Topic: vicars and parsons

“Sitting Pretty”

Sections: Information | Plot Description 

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.

“Parson’s Pleasure”

Sections: Information | Plot Description | Teacher Ideas

Information

Plot Description

Spoiler warning! Mr. Cyril Boggis is an antiques dealer in Chelsea, London. He doesn’t have a large shop, but he still manages to make a tidy income each year by buying the most remarkable pieces of furniture at very, very cheap prices and selling them for immense profits. His friends in the trade wonder where he finds such rare items so regularly. It turns out that Mr. Boggis’s scheme is rather simple: he dresses up as a clergyman and visits English farmhouses under the pretenses of writing articles for the Society for the Preservation of Rare Furniture. When he finds something valuable, he makes the person an offer and then sells the item in his shop for twenty times as much. On this particular trip he’s canvassing the county of Buckinghamshire and comes across three locals (Claud, Bert, and Rummins) near a dirty, ramshackle farmhouse. Once he convinces them to let him inside, he is flabbergasted to see a Chippendale Commode standing in the living room. The Commodes were made by the famous 18th-century furniture maker Thomas Chippendale, and only three others were known to be in existence. Boggis nearly faints when he realizes that this piece could fetch up to twenty thousand pounds in an auction. He recovers, though, and mentions that he needs a new set of legs for a table he has at home. The ones on the commode, he says, would just fit. Rummins is doubtful, and so Boggis cons him into thinking that the piece is simply a worthless Victorian reproduction. He finally ends up purchasing the commode for the grand total of twenty pounds. After he leaves to get his car, the three men decide to help him out by cutting the legs off for him. Rummins also speculates that the parson might back out of the deal if he can’t fit the entire piece into his car (he doesn’t know that Boggis has a station wagon), so Claud takes an axe and breaks the commode to pieces. “I’ll tell you one thing,” he says. “That was a bloody good carpenter put this job together and I don’t care what the parson says.” At that moment, Mr. Boggis drives up in his car.

Teacher Ideas

“Georgy Porgy”

Sections: Information | Plot Description | Reviews | Criticism and Analysis

Information

Plot Description

This story is actually quite disturbing, if you ask me. I’d definitely think twice before letting an impressionable child read it. It has some very vivid passages that can only be described as a Freudian nightmare come to life.

Spoiler warning! George is a vicar in a small country parish and has quite a problem with women. On one hand he is mad about them – the mere sight of a lady in high heels is enough excite him enormously. On the other hand, he can’t bear to touch them or be in close proximity to them. George doesn’t understand the reason for this paradox, but Dahl gives the reader an additional insight – George’s memories of his mother. She was apparently quite a free spirit and took pleasure in teaching her soon the “realities” of life. He quite simply adored her. One night, after a week’s worth of discussions about sex, she took him to the garage to see their rabbit Josephine give birth. As they marvelled at the miracle of life, Josephine began to swallow her new children whole. George screamed, and as he turned to his mother her large open mouth loomed over him and he fled shrieking into the night. She chased him across a highway and was struck by a car and killed. (Undoubtedly this incident affected George deeply and resulted in his subconscious attraction/revulsions towards all women.) Now grown, George tries everything to elude the parish widowers who constantly stalk him. They are persistent though, and George grows more and more desperate with each attempt to seduce him. Finally Miss Roach gets him drunk at a tennis party and catches him in an embrace out in the garden. He is too lightheaded to resist. As she goes to kiss him, though, he sees her large open mouth and begins to scream as she swallows him whole. He continues to narrate from his new home in her digestive system, although we the readers know that he has just simply gone mad. The padded room that he believes is located somewhere near her right kidney is actually in an asylum.

Reviews

Criticism and Analysis

“The Champion of the World”

Sections: Information | Plot Description 

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.