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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Stop whatever you're doing and read this book right now. You're welcome.

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.

My grandmother has this friend, a woman I have known as my "auntie" since I was very young. The woman always told me sweet stories when I was a child, ones suitable for a child. Last year at Christmas she got a little bit tipsy on wine and began to tell sexual jokes- which, coming from an 80 year old woman, was a bit unsettling. And yet hilariously comfortable.
This book is sort of the parallel to that story- the Roald Dahl we knew as children writing a story entirely revolving around sex. I was a bit stunned, not expecting a series of sex romp stories from the writer of my beloved childhood stories, and yet it was one the most clever books I have read. Certainly interesting and definitely a book that one can reread.

Askerdeyken okumamış olmayı dilerdim:) Ama okudum, yapacak bir şey yok. Bayıldım vallahi. Keşke daha uzun olsaydı, karakterlerle arsızlık peşinde dolaşıp dursaydım bin sayfa. Aradığım muziplik, edepsizlik, çapkınlık, azgınlık ve saçmalık bu kitapta bolca mevcuttu. Yetişkinler için çocuk kitabı dedikleri şey tam da böyle bir şey olmalı zaten. Konusu ilginizi çekiyorsa mutlaka okumanızı tavsiye ederim. Oldukça eğlenceli bir roman.

İyi okumalar.

Oh wow... if you want to read the most politically incorrect of all of Dahl's writings....
I found this book for the first time in the kid's section at the public library, where it was nestled between The BFG and James and the Giant Peach. Clearly, that cataloging librarian had not cracked the cover to discover Uncle Oswald's perverted and X-rated predilections. This book is truly twisted and, and a fantastic view into a sandy and salty time akin to Hunter's Fear and Loathing's love of ether and mescaline and all else hedonistic. Loved this book, but would hate the characters in real life.

Update 2/23/23: It is beyond absurd that the publisher and Roald Dahl's estate has been "rewriting" his books. It is clear why: money. Dahl's books are absolute best sellers in the truest sense of that overused phrase. As others have pointed out in various big-media op-eds, it would be best to just forget Roald Dahl rather than to try to sanitize his writing. A phrase that comes to mind is one about trying to polish a ... My self-advise is to risk reading Dahl with awareness of the language and history of the broken times he was a part of. Almost like you have stumbled on a time capsule (or shipping trunk) containing a really twisted journal, and then be glad if you don't have friends, or a relative, like Uncle Oswald.

I don't even know what to rate this because I'm pretty baffled. Strangest book I've ever read - but I also didn't hate it? Problematic, yes, but that was probably just the character, and not Roald himself. That, to say the least, was wild.

Edit: nah, I hate it. Bad.