About a year ago Penguin hit on the neat idea of reprinting Roald Dahl’s short stories, spanning the 1940s to the 1980s, in themed collections. The titles are a wonderfully unsettling guide to the beloved children’s author’s preoccupations: Lust, Fear, Madness, Cruelty. The latest addition, Trickery, is the most Dahlian of the lot.
At first glance Dahl’s cruel, vindictive stories for adults have little in common with his jolly kids’ world of giant peaches, friendly giants and chocolate factories. Trickery shows how similar his writing for children and adults really is. Indeed, one story collected here, The Champion of the World, evolved into a children’s book, Danny, the Champion of the World.
The best story in this collection is The Hitchhiker. A wealthy writer on his way back to London picks up a shady-looking cockney from the side of the road. He turns out to be a “fingersmith”, blessed with almost magical powers of dexterity and able to steal whatever he wants undetected. The pair gleefully race the car as fast as it will go; when they are stopped, they nab the policeman’s notebook. Nobody has any record of their crime. It’s joyously anarchic stuff, the sort of adventure you hope adult life will be full of when you’re a child.
That happy ending is unusual. Things don’t end nearly so well for the wounded, delirious Second World War pilot who thinks he has landed safely back in allied territory.
Trickery by Roald Dahl, Penguin, 232pp, £8.99
