{"id":180740,"date":"2025-09-16T13:38:52","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T10:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/?p=180740"},"modified":"2025-09-16T13:38:59","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T10:38:59","slug":"roald_dahl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/en\/roald_dahl\/","title":{"rendered":"The Questionable (and Immortal) Values in the Books of Roald Dahl"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThe most important thing you should know about REAL WITCHES is this. Listen very carefully. Never forget what is coming next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

REAL WITCHES dress in ordinary clothes and look very much like ordinary women. They live in ordinary houses and they work in ORDINARY JOBS. That is why they are so hard to catch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A real witch hates children with a red-hot sizzling hatred that is more sizzling and red-hot than any hatred you could possibly imagine [\u2026]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Which child,\u2019 she says to herself all day long, \u2018exactly which child shall I choose for my next squelching?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A lovely little paragraph to read your child before bed, wouldn\u2019t you say?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This, of course, is the opening passage of The Witches<\/em>, by Roald Dahl.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Whatsapp
The Witches<\/em><\/a> <\/em>by Roald Dahl. The Hebrew edition preserved the original cover illustration<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Like all of Dahl\u2019s works, this book was published into a world that already knew a variety of children\u2019s literature, including the dark and terrifying kind. Yes, the world had already seen Brothers Grimm-style horror stories, with or without preachy moral conclusions. But Dahl pushed that freedom, the freedom to write for children without restraint, and to shock both them and their parents, as far as it could go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all began, like most good stories, with a difficult childhood (though \u201cdifficult\u201d might be putting it mildly).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roald Dahl was born in the northern suburbs of Cardiff, the capital of Wales – a lesser-known corner of the United Kingdom. His parents were immigrants from Norway, so his first language was Norwegian. The fairy tales he heard at home were rooted in Norse mythology, populated by witches, elves, and a host of other creatures, both good and evil, sure, but mostly evil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He didn\u2019t have much time to enjoy his childhood before everything began to unravel. Between the ages of three and four, Dahl lost both his sister and his father. A few years later, he was sent off to boarding school. He attended a number of them – a string of dreadful institutions – each seemingly worse than the last. There he came to understand cruelty: the brutality of schoolyard bullies, and the apathy, or outright abuse, of the adults. Physical punishment, beatings, and borderline torture were routine.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Roald
Roald Dahl at age 10, with his sisters in Cardiff<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Dahl himself was no innocent. In his memoirs, he gleefully recounts endless pranks, performed alone and with friends. Still, even a boy who slips a dead mouse into the candy jar at the local sweet shop doesn\u2019t deserve the harsh violence he endured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After finishing school, Dahl had no interest in further studies. Instead, he traveled to Africa to work for a major oil company. At that point, his only connection to writing was the drawer in his mother\u2019s nightstand, where she kept the hundreds of letters he had written her over the years he spent away from home. With the outbreak of World War II, Dahl joined the British Royal Air Force. His squadron was stationed in the Middle East. One day, he was forced to make an emergency crash landing. He survived the incident, but sustained serious injuries that would haunt him for years. That crash also marked the start of something else: a writing career. Though he didn\u2019t know it at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Gloster
Dahl\u2019s Gloster Gladiator plane, with which he crash-landed over North Africa<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

After several months of recovery, he was sent overseas to a more relaxed posting, as a military attach\u00e9 in Washington, D.C. There, among the vibrant expat British community in permissive wartime America, Dahl became something of a celebrity. The dashing, cynical young pilot, who had been dramatically shot down over Africa, full of swagger and war stories. He didn\u2019t shy away from embellishment, and before long, his crash landing had transformed into a heroic tale in which he personally downed a double-digit number of enemy planes before being taken out himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One person who heard this tale was the celebrated writer E. M. Forster, who asked Dahl to write down a summary of his experiences so that Forster could turn it into a magazine piece. The text Dahl sent was so vivid, polished, and entertaining that Forster submitted it to the paper exactly as it was – no edits, and under Dahl\u2019s own byline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShot Down Over Libya\u201d<\/em> appeared shortly thereafter in the Saturday Evening Post<\/em>. It was a massive success and marked Dahl\u2019s debut as a serious writer.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Whatsapp
The first story by Dahl to be published in the press<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Around that time, Dahl also wrote a children\u2019s story about \u201cgremlins\u201d – mischievous little creatures that British pilots (and others) blamed for secretly sabotaging aircraft. The story reached a certain Walt Disney, who immediately wanted Dahl to adapt it into a screenplay. The film never materialized, but Disney did publish Dahl\u2019s manuscript as a picture book. Once again, to everyone\u2019s surprise, it was a hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the war, Dahl returned to Britain, where he struggled to find publishers for his macabre stories, which lacked tidy morals and softened edges. He made a living primarily as an art dealer, but he knew this wasn\u2019t his calling. He decided to return to America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1951, at a party hosted by American friends, he met Patricia Neal – a dazzling film star who had already shared a movie set with Ronald Reagan and a bed with Gary Cooper. They fell for each other, or at the very least became deeply intrigued. He was enchanted by her beauty. She was captivated by his wit, cynicism, narcissism, and astonishing storytelling gift.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Patricia
Dahl with his first wife, Patricia Neal, 1954<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Their marriage wasn\u2019t especially tender or romantic, neither of them were known for those traits. But while Patricia\u2019s acting career was on the rise, Dahl returned to writing. His stories – sharp, dark, funny, and blunt – were published in various magazines, including several adults-only pieces in Playboy<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His writing for adults, which came before his children\u2019s books, was no less wild or imaginative. Time and again, he confronted readers with their own morality, their prejudices, and the choices they might make if placed, or forced, into particular situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he and Patricia had children, Dahl devoted himself to them completely, for the first time in his life. The cynical, unruly man who often saw the world as a malevolent force discovered a small pocket of light. He began telling his kids bedtime stories and slowly realized that maybe, just maybe, he could write for children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHad I not had children of my own,\u201d he later said, \u201cI would have never written books for children, nor would I have been capable of doing so.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And like almost everything in his life, he did it in a way no one had before, or since.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"15085\"
A Hebrew edition of James and the Giant Peach<\/a><\/em>, by Roald Dahl<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

When Dahl sent the draft of James and the Giant Peach<\/em> to his publisher, he was slightly embarrassed. What was he supposed to do with this strange manuscript? But the editor he worked with predicted it would become a classic, and they decided to publish it anyway. Sales were slow at first, and British publishers flat-out refused to print it. Was it the oversized bugs? The abuse James endures? The grotesque fate of the wicked aunts? Whatever the reason, even after a second book was released, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory<\/em>, the British still weren\u2019t interested, and American readers weren\u2019t rushing to stores either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once again, it was Walt Disney who gave Dahl his big break. He bought the rights to turn the story of the eccentric millionaire and his bizarre chocolate factory into a film. Initially, Dahl was meant to write the screenplay, but that quickly fell apart. When the studio realized he was impossible to collaborate with, they hired someone else. Dahl came to despise the movie with a passion and made no effort to hide it. But he also enjoyed the results: within months of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory<\/em> hitting theaters, more than 750,000 copies of the book were sold in the U.S. alone. British publishers finally gave in, and the book was soon translated into many more languages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was translated into Hebrew as well, like most of Dahl\u2019s books, despite his unabashed, conspiratorial antisemitism. \u201cThere is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity…even a stinker like Hitler didn\u2019t just pick on them for no reason,\u201d Dahl told an interviewer in the early 1980s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few years later, in 1990, he remarked: \u201cI am certainly anti-Israel, and I have become anti-Semitic…\u201d These comments drew a severe backlash among Jews around the world. Even Jewish children felt a need to respond, as in the case of Aliza Cohen and Tamar Mittman, two young girls who attended the Brandeis-Hillel Day School in San Francisco California, and chose to write the author a letter: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Dear Mr. Dahl, we love your books but we have a problem… We are Jews! […] Can you please change your mind about what you said about Jews! We like you but we feel that you don’t like us – Love, Aliza and Tamar.”<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Letter
A letter sent by Aliza Cohen and Tamar Mittman to Roald Dahl, published in the June 1, 1990 edition of J. The Jewish News of Northern California<\/a><\/em>, the Historical Jewish Press Collection at the National Library of Israel<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Dahl sent a reply to the girls and to their classmates who had also written him: “The trouble with many Jewish people in other countries is that they refuse to look at both sides of the coin, and anyone, like me for instance, who dares to raise a voice against Israel is immediately labeled an anti-Semite”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was a difficult man, seeing the world through a dark veil that no one could lift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, his family, the only people with whom he seemed to show a different of himself, were rocked by crisis after crisis, with each one of these taking its toll on Dahl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When his young son suffered a serious head injury and developed hydrocephalus, Dahl stepped away from writing and collaborated with a neurosurgeon and an engineer to invent an innovative new drainage valve. Eventually named after him, the device went on to save thousands of children’s lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When his eldest daughter died at age seven due to complications from measles, Dahl was shattered. He mourned her intensely, almost violently, banning his wife and children from speaking her name.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Screenshot
Israeli newspaper article about Patricia’s recovery, Maariv, February 10, 1971<\/a>. <\/em>From the Historical Jewish Press Collection at the National Library of Israel<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Later, while pregnant and at the height of her career, Patricia suffered three strokes in quick succession. Doctors doubted she would survive, and if she did, they didn\u2019t expect her to function at even a basic level. But once again, Dahl dropped everything and devoted himself completely to her care. He spent hours by her side and hired a small army of therapists and caregivers to help her recover physically and cognitively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His efforts paid off. She made a near-complete recovery. Within months, she had landed a new acting role and returned to a full, active life. But did all that sacrifice reignite a spark between them? Something did flare up, but not between Patricia and Roald. Dahl began a passionate affair with another woman, one that would eventually end his marriage and lead him to remarry, later that same year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout all of this, he kept writing. With his beloved pencils and plain notebooks stacked on his desk. He never could understand how other writers used typewriters. Didn\u2019t they ever need to erase things? Didn\u2019t they keep rewriting and revising their stories until they sparkled, until every line was razor sharp?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though he continued writing for adults, mostly short stories and memoirs, his heart belonged to children. He felt something for them with an intensity he couldn\u2019t summon for people his own age, for better and for worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChildren are a great discipline because they are highly critical,” he once wrote. “And they lose interest so quickly. You have to keep things ticking along. And if you think a child is getting bored, you must think up something that jolts it back. Something that tickles. You have to know what children like.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parents and educators actively recoiled from his books, at the grotesque imagery, the detailed accounts of abuse, the racism, the fat-shaming (though the term didn\u2019t exist yet), the horror, and the hatred woven into so many of his pages.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Whatsapp
A racism that couldn\u2019t be ignored. One of the original illustrations depicting the \u201cOompa Loompas\u201d as Africans<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

When asked whether it was truly necessary to flatten James\u2019s wicked aunts to death with a giant peach,<\/em> Dahl replied that he received hundreds of letters from children in which they repeatedly expressed sentiments like ”the bit I liked best was when the aunts get squashed by the peach.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChildren love to be spooked, to be made to giggle,\u201d he said once in an interview. \u201cThey like a touch of the macabre as long as it’s funny too. They don’t relate it to life. They enjoy the fantasy. And my nastiness is never gratuitous. It’s retribution. Beastly people must be punished.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And indeed, children did<\/em> love the stories. They asked to hear them over and over, watched the film adaptations and flocked to the stage productions based on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat shocks adults doesn\u2019t shock children,\u201d Dahl once wrote. \u201cYou can be as crude as you like – as long as it makes them laugh.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His stories – grotesque, macabre, terrifying – were also wickedly funny. The villains were often attractive, popular adults or seemingly perfect children. And it worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it didn\u2019t work only<\/em> because Dahl tapped into some feral instinct or gave kids a safe outlet for their darker thoughts. It worked, and still works, because the stories give them something essential: justice<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Children still love his books because he articulates a truth they\u2019re often not allowed to say aloud: that the adults in their lives are not always good. And that goodness doesn\u2019t always triumph. These stories aren\u2019t just fantasy, they feel painfully real. The villains are unmistakably wicked, and by the end, they get what they deserve, in ways that are gloriously satisfying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Justice.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Matilda,
The musical Matilda <\/em>still runs at the Cambridge Theatre in London<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He saw the world as a dark and terrible place. He thought Hitler wasn\u2019t entirely wrong. His books brim with gruesome imagery, and with scorn for women, overweight people and different races. And yet, decades after they were written, they remain bestsellers, fueling blockbuster Broadway productions and prompting Netflix to pay hundreds of millions for the rights. Who was Roald Dahl, and what is the secret of his stories\u2019 enduring appeal?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":312,"featured_media":180392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[216,217],"tags":[304,2083],"tags2":[2704,2650,3067],"class_list":["post-180740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diaspora","category-land-of-israel","tag-antisemitism","tag-books"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Questionable (and Immortal) Values in the Books of Roald Dahl<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"He saw the world as a dark and terrible place. He thought Hitler wasn\u2019t entirely wrong. His books brim with gruesome imagery, and with scorn for women, overweight people and different races. 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