, ‘The Uses of Enchantment: ” Children need the dark materials of fairy tales because they need to make sense-in a symbolic, displaced way-of their own feelings of anger, resentment, and powerlessness. Children also benefit from learning about violence and brutishness in fairy tales, Bettelheim writes, for it counters the “widespread refusal to let children know that the source of much that goes wrong in our life is due to our natures” the propensity of all men for acting aggressively, asocially, selfishly.” Many fairy tales- and most of Dahl’s work-are complex narratives of wish fulfillment. They teach the reader, Bettelheim writes, that “a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human existence” but if one does not shy away, but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious.” Or, in any case, this is a hopeful fantasy which sustains us all.

Dahl was not a nice man – (or, so it seems – what do I know – I never met the man). He treated Patricia Neal horrendously and his children have come out and spoken about his disfunctional personality. However: that is neither here nor there, at least not in my mind. He dealt with a lot of personal tragedy. And he holed himself up in this small writing hut he built, and poured out these fantasies and wish fulfillments onto paper. Very interesting individual.

Anyway: MARVELOUS article.