The celebrated British author Roald Dahl, whose children’s and adult books have found a devoted global audience, was born on Sept. 13, 1916, making this year his 100th birthday. Dahl, who died in 1990 at 74, didn’t sugarcoat childhood ― despite literally coating a child in chocolate during one colorful scene in his most iconic novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Instead, he painted the world as somehow both magical and threatening, dark and whimsical.
The resulting blend offers a sharper-edged experience than most children’s classics, which is perhaps one reason many readers, young and old, cherish special memories of Dahl books. He approached his readers like they were still capable of appreciating the fantastical, yet ready to recognize that life would be rough and tumble. And, just as important, his books were hilarious.
But, with due respect, you haven’t properly experienced the comic genius of Dahl until you’ve heard him reading his books aloud. Wait, hear me out!
In the 1990s, when I was a kid, keeping the whole family entertained during six-hour road trips presented a real challenge. (Our minivan didn’t have built-in DVD players on the back of each headrest.) Fortunately, my parents had a few surefire tricks to occupy one motion-sickness-prone girl (me) and two rambunctious boys ― and one of the most effective involved Roald Dahl.
In the 1970s, Dahl recorded several of his books, some in abridged form, for Caedmon Audio. Those recordings are now available from Penguin Audio and in various older forms on Amazon and elsewhere. Here’s a snippet of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:
My family and I loved these books, which we had on cassette tape. (Of course. This was the ‘90s.)
Sure, the material itself couldn’t be beat for keeping under-10s and over-30s entertained ― wickedly funny, weird, off-the-wall. I suspect my parents also saw them as enjoyable morality plays for their squirming kids. “What made them so arresting and funny was the swift savagery of his demolition of greed and selfishness,” my dad told me today when I reminded him of the audiobooks. “’What a repulsive boy!’”
Dahl’s dry, even delivery ― the audio version of keeping a straight face ― somehow plays up the witticisms and comic moments scattered liberally throughout each page. Then, when he chooses to rap out a line of dialogue in an overtly sarcastic or nasty tone, the line packs all the greater of a wallop.
Plus, as the author, who better to judge which moments should be dramatized and which should be delivered wryly? Since Dahl’s writing is comedy, and he’s clearly adept at performing it as well, it just makes sense that he would enhance the delivery of his own material by reading it with impeccable timing and tone.
So if you’ve read everything Dahl has to offer, including roundups of his best quotes and his brilliantly unsettling short fiction, try celebrating his 100th another way. Tonight, kick back with a cup of tea while the author’s own sardonic tones tell you the tale of a little boy named Charlie Bucket, who loved chocolate.
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