Matilda - 1988
In a small Buckinghamshire village, Matilda Wormwood is a five-and-half-year-old girl of unusual precocity, but she is often ill-treated or neglected by her parents and older brother Michael. In retaliation, she resorts to pranks such as gluing her father's hat to his head, hiding a friend's parrot in the chimney to simulate a burglar or ghost, and secretly bleaching her father's hair. Matilda has read a variety of books by different authors, especially at the age of four, when she read many in six months. At school, Matilda befriends her teacher, Jennifer Honey, who is astonished by Matilda's intellectual abilities. She tries to move her into a higher class but is refused by the headmistress, the tyrannical Agatha Trunchbull. Miss Honey also tries to talk to Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood about Matilda's intelligence, but they ignore her. Matilda applies her untapped mental powers to rid the school of the evil, child-hating headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, and restore her nice teacher, Miss Honey, to financial security.
Roald Dahl(1916-1990) was born in Wales of Norwegian parents. He spent his childhood in England and, at age eighteen, went to work for the Shell Oil Company in Africa. When World War II broke out, he joined the Royal Air Force and became a fighter pilot. At the age of twenty-six he moved to Washington, D.C., and it was there he began to write. His first short story, which recounted his adventures in the war, was bought by The Saturday Evening Post, and so began a long and illustrious career.
After establishing himself as a writer for adults, Roald Dahl began writing children's stories in 1960 while living in England with his family. His first stories were written as entertainment for his own children, to whom many of his books are dedicated. Roald Dahl is now considered one of the most beloved storytellers of our time. Although he passed away in 1990, his popularity continues to increase as his fantastic novels, including James and the Giant Peach,Matilda,The BFG, andCharlie and the Chocolate Factory, delight an ever-growing legion of fans.
I just finished this sample of Dahl, which reminded me of Lemony Snicket. The extreme villain, the bright mistreated children, school-age humor, outrage and comeuppance appeal to elementary age children and even their parents. The British spelling and phrases add to the sense of uniqueness for a modern American audience and make it almost a Grimm’s fairy tale, a moral cloaked in extreme characters that both frighten and endear. Why was it on our reading list with the likes of Hawking and Fitzgerald?
ReplyDeleteMaybe in its own style it addresses the underlying possibilities of our being and our greater world. Or maybe when we labor hard to find a connection, the reward is personal discovery that expands our understanding of how we navigate our place and time.
I was curious to see how our Bean interprets your read aloud sharing, but I now think the cruelty in the story might be too scary for his young age. I think Lissa used to read Dahl to her 4th graders. The worst treatments of children and the criminal deception of Miss Honey was unsettling even to me. I’m not sure the happy ending can erase the idea that such evil exists.
Matilda is a joyous exploration of the power of the mind, figuratively and literally. It is endearing and quite funny. I can understand that it might have some imagery that could seem dark see the far more dark and altogether enjoyable Lemony Snickett being able to write his Series of Unfortunate Events without Matilda paving the way.
ReplyDeleteThe use of hyperbole and exaggeration is especially enjoyable when one places in the realm of the normally stoic, blank, and stiff English school system. While that background might not be available to non-English children or even children growing up in the modern STEM, CORE, accommodation filled, test driven environment, I think they can pick up on the extreme ludicrousness of scenes like the forced cake eating and the lifting of the boy by his ears. While the pain and emotional humiliations are conveyed well enough, they too are done in an exaggerated manner which makes it easier for younger readers to understand or being to empathize with the events. If it were more subtle, not only would Mrs. Trunchbull’s action be downright wicked and scarring for older readers, the younger audience might not buy into the story the same way.
The book does manage to shift tones multiple times over its brief length and felt like it was actually multiple genres in one. It might be just a fun play on the amount and span of books that Matilda herself was absorbing and escaping into, Dahl’s attempt to give the readers a slice of tone of the worlds that the heroine was living in. While reading it, these shifts flustered me a bit and did throw my reading of the book aloud askew a few times, but after finishing it and reflecting, I realize it was quite clever to present these shifts. While it is just my theory, it lends itself to the same argument that it was Dahl’s attempt to present a fantastical and exaggerated world where anything could happen, where imagination trumped reality, developed super powers, vanquished evil head-mistresses, and open doors to happiness not dreamed at through the beginning chapters. Even the sudden and very tidy ending was more enjoyable when I removed myself from my cynical expectation of characters having to overcome, things falling short, twists, absence of silver linings, etc. When seen through the eyes of a younger reader, the book ends exactly the way it should. Matilda has gotten all she deserved given what she went through. Good has won. It is actually quite sly to present such a bluntly happy ending given the extreme events through the book such as murder, corporal punishment, telekinesis, and more. With all of that, how else could it end? Hyperbole is not infinite so better not to keep taking higher but tie it off nicely.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the book while reading it but I didn’t appreciate it until a decent amount of time had passed since I finished it. I realized I might have been looking at it in the wrong light and it took Ethan’s review to make me re-assess. The newt is funny! The image of a child being twirled like a fan by their hair? Pretty darn funny! He said he enjoyed the way things changed and the way things like Ms. Honey’s cottage were described. He felt sad but said he could understand everyone feelings. He was amazed at the amazing, sad at the sad, and amused by the funny. I can’t really top that but thinking about it with a different, less societal aware set of lenses allowed me to enjoy it for the clever piece of literature it is and nothing else.
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