I am ridiculously excited that you're recapping this.

Just now, HerNameIsBuffy said:

I am ridiculously excited that you're recapping this.

Is the image working for you? I seem to be having issues today with connectivity and imgur. 

https://imgur.com/41UQHFv

Every time I read that book as a child, I used to experiment to see how long I could make a bar of chocolate last.

I have actually read a little further ahead and have discovered important information that I think may well link Roald Dahl to a well known fundie patriarch that we discuss on FreeJinger! Seriously - it's something to think about:

The references to "fantasy" and "fairyland" are worriesome but I believe they may have been whited out of the latest edition.

Oh, yay! This was one of my favorite books as a child, although I did think it was really creepy for all those old people to be sleeping in the same bed.

13 hours ago, Maggie Mae said:

Is the image working for you? I seem to be having issues today with connectivity and imgur. 

https://imgur.com/41UQHFv

 

FTFY

Quote

If I lived in a house full of boiled cabbage and grandparents

I need to find a way to work this sentence fragment into normal conversation.

I am struck that as Dahl was painting a picture of the struggle and deprivation of poverty they all still live better than the poor Naugler kids.  That breaks my heart.  

I'm secretly hoping you're going to review Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator too... I mean someone else here has read that book right, or at least knows it exists?

3 minutes ago, OnceUponATime said:

I'm secretly hoping you're going to review Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator too... I mean someone else here has read that book right, or at least knows it exists?

I know it exists, but have never read it.  I've been waiting for Maggie to review something with which I'm familiar so this is wildly entertaining for me.

11 hours ago, blessalessi said:

Every time I read that book as a child, I used to experiment to see how long I could make a bar of chocolate last.

I have actually read a little further ahead and have discovered important information that I think may well link Roald Dahl to a well known fundie patriarch that we discuss on FreeJinger! Seriously - it's something to think about:

  Reveal hidden contents

TELEVISION

The most important thing we've learned, 
So far as children are concerned, 
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let 
Them near your television set -- 
Or better still, just don't install 
The idiotic thing at all. 
In almost every house we've been, 
We've watched them gaping at the screen. 
They loll and slop and lounge about, 
And stare until their eyes pop out. 
(Last week in someone's place we saw 
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.) 
They sit and stare and stare and sit 
Until they're hypnotised by it, 
Until they're absolutely drunk 
With all that shocking ghastly junk. 
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still, 
They don't climb out the window sill, 
They never fight or kick or punch, 
They leave you free to cook the lunch 
And wash the dishes in the sink -- 
But did you ever stop to think, 
To wonder just exactly what 
This does to your beloved tot? 
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD! 
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD! 
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND! 
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND 
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND 
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND! 
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE! 
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE! 
HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES! 

The references to "fantasy" and "fairyland" are worriesome but I believe they may have been whited out of the latest edition.

I cannot believe you can tie Roald Dahl to Stevehova.  Well done!

I tried the same thing as a kid, with no success.  I could rarely get past 3 licks to the center of my tootsie pop.  

13 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

 I've been waiting for Maggie to review something with which I'm familiar so this is wildly entertaining for me.

It's a bit scary for me. I mean Roald Dahl is in my list of favorite authors. And and I never found anything weird reading his books, not even as an adult. How did I miss such weirdness?

I think he always intended his books to be cleverly dark.

I still remember the thrill, as implied manslaughter and justice was done in James and the Giant Peach, when the peach bumped twice, as it rolled over the bodies of James's horrible aunts!

Dahl was writing Horrible Histories, so to speak, long before we started the practice of trying to sneak literature into children's lives in the same way we sneak vegetables into their soups and smoothies. He wrote books that children wanted to read under the bed covers at night, long after the lights were switched off.

I am strangely thrilled to have found this book reread and all of us so animatedly discussing it.  Seriously, I'm reading all this just grinning my head off.

1 hour ago, OnceUponATime said:

I'm secretly hoping you're going to review Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator too... I mean someone else here has read that book right, or at least knows it exists?

That is the plan! 

Vermicious Knids and Space! Weird Wonka potions and weird ass deaging potions? Hell yeah!

The Vermicious Knids are realer than the Easter Bunny!

And finally....  am I a very bad person to be sitting on the edge of my seat now, waiting for Steve to give me an opportunity to weave a little Dahl magic into the Tits2 blog comments?!

I remember reading this as a kid, but I don't think I realised the implications of literally everything.  Wow it was actually horribly dark!