Roald Dahl...kind of a jerk.
I honestly don’t have the undying affection for his work that a lot of people I know do, so this doesn’t really impact my opinion one way or another.
But based off of his books it doesn’t surprise me that he was kind of a creep.
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Gos actually read a biography, of sorts, my Mom got her about Dahl and I don’t think she got this impression. While his anti-semitism is definitely awful, some of the things in this article seemed forced, as though the author were trying to find ways to make Dahl look more detestable. Case in point, printing the feminist response to the Witch’s… it’s just silly.
I was mostly referencing the anti-semetic stuff, which is really enough to make him a jerk. The other things don’t seem like more than garden variety jerk stuff and not evil, but the overall picture even a casual reading (and I’ve read some of this stuff elsewhere) is that he wasn’t a particularly nice fellow. Which I actually think comes through in his books. Which I like because I’m also sort of an unpleasant jerk. Just not the same type of unpleasant jerk he seems to be. Which I guess makes them good art.
You have to admit, this is really amusing:
I am all fucked out. That goddamn woman has absolutely screwed me from one end of the room to the other for three goddam nights. I went back to the Ambassador this morning, and I said, “You know it’s a great assignment, but I just can’t go on.” And the Ambassador said, “Roald, did you ever see the Charles Laughton movie of Henry VIII?” And I said “Yes.” “Well,” he said, “do you remember the scene with Henry going into the bedroom with Anne of Cleves, and he turns and says ‘The things I’ve done for England’? Well, that’s what you’ve got to do.”