Book Reviews: Boy

This is Roald Dahl's own account of his childhood.   It describes his time at school, his friends and their escapades, his family and long summer holidays in Norway.   I enjoyed re-reading it, but somehow I wanted more from it.   I wanted the autobiography of one of the most brilliantly creative and imaginative and disgusting children's writers to be full of weird occurences, colourful characters and wacky adventures.   Instead it mostly seems to consist of being miserable at school.   There are a few nasty medical procedures described as well, reminding us how recently we didn't have things such as anaesthetics.   It's not a very happy book.   What does come through is what a great woman Roald Dahl's mother was and what a great influence she had on him and how strong their relationship was.   She sounded like a very strong and brave lady.   And his descriptions of Norway make you desperate to go and spend long summer days exploring the fjords alone to your heat's content.