2010 biography storyteller
Storyteller: The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl
October 1, 2016
I always find it difficult to rate and evaluate biographies. I feel as if I would need to read two biographies of the same subject, side by side, to properly judge what use each had made of the life given to them. Roald Dahl is a multi-dimensional subject, for sure, and even at nearly 600 pages I felt that many years and important matters in the man's life were left untold - or merely hinted at. The biographer Donald Sturrock makes it clear that Dahl's surviving children (Tessa, Theo, Ophelia and Lucy) were responsible for much assistance, but I felt that his relationships with not just them, but also his second wife Felicity ('Liccy') were handled very carefully - perhaps to the point of being too careful. Above all, Sturrock emphasises Dahl's pleasure in being the paterfamilias - head of both his birth family (his own father died when he was a toddler), and the large family he created for himself. Generous but controlling, fun-loving but provocative to the point of causing pain, Dahl is a study in contrasts. No matter how enamoured you are of the Dahl who created the beloved children's classics, you cannot read this biography without feeling a complex mix of respect and dislike for this truly original, inimitable man. He was an iconoclast who longed for mainstream approval, but his own perverse character was his worst enemy.
At the beginning of the biography, Sturrock goes into some detail about Dahl's Norwegian ancestors - and there is one particular family incident which is referred to more than once. One of his ancestors on his mother's side was a Lutheran minister who escaped his own burning church by piling up Bibles and throwing himself out of a window. Apparently, nearly all of the congregation were burned, but Pastor Hesselberg was both pragmatic and cool-headed (and perhaps somewhat ignoble) in the crisis. Throughout his life, Dahl was able to respond to some pretty dramatic events with this same detachment and quick thinking. He had more than his share of tragedy and drama: his own nearly fatal aeroplane crash in the desert, his young's son nearly fatal accident, his wife's completely debilitating stroke, but on each occasion he exerted his own strong will and bent his analytical brain to the crisis.
There was rather too much detail about Dahl's publishing highs and lows for my taste - not to mention his financial wheeling and dealings - but there were wonderful details about his unusual family, his time in boarding school, his years as a fighter pilot and then later as a spy in Washington, and his delight in the "gypsy" life. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Dahl and I shared something in common: he was operated on, more than once, at the Scott & White Hospital in Temple, Texas. This is the same small town that I grew up in, and the same hospital that I went to for several small operations. His description of Temple in 1945 was pretty unrecognisable to me - he definitely had lent his own creative and exaggerated touch - but then, according to Sturrock, neither of his own memoirs (Boy and Going Solo) were all that accurate, either. He never let truth get in the way of a good story.
One final thing, and this is a highly personal note: I was just finishing up this book on the day that my own father died. September 16. There is a particularly moving scene of Dahl's death, involving both humour and pathos, and I cried and cried when I read it. Later, I learned that my father had died at the approximate time I was reading Dahl's deathbed scene. Like many others, I honoured the 100th anniversary of Dahl's birth by reading many of his books. I believe that what we read often parallels our life in strange and unexpectedly meaningful ways, but even so, I don't think I will ever forget reading this particular biography.
At the beginning of the biography, Sturrock goes into some detail about Dahl's Norwegian ancestors - and there is one particular family incident which is referred to more than once. One of his ancestors on his mother's side was a Lutheran minister who escaped his own burning church by piling up Bibles and throwing himself out of a window. Apparently, nearly all of the congregation were burned, but Pastor Hesselberg was both pragmatic and cool-headed (and perhaps somewhat ignoble) in the crisis. Throughout his life, Dahl was able to respond to some pretty dramatic events with this same detachment and quick thinking. He had more than his share of tragedy and drama: his own nearly fatal aeroplane crash in the desert, his young's son nearly fatal accident, his wife's completely debilitating stroke, but on each occasion he exerted his own strong will and bent his analytical brain to the crisis.
There was rather too much detail about Dahl's publishing highs and lows for my taste - not to mention his financial wheeling and dealings - but there were wonderful details about his unusual family, his time in boarding school, his years as a fighter pilot and then later as a spy in Washington, and his delight in the "gypsy" life. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Dahl and I shared something in common: he was operated on, more than once, at the Scott & White Hospital in Temple, Texas. This is the same small town that I grew up in, and the same hospital that I went to for several small operations. His description of Temple in 1945 was pretty unrecognisable to me - he definitely had lent his own creative and exaggerated touch - but then, according to Sturrock, neither of his own memoirs (Boy and Going Solo) were all that accurate, either. He never let truth get in the way of a good story.
One final thing, and this is a highly personal note: I was just finishing up this book on the day that my own father died. September 16. There is a particularly moving scene of Dahl's death, involving both humour and pathos, and I cried and cried when I read it. Later, I learned that my father had died at the approximate time I was reading Dahl's deathbed scene. Like many others, I honoured the 100th anniversary of Dahl's birth by reading many of his books. I believe that what we read often parallels our life in strange and unexpectedly meaningful ways, but even so, I don't think I will ever forget reading this particular biography.