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Going Solo (Roald Dahl's Autobiography, #2)

by Roald Dahl

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Savannah said: " Note: I'm still reading this so I'm only about halfway through the book. For a fairer review, skip and read another person's.

It's impossible for me to review this book with any real clarity. I find so much of it confusing. It wasn't that Dahl's writi Note: I'm still reading this so I'm only about halfway through the book. For a fairer review, skip and read another person's.

It's impossible for me to review this book with any real clarity. I find so much of it confusing. It wasn't that Dahl's writing is unclear, but that the subject matter is totally perplexing.

Obviously, this is an autobiography, so I expected to know a little more about why certain events were significant to Dahl's life or what type of impression they made on him. There's some of that, especially in the beginning. One of my favorite parts was his description of "that peculiar Empire-building breed of Englishman who spends his whole life working in distant corners of British territory." At first, I thought he was going to be too enamored of them. I didn't want to read more "white man's burden" -esque narratives. Some of that was there and some of it was present in Dahl's narration. Ultimately though, he paints them as a goofy group of outcasts full of contradictions, pride, and paralyzing insecurity. It was funny. It was honest. It was both sympathetic and scathing.

I also enjoyed his brief description of his drive up to Nairobi and how being so isolated along the way gave him the freedom to enjoy his surroundings more and to "greet" every giraffe he saw out loud without worrying about looking silly.

Later though, a lion carries a woman away in its jaws and he writes something like "it sounds very funny but there it was not." Only, it didn't sound funny. Just a few sentences later he describes it as being both a comic and tragic moment. I need to know what Dahl found funny about a lady being dragged away by a lion, but instead he moves on letting me wonder if he was truly insane enough to have had a giggle while running behind the two men trying to save her.

It's unnerving to know that part of what makes his writing fun in fiction (the ridiculous perils his characters are forced through and the sometimes violent ends of his villains) is still present when he writes about real people experiencing real danger. It's silly in fiction, but it's cruel in an autobiography. At times, I wasn't amused so much as appalled by his narration. Did he mean it to come out as it sounds? It sounds like it never occurred to him that he isn't really a main character in a story and the people around him are not merely his plot points.

Using Quentin Blake illustrations on the cover is misleading. This is not that type of book. Dahl's children's books are known for being strange and scary too, but also for having a relatable hero or two whose perspective we can at least almost trust--someone grounding us in what stays human and sympathetic while the story whirlwinds into chaos. In this book though, many events he chooses to write about as if to make a news report. He describes something completely confusing or shocking and moves on. This string of crazy happenings felt at times like it was a modern newsreel, presented more to shock than entertain and it really did feel like "Going Solo." ...more "

Sep 15, 2022 05:03PM · see review