Kiss Kiss

I had recently heard about adult stories writted by Dahl and was intrigued because I rather love his children's books. I was not disappointed! My library only had this option, a collection of short stories, so I chose it and set it down. I had just started another book "Girl with a Pearl Earring," and felt I should finish it first. This little book, though, kept calling me! So I set the other book aside and basically ate this book. I don't think it took me five days to read it. I carried it everywhere, ignored chores and children, and just read.

The first story, I thought, oh my! this is like The Twilight Zone! It was fantastic and I could hardly wait to start the next. That is a hard thing about short story collections, zooming into the show more next like it is the next chapter of a book. The next story was completely different and was as horrifying! Oh my! I am greatly enjoying this book! Roald Dahl is a perfectly twisted author.

The one story that keeps coming back to me, was one initially I didn't think I was liking as well. The character is a con artist who collects valuable antique furniture from unsuspecting people in rural communities. It has a lovely twist that made me gasp and then laugh with glee. "Parson's Pleasure"

I will be searching for copies of Roald Dahl's adult books now at old bookstores! These are well-crafted stories, with suggested wickedness and then blatant mind sickness that he just goes with so well.

Delightful show less

Most people in talk to about Roald Dahl tell me that they’ve never read his adult stuff, preferring to stick to his feel-good, very well-written children’s novels. To these people I say, all well and good. His children’s books are incredibly good and I do recommend them to anyone and everyone of any age group regardless, but his adult short stories are a thing to be reckoned with, and should really be given a chance too.
I’ve previously tried to write a review to another of Dahl’s collections – Skin and other stories – but I think that since I did that I’ve become a bit of a better reviewer, so I’m going to try and give this collection a bit more justice.
There are 11 short stories in this particular collection. Most show more of the stories have very adult themes – adultery, death, horror, reincarnation. The way that the stories are written, in Dahl’s peculiar fashion, means that there isn’t any kind of coarse language or language that would make people particularly uncomfortable, but the themes are very obviously not intended or aimed for children to read.
(The first time I read this collection I was thirteen years old, so maybe that explains a lot about me as a person now…)
What I especially love about Dahl’s writing in this collection is that it requires a lot of inferences and reading between the lines to figure out what has happened in the story. Dahl very rarely gives you a straight-up ending, but gives you all the necessary clues and hints needed for you to get to the end of the story all on your own, without him having to spell it out for you. I particularly like this about the stories because it feels like you’re actually watching a TV show. You know that moment when something is about to happen and you suddenly feel yourself piecing all the story together and a moment of realization just dawns over you? That’s the feeling you get when you’re reading Dahl’s short stories – he makes you feel as if you’ve come to the conclusion on your own even though all the hints he dropped were right there.
My favourite stories from this are difficult to chose, but maybe my top three have to be The Way Up to Heaven (which is about a wife who hates being late and a husband who seems to always try to make her late for things), Edward the Conqueror (the story of a cat who is thought to be a reincarnation of Liszt, the famous composer), and Pig (the story of a young man who has never tasted meat before and encounters a pig slaughter house on his journey around the world).
All in all, I’d give this book a 5/5. It’s full of beautifully written stories, short enough to keep your attention but long enough to reveal a very intricately woven story. The best part about it is how quickly you can get through a story but feel like it’s been resolved and closed without leaving a bad taste in your mouth (except for maybe The Landlady).
Read this book on a stormy day with a mug of something hot, as that is honestly the emotion that Dahl conveys in me often. Or maybe on a plane ride when you have to find something to occupy your time with. You won’t be disappointed. show less

Dark, macabre and incredibly funny. I knew some of Dahl's children's books, but had never read any of his other work, so "Kiss Kiss" was a great surprise. I loved everything about the stories, but especially the black zany humour that Dahl so perfectly masters. A great collection, and I will definitely go back for more.

This collection of 11 stories deal with the intricacies—and sometimes the horrors—of love. Most of the stories throw a twist into the mix, such as the tale of a priest trying to stave off a horde of hungry women in "Georgy Porgy" or the tale of a husband who wanted immortality so he agrees to have his brain removed and preserved much to the devilish delight of his haggard wife in "William and Mary". A few other stories deal with a different kind of love, such as that for a man who dresses as a parson to secure antique furniture from unwitting farmers in "Parson's Pleasure" or the landlady who doesn't want her boarders to leave—ever—in "The Landlady". They're all wonderfully twisted and delightful to read.

This was a fantastic listening. There are ten short stories, each beginning very harmless and ending with something macabre each time. His writing style is great and British black humor comes with every story. As a listener, you wait curiously for the end, even if you can usually guess what will happen. The nape of the hairs begin to pose and it makes great pleasure when the solution comes.

I didn’t grow up reading Roald Dahl—just watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a teenager—so I don’t have the same nostalgic connection that a lot of people seem to have.

Putting aside all the stuff about his problematic reputation, I thought this one was... alright.

His imagination is wild, and he definitely knows how to hook you into a story, even when not much is happening.

It wasn’t a personal favorite, but I get why people think he’s a great writer. I’m actually more interested now in checking out some of the books he wrote for adults.

Rating: 2.75* of five

A cruel and demanding husband, or so his first wife Patricia Neal would have us know; a creepy old party, as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory amply demonstrated, with a great deal of disdain for Jewishness and gluttony and greed in general. His adult fiction is largely out of print in the US, and he was never really quite The Thing here as he was in Britain. I suppose his light sneers at us, so evident in his attitude towards the US's involvement in the Second World War, prevented his eventual literary rise from gaining the same boost as it did among the countrymen who saw, heard, absorbed his flying prowess and spying nous.

I decided to read this collection for some reason or another (maybe it was the 1960 show more Edgar-winning story, "The Landlady"?), I can't honestly recall why now. I know that I began to regret my decision as early as "William and Mary," the second story, wherein this is from the text of a letter written by Dahl as coming from beyond the grave of a man to his newly-widowed wife of thirty years:

"He is a magnificent neurosurgeon, one of the finest, and recently he has been kind enough to let me study the results of some of his work, especially the varying effects of prefrontal lobotomies upon different types of psychopath."

And then he goes on to give orders like "don't get a TV" and "disconnect the phone because I don't need it anymore"! How appalling. Sixty years ago, when this collection was published, that wasn't, whole and entire, a horrendous thing to say? I'd say it was, but I was a babe in arms at the time and have no direct knowledge of the way it would sound to the era's denizens. I suspect it wouldn't have raised an eyebrow on either of my parents, but they were right wingnuts and often didn't hear things that made, and make, my skin crawl.

And with this mordant but unamusing set of eleven weirdly unappealing tales, Dahl leaves my readerly ken for. fucking. ever. No more. No! I refuse. I liked three of the eleven stories enough to be glad that I'd read them, and recognized one story from my long-ago high-school read of it in an anthology I had to buy for school, but that's just not enough for me to want to know more about what went on in Roald Dahl's head. show less