Roald Dahl: Children’s Author, WWII English Spy?
If you grew up anytime in the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, or beyond – or had children of that era – you may remember the pleasure and thrill of those zany books by Roald Dahl: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches, James and the Giant Peach, The B.F.G (Big Friendly Giant), etc. Last fall, a new book came out outlining another side to that beloved author, and I was eager to pick it up and investigate for myself. So, I did.
The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington by Jannet Conant was, in a nutshell, fabulous. Roald Dahl, it seems, was an English WWII Air Force fighter, but was injured in the early part of the War and sent home on medical leave. From there, he was posted as a Royal Air Force attaché to the British Embassy in Washington, where he was assigned to assist with covert activities to bring the United States into the War as quickly as possible. As we all know, the Brits and Churchill really needed the US’ help; otherwise, things were going downhill very fast. This book then describes Dahl’s life and times as a young spy in Washington.
“The Irregulars,” as these young English raconteurs came to call themselves, fancied to model themselves after the Baker Street Irregulars of Sherlock Holmes’ mysteries. Conant paints a rich picture of their lives in wartime Washington and illustrates a sweeping vision of both the players and the zeitgeist of the era. Of particular interest to modern readers: various individuals, whom we all have learned about in history and/or literature class, also pop into the tale at various times and surprise you: Charles Lindberg, a young Lyndon Johnson, Ian Fleming (author of the James Bond novels), Ernest Hemingway, C.S. Forester (poet and writer), Walt Disney, Clare Booth Luce, and more. Dahl also formed close friendships with FDR, Eleanor Roosevelt, Churchill, and, in the end, the he and the other “Irregulars” helped form the U.S.’ OSS, which was the predecessor to today’s CIA.
Overall, this book is very engaging. It is nonfiction but reads like a spy novel. It got positive reviews from the Chicago Sun-Times, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and The Wall Street Journal.
At times, it can get a bit too detailed, but, if you stick with it, you’ll be rewarded with a treasure of bon mots to share at your next cocktail party.
Read on:
Amazon.com – link to Conant’s book
Sources:
Boy – Tales of Childhood – early autobiography of R. Dahl (childhood)
Going Solo – continuing autobiography (young adulthood) (in which R. Dahl works for Shell Oil in Tanzania; joins the Air Force and was one of the last Allied pilots to withdraw from Greece during the German invasion in WWII)
My Year – bittersweet: an autobiographical book written in the last year of R Dahl’s life
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Sounds like a great book! Thanks for the review! (Now I’m going to look up raconteur and zeitgeist in the dictionary