A 1001 MIDNIGHTS Review
by Marcia Muller

   

RAOLD DAHL – Someone Like You. Alfred A. Knopf, hardcover, 1953. Dell #F139, paperback, 1961. Reprinted many times.

   Roald Dahl’s short stories have been called-among other things — bizarre, comic, horrific, clever, and playful. Dahl depicts a world where things are a little — or sometimes a lot — skewed from the world we know, and the events he chronicles often produce wrenching horror in his reader. But he has also been known to inject a comic twist into his stories, and he toys with the reader, teasing the story line along like a mischievous child until he has us completely fooled.

   Perhaps his most famous story is “Lamb to  the Slaughter.” It begins on a deceptively quiet note, with Mary Maloney waiting in her cozy parlor for her husband to come home from work. Mary is a devoted housewife, six months pregnant, and she takes excellent care of her policeman husband, but tonight she has neglected to take anything out of the freezer. And when she does, after her husband makes a startling announcement, a leg of lamb seems quite appropriate …..

   “Taste” likewise deals with food. Mike Schofield, a London epicure, is giving a dinner party to which he has invited a famous gourmet. Mike is proud of his wine cellar and anxious to trip up his guest on his knowledge of fine but obscure vintages. In fact, he is so sure of his ability to do so that he makes a most dangerous wager.

   These first two stories are examples of Dahl’s lighter work. On the more serious side is “Man from the South,” which concerns a different, more deadly wager. In “The Soldier,” Dahl makes a subtle statement about the aftermath of war. And readers and writers alike will be both amused and shaken at the implications of “The Great Automatic Grammatisator.”

   This collection shows Dahl at his best. Other volumes of his varied and multifaceted short stories include Kiss, Kiss (1960), The Best of Roald Dahl ( 1978), and Tales of the Unexpected (1979). In addition, he has written two novels: Sometime Never: A Fable for Supermen (1948) and My Uncle Oswald (1979).

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   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.