Boy – truth telling and writing style

1. Boy – truth telling and writing style Friday 9 March and Friday 16 March 2012

2. autobiography An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and it is usually full of all sorts of boring details. This is not an autobiography. I would never write a history of myself. On the other hand, throughout my young days at school and just afterwards a number of things happened to me that I have never forgotten…. Some are funny. Some are painful. Some are unpleasant. I suppose that is why I have always remembered them so vividly. All are true.” (Introduction to Boy by Roald Dahl: 1984)

3. what is autobiography? • from the Greekautos, 'self', bios, 'life' and graphein, 'write', [it] is a biography written by the subject • Biographers generally rely on a wide variety of documents and viewpoints; an autobiography may be based entirely on the writer's memory. • It is, by nature, always unfinished

4. Informal autobiography often includes intimate writings that were not originally intended for publication, such as letters or diary entries. • The most important qualifications for this kind of writing are perhaps “…candour, zest, and an unselfconscious enjoyment of self.” • Formal autobiography, “offers a special kind of biographical truth: a life, reshaped by recollection…”

5. “Formal autobiography, “offers a special kind of biographical truth: a life, reshaped by recollection, with all of recollection’s conscious and unconscious omissions and distortions…. Any such work is a true picture of what, at one moment in a life, the subject wished – or is impelled – to reveal of that life. An event recorded in the autobiographer’s youthful journal is likely to be somewhat different from that same event recollected in later years. Memory being plastic, the autobiographer regenerates his materials as he uses them. The advantage of possessing unique and private information, accessible to no researching biographer, is counterbalanced by the difficulty of establishing a stance that is neither overmodest nor aggressively self-assertive” (Hemingway Benton, 1974: 1009-1010).

6. classifying "BOY" • ‘conscious and unconscious omissions and distortions’: What does Roald Dahl tell us and what does he leave out? • Does he make these choices deliberately (consciously) or not? • Does HE make all of these choices? • Application in school: how do we develop this important critical thinking skill when reading literature? (e.g. QtA techniques)

7. Archival evidence: self study • Typescript pages exist of “discarded sections of 'Boy', including chapters titled, 'The Last Lap', 'How to Become a Writer', and 'The Chocolate Mouse Plan'. Also included are pages (one of which is manuscript) from the anecdote 'Mdisho of the Manumwesi'.” Also available in archives: “Originally stored in a large bundle with the main manuscript and additional pages now listed as RD/2/23/1-2.  • Transcripts of several of Roald Dahl's letters to his mother, 1925-1934, photocopies of some school reports from St Peter's and Repton and an essay on 'Nursery Rhymes', intended for use in 'Boy'. Not all were used and many are annotated with blue ink. The second half of the bundle is the type-written account of Dahl's flying training and RAF service, with suitable letters transcribed into the text. (These pages have been numbered 164 - 205, and end with the burning of the Hurricane aircraft at Argos.)”“Accompanied by five negatives of early Dahl family photographs, and one b/w print of Dahl in a school group at St Peter's School, Weston-super-Mare. These are not duplicated elsewhere, and may have been intended for inclusion in the book, although they were never used. ” (available at www.roalddahlmuseum.org )

8. “[a] true picture of what, at one moment in a life…”When was this autobiography written and published? • Boy was published in 1984, the year after he received his first Children’s Book Award. • How is this fact significant in the creation of the book?

9. “[what] the subject wished – or is impelled – to reveal of that life.” • What compelled Roadl Dahl to write an autobiographical work at all? • Who do you think is his intended audience? • In what way do you think his intended audience influence his choices to reveal or not reveal certain things? • Application in school: how can we make learners aware of the choices made in tailoring writing to an audience, and help them make these choices consciously themselves? (e.g. empathy, visualization, onion-layer diagrams)

10. “Memory being plastic, the autobiographer regenerates his materials as he uses them.” Memory is “plastic” in the sense that it is “capable of being molded; pliant; supple”. In other words it is the opposite of “cast in stone” – it is not a fixed truth that remains forever unchanged. The materials the author uses are the stories he tells, based on his memories, which, no matter how vivid, are fallible. • Application in school: how can we show learners how memories change over time? How the past is not as fixed as we think? (e.g. observation, description and interpretation activities).

11. “the advantage of possessing unique and private information.” • What sort of privileged information on his own life did Roald Dahl unexpectedly inherit when his mother died? • What other evidence of his life stories does Roald Dahl have privileged access to? • What could other people in his life potentially remember better than he could? • Application in school: How can we show learners the blind spots that different narrative points of view present in literature? (e.g. Beake’s Cageful of Butterflies and the problem-solving approach to reading literature as well as the personal growth model).

12. “the difficulty of establishing a stance that is neither overmodest nor aggressively self-assertive.” When he says “I would never write a history of myself” is this entirely true or is he being “overmodest” in order to avoid any accusations of egotism that might result from his writing an autobiography or memoir?

13. Context and interpretation • Discussion: is ‘modesty’ a highly prized character trait for today’s celebrities, as it probably was in Dahl’s time?

14. ? fiction nonfiction ?

15. ways with words When an author writes about himself, he is in essence telling stories. The difference between the autobiography and fiction of an author like Roald Dahl is that the stories he is telling are, from his perspective “true”. Why is that “true” in inverted commas, indicating some hesitancy or doubt on my part? Because there is something that creeps into ALL books at some point and gets in the way of the truth - embroidering it, obscuring it, distorting it - and that is the act of writing itself.

16. When an author writes, they choose to use particular words and to create particular sentences. In Dahl’s stories, there are almost no shades of grey. People are either good or bad. “[t]his polarization of characters is reinforced by detailed descriptions, usually of their physical attributes. His characters do not mature or experience a spiritual crisis through the development of the plot.” (www.roalddahl.com, 20/09/2007). “…try teaching children how to emulate this style by writing character sketches that “[focus] on details which evoke instant sympathy or dislike”.

17. He shot…. “a tired-looking, old rabbit” “a lovely young deer” outrage “a great white soggy overboiled cabbage” “ghastly hags”

18. Special effects – teach learners to spot this! Manipulation of emotions through: • word choice (incl. deliberate mistakes, such as spoonerisms – see www.fun-with-words.com) • figures of speech (metaphor, alliteration, metonymy, etc.) • sensory imagery (e.g. onomatopoeia – sound; sight, smell, taste) • Exaggeration (called ‘hyperbole’ in literary analysis)

19. “….Dahl has an extraordinary and inventive way with language. In his hands it sparkles with wit and assumes a life of its own….Roald Dahl delights in the sounds and music of words, their meaning and rhyme….His prose sizzles with wordplay, giving his language a freshness, spontaneity and vigour. His non-fiction writing…is lyrical, fluid and precise…. The richness of both his fiction and non-fiction makes them perfect for reading aloud” (On Target for Literacy. www.roalddahl.com, on 20/ 09/2007)

20. Rules, style guides and Dahl • ‘The Elements of Style’ is considered a style bible by English authors for decades and has run into many reprints. Examine these extracts:

21. “Write with nouns and verbs” and “avoid the use of qualifiers”. (1972: 64-65) “the adjective hasn’t been built which can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place….In general…it is good nouns and verbs, not their assistants, that give good writing its toughness and colour” (1972: 64). On qualifiers: “Rather, very, little, pretty – these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words….we should all be very watchful of this rule, for it is a rather important one and we are pretty sure to violate it now and then” (1972: 65-66, author’s emphasis).

22. “After James Henry Trotter had been living with his aunts for three whole years there came a morning when something rather peculiar happened to him. And this thing, which as I say was only rather peculiar, soon caused a second thing to happen which was very peculiar. And then the very peculiar thing, in its own turn, caused a reallyfantasticallypeculiar thing to occur.” (p.10, James and the Giant Peach emphases added)

23. In pairs… • Find examples of different figures of speech in the excerpts in the following slide. • Identify which of the excerpts show that Dahl can stick to just strong verbs or nouns. • Decide why he might have made these style choices as a writer and whether or not you think these were good choices.

24. “There was no wind at all. And because of this, Mrs Twit had gone absolutely straight up. She now began to come absolutely straight down” (The Twits p. 40, emphasis added). “…you grizzly old grunion! You rotten turnip! You filthy old frumpet!” (The Twits, p. 41) “I’ll swish you to a swizzle!...I’ll swash you to a swizzle! I’ll gnash you to a gnozzle! I’ll gnosh you to a gnazzle!” (p. 43). “He dropped his beer. He looked up. He gaped. He gasped. He gurgled” (p.42). “Then a faint greenish light began to glimmer out of the Glow-worm’s tail, and this gradually became stronger and stronger…” (James and the Giant Peach: p. 55, emphases added).

25. But surely… • Dahl would choose a different, more objective style for his non-fiction writing? • Let’s look at some examples from Boy…

26. Sweet shop proprietor: The woman who owned [the sweet-shop] was a horror….She was a smallskinnyold hag with a moustache on her upper lip and a mouth as sour as a green gooseberry.She never smiled. She never welcomed us when we went in…..But by far the most loathsome thing about Mrs Pratchett was the filth that clung around her. Her apron was grey and greasy. Her blouse had bits of old breakfast all over it, toast crumbs and tea stains and splotches of dried egg-yolk. It was her hands, however, that disturbed us most. They were disgusting. They were black with dirt and grime….we simply stood and watched in sullen silence while this disgustingold woman stirred around inside the jars with her foul fingers. (Boy, p.33) \

27. The headmaster of his first boarding school, St Peter’s: “I have already told you that all Headmasters are giants, and this one was no exception. He advanced upon my mother and shook her by the hand, then shook me by the hand and as he did so he gave me the kind of flashing grin a shark might give to a small fish just before he gobbles it up. One of his front teeth, I noticed, was edged all the way round with gold, and his hair was slicked down with so much hair cream that it glistened like butter.” (Boy, p. 73)

28. Looking back on it now, there seems little doubt that Matron disliked small boys very much indeed. She never smiled at us or said anything nice…”(p.80). Captian Hardcastle also gets the full Dahl treatment: • His legs were as thin and hard as ram’s legs and the skin around his calves was almost exactly the colour of mutton fat. The hair on his head was not ginger. It was a brilliant dark vermillion, like a ripe orange, and it was plastered back with immense quantities of brilliantine in the same fashion as the Headmaster’s…. Captain Hardcastle sported a moustache that was the same colour as his hair, and oh, what a moustache it was! A truly terrifying sight, a thick orange hedge that sprouted and flourished between his nose and upper lip and ran clear across his face….Behind the moustache there lived an inflamed and savage face with a deeply corrugated brow that indicated a very limited intelligence….His orange head twitched and jerked perpetually from side to side in the most alarming fashion, and each twitch was accompanied by a little grunt that came out of the nostrils. (p.100)

29. How children see the world: • Morally black-and-white – few shades of grey (Piaget’s ink blot experiments) • Good guys versus bad guys (not much consideration for motive/extenuating circumstances) • Actions and words NOW count more than past and spychological back-story (why Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film starring Johnny Depp got it wrong). • The moral of the toilet paper story…

30. So should we encourage this? • The moral of the toilet paper story… • Developing critical readers: • Enjoying a text ♥ • Getting absorbed by / lost in it ☻ • Still being able to spot the manipulation of emotion going on • Being able to critically evaluate why and how we are being manipulated • Being able to question the author and the truth of a story (holding complexity and contradiction in our minds).