Short Story Review

Many (sounds better at the start, though 'lots' is correct) people were astounded to find out that the most successful children’s writer, Roald Dahl, the author of 19 children books, such as “Charlie and The Chocolate Factory”, had also written fictional stories for adults.

“Bitch”, published by Playboy magazine, is one of the four stories that make up the book called “Switch Bitch”. Having read an excerpt of this story, I felt like turning my attention to the author of such dark humour.
Roald Dahl survived the Second World War after being severely injured serving in the British army as a pilot. He married twice, had five children, and then became a remarkable novelist. Apart from the books for children, he wrote 60 short stories and several screenplays.

I must confess that I was more engrossed in reading his life story than “Bitch”. The plot of this story revolves around a new chemical discovery meant to empower the one who has it with ruling the world. From the first page it is ('it's' is ok in spoken English, but in written it is better not to use contractions) easy to perceive what kind of character we are dealing with. He is an extrovert and wealthy person, not quite likeable but still charming. I deduced that he is uncle Oswald writing his diary. Uncle Oswald casually meets Henri Biotte, an olfactory chemist who dedicated his life to finding the scent that can lead men to a state of uncontrollable excitement. Furthermore, during Henri’s long speech, Oswald is being persuaded to fund his research. The description of Henri’s character slightly resembles one of the fictional creatures from Roald Dahl’s childrens books: “He struck me rather as a dainty little creature, someone who lurked behind stones with a sharp eye and a sting in his tail waiting for the lone traveler to come by.” Henri uses technical details to make the ideas more convincing from a scientific view point.