A taste of the unexpected

Book report

Roald Dahl: A taste of the unexpected. Penguin, 1986

About the author:

As the title suggests, this book is a taste of a whole short stories book named Completely unexpected tales by Roald Dahl. Originally, every short story was published seperately in different books.

Roald Dahl is well known as a children's writer. Just only we can remember Charlie and the chocolate factory, The Twits or Matilda, but Roald Dahl is also an excellent writer of suspense, sinister and twisted tales. This book is a tasting of three dishes: Taste, The Way Up to Heaven and The Landlady.

About the characters:

The characters of Dahl's short stories are always ordinary people in everyday life. In The Way up to heaven, the characters, Mr and Mrs Forster, live in New York City, they are in their seventies, and live in a large house, with four servants, living a routinary life.

In The Landlady, a harmless woman with a kind and generous soul living alone in a little town that is the landlady of a peaceful Bed and breakfast. And Billy, a young boy just landed in this town looking for a lodging.

In The Way up to heaven, Mrs Forster has a pathological fear of missing a train, a boat, a theatre curtain, etc. Mr Forster enjoys tormenting her. If she asked him to hurry up he would walk slowly, pausing halfway to observe the sky or to sniff the cold morning.

About the author style:

Have you ever felt on the edge of patience, like Mrs Forster? And on the edge of madness? Are we like Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hide, who had a sweet public face and a hidden one, less friendly, like the kind landlady?

Roald Dahl was able to show us the dark side of the characters, step by step, without saying it directly Like us, they all have other faces, sometimes unknown by themselves. Like this excerpt of Mrs Forster that anticipates the fatal fate of her husband:

“The was something deliberate and purposeful about this action; she had the air of a woman who is off to investigate a rumour or to confirm a suspicion”

Recommendation:

If you like to move to the insignificant to the unexpected in a few pages you would read Roald Dahl. The writer tease the reader and maintain the suspense until until the last sentence. I recommend any of them.

Vocabulary / Other information

Note taht this is an original version and you will find some dificult/unusual adjectives.