The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, by Roald Dahl

This book is actually a compilation of seven of Dahl's stories. These include: The Boy Who Talked With Animals, The Hitchhiker, The Mildenhall Treasure, The Swan, The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar, Lucky Break, and Piece of Cake, Dahl's first story. the book continues Dahl's style of fictional stories, with the exception of the last two. Lucky Break is Dahl's account of how he became a writer and got into writing children's novels. Piece of Cake is the story of an awful plane accident that Dahl survived while in the British Royal Air Force. both stories go well outside the Genre of children's writing, especially Piece of Cake, which gets a bit gruesome.

Because this book is actually seven smaller books combined, it is difficult to find a quote that represents the book as a whole. Rather, I found a quote that best represents the writing that Dahl does in the stories, and that best describes him. The quote I chose from the book is found on page 188, where Dahl says: "When I left school at the age of eighteen, in 1934, I turned down my mother's offer (my father died when I was three) to go to university. Unless one was going to become a doctor, a lawyer, a scientist, and engineer, or some other kind of professional person, I saw little point in wasting three or four years at Oxfordor Cambridge, and I still hold this view. Instead, I had a passionate wish to go abroad, to travel, to see distant lands." This quote embodies the spirit of Dahl, as well as his writing. Dahl bases many of his characters and settings in far off places that are exotic to most people. For example, the first story is based in Jamaica, while some of his more famous stories are based in magical places, such as an enchanted chocolate factory, or a desert where only giants live. Dahls affinity for the bizarre and unknown can be clearly captured in this quote.

An interesting connection I made is between Dahl's own life and the lives of his characters. One interesting thing is that the protagonist in his stories is almost always a child or a group of children. They can often see things that the adults can't, and often get into marvelous adventures. In The Boy Who Talked With Animals, the main character is a very young boy who is trying to save an enormous turtle from being cooked. This can berelated to Dahl's own Childhood, in which he had many adventures and was constantly finding himself in new places, such as the boarding school that his mother sent him too, or the ship that he rode back home when he faked appendicitis out of homesickness.

Another interesting connection that is made is the link between the father figures in Dahl's books and Dahl's own father, who died while Dahl was still very young. in the books, Dahl gives the fathers of the protagonist a strong leaderlike quality, and often makes them very upstanding and supportive of their children. it would seem that Dahl is projecting his idea of what a father should be onto his characters, in a way reliving the childhood that he never had.

At several places, the concepts that Dahl writes about are far more than children's lessons. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar preaches the virtue that too much of a good thing can be bad, and can sometimes get one into trouble. Likewise, The Hitchhiker shows readers that if you give anyone a chance, they can prove themselves to be a decent person. Even pickpockets, which is the "occupation" of one of the characters.

The picture above is representative of the main story, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. in this story, a boy named Henry learns that he is able to see through cards, as well as somewhat predict the future. "This," Henry Sugar went on, talking aloud to himself, "is a terrific piece of information. It could change my life." Henry uses the information to cheat at casinos and win loads of money. He quickly finds out however, that his new talent takes all of the joy and suspense out of playing the odds, and decides to take his money and leave the casino. After that, he goes on to fund orphanages, and then nothing more is heard of him. i Chose the crystal ball not only because of the obvious implications of a character that has the powers of prediction, but because Dahl's writing can act as a crystal ball into his personal life, much more than it can with most writers. With Dahl's writing, it is easy to tell about his family life and his childhood and passions and hatreds through the things he writes about, Dahl is a writer that takes his inspiration from his everyday life.

Is Dahl's portrayal of the fight over the sea turtle in "The Boy that Talked With Animals" a commentary on the way that humans value life of other creatures?

What is Dahl implying about the idea of knowing too much in "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar"?

Where can connections be drawn between Dahl's own life and the lives of his characters?

How does Dahl's use of humor in "The Hitchhiker" compare to the seriousness of the other stories in the collection?

At what places in the book do the concepts written about go beyond mere children's writing?

I loved this book! It was full of enchanting stories that were almost all magical realism. From the magical characters and exotic settings, to the clever bends in reality, the stories of Roald Dahl are sure to pique the interest of any reader. I liked that Dahl decided to publish these stories as a collection rather than separately. The books individually don't give much herald to Dahl's creativity, but when read side by side, they combine to paint a picture of the man himself.