General Question

MilkyWay's avatar

What can you tell me about Roald Dahl himself?

Asked by MilkyWay (13745points) January 6th, 2012
9 responses
“Great Question” (0points)

The great classic children’s author. What can you tell me about him?
And please don’t mention Wikipedia. ;)

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Answers

Bellatrix's avatar

He actually has an autobiography called Boy and his book Going Solo continues his story. I read them a long time ago. Worth a read. I know he was a pilot in (I think) North Africa during the war. He also did most of his writing in a garden shed (I think a brick garden shed, not a metal number).

I can’t remember much more right now but I know I love his books and I loved reading them to my children. I still have them all. Just in case I ever have grandchildren.

Adagio's avatar

He loved to entertain family and had a wonderfully stocked wine cellar.

gailcalled's avatar

He was married to the wonderful actress, Patricia Neal, for years, and had a large family.

After she had a series of strokes, he walked out and married his mistress.

trailsillustrated's avatar

His daughter helped Greg Mortensen with schools in Afganistan. Read ‘Three cups of Tea’ because I forget most of the details.

Seelix's avatar

I also read the books that @Bellatrix mentioned, and really enjoyed them. He was a pretty interesting guy, and he wrote not only for kids but for adults too. One anthology I read was titled Skin. My favourite story of his is “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar”.

fizzbanger's avatar

He enjoyed picking scabs.

MilkyWay's avatar

Thank you :)
@fizzbanger Really?

fizzbanger's avatar

@MilkyWay For some odd reason I remember this from reading some kind of biographical blurb about him a few years ago… and he wrote a story that starts off with a kid picking a scab…

dappled_leaves's avatar

He crashed his plane in a Libyan desert in WW2, and said that that experience made him into a storyteller.

Funny, I was just looking up his granddaughter, Sophie Dahl, because I seemed to remember she had written some beautiful cookbooks, but I can’t find them now (there are some available, but not the ones I remembered). Perhaps it was another Dahl entirely.

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