Roald Dahl’s 95th birthday

Today would have been Roald Dahl’s 95th birthday had he not died at the age of 74 in 1990. This year also marks the birthday of one of his most beloved books, "James and the Giant Peach," which was published in the United States 50 years ago. (Interestingly, it wasn’t published in Britain, Mr. Dahl’s home until six years later.)

 

"James and the Giant Peach," which was adapted into an animated film in 1996 (featuring Susan Sarandon, in an especially cunning casting move, as Miss Spider), has sold over 12 million copies worldwide and been translated into 34 languages. The story of James Henry Trotter, whose parents are viciously devoured by a rhinoceros on the streets of London and who then moves in with two cruel aunts only to relocate to a giant peach, has entertained generations of children with its parable of fantasy and escape.

 

Mr. Dahl was intimate with the particulars of cruel childhood through personal experience, the details of which he laid out in "Boy," his memoir of early life. The book rivals George Orwell’s celebrated essay, "Such, Such Were the Joys," in its depiction of the arbitrary ruthlessness of English boarding school life. An episode involving the removal of his adenoids in Norway is no more pleasant.

Matters work out much more cheerfully for James Henry Trotter, who, at the end of "James and the Giant Peach," is welcomed as a hero by the Mayor of New York. Similar satisfactions await the protagonists of Mr. Dahl’s other children’s books, even as a harsher fate is delivered to the Veruca Salts of the world.