Roald Dahl Can Never Be Made Nice
Do you have a favorite book by Roald Dahl? I do—it’s his adult novel, My Uncle Oswald, a work defined by its unremitting misanthropy, vulgar sex scenes, and troubling sympathy for eugenics.
The negative Goodreads reviews of My Uncle Oswald tend to focus on its sexism, homophobia, and “glorification of rape culture.” Set at the turn of the 20th century, the book follows Oswald and his accomplice, Yasmin Howcomely, as they tour Europe slipping Great Men a beetle powder that turns them into uncontrollable horndogs. That allows Oswald and Yasmin to harvest their sperm in the hope of selling it to rich, childless women. It is not a subtle book.
Like most of Dahl’s work, the novel is nasty: casually cruel, even sadistic in places. In real life, Oswald would be a menace—he makes the sexist social-media influencer Andrew Tate look like Gloria Steinem. As a fictional protagonist, he’s a delight.
However, nastiness is now out of fashion. Over the weekend, the revealed that Puffin, the British publishing house, has released new editions of Dahl’s children’s stories that have been comprehensively for the author’s anti-Semitism. (Dahl’s estate was sold to Netflix in 2021.) Reading through the extensive list of changes—such as removing a reference to ’s Miss Trunchbull having a “horsey” face—I first felt revulsion: Roald Dahl without nastiness is not Roald Dahl. Something about the process feels dishonest, like an Instagram filter that flattens and smooths, trending all faces toward one idealized yet utterly generic face.
