Category: Media

“Dip in the Pool”

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Information

Plot Description

This story is an exercise in subtlety, from the gentle joke of its title to the surprise catch at its ending. The main character, Mr. Botibol, also has the same name as the protagonist from another Dahl story, “Mr. Botibol”.

Spoiler warning! Mr. Botibol is traveling across the ocean in a large ship and wants desperately to win the passenger auction. Each night the captain of the ship estimates the distance that they will cover in 24 hours, and a range of possible numbers are then auctioned off to the guests. Whoever owns the correct number the next day wins the amount of money in the pool. Mr. Botibol notices that the sea has suddenly gotten rough and that this will surely slow down the ship and throw off the captain’s estimate. Confident in victory, then, he uses his life savings to win the “low field” number (meaning any number more than 10 less than the estimate). When he wakes up the next morning, though, the sea is calm and the ship is making up for lost time. Mr. Botibol arrives at the desperate conclusion that jumping overboard is the only way to slow down the ship and therefore win the pool. He plans his strategy very deliberately – he will wear light tennis clothes (so he can swim better), he will make sure another person witnesses his “fall” and reports it to the captain, and he will swim as far from the ship as possible so that it must turn completely astern to pick him up. He finds the deck deserted except for one older woman. After talking to her briefly he concludes that she is neither deaf nor blind, and within moments he has plunged into the water screaming for help. The woman acts confused for a moment, then relaxes and watches the small bobbing man get further and further away. At the very end of the story, a bony woman comes out to collect the older lady and admonishes her for “wandering about.” The old woman is seemingly a mental patient!

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Teacher Ideas

“The Devious Bachelor”

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Information

Plot Description

This is one of my favorite Dahl stories, and the one with (I think) the most potent twist in the tail of all. It’s not until the very last sentence that you understand the true story.

Spoiler warning! Lionel Lampson is a wealthy older gentleman who enjoys fine art and the company of the upper classes. One night he escorts a vulgar woman named Gladys Ponsonby home from a dinner party. Gladys, who is a little drunk, shows off a new portrait of herself that she had commissioned. She tells Lionel a secret – the artist, John Royden, paints all his subjects first in the nude, then in their underwear, and lastly in their clothes. He is shocked and correctly deduces that this is why all the wealthy women in town are rushing to have their portraits painted by him. Gladys then changes the subject and asks Lionel about his relationship with a young beauty named Janet de Pelagia. Lionel is embarrassed until Gladys relates that earlier that afternoon Janet had called him a “crashing bore”. Lionel is outraged and forces Gladys to repeat the entire conversation. He is so upset to hear what Janet thinks about him that he swoons. The next day he wakes and vows revenge. He hits upon the perfect plan and calls up this artist Royden. He tells him that he’d like a picture of Janet, but doesn’t want her to know about it. He pays Royden a handsome amount for his services, and then goes off to Italy for four months. By the time Lionel returns, Royden has finished the painting and it’s the talk of the Royal Academy. Royden delivers it to Lionel, who can’t wait to move on to the second part of his plan. He is an expert cleaner and restorer of paintings, and very carefully he begins to remove the top layer (the clothing) of the painting. By the time he has finished, Janet de Pelagia is standing before him almost life-size in nothing but her underclothes. Lionel then invites Janet and all the top members of society to his home for a dinner party. He keeps the dining room dark and they eat by candlelight. At the very end, he has the maid turn on the light. As he slips from the room, he has the pleasure of seeing on Janet’s face the “surprised, not-quite-understanding look of a person who precisely one second before has been shot dead, right through the heart”. As the outraged guests begin to exclaim over the painting, Lionel gets into his car and speeds off to his other house. Two days later, he receives a phone call from Gladys Ponsonby that kills his good mood. She tells him that all his old friends are against him and have sworn never to speak to him again. Lionel begins to feel quite bad. Then, in the post arrives a letter from Janet forgiving him and saying that she knew it was a joke and that she’s always loved him. She also sends him a jar of his favorite food, caviare. As the story ends, Lionel mentions that he might have eaten too much of it, as he isn’t feeling too well right now. In fact, he says, “come to think of it, I really do feel rather ill all of a sudden.”

(If you don’t get it, she sent him poisoned caviare as her revenge.)

Fun Stuff

“Death of an Old Old Man”

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Information

Plot Description

This is another World War II story that Dahl wrote not long after he was discharged from the R.A.F. It jumps awkwardly from stream-of-consciousness to a third-person description of a dogfight and then back again, but it never loses its intensity or grip on the reader.

Spoiler warning! The first part of the story is a frightening glimpse into the thoughts of a pilot about to go back up into danger. From the very first line, “Oh God, how I am frightened,” the reader knows that this is a life-and-death situation. Once the pilot is in the air, the point of view switches to third-person as we witness the exciting dogfight between Charlie, our hero, and the German pilot in a Focke Wulf. The men are evenly matched, and ultimately they nearly collide head on. Both pilots eject and parachute to earth. Charlie knows that the German will be landing right after him, but before he can do anything about it he splashes into a pond. Unable to free himself from his parachute, he realizes that the German has landed and is holding him underwater. As Charlie begins to lost consciousness, the point of view returns to his first-person thoughts as he envisions himself in a lovely field. He gives up fighting. He watches from above as the German hauls his lifeless body to dry land and steals his identification and money. Charlie thinks that the German should learn to relax like him, so he goes up to him and says into his ear, “Why don’t you relax a bit?” The German is frightened and runs away. Charlie decides to just stay in the field and go to sleep in the sun.

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“Collector’s Item”

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Information

Plot Description

Spoiler warning! The narrator of this famous story is never named, but I always presumed him to be an English writer (i.e. Dahl’s stand-in). This narrator is lounging by a pool at a Jamaican hotel when he meets a strange little South American man in a white suit and cream Panama hat. They are joined by an American boy and an English girl, and the boy offers them all a cigarette. When he boasts that his lighter always lights, even in such wind, the old man asks if he’s willing to bet on it. The boy is surprised but agrees to bet a dollar. The old man laughs and offers to up the stakes: If the boy can light his lighter ten times in a row, he will give him a brand new Cadillac. If the boy loses, the man will cut off the little finger on his left hand. After some deliberation, the boy agrees to the bet. They all go up to the old man’s room where he prepares for the bet. The boy’s hand is tied to the desk with his pinky sticking out and the man holds a chopping knife at the ready. The boy makes it up to eight successful lights when the door suddenly opens and a woman rushes in yelling in Spanish. She throws the old man down on the bed and apologizes to the others. She says that she should not have left him alone and that he has taken forty-seven fingers where they come from. She eventually managed to win everything from him, but it took her a long time. The last thing the narrator sees as he leaves the room is the woman’s hand… with only one finger and one thumb left on it.

Fun Stuff

  • Advertisement from the November 6, 1948 issue of Australian Women’s Weekly
    Citation: Advertising (1948, November 6). The Australian Women’s Weekly (1933 – 1982), p. 22. Retrieved September 30, 2017, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55466926

“The Champion of the World”

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Information

Plot Description

This story, originally published in Dahl’s book Kiss Kiss, is another of the “country stories” that deals with Claud and his friends in the English countryside. (It’s not considered part of the original “Claud’s Dog” series, though.) The narrative centers on two men and the extraordinary method for poaching pheasants one of them invents. If it sounds familiar, it’s because Dahl later reworked the entire plot (and character names and huge chunks of dialogue) into the children’s book Danny the Champion of the World. That book, in turn, had a portion which was later developed into The BFG. As you can see, Dahl definitely approved of recycling his best ideas.

Spoiler warning! Readers of the earlier “Claud’s Dog” series in Someone Like You will undoubtedly recognize the title character Claud back in action. This time the story begins in media res as Claud and his cohort Gordon prepare 196 raisins to take with them poaching in Hazel’s Wood. Gordon’s idea was to fill the raisins with seconal from sleeping pills and knock the birds unconscious. They manage to get in and out of the wood unscathed, bagging 120 birds and dropping the sacks off in a hired taxi. The next day they wait by their filling station for Bessie Organ, the vicar’s wife, to deliver the birds in a specially constructed baby carriage. Before she gets there, though, the powder begins to wear off and the birds all fly out and settle down on the filling station. Horrified, Claud and Gordon know that Victor Hazel will be appearing soon.

“The Butler”

Sections: Information | Plot Description | Teacher Ideas | Spanish Covers

Information

Plot Description

Spoiler warning! This is a very short little story in which a British butler and a French chef outwit an obnoxious nouveau riche millionaire (probably meant to be American, judging by his name and accent). This millionaire, Mr. Cleaver, wants desperately to become the toast of society. He throws dinner many dinner parties, but none of them ever really seems to “come off.” The butler, Tibbs, explains that this is because the host serves the guests a “cheap and very odious Spanish red [wine].” At his employer’s request, then, Tibbs begins stocking the wine cellar with some of the most rare and exquisite and expensive wines in the world. Mr. Cleaver even studies to become a wine connoiseur. The parties, however, do not improve. Tibbs then explains that this is because Mr. Cleaver has instructed the chef to prepare the salad dressing with vinegar. Vinegar, he explains, is the enemy of wine and leaves you unable to taste it. “Hogwash,” says his employer. That very same night Mr. Cleaver begins to expound upon the virtues of the French wine he believes he is drinking… until Tibbs points out that it is the same cheap and odious Spanish red that he has always served. He claims that great wines should be revered and that he and Monsieur Estragon, the chef, have finished all of the bottles themselves. Then he walks out the door to the waiting car Monsieur Estragon has already packed with their belongings.

Teacher Ideas

Spanish Covers – La cata

“The Boy Who Talked with Animals”

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Information

Plot Description

Spoiler warning! A turtle has landed on a resort beach in Jamaica and everyone wants to kill it for the meat and its shell. A small boy David becomes hysterical and tries to save the turtle. His parents explain that he is very sensitive to animals and they volunteer to buy the turtle from the resort owner. While they are haggling over the price, David talks to the turtle and tells it to swim away. During the night the boy himself disappears and next day two local fishermen come back with a crazy story – they have seen David riding the turtle out in the middle of the ocean!

Fun Stuff

Sotheby’s Dahl Auction 1997

Teacher Ideas

“The Bookseller”

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Information

  • First published:

Plot Description

This very adult story was originally published in Playboy and probably shouldn’t be read by any children without the consent of their parents. With that in mind, I’m going to keep the plot/description rather simple and vague.

Spoiler warning! This story is about Mr. William Buggage and his secretary Miss Tottle and the secret business they run out of Buggage’s Rare Book Shop in London. Every day they read the obituaries and draft custom invoices to send to the grieving widow. The invoices list various European books of pornography and sexual deviance. The horrified widows always pay quickly to keep the matter from the presses. Mr. Buggage and Miss Tottle have made thousands of pounds using this method, and they use their ill-gotten gains to take lavish trips together. (They really are disgusting people – rather like The Twits.) Eventually they are caught when one of the widows points out that her late husband was blind and that the invoice is therefore a fake.

Spanish Covers

“B***h”

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Information

Plot Description

This very adult story is from Dahl’s book Switch B***h and probably shouldn’t be read by any children without the consent of their parents. With that in mind, I’m going to keep the plot/description rather simple and vague.

Spoiler warning! Oswald meets up with an olfactory chemist (a scientist of smells) who wants to isolate the human sex pheromone. They accomplish this feat and successfully test the new perfume, which they label “B***h.” Unfortunately the scientist’s lab assistant steals almost all of their supply and then Henri, the scientist, dies of a heart attack during exertions brought on by the pheromone. Armed with only a small remainder and unable to make more, Uncle Oswald decides to have some fun. He plants the liquid in a large flower corsage to be worn by an obnoxious woman sitting next to the President on live television. His plans derail, however, when she unknowingly releases the perfume in his presence in her hotel room. A spectacularly surreal sex scene concludes the story.

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“Beware of the Dog”

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Information

Plot Description

This famous psychological story is from Over to You: Ten Stories of Flyers and Flying. Its unexpected and memorable plot twist has twice lent itself to film; first in the feature 36 Hours (1964), and later in the TV-movie Breaking Point (1989). The basic narrative concerns an English World War II pilot who crashes and then finds himself in a very comfortable hospital. Something is wrong though…

Spoiler warning! Pilot Peter Williamson has sustained a massive injury while flying a mission over Vichy France (the name given to the German-controlled areas of the country). He ejects from the plane and later awakes to find himself in a hospital bed in Brighton on the English seashore. Strange things keep happening though – like the time he recognizes the sound of German planes through the window when there shouldn’t have been any nearby. The nurse also mentions that the hospital water is very hard, when Williamson knows the water in Brighton is famous for being soft. Suspicious and frightened, he later drags himself to the window and sees a wooden sign, “GARDE AU CHIEN” (French for “Beware of the dog”). He now knows that he is in Vichy France, and that the nice English caregivers are actually Germans in disguise. When they send in a fake RAF commander to convince him to divulge his squadron’s location, he stares him straight in the eye and says nothing more than “My name is Peter Williamson. My rank is Squadron Leader and my number is nine seven two four five seven.”