Category: Media

“Beware of the Dog”

Sections: Information | Plot Description

Information

Plot Description

This famous psychological story is from Over to You: Ten Stories of Flyers and Flying. Its unexpected and memorable plot twist has twice lent itself to film; first in the feature 36 Hours (1964), and later in the TV-movie Breaking Point (1989). The basic narrative concerns an English World War II pilot who crashes and then finds himself in a very comfortable hospital. Something is wrong though…

Spoiler warning! Pilot Peter Williamson has sustained a massive injury while flying a mission over Vichy France (the name given to the German-controlled areas of the country). He ejects from the plane and later awakes to find himself in a hospital bed in Brighton on the English seashore. Strange things keep happening though – like the time he recognizes the sound of German planes through the window when there shouldn’t have been any nearby. The nurse also mentions that the hospital water is very hard, when Williamson knows the water in Brighton is famous for being soft. Suspicious and frightened, he later drags himself to the window and sees a wooden sign, “GARDE AU CHIEN” (French for “Beware of the dog”). He now knows that he is in Vichy France, and that the nice English caregivers are actually Germans in disguise. When they send in a fake RAF commander to convince him to divulge his squadron’s location, he stares him straight in the eye and says nothing more than “My name is Peter Williamson. My rank is Squadron Leader and my number is nine seven two four five seven.”

“An African Story”

Sections: Information | Plot Description | Reviews 

Information

Plot Description

“An African Story” was first published in Over to You: Ten Stories of Flyers and Flying, but it actually has very little to do with that aeronautical theme. The story comes to us in the form of a found manuscript, which the narrator (Dahl) supposedly found in the suitcase of a fellow RAF pilot and friend who died in combat. The manuscript is the dead pilot’s recollection of a story that was told to him by a strange old African man following a forced landing in the Nairobi Highlands. In other words, “An African Story” is about a story about a story.

Spoiler warning! In the found manuscript’s story, the old African man lives in his small shack with his dog, some chickens, a cow, and another man named Judson (evidently some sort of helper). Judson is an irritable fellow, and the sound of the dog licking its paw practically drives him mad. He strikes it with a bamboo rod and breaks its back. The old man puts the dog out of its misery and curses at Judson. Later they begin to have a mysterious problem with the cow: her milk is disappearing during the night. The old man waits up one night and sees something amazing – a deadly poisonous black mamba snake is visiting the cow and drinking milk from her udders! After making sure that this goes on every night, he tells Judson that a small boy is stealing the milk and that Judson should hide beside the cow and catch him in the act. Judson does this and is of course bitten by the snake. He dies there in the meadow, and as the old man watches the snake again begin to suckle at the cow, he says quietly, “You can have his share… Yes, we don’t mind your having his share.”

Reviews

“Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life”

Sections: Information | Plot Description

Information

Plot Description

This is a rather ribald tale from Dahl’s “Claud’s Dog” collection of country stories. Each seems rather autobiographical, in that they all take place in Buckinghamshire (the county Dahl lived in), feature characters that he actually knew (the butcher Claud Taylor), and deal with subjects that he himself was interested in (greyhound racing, etc.). “Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life” is an almost anecdotal story about a unique method for ensuring the gender of calves when mating cows.

Spoiler warning! The narrator’s cow has started “bulling” (which means she’s in heat, I think) and he takes her down the road to be serviced by Rummins’s famous bull. Claud points out that Rummins has a unique way of conducting an official mating that no one else in the world knows. As Rummins later explains, pointing the cow into the sun means that a heifer (female) will result, while pointing her away creates a bull (male). The actual reason has something to do with the pull the sun exerts on “female” sperm. After the narrator checks the records to verify this claim, he asks Rummins if it will work with people. “Of course it’ll work with humans,” he said. “…I’ve got four boys of my own, ain’t I?”

“A Fine Son”

Sections: Information | Plot Description

Information

Plot Description

This most remarkable thing about this story, I think, is the timing. I don’t want to give the surprise away to those of you who haven’t read it, but just think about the fact that Dahl was able to write this incredibly compassionate and and yet subtly ironic story (about a woman who has lost three children in the last eighteen months and desperately wants her newborn to survive) after witnessing countless horrible atrocities in World War II. It’s amazing. It’s also worth noting that this story, unlike many others, does not have a surprise “twist” at the very end. There is a shocking revelation, but the reader arrives at it gradually throughout the story.

Spoiler warning! The narrative begins immediately after the birth of a baby, a boy. The doctor tries to reassure the mother Klara that the child is healthy and will survive, but she has lost all hope after her other three children have died. We also learn that she and her husband, Alois, have recently moved to this new city and that he is an overbearing, unsatisfied sort of man. The doctor manages to convince her that her new son is all right and she decides to name him Adolphus, or Adolf for short. She finally gets to hold her little Adolf and falls in love with the beautiful child. Her husband arrives (Note: the doctor addresses him as “Herr Hitler”!!) and comments on the boy’s small size. The doctor pleads with him to give his wife some needed support. He finally kisses her and tries to comfort her. “He must live, Alois,” she cries. “He must, he must… Oh God, be merciful unto him now…” Of course, we know that the very infant whose life she prays for is none other than Adolf Hitler, the man responsible for millions of deaths and years of suffering in World War II.

“A Connoisseur’s Revenge”

Sections: Information | Plot Description | Fun Stuff

Information

Plot Description

This is one of my favorite Dahl stories, and the one with (I think) the most potent twist in the tail of all. It’s not until the very last sentence that you understand the true story.

Spoiler warning! Lionel Lampson is a wealthy older gentleman who enjoys fine art and the company of the upper classes. One night he escorts a vulgar woman named Gladys Ponsonby home from a dinner party. Gladys, who is a little drunk, shows off a new portrait of herself that she had commissioned. She tells Lionel a secret – the artist, John Royden, paints all his subjects first in the nude, then in their underwear, and lastly in their clothes. He is shocked and correctly deduces that this is why all the wealthy women in town are rushing to have their portraits painted by him. Gladys then changes the subject and asks Lionel about his relationship with a young beauty named Janet de Pelagia. Lionel is embarrassed until Gladys relates that earlier that afternoon Janet had called him a “crashing bore”. Lionel is outraged and forces Gladys to repeat the entire conversation. He is so upset to hear what Janet thinks about him that he swoons. The next day he wakes and vows revenge. He hits upon the perfect plan and calls up this artist Royden. He tells him that he’d like a picture of Janet, but doesn’t want her to know about it. He pays Royden a handsome amount for his services, and then goes off to Italy for four months. By the time Lionel returns, Royden has finished the painting and it’s the talk of the Royal Academy. Royden delivers it to Lionel, who can’t wait to move on to the second part of his plan. He is an expert cleaner and restorer of paintings, and very carefully he begins to remove the top layer (the clothing) of the painting. By the time he has finished, Janet de Pelagia is standing before him almost life-size in nothing but her underclothes. Lionel then invites Janet and all the top members of society to his home for a dinner party. He keeps the dining room dark and they eat by candlelight. At the very end, he has the maid turn on the light. As he slips from the room, he has the pleasure of seeing on Janet’s face the “surprised, not-quite-understanding look of a person who precisely one second before has been shot dead, right through the heart”. As the outraged guests begin to exclaim over the painting, Lionel gets into his car and speeds off to his other house. Two days later, he receives a phone call from Gladys Ponsonby that kills his good mood. She tells him that all his old friends are against him and have sworn never to speak to him again. Lionel begins to feel quite bad. Then, in the post arrives a letter from Janet forgiving him and saying that she knew it was a joke and that she’s always loved him. She also sends him a jar of his favorite food, caviare. As the story ends, Lionel mentions that he might have eaten too much of it, as he isn’t feeling too well right now. In fact, he says, “come to think of it, I really do feel rather ill all of a sudden.”

(If you don’t get it, she sent him poisoned caviare as her revenge.)

Fun Stuff

“Where Art Thou, Mother Christmas?”

Sections: Information | Plot Description

Information

  • This poem was published as a charity Christmas card to benefit the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital in England.

Plot Description

Spoiler warning! This poem is an ode to Mother Christmas. The narrator wonders why we never hear of her. He bets that she buys all the gifts and wraps them while Father Christmas takes all the credit. “Down with Father Christmas, that unmitigated jerk!”

“Veruca Salt, the little brute…”

Sections: Information | Plot Description | Fun Stuff

Information

Plot Description

Spoiler warning! This song is sung by the Oompa-Loompas after the squirrels throw Veruca and her parents down the garbage chute in the Nut Room. They discuss the nasty rotten bits of garbage that will become Veruca’s new friends. They also say that it’s not all Veruca’s fault; her parents were the ones that spoiled her in the first place. That’s why they’ve gone down the chute as well.

Fun Stuff

“The Tummy Beast”

Sections: Information | Plot Description | Fun Stuff

Information

Plot Description

Spoiler warning! A little boy tells his mummy that he has a person in his tummy. It talks to him at night in bed and demands to be fed. It tells him to sneak cookies from the tin. The boy knows it’s wrong to guzzle food all day, but he can’t help it, not with the person in his tummy. His mother accuses him of lying. “You are the greedy guzzling brat! / And that is why you’re always fat!” The boy tries again to explain but his mother sends him to bed. Just then his stomach begins to rumble and grunt and shake. A voice shouts, “I’m getting hungry! I want eats! / I want lots of chocs and sweets!” The boy asks his mother if she believes him now… but she’s fainted away on the floor.

Fun Stuff

“The Tortoise and the Hare”

Sections: Information | Plot Description

Information

Plot Description

Spoiler warning! The Tortoise is upset because the Hare has invaded his favourite dining spot – Mister Roach’s vegetable patch. So he formulates a plan. He challenges the Hare to a race and produces a contract that says the loser will stay away from the vegetable patch. The Hare agrees and signs. That night, the Tortoise pays a visit to Mister Rat, a brilliant engineer and corrupt businessman. The Tortoise offers to pay him to build a small motor-car that can be concealed within the Tortoises’s shell. After Rat takes the job (and Tortoises’s money), he calls the Hare and asks him how much he would pay to know of an evil plot against him. Hare is furious and pays to learn of Tortoise’s scheme. When Rat points out that nothing in the race contract forbids cheating, the Hare believes he will lose. Rat offers to make sure that he doesn’t – for a fee. The Hare pays up. The next day before the race, the Rat dumps a load of spiky nails across the track. The race begins and the Tortoise is far ahead in the lead. Just as he thinks he’s going to win, all four tires go flat. The Hare is thrilled until he too steps on the spiky nails. They both agree to call the race a draw. Meanwhile the Rat went home and counted all his pay. “So just remember if you can, / Don’t tangle with a business man. / It doesn’t matter who you choose, / They always win, we always lose. / If you were here and I was there, / If you were Tortoise, I was Hare, / We’d both get diddled in the end / By people like our Ratty friend.”