What’s your favourite

Roald Dahl book?

 
I’ve had Roald Dahl on my mind lately. It started during my trip to L.A., when my host’s book-crazy daughter inhaled The Witches in less than 24 hours, continued when my Criterion edition of Wes Anderson’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox (the second best Dahl movie adaption) arrived in the mail a few days when I came back, went on when I watched the documentary about the author’s life included on the disk and just now when I started watching the latest episode of the SyFi movie makeup competition show Face Off and discovered it had a Dahl-inspired theme.

He was my first favourite author. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory inspired me in a way no other book has in the course of my life. To reference a song from the original film version that can still bring me to tears, it was an entry into a world of pure imagination that mixed hilarious silliness with genuine danger.

More than any author of his kind, Dahl understood that the line between comedy and horror was one most children were only too happy to cross. Charlie is structured like my favourite Vincent Price movies, where he plays an eccentric madman who dispatches a series of nefarious jerks in a series of increasingly just ways. Willy Wonka is basically Dr. Phibes or Edward Lionheart with a sweet tooth.

As a kid, I loved his poetry collections, Dirty Beasts and Revolting Rhymes and embraced their nastiness in a way I never did Dr. Seuss (who I still think is pretty awesome). Trying to copy them in my own way marked my first literary efforts. Were it not for Dahl, it’s entirely possible I never would have become a writer and you wouldn’t be reading these words right now.

So, blame him.

Charlie remains my favourite of his books, along with The BFG, The Witches and James and the Giant Peach. A lot of folks I know favour The Twits and Matilda. The question is, were(are) you a Dahl fan? And if so, what was your favourite book?