Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator is such a shit book isn't it

[WWGD]

I am having to read it to DS and I hate it so much. That is all.

I always found James & the Giant Peach really awful. Page after page of ant said, catepillar said, spider said.
But yes, Glass elevator not good either

Ha ha @Sethera I came on here to mention that illustration! It absolutely terrified me, to the extent that it’s the only thing I remember about the book 🤣

I definitely prefer his "entry level" books like The Enormous Crocodile, The Giraffe and the Pelly and me, The Twits, Esio Trot. They get darker with length.

Also @Sethera it was Grandma Georgina. And don’t Google images of it - I just found it all over again 😱🤯

Ah, don't know why I thought it was Josephine, thank you. I've still got my childhood copy but I won't be getting it out late at night 😱

We've just read this. It's really bad. Lines like, "suddenly, with a suddeness...' made me think Dahl was probably doing 2 things at once when he wrote this.

Honestly, dont. Keep the happy memories! I remembered it really fondly and then started reading it to DD and oh my god it’s really, truly terrible

I remember hating it as a child, but I have a copy for my daughter for Christmas because she lived the original so much. I hoped I'd like it more as an adult, but I fear not...

Yes it’s dreadful and yes it shockingly casually racist

He also contradicts himself with the grandparents’ ages. In C&TCF they’re ‘all over 90’. They all got a lot younger in GGE which just begged the question of why they were confined to bed!

Good point!

I loved the Knids and was also terrified by them! Maybe that should be my.next user name.
RD was such a fabulous writer though not a great person.

God, that Grandma Georgina pic is a memory unlocked!

I hated the book as a child. That and Good Wives gave me a lifelong suspicion of sequels.

I liked it as a child but it's true I only remember grandpa Jo and the vernicious kids

Yes, I remember thinking it was rubbish as a child, and still am unimpressed when listening with my own child. A huge disappointment after Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Fantastic Mr Fox and Danny, the Champion of the World are the best, I think.

I think he was a very complicated man but mostly as a result of his upbringing and life's experiences. I don't think he's unusual in his own generation in his racism/misogyny etc

I found the museum about him in Herts very interesting.

I can remember really enjoying Great Glass Elevator as a kid, even more than the first book. It was full of inventive ideas. I suppose it was the Sci-fi elements I liked, and I went on to become a sci-fi fan. I also found it very funny.

Looking back I can see that it had racist elements, unfortunately. Not surprisingly, from what we now know about Roald Dahl.

I’ve recently re-read a lot of his books, and i don’t think any of them are great, to be honest.

DD(5) loved it but I would have quite happily abandoned it about 2 chapters in given the chance! I hate how it's basically two completely separate stories spliced together, for half the book they're in space, then the other half it's all about de-aging/re-aging the grandparents and you hear nothing about the space stuff again until right at the end! So random.

Not that I'm defending any of it btw.

Just that I can see him and his views and attitudes in the context of when he lived and the wider society he lived in.

Unlike someone like Walliams....

I have been to the museum!
I understand your point.

We have all the Roald Dahls as audiobooks for the car and yes I hate this one. For me it's the completely disjointed plot - the link up with the space station has nothing at all to do with the Vitawonk stuff. Has reminded me we must get some new audiobooks before we drive across Europe next summer. Have listened to all of Roald Dahl and David Walliams (whose books I universally hate) about 10 times over!

We did Harry Potter on a long drive to Scotland - Stephen Fry's voice is good!

I would be interested in other books that capture dc like Dahl does but without the racism/misogyny. DS has read the Dahl books confidently independently as I think they hold his interest and aren't too long.

I liked it. It is weird compared to the chocolate factory, though. The original illustrations had the future president of the USA as a little bit being smacked over his nanny’s knee.

And it’s a fine parody of how the most powerful man in the world is a man-child, so topical with childish political psychopaths like Trump and Johnson.

I liked it as a kid but I read it before Charlie and the Chocolate factory so it didn't spoil that for me.

A few years ago my kids asked me if there was a sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate factory and what happened in it. I said there was and they took a big lift into space and met aliens... that was the first time I really thought how weird it was!