Love from Boy: Roald Dahl's Letters to His Mother

I don’t read many collections of letters due to the very great boredom factor, but this is very enjoyable. Very well edited. All the letters are interesting in one way or another, the book’s the right length and between each section of letters Sturrock provides text which fills in the back story. A quick read and rather startling to have a man flying a fighter plane who only a few pages before was asking his mother for conkers. Dahl’s personality really shines through, but even if you’re not interested in him he lived through such momentous events I really do think there’s something for everyone here.

Although very one-sided (there are no replies to the letters), this book forms an important autobiographical addition to Dahl's Boy and Going Solo. I was surprised at the amount of expletives Dahl used tin correspondence with his mother, and some of the entries were left unexplained (although much could be deciphered); such as, "'Yoo Yah' which runs up and down on a string from Woolworths." (Yo-yo?), and "Pi-jerry (po)" (bed-pan?). I enjoyed reading about Dahl's fond memories of "East of the Sun and West of the Moon", a Norse fairy tale, "finding dwarfs there"; his attempts to purchase a Jews harp; and the events he had in school, the fire in the house, mice in the study, photography, motorcycle/insurance, best friend expelled for show more homosexuality, field trip, being shot at by a boy using live rounds, wireless set. And later his stays in America with Walt Disney, and the Roosevelts, to name but a few. The B&W photos in the book are fascinating. I love the picture of Dahl with Hemmingway. "Yesterday was Beautiful" was his first adult short prose, with the original notes set in Norway, as the tale of Carl Christiansen. show less

Selected letters from among the hundreds from Dahl to his mother, with decent contextual material included. I found those letters from his time in the States during the final years of WWII most interesting.

Synopsis: Road Dahl, today one of the world's most well-known author's, wrote weekly letters to his mother. We follow Road Dahl throughout his life through letters to his mother - from boarding school, to when he became a pilot, until his international acclaim as an author.

My Opinion: Essentially an autobiography of Road Dahl, written in epistolary. What a wonderful legacy for his mother to leave.

Love from Boy: Roald Dahl's Letters to His Mother edited by Donald Sturrock is structured into eight sections. The first seven sections cover about 2-4 years from 1930s and the 1940s. The final section covers 1946 - 1965; the title "I won't write often" explains the length of time. The letters begin with a schoolboy's letters home and end with a family man writing of his concerns. What a lucky mother to have a child who was such a prolific, detailed correspondent! What a lucky son to have the inspiration of his mother! What lucky readers that the correspondence was preserved and is now shared.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2016/09/love-from-boy.html.

Reviewed for the Penguin First to Read program.

Brieven van de bekende kinderboekenschrijver aan zijn moeder, vanaf zijn kostschooltijd (1925) tot aan haar dood (1965)