Blog – Roald Dahl’s latest

I have one more day of work before my vacation. What do I say? Half a day, since it is past lunch time. Like the last day of school when I was younger, this is one of the least productive days my year has known. I am trying to be serious, really, but my mood is so jumpy that I spilled coffee on my shirt again. And I don’t even care.

There is no better day than this one to find out about the fact that Roald Dahl has written a chapter to Charlie and the chocolate factory that has never been published. It comes from an early draft and did not make it to the eventual book.  The Guardian wrote about it, and printed the chapter in their weekend issue. Dahl has changed a lot of details later, he invited less children to the factory and turned normal people into Oompa Loompas. If only you could do that in real life.

The feel is the same, though. The children are annoying, the parents are awful. One of the moms says: “No boy of mine is going to be put into a shop window as vanilla fudge! We’ve spent too much on his education already!” And the soon-to-be Oompa Loompas sing: “Eight little children, such charming little chicks. But two of them said ‘Nuts to you’, and then there were six.” It is awesome, go and read it.

Recently, one of my other childhood heroes, Harry Potter, also came to life for a brief moment when J.K. Rowling wrote about him going to the Quidditch World Cup. The feeling is still the same as it was ten years ago: I want more. It is quite disappointing that there probably is not much more. After the brief excitement that these youth revivals give me, the dull and much less imaginative reality is what is left.

But not with a long vacation ahead. There is little that can create almost the same feeling as a children’s book, but this is definitely one of those things. So: nuts to you! See you in a month.

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