Category: Media

“Neck”

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Information

Plot Description

I think this story is a lot more effective if you actually visualize it like you’re seeing it on television. Dahl did, in fact, dramatize it on his show “Tales of the Unexpected” with Sir John Gielgud as the butler Jelks and Joan Collins as Natalia. Doesn’t that just make it even better?

Spoiler warning! The narrator, a newspaper society columnist, starts off by telling us the history of Sir Basil Turton. Sir Basil inherited a vast newspaper empire from his father and immediately became the most sought-after bachelor in London. He was swept off his feet by a dazzling foreign woman named Natalia and they were married not long after. The narrator meets Lady Turton at a dinner party and, though he finds her manners rude, manages to wrangle an invitation to visit her home the next weekend. When the day arrives, the narrator drives down and is astonished at the variety of topiary and sculpture on the grounds of Wooton (Sir Basil’s estate). He enters the house and is shown to his room by a footman. Instantly he can tell that something is wrong in this house. While changing for dinner, our narrator is interrupted by Jelks, the butler, who launches into a peculiar rant about tipping. The upshot is that he would rather the narrator split his card winnings from the weekend with him than to tip. The narrator agrees, but is not amused when Jelks goes on to give him tips about Lady Turton’s playing tactics. The narrator gets the idea that Jelks doesn’t much like Lady Turton, nor her other houseguests. The narrator meets everyone else at dinner, and settles down to converse with Sir Basil about sculpture. Lady Turton amuses herself with her friends Carmen La Rosa and Major Jack Haddock, a bounder that is obviously in love with her. The narrator notices that Sir Basil is well aware of his wife’s indiscretion, but he’s unable to bring himself to do anything about it. The next day, the narrator and Sir Basil go for a walk around the estate. They take a seat up high on a hill that overlooks the entire garden. In the middle of their conversation, they witness Lady Turton and Major Haddock cavorting on one of the lawns, unaware that they are being watched. Haddock has a camera and is taking pictures of Lady Turton, who is mocking one of the sculptures. As a joke, she puts her head through a hole in the sculpture and then Haddock kisses her. Unfortunately, her head gets stuck. Sir Basil suggests that perhaps they should go help her out. When Sir Basil and the narrator arrive, Natalia is embarrassed and furious. Sir Basil tells Jelks to go get him something so that he can take the sculpture apart. Jelks returns with a saw and an axe. Everybody freezes as Jelks holds out the implements, and the narrator notices that Jelks slightly pushes the axe forward. Sir Basil takes the axe. The narrator says, “For me, after that, it was like the awful moment when you see a child running out into the road and a car is coming and all you can do is shut your eyes tight and wait…” When he finally opens his eyes, Sir Basil is telling Jelks that the axe is far too dangerous and requesting the saw. Lady Turton looks quite ill and her “mouth was opening and shutting making a kind of gurgling sound”. The narrator notices that, for the first time, Sir Basil has rosy cheeks and a smile in his eyes.

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“My Lady Love, My Dove”

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Information

Plot Description

Spoiler warning! Arthur is happily married to Pamela, a very wealthy yet overbearing woman. They are awaiting some weekend guests, the Snapes, and Pamela isn’t looking forward to it. The only reason she invited them was that the Snapes are good bridge players and they play for a decent stake. Suddenly Pamela gets the idea that they should bug the Snapes’s room. Arthur doesn’t like the idea, but Pamela bullies him and reminds him that they’ve done similar things together in the past. “I’m a nasty person,” she says. “And so are you — in a secret sort of way. That’s why we get along together.” Arthur is eventually persuaded to hide a microphone in the guest room and run the wire to the speaker in the master bedroom. Later the guests arrive and everyone has a pleasant dinner. Afterwards they play bridge, and the Snapes have all the luck. The wife, Sally, makes one mistake though that costs them several hundred points. At the end of the evening the couples part and Pamela excitedly tells Arthur to turn on the speaker. They are astonished to hear Mr. Snape reprimanding his wife for her earlier bridge error. She apologizes, but he tells her that they’re just going to have to practice some more. Arthur realizes that they’re talking about a betting code which allows them to cheat and know all of their partner’s cards. Arthur isn’t sure what they should do about it, and waits for Pamela’s decision. Her words shock him: “Why, Arthur, this is a mar-vellous idea… Go fetch a deck of cards; we’ll start right away.”

Teacher Ideas

“Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel’s Coat”

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Information

  • First published:
    • December 1959 issue of Nugget

Plot Description

Some sources refer to this as a “story-within-a-story”, but I wouldn’t go so far. It’s more like a story with a little stitched-on introduction. Critics like to point to this tale as yet another example of Dahl’s misogyny, but it’s actually quite different for a husband to win against a wife in his work (see “Lamb to the Slaughter” or “The Way Up to Heaven”).

Note: This story is based on an apocryphal anecdote dating back to at least the 1930’s. Dahl didn’t originate the plot!

Spoiler warning! Dahl introduces the story by commenting on the ruthless practice of American woman marrying men, using them, and divorcing them just for financial gain. He claims that these poor overworked men meet in bars and console themselves with tales in which cuckolded men win one over the evil forces of femininity. The most famous of these stories is “Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel’s Coat”, which is about a hard-working dentist and his duplicitous wife. Mrs. Bixby leaves home once a month ostensibly to visit her aunt in Baltimore, but really she spends the time with her lover, the Colonel. On this particular occasion she receives a parting gift from the Colonel, and when she opens it on the train home she is amazed to find an extremely beautiful and valuable mink coat. In a note the Colonel explains that their relationship has to end, but Mrs. Bixby is consoled by the thought of her fabulous new possession. Immediately she begins scheming and trying to think of a story she can tell her husband about where she obtained it. She decides to visit a pawnbroker and borrow $50 against the coat, receiving a blank pawn ticket in return. When she gets home she tells her husband that she found the ticket in a taxicab and he excitedly explains how they go about claiming it. Since she doesn’t want to be recognized by the pawnbroker, she lets him go to claim the item after he promises that he’ll give whatever it is to her. He calls her from work the next day to let her know that he has the item, and that she’s going to be really surprised and happy. Mrs. Bixby is too eager to wait, so she goes to her husband’s office to pick up the coat. Imagine her surprise, then, when her husband places a mangy mink stole around her neck! She feigns happiness for his sake, while secretly planning to return to the pawnbroker and accuse him of switching the coat for this worthless item. On her way out of the office, though, she is passed by her husband’s young assistant secretary, Miss Pulteney… wearing the “beautiful black mink coat that the Colonel had given to Mrs. Bixby.”

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“Mr. Hoddy”

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Information

Plot Description

This is from the “Claud’s Dog” series of stories that were first published in Someone Like You.

Spoiler warning! Claud Cubbage is going to his girlfriend Clarice’s house to be inspected and questioned by her father, Mr. Hoddy. Claud wants to marry Clarice and Mr. Hoddy wants to make sure that he can take care of her. Clarice warns Claud, though, not to mention his plan to win at the greyhound track (see “Mr. Feasey”), because her father hates greyhounds. She tells Claud just to make something up to please her father. Later that night, Claud starts to feel uncomfortable as Mr. Hoddy grills him about his future business plans. Claud explains that he and his friend Gordon, who runs the filling station, have a number of expansion ideas that they’re working on. He tries to leave it at that, but Mr. Hoddy presses him. Finally Claud announces that they’re planning to run a “maggot factory.” They’ll harvest maggots from rotting meat, raise them, and ship them to grateful fisherman all over the world. Claud’s imagination begins to run away from him as he describes the different varieties of maggots they’ll supply, along with the various details of feeding them and keeping them warm in the winter. Mr. Hoddy, of course, cannot believe what he is hearing. He’s a grocer and the thought of his daughter being supported by an income from maggots is disgusting to him. He can finally take no more and rises suddenly, asking Claud to stop and escorting him out the door. “I think it’s time I was getting along,” Claud said. “Goodnight.”

“Mr. Feasey”

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Information

Plot Description

This is from the “Claud’s Dog” series of stories that were first published in Someone Like You.

Spoiler warning! The narrator Gordon and his friend Claud are exceptionally nervous, because they’re about to pull off the biggest scam of their lives. They’re off to the greyhound racing track with their dog Jackie. Claud knows everything there is to know about greyhound racing, and he’s sure they’ve got a winner. Four months before Claud bought a dog that turned out to be a dead ringer for Jackie, but couldn’t run fast at all. They’ve been running the slow dog at the track for the past eight weeks to make sure that he gets moved into the bottom racing grade. Now they plan on running Jackie and placing all their money on him to win. The only obstacle is Mr. Feasey, who runs the track. He has an incredible memory and is able to spot an imposter dog from a mile away. Once they get to the track, they’re horrified when Mr. Feasey tells them that he doesn’t intend to let them run their “champion” anymore. As a last resort, Claud bets Mr. Feasey a pound that Jackie won’t come in last place. This piques Feasey’s interest, and he inspects the dog closely. Satisfied that it’s the same dog, he accepts the bet and allows Jackie into the first race. While Claud gets Jackie ready and bribes the winder (the man who pulls the rabbit that the dogs chase), Gordon goes down the row of bookies placing bets on Jackie. He stands to win over two thousand pounds. The race begins and Jackie wins easily. Mr. Feasey is furious and tells them that they’re banned from the track in the future. Claud takes Jackie back to the van while Gordon goes to collect their winnings. When he gets there, though, the first bookie won’t pay and says he backed another dog. All the details are in the bookmaker’s book, but he won’t let Gordon see it. None of the other bookies will pay out either. “You’re a thief! A lousy little thief!” Gordon yells. “Well, I never,” says the bookie. “Look who’s talking!” Everyone laughs as Gordon sees Claud waiting for him with a suitcase in hand for the money.

“Mr. Botibol”

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Plot Description

The main character, Mr. Botibol, has the same name as the protagonist from another Dahl story, “Dip in the Pool.”

Spoiler warning! Mr. Botibol is a very odd-looking and strange man. At the beginning of the story, he goes to lunch with Mr. Clements, the solicitor of a firm looking to buy out his company. Mr. Botibol accepts the bid (which was much too low) and allows Mr. Clements to get him drunk. Once he is tipsy, Mr. Botibol admits that he has never had one bit of success in his life – not even with women. When he arrives home, Botibol switches on the radio and hears a symphony by Beethoven. He gets the sudden impulse to pretend to conduct the symphony. This makes him feel so good that he does it again the next day. He decided to have a real concert hall built in his home with a gramaphone setup so that he can conduct to his heart’s content. His butler is alarmed at these changes (as well as the fact that Botibol is now drinking wine at all his meals), but Botibol tries to explain that he’s not going mad. Botibol has such a great time in his concert hall that he decides to have a grand piano installed, but one that makes no noice. Then he can pretend to play concertos as well as conduct them. While he is buying piano records, a girl strikes up a conversation with him. She loves Chopin, whose records Botibol has just bought. To his own surprise, he invites her to come listen to them. When she arrives the next day, he shows her the concert hall and explains about his secret. He talks her into “performing” with him that night, her on the piano and him conducting. They change into their fancy dress and have a lovely dinner with lots of wine. Then they went to the concert hall and gave the performance of their lives. Mr. Botibol was impressed with her fake piano-playing, and excitedly invites her to play again the next night. Suddenly she realizes that it’s late and she has to work in the morning. Mr. Botibol asks where she works. Reluctantly, she tells him that she is a piano teacher. He is shocked into silence.

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“The Mildenhall Treasure”

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Information

  • Connections:

Plot Description

In a note before the true story, Dahl explains how he read in the newspaper about a “remarkable find of Roman silver.” As true stories of treasure sent “shivers of electricity” through him, he immediately drove to Mildenhall to interview the ploughman involved. The man, Gordon Butcher, consented to tell Dahl what happened and Dahl used that as the basis for his story. After it was published in America, Dahl sent half the money to Butcher.

Spoiler warning! Gordon Butcher woke early on a cold January morning and kissed his wife and children good-bye. He bicycled through the biting wind to the home of Ford, where he left his tractor the day before. His task for the day was to plough up a field belonging to a man named Rolfe, who had hired Ford to do the job. Ford was busy, so he hired Butcher to do it for him. As the field was intended for sugar beets, Butcher had been instructed to plot it very deep, ten or twelve inches. In the afternoon, there was a sudden jolt and the wooden peg that held the plow to the tractor snapped. Butcher climbed down and began to dig away the soil to see what he had struck. He saw a large metal plate. That part of Suffolk was much favored by the Romans, so all the farmers knew of the possibility of Roman treasure being buried on their land. Butcher went to fetch Ford, who knew about this kind of thing. The two men returned to the field and began to dig out the plate. Eventually they pulled thirty-four separate pieces of encrusted ancient metal out of that hole. Ford had an advantage over Butcher, in that he knew the law regarding the finding of silver in Britain. All gold and silver dug from the ground is “Treasure Trove” and automatically property of the Crown. You are legally required to notify the police if you find some, and you will be compensated the market value of the item. But, it is the person who discovers the treasure that gets the reward, not the person who owns the land. As Butcher had been the one hired to do the job, the reward would be his. Ford cunningly managed to suggest to Butcher that the metal was worthless and Butcher allowed him to take it home without a thought. In secret, Ford polished all the pieces and was astonished with their brilliance and beauty. He kept them hidden, though, and four years passed. In 1946, after the War was over, his secret was discovered by a man named Dr. Fawcett, who happened to see one of the spoons that Ford had left sitting on the mantelpiece. The treasure was turned over to the police, who started an investigation. Eventually the finders were declared to be Ford and Butcher, who each received a thousand pounds compensation. Butcher had no idea that “had he been allowed to take the treasure home originally, he would have almost certainly have revealed its existence and would thus have become eligible to receive one hundred per cent of its value, which could have been anything between half a million and a million pounds.”

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Criticism and Analysis

“Man From the South”

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Information

Plot Description

Spoiler warning! The narrator of this famous story is never named, but I always presumed him to be an English writer (i.e. Dahl’s stand-in). This narrator is lounging by a pool at a Jamaican hotel when he meets a strange little South American man in a white suit and cream Panama hat. They are joined by an American boy and an English girl, and the boy offers them all a cigarette. When he boasts that his lighter always lights, even in such wind, the old man asks if he’s willing to bet on it. The boy is surprised but agrees to bet a dollar. The old man laughs and offers to up the stakes: If the boy can light his lighter ten times in a row, he will give him a brand new Cadillac. If the boy loses, the man will cut off the little finger on his left hand. After some deliberation, the boy agrees to the bet. They all go up to the old man’s room where he prepares for the bet. The boy’s hand is tied to the desk with his pinky sticking out and the man holds a chopping knife at the ready. The boy makes it up to eight successful lights when the door suddenly opens and a woman rushes in yelling in Spanish. She throws the old man down on the bed and apologizes to the others. She says that she should not have left him alone and that he has taken forty-seven fingers where they come from. She eventually managed to win everything from him, but it took her a long time. The last thing the narrator sees as he leaves the room is the woman’s hand… with only one finger and one thumb left on it.

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“Madame Rosette”

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Information

Plot Description

This is one of Dahl’s “flying” stories and deals with three R.A.F. pilots on leave in Cairo, Egypt. It does have a slightly adult theme (Madame Rosette runs a seedy brothel) and younger readers might want to skip this one for now.

Spoiler warning! Two R.A.F. pilots, Stuffy and the Stag, are from the same squadron and have been granted leave in Cairo. They check into a hotel together to bathe and relax. Later they go out shopping and Stuffy is attracted to the beautiful Egyptian girl who sells him sunglasses. The Stag tells him that he’s heard of a woman named Madame Rosette who can arrange a rendezvous with any girl in town. Stuffy calls her up, but later he has a change of heart and convinces the Stag to call it off. The two of them meet up with William, who is from another squadron, and together they all drink beers in an Egyptian bar. On the way home they formulate a crazy plan: they want to rescue all the girls from Madame Rosette. They travel to her brothel and manage to lock her up in her office. Then they escort the fourteen girls there to a nearby bar and buy them drinks. The girls are delighted and write down their phone numbers for the rest of the squadron. At the end of the night, the three pilots escort the girls home.

“Lucky Break”

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Information

Plot Description

This isn’t really much of a story. It’s mostly just Dahl’s advice for becoming a writer and anecdotes about how he fell into the profession. A lot of the school passages seem to be reproduced in Boy.

Spoiler warning! Dahl starts off by giving advice to people who want to become full-time professional writers. He says that you have to have another day job to start, and he gives a list of qualities that you should possess. Then he flashes back to his days at St. Peter’s Prep School, where boys were savagely beaten for any infraction of the rules. He looks over some of his school reports trying to see any hint of his future career, but most of his teachers give him horrible marks in English Composition. His only good memories of those school years were the Saturday afternoons when the teachers would all go off to the pub and a local woman, Mrs. O’Connor, was brought in to watch the boys. Instead of merely babysitting them, though, she taught them about the entire history of English literature. By the time Dahl left for Repton, he was an insatiable reader. Repton was even worse for him, and when he left school he decided to work for Shell and visit exotic lands. He was posted to East Africa, but left in 1939 to join the R.A.F. and fight in World War II. He tells of his training and of the horrific crash that eventually got him invalided home. Then the R.A.F. decided to send him to America as “Assistant Air Attaché”. While there, he was contacted by the famous author C.S. Forester, who wanted to write a story about the crash. Dahl wrote down everything he could remember and sent it to Forester, who responded, “Did you know you were a writer?” The story was published “without any changes” in the Saturday Evening Post. Dahl goes on to talk about The Gremlins and how he was eventually able to meet Franklin Roosevelt. At the end of the story, Dahl talks about the red notebook that he wrotes down all of his plot ideas in. He even shows the reader the blurbs that eventually become Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and “Henry Sugar”. And that, he says, is “how I became a writer.”