Last Updated on March 14, 2024
Beloved children’s book author Roald Dahl is still getting accused of anti-Semitism, raising questions about whether the Woke brigades will attempt to censor Dahl’s writing at some point in the future.
Born in Wales in 1916, and Norwegian by ancestry, Roald Dahl wrote such classic children’s novels as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and Fantastic Mr. Fox, all of which have been made into movies.
In perhaps his best work, Matilda (1988), a young girl’s used car salesman father puts sawdust in the engines of beaten-down cars to sell them, and she has to vie against an evil headmistress named Agatha Trunchbull who seems to hate children. The fact that young Matilda has enemies in her parents and also her schoolmaster is a pretty ingenious conceit for a children’s book, and it underscores Dahl’s populism.
Speaking of populism, Roald Dahl made some pointed remarks against Israel’s actions and he garnered a lot of controversy in a 1983 interview with The New Statesman. In the interview, Dahl said, “There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity. Maybe it’s a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews.”
Many years later, Michael Coren, who interviewed Dahl back in 1983, wrote an essay for The Daily Mail about the issue of Dahl’s views.
Do you sense some kind of pressure campaign building against Dahl, who died in 1990 at the age of 74?
There’s also a play coming out at the Royal Court Theatre in London about the issue. The forthcoming play Giant stars John Lithgow, who is best known for playing an alien on the NBC sitcom 3rd Rock From The Sun (1996-2001).
“A world-famous children’s author under threat. A battle of wills in the wake of scandal. And one chance to make amends,” reads the description for the play Giant on the Royal Court Theatre website. “It’s the summer of 1983, The Witches is about to hit the shelves and Roald Dahl is making last-minute edits. But the outcry at his recent, explicitly antisemitic article won’t die down. Across a single afternoon at his family home, and rocked by an unexpectedly explosive confrontation, Dahl is forced to choose: make a public apology or risk his name and reputation. Inspired by real events, Mark Rosenblatt’s debut play explores with dark humour the difference between considered opinion and dangerous rhetoric.”
Sounds lame.
For what it’s worth, actor Gene Wilder was very unhappy about the terrible Tim Burton movie that Hollywood made based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory starring Johnny Depp. Wilder said he expected something “dark” from director Tim Burton, which he clearly had a problem with, and he said that Warner Brothers insulted him by even making the movie. It just goes to show you how sinister children’s entertainment has become since Wilder starred as Willy Wonka in the original movie in 1971.
Roald Dahl is not the only Based literary figure to fend off the scorn of a doubting mob.
During his lifetime, novelist Charles Dickens attracted criticism from the speech police of his own era, which objected to Dickens’ depiction of Jewish criminal character Fagin in Oliver Twist.
Charles Dickens is the beloved author of A Christmas Carol and other populist classics, but his depiction of one particular tribe has led to a whole lot of chatter in academic circles accusing Dickens of being bigoted against Jewish people, which Dickens denied. Nevertheless, he censored a re-printing of his own work (which came out in serialized form) in order to take out some “Jew” references with regard to Fagin.
