What a joy to listen to this interview on France Culture afternoon program: Roald Dahl, by cunning fox Virginia Bloch-Lainé, Anne-Pascale Desvignes, the link to listen here is
"On September 6, 2010, twenty years after the death of Roald Dahl was released in Britain the first authorized biography of the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Donald Sturrock, the author had access to personal archives of a Norwegian novelist and confirms that Dahl was a British intelligence officer, some months during the five years he spent happy on the East Coast of the United States between 1941 and 1946.C is another very pleasing but not so surprising, as it sticks with the hero's life led by Roald Dahl. After RAF pilot in the Middle East, he worked for the British Embassy in Washington and attended actors, writers, politicians, spouses Roosevelt and at the same time the White House, Ian Fleming spy -writer he has written the novel that can not die twice, Robert Altman ... and later he married the actress Patricia Neal, who died this summer.
Seriously injured physically during the war, Roald Dahl was also emotionally, in her childhood, the early death of his father and a sister a few months apart. Life has continued to fail to save the adventurous conqueror since lost a seven year old daughter and a son was severely disabled after a taxi overturned his pram. Nourished by these bad things, he invented for almost thirty years, from early 60s to late 80s, little hero just as adventurous and buffeted by life to it, often very intelligent, trying to get out best possible difficulties that adults have placed them.
But Roald Dahl imagined also in news for adults, seducers pretentious, too proud of their manhood so that there is not a wolf somewhere of where libidinous punished by their sins, a woman sexually humiliated by a lover- sadistic gynecologist, a policeman murdered by his wife with a frozen leg shot, and wrote a hilarious novel about the life of a sexually obsessed prim. Seven of his news was adapted for television by Alfred Hitchcock. The two men were made for each other.
Between these new - or macabre sexual or both at once - where those who play smarter are always losers, and James and the Giant Peach, The Fantastic Mr. Fox or Matilda, there is only one step. Roald Dahl swept a backhander mediocrity and encourages his readers to behave as conquerors they want to have a fighting chance. Roald Dahl was on the side of the cons of fox hunting. It must go through some trickery to survive. "
In this show I especially appreciated the assistance of Gérard Guégan, novelist (" City champagne ed. Grasset, "Flammable" ed. Wespieser S.) and Quentin Blake says his collaboration with RD.
When writing for children, Dahl does not avoid the harshness of life, cruelty situations. He has no childhood as a garden of roses, young readers may recognize the suffering and fears of intimacy in his stories. But he can finish his stories without leaving readers in anguish: his heroes are preserved thanks to their courage and daring. His writing is legal despite the humor and sometimes unbridled cruelty, the enemy at home is mediocrity.
Regarding class, Gallimard published a pocket version shown photos of the recent Film: Fantastic Mr. Fox. This does not replace the illustrations of Quentin Blake useful supplement but a class library: the diversity of designs makes its thickness to writing.
For me, everything is good in Dahl, Matilda is a valuable text, especially for helping children struggling to find their way to school.
short, I love this author ...
