'Roald Dahl' by Matthew Dennison
Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and other dark children’s stories were drawn from the emotional life of the author’s childhood. The conclusion is inescapable in Matthew Dennison’s briskly pace new biography, a succinct yet full account that includes all essential information within the framework of Dahl’s life as a storyteller.
Dahl’s father died when he was young, stamping him with an awareness of life’s sudden reversals. Through his formative school years, he was an insider-outsider, a foreigner (affluent Norwegian parents) in an English society given to xenophobia, yet Northern European, able to blend in. The exclusive schools he endured were dens of bullies ruled by cane-wielding headmasters. His stories empathized with the plight of children vulnerable to the incomprehensible machinations of adults and the cruelty of their peers. Some of the links between Dahl’s school days and his fiction are incredibly obvious. His academy was linked to a chocolate works: each year the pupils were made to sample new products and told to evaluate them. It was one of Dahl’s few pleasures.
More formative experiences followed in Dahl’s early adulthood. His stint with Shell Oil in East Africa and his service as an RAF pilot imbued his stories with exoticism and a feel for flight. Dahl spent his life urging high standards, kicking against the conformity and stupidity of middle-class life without entirely escaping the common prejudices of his age.
