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My Uncle Oswald

roald dahl

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Uncle Oswald is, if you remember, the greatest rogue, bounder, connoisseur, bon vivant and fornicator of all time. Here, many famous names are mentioned and there is obviously a grave risk that families and friends are going to take offence... Uncle Oswald discovers the electrifying properties of the Sudanese Blister Beetle and the gorgeous Yasmin Howcomely, a girl absolutely soaked in sex, and sets about seducing all the great men of the time for his own wicked, irreverent reasons.

204 pages, Paperback

First published October 1,1979
Places
london england, paris, khartoum, cambridge england, madrid, vienna, berlin, 

This edition

Format
204 pages, Paperback
Published
May 1, 1986 by Penguin (Non-Classics)
ISBN
9780140055771
ASIN
0140055770
Language
English
Characters More characters

More editions

About the author

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roald dahl

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Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer and screenwriter of Norwegian descent, who rose to prominence in the 1940's with works for both children and adults, and became one of the world's bestselling authors.

Dahl's first published work, inspired by a meeting with C. S. Forester, was Shot Down Over Libya. Today the story is published as A Piece of Cake. The story, about his wartime adventures, was bought by the Saturday Evening Post for $900, and propelled him into a career as a writer. Its title was inspired by a highly inaccurate and sensationalized article about the crash that blinded him, which claimed he had been shot down instead of simply having to land because of low fuel.

His first children's book was The Gremlins, about mischievous little creatures that were part of RAF folklore. The book was commissioned by Walt Disney for a film that was never made, and published in 1943. Dahl went on to create some of the best-loved children's stories of the 20th century, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda and James and the Giant Peach.

He also had a successful parallel career as the writer of macabre adult short stories, usually with a dark sense of humour and a surprise ending. Many were originally written for American magazines such as Ladies Home Journal, Harper's, Playboy and The New Yorker, then subsequently collected by Dahl into anthologies, gaining world-wide acclaim. Dahl wrote more than 60 short stories and they have appeared in numerous collections, some only being published in book form after his death. His stories also brought him three Edgar Awards: in 1954, for the collection Someone Like You; in 1959, for the story "The Landlady"; and in 1980, for the episode of Tales of the Unexpected based on "Skin".

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Community Reviews

Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
35(35%)
4 stars
38(38%)
3 stars
27(27%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
0(0%)
100 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
clust3rfuck
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Far from being Dahl's best (he's more a short story writer, in my honest opinion), but still a moderately funny book. This novel follows Oswald Cornelius, who the reader might know from the superb "Switch Bitch", and his attempts to get rich by selling sperm from famous artists and kings. Yes, it's racist, homophobic, misogynist, sexist, anthropocentric, shallow, chauvinistic, but it doesn't aim high. If you take it for what it is - a light comedy book -, it's quite enjoyable, though a bit repetitive and boring in the third part. Just don't expect to glimpse the depths of the human soul. 2,5 stars, rounded up to 3 due to the episodes with the assholes Proust and Freud.
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nightcore34
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I haven't added a book to my favorites page in FOREVER and I'm so happy that the honored spot is going to this one.

What a lot of fun. Just what a spectacular book. I mean, does this book reveal deep and special feelings within me? No - nor should it have. That would have been inappropriate and uncomfortable for everyone.

Instead, this book is just a savage, salacious jaunt through Europe with a few people who've decided that early 20th century morality wasn't that big of a deal and EVERYONEJUSTNEEDSTOHAVEADRINKOKAY.

Aaaaand maybe some sex.
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Noxidian
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Ya çok seviyorum Roald Dahl seni, aşırı çok. En son bir Roald Dahl romanı okuduğumda 11 yaşında filandım sanırım. 20 küsur sene sonra yine aynı heyecan ve merakla okudum, Dev Şeftali’yi, Çarli’nin Çikolata Fabrikası’nı, Yaman Tilki’yi filan okurken aklı çıkan çocuk oluverdim yine. Dahl yine süper komik, hikaye inanılmaz zekice kurgulanmış ve çok absürt. Geçtiğimiz yıllarda okuduğum öykülerini de çok sevmiştim ama romanlarının lezzeti de bir başka gerçekten. İyi ki.
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goodnightngo
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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What started off as a fun, entertaining, well-written frolic ultimately, due to its sexism, homophobia, and glorified rape-culture left a horrendous taste in my mouth.

My Uncle Oswald is a fake memoir of a lecherous millionaire explaining how he made his fortune -- ultimately, by using the dried powder of a kind of Sudanese beetle to make pills with powerful aphrodisiac powers. For a large chunk of the book, Oswald and his business-partner Yasmin travel around Europe tricking famous kings, painters, musicians, writers and the like into taking the aphrodisiac -- once the men are overcome with lust and simply MUST rip off Yasmin's clothes and have sex with her, she puts a "rubbery thing" on them (did they not have the word 'condom' yet??) to collect (read: steal) their sperm to eventually sell in a black market type situation. When the men come to from their fog of lust, they are easily kept quiet about the incident because they're lead to believe they've just spontaneously lost control of themselves and raped this woman.

Just. For as well-written as the book was, I could not get past the rape-culture and obvious consent issues glorified by the storytelling. The book was overtly sexist, and in the scenes dealing with Marcel Proust, it was flat-out homophobic. (Yasmin doesn't want "that bugger" touching her when she finds out that Proust is gay, and is disgusted at the idea of his so-called perversions. I was SO uncomfortable.)

Women are treated as sport in this book, and the idea of consent before sex is laughed out of the window, as the major (repetitive) plot revolves around tricking men into having sex, exploiting them for semen, and then blackmailing them by calling what they did rape, when surely it was the other way around. I don't know, the concept of rape is used for entertainment throughout the novel, and that's just not something I'm okay with.

I can concede that the language in this book was well-used, it's very, very well-written and I was, for the first fifty pages or so, very excited about reading this. Dahl's writing reminded me of a Stephen Fry book. But the glorification of rape culture and the rampant sexism nailed the coffin well shut. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.
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Homar30
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Es una novela corta de carácter erótico-festivo (o sea, humor con toques light de escenas sexuales) ambientada a comienzos del siglo XX y donde relata en primera persona las aventuras que le acontecieron al tío Oswald y sus asociados en su intento exitoso de hacerse rico, muy rico.

Es muy divertida de leer y si queréis pasar un ratito (son sólo 200 pags.) de humor con sonrisa perpetua, coged este libro y preparaos para novela ligera donde olvidaros de los malos rollos y disfrutad de la mano del licencioso y caradura tío Oswald.

No esperéis ni grandes personajes ni profundidad de ningún tipo, claro. Leed y sonreíd, no es más. Para mí de 8/10, muy recomendable por tanto.

P.D: Resulta que el Dahl este ha escrito varios cuentos infantiles de renombre y, curiosamente, el guión de la peli de 007 "Sólo se vive dos veces". Polifacético el chico como escritor, ¿eh? No
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HotaruTachibana
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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What bothers me the most about this book isn't even the sexism, although there is plenty of it to go around. By the truckload. What bothers me is the fact that the characters are so blatantly being raped by the means of a drug rape. Dahl makes light of this issue, tries to make us laugh at it, and probably succeeds. Initially, I was very amused by him. But over the course of the first hundred pages, I started to get a little angry, and then I got mad. What, you think that just because you're talking of great MEN they cannot be raped? Ugh disgusting.

If you can overlook these issues, this book is hilarious, but c'mon, do you really want to overlook these issues?

I'm not amused. I am not. I'm sad because Dahl was one of my favourite authors ever, and I don't know how to look beyond this now.
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pikachu34
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Stop whatever you're doing and read this book right now. You're welcome.
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JustRad
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Roald Dahl might like us to dismiss the rank male chauvinism, tired stereotypes, and hackneyed writing in this book, on the grounds that his "Uncle Oswald" is a charming old rogue. But there's nothing charming about the implied contempt for women that oozes through the lazy prose of Oswald's creaky tale. There may be men still alive who share his sexist view of the world, but I doubt they read books.

Dahl has written some genuinely funny stories (published in Great Britain under the titles "Kiss Kiss" and "Switch Bitch"; I haven't seen these titles in the U.S.), as well as some well-known children's books (which I didn't particularly enjoy, except for 'Matilda').

Nothing in this book matches the wit and talent evident in those earlier stories. This book is a dud.
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