Thoughts on roald Dahl

[Moominfan]

I was living in blissful ignorance up until roald Dahl day. Twitter ruined him for me. Accusations of sexism, racism ext. visited local library. Librarian is of the opinion he was brilliant but brilliant doesn't always mean good. Anywho ordered his book of short adult stories so I can see for myself, not arrived just yet. However I started reading the twits to one of my service users the other day and reading it as an adult is very different to reading it as a child. Would love to hear everyone else's thoughts on him and his work

I know what you mean, but I thoroughly enjoyed his childrens books in my youth and love "tales of the unexpected".

Somehow I manage to disassociate the man from his art (not necessarily I good thing I admit).

The Mysterious Tale of Henry Sugar - brilliant.
Tales of the unexpected is on my most loved book shelf right now and is has been a regular read for many years.
His works for adults are far better than his childrens books in my view, and I'm am a lover of both.
By and Going Solo are soapy and glorious for being so full of froth the "truth" may be obscured but surely life is all the better for that. We are our own stories, our own realism is the truth.
Read and enjoy Dahl for the genius word-smith he was.

I find it annoying that adults often say that children love Roald Dahl. Maybe I'm just particularly feeble but I found a lot of his books to be disturbing as a small child and some gave me nightmares. I'm not at all in favour of protecting a snowflake generation, I just think adults often don't seem to think about this at all. There's a lot of grotesque in his books.

Massive anti-Semite!

I remember hearing him on Radio 4s A Good Read years ago, and thought he was one of the most unpleasant people I had ever had the misfortune to listen to. Really rude and condescending to the other guest. His choice was Silence of the Lambs!

I think he was more than a sexist and racist, more of a misanthropist- he seemed to just hate everyone and didn't give a damn about what other people thought. This is evident from his books which all have a streak of cruelty running through them.

My dad used to have a book shop and when The BFG was published the selling price was very high because RD had insisted on a huge royalty payment. Another book published at the same time was Monsignor Quixote, one of Graham Greene's last novels. By contrast he had insisted that the book be sold for less than £5.

However, I believe in separating the man from his art. I enjoyed reading his books and DS loved them

I met Roald Dahl at a book fair when I was a child- he was a right grumpy sod! It was disappointing, but it didn't put me off his books.

I like some of his kids' books but there are some very unpleasant elements. I ended up missing bits out (eg comments about overweight people) when I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to my class.

The Evil Genius podcast has a good episode about him.

I think I read most of his children's books aloud to my kids when they were little. The one that stood out to me as being by far the best was Danny the Champion of the World, which seems to be the only one that doesn't have fantasy elements. That has real emotional force to it and is interesting in its portrayal of a single-parent family.

My granny lived in Great Missenden and she knew him a bit.

She said he was a really unpleasant man. I remember being so sad about that when I was a child, visiting her.

I read all of his children’s books as a child and really enjoyed them! Read Skin and other stories last year (think it’s aimed at young adults) and found it quite interesting. Thinking of reading some of the adult books soon but seems a bit weird as I see him as a children’s author