Dahl was born a century ago. This, along with his command over simple expressions wash the reader with anachronistic nostalgia.

The book serves to do three things. First, it paints a palpable picture of Norway's natural settings, beautiful in its atypical sceneries and the ways in which it shaped the locals.

Second, it paints a too-real image of the life for a child in days when anasthesia was considered unnecessary for minor surgeries and spanking with a cane stick was prevalent.

Third, it provides a gentle ride through the different influences Dahl claims to be affected by. This is a secondary concern and is mostly a side-effect of his attempt to recreate the childhood wonder.

The book succeeds in drawing you into the same plane of weightless wonder as 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'. The highlight of the book for me was the multiple letters written by him to his mother right from childhood onwards. It is a joy reading a letter signed as "From Boy".

My only complaint is with the repeated anecdotes on the cane-stick spankings. While the author is appropriately appalled by them, it does not do to indulge in spending so many pages on them which could have been budgeted on something else.

Roald Dahl has an excellent pen for fiction, but his childhood memoir is just as engaging and fun to read. He gives a bit of background information on his parents (including how Dad lost his arm) Dahl shares many amusing anecdotes about school life and how some of the teachers or older students were. This was a long time ago - no Internet, cell phones, TV, etc, so the education system was similar to ours in some ways but VERY different in others! It really is almost like a time warp, and Dahl explains/describes things in a way that make it clear for us. Really a wonderful childhood memoir!

اگر بگم رولد دال یکی از دلایل اینه که من عاشق خوندن شدم اغراق نکردم. «پسر» رو فکر می‌کنم اولین بار در دوازده سالگی خوندم و اون زمان این کتاب ۱۶۰۰ تومنی از ارزشمندترین دارایی‌هام بود

خالق جادویی چارلی و کارخانه شکلات‌سازی، ماتیلدا و غول بزرگ مهربان در این کتاب خواننده رو به کودکیش می‌بره و براش از اتفاقات جالب، شگفت‌انگیز و حتی تلخی می‌گه که در سال‌های بزرگ‌شدن تجربه کرده. برای منِ دوازده ساله، داستان‌های این کتاب پنجره‌ای به یک زمان و فرهنگ دیگه بود، به اوایل قرن بیست و انگلیس

الان هم که این همه سال بعد برای بار چندم خوندمش، از جذابیتش چیزی برام کم نشده. فقط می‌تونم داستان‌ها رو با دید دیگه‌ای ببینم که بیشتر از خنده‌دار، تلخشون می‌کنه. اما تلخی‌ای که همیشه زیر زبون آدم بزرگ‌هاست و ناگریزه. از طرفی هم بیشتر از همیشه نقش تجربه‌‌های کودکیش رو در داستان‌هایی که بعداً نوشت تونستم ببینم

نسخه‌ای که این‌بار گوش کردم نمایشی بود و توسط یک تیم صداپیشه تولید شده بود. نتیجه واضحه که عالی بود. البته این نسخه تقریباً یک سوم کتاب اصلیه

کتاب رو می‌تونید از اینجا دانلود کنید
Maede's Books

۱۴۰۳/۲/۱۵

Boy: Tales of Childhood (Roald Dahl's Autobiography #1), Roald Dahl

Boy: Tales of Childhood (1984) is an autobiographical book by British writer Roald Dahl. It describes his life from birth until leaving school, focusing on living conditions in Britain in the 1920's and 1930's, the public school system at the time, and how his childhood experiences led him to writing as a career.

It ends with his first job, working for Royal Dutch Shell.

His autobiography continues in the book Going Solo.

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «پسر»؛ «خاطرات پسر بچه»؛ نویسنده: رولد دال؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز ششم ماه فوریه سال2000میلادی

عنوان: پسر؛ نویسنده: رولد دال؛ تصویرگر: کوینتن بلیک؛ مترجم: شهلا طهماسبی؛ تهران، نشر مرکز، کتاب مریم، سال1378؛ در چهار و166ص؛ شابک9643054586؛ چاپ دوم سال1381؛ چاپ سوم سال1383؛ چاپ پنجم سال1385؛ چاپ هشتم سال1393؛ شابک9789643054588؛ موضوع: کودکی و جوانی رولد دال، از سال1990م تا سال1916م - سده 20م

عنوان: پسر؛ نویسنده: رولد دال؛ مترجم: نسرین مهاجرانی؛ تهران، نشر پیدایش، سال1379؛ در184ص؛ شابک9646695876؛

عنوان: خاطرات پسربچه؛ نویسنده: رولد دال؛ تصویرگر: کوینتن بلیک؛ مترجم: فریبا قاسملی؛ تهران، نشر گاج؛ سال1395؛ در224ص؛ مصور، عکس؛ شابک9786003593220؛

این کتاب؛ زندگی‌نامه ی نویسنده ی بزرگ، و نام آشنای‌ «نروژی تبار انگلیسی»، «رولد دال» نیست، با اینحال، همه ی رویدادها واقعی هستند، رویدادهایی که از داستان، چیزی کم و کسر ندارند؛ شاید هم، همین یادمانها بوده‌ اند، که داستان‌های سحرآمیزی شده اند، و تلخ و شیرین بسیاری برای خوانشگران آفریده اند؛ ایشان عاشق داستان، و کتاب بودند؛ «ترول‌»ها، و دیگر موجودات اسطوره‌ ای «نروژی»، در قصه‌ هایی که مادرشان برای ایشان، و خواهرانش، می‌گفتند، یاد ایشان ماندند، تجربیات ناخوشایند دوران تحصیل، زندگی در «افریقا»، برای کار در شرکت نفتی «شل»؛ و پیوستن به نیروی هوایی سلطنتی «بریتانیا» در جنگ جهانی دوم؛ همگی، مواد خام داستان‌های ایشان بودند، که به قلم آن بزرگوار پخته شدند؛ «رولد دال»، در جنگ جهانی دوم، به نیروی هوایی «بریتانیا» در «نایروبی» پیوسته بودند؛ و مدتی در «یونان»، و «سوریه»، خلبان جنگی بودند؛ ایشان در سال1942میلادی، به «واشنگتن» رفتند، و نویسندگی را آغاز کردند؛ چه مبارک سحری داشت، و چه فرخنده شبی بود؛ نخست داستان‌های تجربه‌ هایشان از جنگ، در نشریات «آمریکایی» به چاپ رسیدند؛ سپس، خوب ایشان دوست داشتند، برای کودکان و نوجوانان بنویسند، و نوشتند؛ برترین آثارشان «چارلی و کارخانه ی شکلات‌ سازی»، «جیمز و هلوی غول پیکر»، «ماتیلدا»، «داستان‌های کوتاه چشم نداشتنی»؛ و ...؛ هستند؛ از بیشتر آثار ایشان فیلمهایی نیز آفریده شده ‌اند

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 17/11/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 15/08/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

Like so many children, I grew up with Roald Dahl’s classic tales: James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Matilda. I was aware that he had published work for adults, too, but hadn’t experienced any of it until I was asked to join a blog tour in advance of Roald Dahl Day (September 13th). Last year Penguin brought out an eight-volume paperback set of Dahl’s short stories, grouped thematically. I focused on Innocence: Tales of Youth and Guile, which opens with a reprint of Boy (1984), the closest thing to an autobiography that Dahl wrote. That’s in spite of his prefatory disclaimer:

An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and it is usually full of all sorts of boring details. This is not an autobiography. … throughout my young days at school and just afterwards a number of things happened to me that I have never forgotten. … Some are funny. Some are painful. … All are true.

Dahl’s father was a one-armed shipbroker who’d moved from Norway to Wales for the coal. His mother, Harald’s second wife, was also from Norway, so Dahl was a full-blooded Norwegian. After his father’s early death he attended Llandaff Cathedral School and then boarding school and public school in England. Sofie Dahl, quietly tough, tended her brood of six children and stepchildren, giving them magical summers on a Norwegian island and keeping her cool during the car accident in which Dahl’s nose was almost severed.

Any time they were separated, Dahl wrote to his mother once a week, without fail. The book includes facsimile excerpts from some of these letters, along with black-and-white family photographs and drawings. This is more of a scrapbook than a straightforward chronological memoir, especially in the way that it moves between playful and disturbing vignettes from Dahl’s school days. It’s particularly delightful to spot incidents that inspired his children’s books, such as a plot to plant a dead mouse in the mean sweet shop lady’s gobstopper jar and the boxes of new-recipe Cadbury’s chocolates that would arrive at Repton School for testing by eager boys.

Pranks and larks and holidays: these are all here. But so is crushing homesickness and a bitter sense of injustice at being at the mercy of sadistic adults. Dahl had his adenoids removed without anesthesia, and at school he received and witnessed many a vicious caning. Aware that such scenes are accumulating uncomfortably, he addresses the topic directly:

By now I am sure you will be wondering why I lay so much emphasis upon school beatings in these pages. The answer is that I cannot help it. All through my school life I was appalled by the fact that masters and senior boys were allowed literally to wound other boys, and sometimes quite severely. I couldn’t get over it. I never have got over it.

When he graduated, instead of going to Oxford or Cambridge, he wanted to see the world and have adventures, so he spent the summer of 1934 exploring Newfoundland and joined the Shell Company at age 18. His first placement was to East Africa for three years; soon afterwards he would become a fighter pilot in the Second World War. In the short years he spent as a London commuter, he realized how easy a 9-to-5 office job is compared to making a living as a writer. (I could sympathize.)

The life of a writer is absolute hell compared with the life of a businessman. The writer has to force himself to work. He has to make his own hours and if he doesn’t go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him. If he is a writer of fiction he lives in a world of fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not. … A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul.

I don’t often like reading books from a child’s perspective (particularly novels with a child narrator) because I find that the voice can ring false. Not so here. Nearly 60 years later, Dahl could use memory and imagination to fully inhabit his childhood self and give a charming survey of the notable events of his life up to age 20. I’d highly recommend Boy to fiction and nonfiction readers alike.


[I dipped into Trickery: Tales of Deceit and Cunning and particularly liked “The Wish,” in which a boy imagines a carpet is a snakepit and then falls into it, and “Princess Mammalia,” a Princess Bride-style black comedy about a royal who decides to wrest power from her father but gets her mischief turned right back on her. I’ll also pick up Fear, Dahl’s curated set of ghost stories by other authors, during October for the R.I.P. challenge.]


Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

I just reread this book after reading it many times during my childhood. It was as compelling as ever. As was I rereading I picked up on so many influences that I unconsciously carried through the rest of my childhood and perhaps even adulthood. Places and ideas that as a child I romanticized; Going to Norway swimming in the fiords and filling a pipe with goat's tobacco with my pack of siblings-- heaven. The way Roald Dahl tells a story--with such good humor and without ornament--makes even getting canned sound like the most marvelous adventure in the world!
It's such a cheerful experience to reread a book you read as a child and find that it still makes you smile in all the same places.

Normally I really enjoy learning about authors childhoods and lives, there’s something about it that I find absolutely fascinating! But this one turned out to be quite a disappointment. It was a bit repetitive and monotonous at times and I found my interest really waning and kept having to stop myself from just skimming through the story. Some bits were interesting but I found this quite dull in general.

Roald Dahl's fiction for adults is often dark and twisted. In his fiction for kids, that impulse is usually kept in the background, displaced in the main thread of the story by the sheer likeability of the main character, even if there are periodic signals that the world of the story has a lot of cruelty in it.

Boy, Dahl's memoir of his childhood, explains a lot of this - his remembered youth consists of wrenching losses, exile to a series of dreadful boarding schools, and brutal medical procedures. It is told with panache and humor, which carry the story along brightly over an undercurrent of old pain. I haven't read a biography of Dahl, but suspect it would be a revelation to compare Dahl's own selective memory, arranged in Boy for narrative impact, to a well-researched, more objective account.

I really enjoyed this book. You don’t even have to be interested in Roald Dahl himself to enjoy this book, if you are just intrigued about what it must have been like to grow up in the ‘olden days’, then you should definitely read it. Full review on my blog --> http://lebookchronicles.weebly.com

Question: Does anyone actually go to my blog?

I really did like this book which is unusual for me with an autobiography. But then again the first line of this novel reads:

"An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and is usually full of all sorts of boring details. This is not an autobiography".

This echoes completely my thoughts about such book. Most reflect what the person wants others to believe and are completely unreliable. I'm sure this one is the same but at least it is fun!

This short book is the first installment of Dahls life and covers his time in school and as a young adult. It gives a good idea where many of the themes of his stories came from.

I listened to the audiobook which was adequately read Dan Stevens.

I'm not usually one for autobiographies, but this one rocked. Ronald Dahl was a fortunate child. Fortunate that he wasn't killed many times by events in his life and by the awesome adventures and memories he was privileged to have.
I will give you my favorite excerpt from this book.
"It won't take two seconds, " the doctor said. He spoke gently, and I was seduced by his voice. Like an ass, I opened my mouth.
The tiny blade flashed in the bright light and disappeared into my mouth.

You must read the book to find out what the outcome of that encounter was. Even better was his story about Mrs. Pratchett and the mouse he puts in her candy jar. That one had tears rolling out of my eyes from laughing so hard.

Roald Dahl in questa autobiografia racconta gli anni in cui è stato bambino, anni di scherzi, di vacanze in Norvegia ma anche di lezioni, punizioni con la bacchetta e dolorosi incontri con dottori vari.
Chi ha già letto i romanzi per ragazzi dell'autore potrà vedere le tracce che li hanno ispirati, questi adulti grandi come giganti agli occhi dei bambini, le degustazioni di cioccolato, maestri ingiusti ma soprattutto una famiglia affezionata alle spalle e una mamma pronta a supportare i suoi figli in ogni occasione.

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Roald Dahl wrote this autobiography about his children years; a period of jokes, Norwegian holidays but also of lessons, cane punishments and painful medical examinations.
The readers that read and liked Dahl’s children novel may find here what inspired them: adults big as giants to children eyes, chocolate degustation, unfair and mean teachers but mostly a supporting and loving family and a mother willing to help her children at all costs.