Matilda

Can you imagine a book like this being published in today's market? It would never see the light of day which is exactly what I loved about it. Leave it to Roald Dahl to push all the boundaries.

Oooh, yikes. I think I watched the movie version of Matilda a couple months ago and still enjoyed it thoroughly, but reading the book opened my eyes to a lot of troublesome things, and I have to say I didn't enjoy it at all.

Book content warnings:
lesbophobia (specifically anti-butch)
sexism & misogyny
fatphobic
child abuse mention
suicide mention

Ugh. I'm so disappointed. It's one of those things you loved when you were little, only to discover it's incredibly problematic and lackluster when you grew up.

For one, the tone is so fatphobic it's sometimes hard for me to read the book without contempt. Many of the book's characters the audience are supposed to like are continuously described as "small", "thin", "tiny", etc., while the villains show more are fat and large and bulging. Fat people are described with such disgust that I'm just revolted by the author. I know this wasn't written recently, but it's just hard to read.

Not only that, but this author seems to project his own anti-feminist, anti-butch lesbian views onto this children's book. Miss Trunchbull is literally the personification of the radical feminist of his time: ugly, manly, large and bulky. She acts like a man, too, participates in what could be seen as stereotypical men's sports, has no need for marriage - in fact, she looks down on it when one of the children sings back Miss Honey's rhyme "Mrs. D Mrs. I Mrs. F F I, etc." and Miss. Trunchbull exclaims "Why are all these women married?".

Miss Trunchbull also hates anything feminine (aka the little girl /growing out/ her pigtails), and hates children. She also literally killed the patriarch of her family so she could be in charge. Reading this as a butch lesbian myself just made me roll my eyes every other page.

The plot started slowly, and then rushed faster and faster until the end just ... happened, and I was left feeling like the book ended without actually finishing, if that makes sense. There was no feeling of an actual conclusion.

And the relationship between Miss Honey and Matilda made me incredibly uncomfortable. The prose even mentions Matilda as a grown-up child rather than an actual child. And that Matilda and Miss Honey were equals. Which could make their relationship ... really weird. It's basically how Miss Honey "opens up" about her past. But she really just blurts out "my father killed himself" to a six-year-old girl. This all reads so awkwardly and worryingly. It doesn't matter if this kid is the most intelligent girl in the world, of all time! She's still a child.

Anyway, yeah ... I didn't enjoy this. show less

Five-year-old Matilda is sensitive and brilliant, but her parents see her differently. To them she is a scab “to put up with until … you can pick it off and flick it away”. Her teacher, Miss Honey, is deeply impressed by Matilda, but the school’s terrifying headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, will not consider placing her in a more advanced class. Despite such opposition, Matilda discovers a mysterious power within herself,
and thereby radically improves both her own and Miss Honey’s life.

***

The author spends a long time establishing the characters in this story. The reader gets to know Matilda, her parents, the librarian, and the school staff, long before any real action occurs. There are several episodes in the story that do show more nothing whatsoever to advance the plot, but simply help the reader to get a better understanding of that particular character.

The purpose of these episodes is made clear in a conversation between Miss Honey and Matilda:
“Do you think that all children’s books ought to have funny bits in them?”
“I do… children are not so serious as grown-ups and they love to laugh.”
Clearly this is the opinion of the author, and he takes his time describing many practical jokes that Matilda has played on her parents, and later that the students play on the formidable Trunchbull.

Miss Trunchbull is a simply horrible character, and readers will love to hate her. She’s abusive, inconsiderate, and “barmy as a bedbug”, yet somehow still believable enough to fill a child with dread that such a person could exist. Her opinions are expressed just as strongly as Matilda’s: “I don’t like small people. Small people should never be seen by anybody…”

Perhaps every child has a fear of being unappreciated, and the character of Matilda is the realisation of this fear. Completely rejected by both parents, it is an enormous relief when characters such as the librarian and Miss Honey do begin to take an interest in her. And Matilda’s sudden burst of power allows us the hope that some such “miracle” could happen in any similar situation.

This book has been enormously popular ever since it was first published. There are very few readers who cannot identify with some aspect of the plot, even if only to be glad it isn’t them! I recommend it to any child who goes to school, but particularly rewarding for those able to read it themselves, from about the age of 8. show less

I read Matilda for the first time two decades ago. I had not revisited it since, but decided to do so a few days ago after seeing it pleadingly ensconced on a shelf in a local library. Unlike my past self, who, as a child, had little to contest in this simple narrative, I was displeased with how brazenly overdone it felt. It read like a hammy and blatant self-insert meant to vindicate those whose premature intellect was not commended to their satisfaction. I found that, beneath the thin veneer of girl empowerment and principled mischief, there was little thematic impact, owing to Dahl's inability to convey even a hint of nuance in the morality of his tale. With nauseatingly virtuous heroes and restlessly foul villains, any pretense to show more didacticism is lost in its own hyperbole. Sadly, Dahl's works for children are conveniently installed in a genre that is ever underestimated, and therefore, they are acclaimed as masterpieces. Indeed, this genre is one to which many writers turn to avoid the criticism they would undoubtedly face for their patent inelegance, and in which such inelegance is otherwise welcomed by many adults who tritely excuse it as "immaterial" considering the target audience; truly, a most lamentable complacency. While Dahl's style is of unmistakable aesthetic value, which finds better use elsewhere in his oeuvre, it is simply not enough to elevate the book above its arrant lack of grace. show less

I read Matilda for the first time two decades ago. I had not revisited it since, but decided to do so a few days ago after seeing it pleadingly ensconced on a shelf in a local library. Unlike my past self, who, as a child, had little to contest in this simple narrative, I was displeased with how brazenly overdone it felt. It read like a hammy and blatant self-insert meant to vindicate those whose premature intellect was not commended to their satisfaction. I found that, beneath the thin veneer of girl empowerment and principled mischief, there was little thematic impact, owing to Dahl's inability to convey even a hint of nuance in the morality of his tale. With nauseatingly virtuous heroes and restlessly foul villains, any pretense to show more didacticism is lost in its own hyperbole. Sadly, Dahl's works for children are conveniently installed in a genre that is ever underestimated, and therefore, they are acclaimed as masterpieces. Indeed, this genre is one to which many writers turn to avoid the criticism they would undoubtedly face for their patent inelegance, and in which such inelegance is otherwise welcomed by many adults who tritely excuse it as "immaterial" considering the target audience; truly, a most lamentable complacency. While Dahl's style is of unmistakable aesthetic value, which finds better use elsewhere in his oeuvre, it is simply not enough to elevate the book above its arrant lack of grace. show less

When this book was published in 1988, I somehow missed it. I saw the musical performed locally, and fell in love with the story. I had to have the book. While it was written for middle-school children, I fell in love with it. It is funny and celebrates reading and learning. What more could I want?

While some folks have been upset by the depiction of Matilda's parents, I think that they are so over-the-top outrageous that children will know they aren't "real" and think that they can get away with Matilda's pranks. Just as Harry Potter's aunt and uncle were unthinkingly cruel in so many ways, Matilda's parents are just as oblivious. I firmly believe that children can tell the difference between real and make believe.

This quotation sums it show more up for me:

“Do you think that all children’s books ought to have funny bits in them?” Miss Honey asked.

“I do,” Matilda said. “Children are not so serious as grown-ups and they love to laugh.”

If you liked the musical or film, be sure to read the book. Anyone who likes reading will almost surely enjoy this book. show less

For the audiobook read by Kate Winslet:

I remember Matilda from childhood, but in listening to it this time I realized that mostly I remembered only the first half of it (about up to the chocolate cake). I had completely forgotten Matilda's supernatural abilities and all the particulars of how the villain is comeuppanced. I wonder if I only reread the bits that were so specifically about reading as a kid. Anyway, I enjoyed listening to this so very much. Dahl does his weird kids/terrible adults/singular awesome adult thing brilliantly here. And Kate Winslet does a spectacular job reading it. I did note a fair number of unfortunate characterizations (the villain is "large" and it's part of her villainy and we are. not. allowed. to. show more forget. it. there's some class stuff that's a little *grimace*. I suspect that someone who wanted to think about it a little harder than I can right now could come up with something pretty damning about lesbianism being associated with villainy too), but it mostly stays at the level of "we can talk about this" rather than "this completely ruins the whole book." For me at least. YMMV. show less