Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Happy Roald Dahl day!

Or, as I suppose it may be better known - Roald Dahl's birthday.

Dahl is one of my all-time favourite authors.  His quirkiness, the way he wrote, the rhymes and the structure of his writing have influenced me probably a great deal more than I realize.  The first two books of his that I read were The BFG and The Witches.  I loved reading and rereading those books.

The wonderfully loose and sketchy illustrations of Quentin Blake served to not only enhance the stories, but become a part of the fabric of them.  I'd go on about the whimsy of them, and his influence on me, but, I'll digress and leave that for another time.

I still read Roald Dahl's works, and not just his adult writings.  I found a copy of D is for Dahl at a local discount shop last year.  Of course I picked it up, and yes, I read it with relish and a side of cushion.  See, he really did have an effect on me.

For some reason, I either forgot, or did not know that Roald wrote the Gremlins story that Disney was going to turn into an animated feature back in 1943.  Still haven't seen much of it, save for what I found while a googling, but I do very vividly remember the Warner Brothers Looney Tunes cartoons that featured the same Gremlins doing battle with Bugs Bunny.  And yes, it was the same characters with a near identical look.  Anway, I loved those guys.

My adoration of a certain Charlie need be mentioned only in passing, lest I spend a great length of time on him.

And Charlie, don't forget about what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he ever wanted. He lived happily ever after.
Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
 

2 comments:

  1. Hello Christopher, I'm one of the contributors to The Gathering and I wrote a review on some of the stories (including yours) on my blog. Feel free to check it out and leave a comment.

    Cheers,

    Arcadio (AKA Arion)

    http://artbyarion.blogspot.com/2011/09/gathering-vol-4-into-abyss.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the great review, Arcadio! I appreciate it.

    ReplyDelete