Literally Blogging

   Dahl ain’t a pretty person (as seen above) but his fictional short stories are pretty damn good. The past two weeks I have drowned you guys with all things Dahl. For you readers who don’t dig Dahl, we still have one more post to go. For today, I want to introduce to the hidden side of Dahl’s work which are comprised of his short stories for adults. By adult stories, I don’t mean gratitious sex and violence but rather intelligent and well written ones that don’t insult the intellect of its readers. This is his because his work is actually worth ruminating on, talked about and shared till days end. His style and genre is what I consider “human interest” which is fiction that is close to Sterling’s Twilight Zone but tries not to go too far out there in terms of science fiction. These are stories also distinctly marked by its bittersweet aftertaste like M. Night Shymalan’s movies but even better. If you want to find these stories, they are mostly compiled by the The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl by Penguin Publishing House(my copy is lost in limbo with a friend. Please send me a copy! :( ). If that isn’t enough, the rest of his stories are completed in The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More. Below are some short stories that are worth mentioning. I am Dahl fan so I will try to be fair and keep the list short:

“The Great Automatic Grammatizator”

 - The narrator recounts creating a machine that produces stories. The ending leaves the narrator with a moral decision about the fate of art turned into mass production. This was the story that made me fall in love with Dahl.

“The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” (from Wikipedia)

- This is the central, largest story in the book, and claims to be a true account of a rich bachelor referred to as “Henry Sugar.” While reading a forgotten book documenting an Indian Yogi’s powers (possibly based on the actual Indian mystic Kuda Bux), “Henry” discovers he is one of the rare people who is able, through years of concentrated study, to gain special “yogic” powers that allow him to see using any part of his body, and also to see the reverse side of playing cards. Being an addicted gambler, he uses this power to cheat in casinos. He finds, though, that his desire for money has been greatly diminished. He throws all of his recent winnings out of his London apartment window, causing a near-riot, and is scolded by an indignant police officer who suggests that he give away his winnings in a more useful way, for example by founding an orphanage. “Henry” then sets off around the world with two accomplices (an accountant and a make-up artist) in order to get as much money from as many casinos as possible, and subsequently uses his winnings in order to set up orphanages around the world.

“Genesis and Catastrophe: A True Story”

- The story is really short and too good to give away but all I can say it is that is about a baby who is on the brink of dying.

There are a lot of other great stories but you have to dig for it yourself. If you don’t like risque and racy stories, don’t pick up Dahl’s Switch Bitch and My Uncle Oswald. They are a bit too offensive for my taste.

ciao

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