This story continues the tale that Dahl began in “Shot Down Over Libya”. The two stories were then combined in “A Piece of Cake,” which Dahl tried to later claim as the original version.
From an eBay auction by purviswalker1: “Dahl’s first publication was the precursor to this story, “Shot Down Over Libya”… Dahl metaphorically returned to the scene of the crash in 1944 and wrote the sequel of what happened next. This time the story was published in the short lived Tomorrow magazine. Both stories were eventually combined and rewritten under the title “A Piece of Cake,” published in the short story collection The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More. The reworked story is much better written than the two magazine versions, but the earlier stories are perhaps more emotionally based and less the work of a professional story teller.”
According to Jeremy Treglown’s biography (p. 127), this story was one of seven rejected for publication by The New Yorker between February 1957 and March 1959. As far as I can tell, it was never published.
This is a very short little vignette from Dahl’s book of WW2 flying stories, Over to You. There’s not a lot of plot.
Spoiler warning! An English RAF pilot has ejected from his plane and parachuted onto a Greek island. He sprained his ankle when he landed and he’s now looking for a boat to take him back to the mainland. The village he finds is nearly deserted though. Eventually he finds an old man sitting near a drinking trough and asks him if he knows of anyone with a boat. The old man is muddled and expressionless. He asks when the Germans will be back. The pilot thinks they are done for the day. “I do not understand why they come to us, Inglese. There is no one here,” the old man says. The pilot again asks him about a boat. The old man says that Joannis Spirakis has a boat. Joannis used to live in the house nearest the water. It was destroyed by the Germans. He’s now living in the house of Antonina Angelou. The old man says that Joannis probably won’t be there right now, but his wife Anna will be. As the pilot goes to leave, the old man tells him that he should know that Joannis and Anna’s daughter Maria was in the house when the Germans bombed it.
The pilot finds Antonina’s house and is taken in to see Anna. He tells her that he’s looking for her husband because he’s heard he has a boat. “Where are the Germanoi?” the old woman asks. The pilot tells her they are near Lamia. “Soon they will be here,” she says. “Every day they come over and they bom bom bom and you shut your eyes and you open them again and you get up and you go outside and the houses are just dust – and the people.” She asks him how many he has killed. “As many as I could,” he answers. She tells him to kill them all, every man, woman, and child. She then asks him again what he wants. He tells her he is looking for Joannis. She leads him out the front door and points to the old man by the drinking trough. “There he is,” she says. “That’s him.” The pilot turns around to speak to her again, but she has already disappeared back into the house.
In 1952 Dahl wrote an article about the famous Pakistani mystic Kuda Bux, who inspired this story. He reworked a great portion of that text into Imhrat Khan’s tale. You can read about differences between the texts here.
This story was inspired by the real life Pakistani mystic Kuda Bux, who claimed to be able to see without his eyes.
Spoiler warning! This famous tale is actually a story-within-a-story-within-a-story-within-a-story. We start with Henry Sugar, a wealthy and idle playboy who likes to gamble and is not above cheating to win. One summer weekend, Henry is staying at a friend’s mansion and is depressed at the neverending rain outside. Bored, he wanders into the library and discovers a blue exercise book one one of the shelves. On the first page is written: “A Report on an Interview with Imhrat Khan, the Man Who Could See Without His Eyes” by Dr. John Cartwright. Henry sits down to read the whole thing.
Now we get to read Dr. Cartwright’s report. He explains that one day he was in the doctor’s lounge at his hospital in Bombay, when an Indian man entered and asked for assistance. He claimed to be able to see without his eyes. Cartwright and three other doctors agreed to help him promote his theatre show by bandaging his eyes completely. When they are finished, they are amazed to see him ride off on his bicycle through heavy traffic. That night, Cartwright goes to see Khan’s show. Afterwards, he invites Khan to dinner and asks him to tell him how he learned this amazing trick. Khan agreeds to tell him.
Now we get Khan’s story. As a young boy, he was fascinated with magic and ran off to be a magician’s assistant. He was terribly disappointed to realize it was all trickery and sleight of hand. He decides he wants to learn the strange power called yoga. It’s hard to find a teacher, because Khan wanted to learn yoga for fame and fortune, but real yogis are threatened with death if they perform in public. Eventually Khan manages to locate a yogi called Banerjee, and he watches in secret as Banerjee levitates during meditation. The yogi discovers him and becomes enraged, chasing him off. Khan comes back every day, though, and eventually the Banerjee agrees to recommend him to a yogi friend for instruction. So Khan finally begins the yoga training. He learns about concentrating the conscious mind. He describes all the exercises he does. He has a minor success when he’s able to walk across a firepit with barefeet. Eventually he succeeds in seeing without his eyes. He can even see through playing cards.
Doctor Cartwright is amazed with Imhrat Khan’s story. He decides that it must be published, that Khan’s abilities might pave the way towards helping the blind see and the deaf hear. Before he can speak to him again the next day, though, he learns that Khan has died in his sleep.
Now back to Henry Sugar. He finishes the story and decides to try the yoga training himself. He wants to be able to see through playing cards and win in casinos. He steals the book and begins to practice at home. He begins to make progress immediately, and discovers that he’s one of the one-in-a-million people that can develop yoga powers with amazing speed. Three years later, Henry can see through a playing card in less than four seconds. He goes immediately to a big London casino and proceeds to win over six thousand pounds. When he gets home, though, he realizes that he doesn’t feel as happy as he expected. The yoga training has changed his outlook on life. In the morning, he throws a twenty pound note to someone on the street and realizes that charity makes him feel good. Without a thought, he throws the entire pile out the window. A riot ensues and a policeman comes to question him. Henry is astonished when the policeman berates him for not giving the money to a worthy cause, like a hospital or orphanage. Henry decides the policeman is right and formulates a plan. For the next twenty years, Henry travels the world winning fortunes at casinos and sending it to his personal accountant in Switzerland. The accountant sets up orphanages in every country Henry visits. Henry also has a personal make-up artist who travels with him so he doesn’t get recognized. By the time he dies, he has won over one hundred and forty-four million pounds and set up over twenty orphanages.
Now we get to the last story. The author (presumably Dahl) explains that John Winston, Henry’s accountant, called him not long after Henry’s death. He wanted the world to know what Henry had done. The author is fascinated with the tale and agrees to write it up and protect Henry’s true identity. And the finished result is the story that we’ve just read.
Someone Like You read by Julian Rhind-Tutt, Stephen Mangan, Tamsin Greig, Derek Jacobi, Richard Griffiths, Willl Self, Jessica Hynes, Juliet Stevenson, Adrian Scarborough, Richard E. Grant
Plot Description
To be honest, I’ve never really known what to make of this story. It’s very short, only a few pages, yet it’s incredibly vivid and suspenseful. Are the snakes only in the boy’s imagination? What is “the wish” that the title refers to? Has he really disappeared into the snake pit? Is it all just a metaphor? I don’t know.
Spoiler warning! The story opens with a small boy picking a scab off his knee. As he sits on the stairs, he becomes aware of the large red, black, and yellow carpet that stretches to the front door. He decides that the red patches are red hot lumps of coal that will burn him up completely, and the black parts are poisonous snakes that will bite him and kill him. If he can make it all the way across without getting burnt or bitten, he will get a puppy for his birthday tomorrow.
The boy begins his quest. The first part is easy going, but he reaches some difficult parts and has to take long strides. He wobbles but stretches out his arms to steady himself. He reaches a turning point and goes left, because although it seems more difficult, there’s less black. (He’s very afraid of the snakes.) He reaches the halfway point and knows he can’t turn back or jump off. He begins to feel panic rising in his chest. He takes another step to the only close yellow piece, and his foot is only a centimeter from a black patch. A snake stirs and raises its head to watch him. “I’m not touching you! You mustn’t bite me!” he thinks. Another snake rises as well, and the child is frozen with terror for several minutes. The next step is a very long one, too long to jump. The child manages to get one foot across and transfers his weight. He tries to then bring up his back foot but can’t. He was doing the splits and he was stuck. He looked down at the oily bodies of the snakes writhing beneath him. He began to wobble, but this time waving his arms only made it worse. He was starting to go over. “The next thing he saw was this bare hand of his going right into the middle of a great glistening mass of black and he gave one piercing cry as it touched. Out in the sunshine, far away behind the house, the mother was looking for her son.”
This is another of Dahl’s most famous short stories, and it’s been dramatized a number of times. Jeremy Treglown notes in his biography that Dahl did a great deal of neurosurgical research to make sure that experiment described would be as realistic as possible. Another interesting note: the names of the main characters, William and Mary, are the same as the two white mice in The Witches.
Spoiler warning! Mary Pearl’s husband William has passed away one week ago, and after the lawyer reads the Will, he gives her a letter from her dead husband. She returns home to read it, smoking a cigarette and admiring her new television set. She wonders what her demanding husband could possibly have to say to her. Maybe he’s finally decided to thank her for thirty years of dedication and service. Instead, she is shocked to discover twenty pages about a scientific experiment that an Oxford colleague convinced him to volunteer for. After his death from cancer, William’s brain was hooked up to an artificial heart machine and removed from his skull. It now resides in a basin of cerebrospinal fluid and only exists because the machines keep pumping it full of oxygenated blood. The doctor, Landy, has even managed to save one of William’s eyes, which is connected to his brain by the optic nerve and floats on top of the fluid in a plastic case. William urges her to put aside her revulsion and to come visit him to see how the experiment turned out. In a postscript he reminds her not to “drink cocktails… waste money… smoke cigarettes… buy a television apparatus.” Mary is appalled that a part of her husband is still alive and dictating commands to her. Her automatic sense of duty kicks in, though, and she heads to the laboratory to meet with Landy. He shows her William’s brain, conscious and alive in its basin, and she is surprised to feel a sort of affection for him in this state. “He looks so helpless and silent lying there,” she says. She announces to the doctor that she wants to take her husband home. He is astounded and tries to talk her out of her plan, but she is adamant. As he tries to get her to leave the lab, she leans down over the eye to say goodbye. She takes a puff of her cigarette and is delighted to see the pupil contract into a “minute black pinpoint of absolute fury.” The tables have turned and now Mary is in control. “Don’t look so cross, William,” she says. “It isn’t any good looking cross… Not anymore it isn’t. Because from now on, my pet, you’re going to do just exactly what Mary tells you.” Landy finally pulls her from the room as she exclaims, “Isn’t he sweet? Isn’t he darling? I just can’t wait to get him home.”
Spoiler warning! Mrs. Foster has a pathological fear of being late. Whenever she is in danger of missing a train or plane or an engagement, a tiny muscle near her eye begins to twitch. The worst part is that her husband, Mr. Eugene Foster, seems to torment her by making sure that they always leave the house one or two minutes past the point of safety. On this particular occasion Mrs. Foster is leaving to visit her daughter and grandchildren in Paris for the first time ever, and she’s frantic to think that she’ll miss her flight. By the time her husband finally joins her at the car, she’s too far behind schedule. Luckily the flight is postponed til the next day, and Mr. Foster persuades her to come home for the night. When she’s ready to leave the next day, though, her husband suggests that they drop him off at his club on the way. Knowing this will make her late, she protests in vain. Just before the car leaves, he runs back in the house on the pretense of picking up a gift he forgot for his daughter. While he’s gone Mrs. Foster discovers the gift box shoved down between the seat cushions. She runs up to the house to tell him that she has the gift… and suddenly she pauses. She listens. She stays frozen for 10 seconds, straining to hear something. Then she turns and runs to the car, telling the driver that they’re too late and her husband will have to find another ride. She makes her flight and has a wonderful visit with her grandchildren. She writes her husband every week and sends him a telegram before she flies home six weeks later. He’s not at the airport to meet her though, and when she enters the house (after taking a taxi home) she notices a curious odor in the air. Satisfied, she enters her husband’s study and calls the elevator repairman. It had jammed and she left him to die there!
In Vol 12, Issue 2 of the journal ANQ (published in 1999), Norton H. Moses points out that Dahl took the idea of this story from someone else’s writing: a nearly identical tale was included in Dod Orsborne’s memoir Master of the Girl Pat!
“The Visitor” read by Derek Jacobi and Richard E. Grant
Plot Description
This is the first story in which we meet Oswald Hendryks Cornelius, noted seducer extraordinaire. It’s a story-within-a-story that begins as the narrator explains how he came to inherit all 28 volumes of his uncle’s memoirs. It’s interesting to note that the narrator seems to be Dahl himself: a letter from Oswald makes reference to “you and your three sisters,” and Dahl, of course, had three sisters himself. Note: this is a very adult story in tone and probably shouldn’t be read by any children without permission from their parents.
Spoiler warning! After inheriting his long-absent uncle’s books, the narrator reads through them all and desperately wants them to be published and shared with the world. Unfortunately the books contain many salacious details, including the names of many (married) woman that Oswald slept with and whose husbands would not find such a scandal appealing. After consulting with a lawyer, the narrator determines that the “Sinai Desert Episode” is probably safe to print. Before launching into this, the very last entry from the diary, the narrator describes his uncle and the singular effect he seems to have had on women. He was a fastidious man who collected walking sticks, ties made from spider silk, and Chinese porcelain. He had a way of speaking that seemed to hypnotize the listener (usually a woman) and put her into a spell of lust.
The Sinai Desert episode is dated 1946 and involves Oswald’s escape from Cairo following a romantic rendezvous with an aristocratic Moorish woman (and another man’s mistress). He decides to drive to Jerusalem via the desert road and search for scorpions to add to his collection. He succeeds with the scorpion but when he stops for gasoline the diseased attendant tells him that his fan belt has broken. He will have to spend the night in the desert and wait for a new fan belt to arrive. As Oswald resigns himself to this, a Rolls-Royce drives up and a wealthy man steps out. They quickly get to know each other and the rich man, Abdul Aziz, invites Oswald to spend the night at his house nearby. The man explains on the way that he chooses to live in such a wild location in order to protect his beautiful young daughter from the unwanted attention of men. Oswald is astounded when he meets the mother and daughter, and he can’t make his mind up which one he wants to seduce. They both go immediately to their own bedrooms, though, without giving him any indication of a possible rendezvous. He is disappointed but prepares to go to sleep. In the middle of the night, his door opens and a woman climbs into bed with him. After hours of energetic lovemaking, she slips out as silently as she arrived. Oswald believes he will be able to tell which it was by a bite mark he has left on her neck. But the next morning, BOTH of them are wearing scarves! As Abdul drives him back to the gas station, Oswald fishes for an invitation back to the house. Abdul doesn’t take the bait, though, and after a while he admits that there is another reason he lives in such an isolated spot. He has another daughter living in the house… and she has leprosy. “Dear fellow, you mustn’t alarm yourself like this,” he tells Oswald. “You have to have the most intimate contact with the person in order to catch it…” Shaking, Oswald returns to his repaired car and watches the Rolls-Royce drive back off across the desert.
Spoiler warning! Two young men (the narrator and his friend George) are lamenting their state of poverty and discussing the morning’s newspaper. In it, a society columnist named Lionel Pantaloon reports some scandalous gossip about several prominent citizens. The narrator gets a brilliant idea. He reckons that the people Pantaloon insults would like to punch him in the nose, but they’re unable to because of their standing and position. He proposes that he and George start a business performing such acts of vengeance for a price. They come up with a list of services, such as giving someone a black eye and putting a rattlesnake (venom extracted) in their car. Then they have a number of cards printed explaining their business and listing their prices. They deliver these to the offended parties, and within two days they have several orders to fulfil. They begin to dream about the riches they’ll be paid and living in grand hotels. The narrator has another brainstorm and realizes they can get paid multiple times for the same act. Each customer will think that the vengeance was for them alone. Thus as they have three orders to punch Pantaloon in the nose, they decide to handle him first.
The plan is simple: Pantaloon is always at the Penguin Club late at night, so they’ll show up and ask for him to come out. George will punch him and then escape in the rented car the narrator has waiting. They telegram the three customers with the details of the encounter so the customers can watch. Then they procure a fake mustache for George to disguise him. At the appointed time, George approaches the doorman and passes him a note to give to Pantaloon. He claims to be a Soviet Consulate worker with a scoop for the famous columnist. Unable to resist the bait, Pantaloon comes out to talk with him. George gives him a tremendous punch on the nose that lifts him clear off his feet. He then dashes to the car and the two men escape. They drive quickly through the snowy streets but soon realize that they’re being tailed. Knowing they can’t escape, they stop. Instead of the police it turns out to be one of the customers. He explains that it was the funniest thing he’s ever seen and he happily pays them double their fee. He also advises them to get out of town quickly before Pantaloon figures out what happened. The men wait around another day to receive the rest of their payment and then catch a train out of town. They discuss their plan to bet the money on a horse race, and they daydream about how wealthy and important they’ll become. “Perhaps we might even get ourselves mentioned in Lionel Pantaloon’s column,” George muses. “That would be something,” the narrator answers.
Spoiler warning! An old man of 87 named Labon lived alone in a house that was infested by mice. Labon hatches a plan to get rid of the mice. He starts by gluing mousetraps to his ceiling and baiting them with cheese. The mice just laughed. Then Labon glued his furniture and carpet to the ceiling, with everything hanging upside-down. When the mice came out that night, they grew alarmed. “This is terrible!” said a very senior mouse with long whiskers. “This is really terrible! We must do something about it at once.” They decide to stand on their heads, and they all end up fainting due to a “rush of blood to their brains”. The next morning, Labon gathered up all the unconscious mice and popped them in a basket. “So the thing to remember is this: WHENEVER THE WORLD SEEMS TO BE TERRIBLY UPSIDE DOWN, MAKE SURE YOU KEEP YOUR FEET FIRMLY ON THE GROUND.”
