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Going Solo
by Roald Dahl
Boy has grown up and having grown up adventures - solo...
Roald Dahl provides insight to the second half of his extraordinary life in the sequel to Boy (part one of Dahl’s autobiography). Boy ends with Dahl being chosen for Shell Company’s illustrious foreign post. He wrote of a desire to see the world instead of joining his schoolmates at Oxford or Cambridge. Going Solo picks up where Boy left off, with Dahl’s transport and assignment to East Africa. In his words, “A life is made up of a great number of small incidents and a small number of great ones. An autobiography must therefore, unless it is to become tedious, be extremely selective, discarding all the inconsequential incidents in one’s life and concentrating upon those that have remained vivid in the memory.”
There was no commercial air travel when Dahl was assigned to Africa -- he had to spend weeks aboard a boat instead. His shipmates often lightened the mood by playing cards and telling tall tales. Dahl kept up two traditions he’d started as a boy in boarding school. On his very first night away from home, he figured out the direction toward home and would sleep facing it. The second tradition was to write home once a week, a tradition he kept up, even though some of the letters wouldn’t make it. To keep things interesting (and very Dahl), photographs and copies of some letters home are included in the novel.
After working for Shell for a little over a year, and while World War II was a couple months old, Dahl asked to leave the company in order to fight. Dahl traveled to Nairobi to sign on with the Royal Air Force (RAF). After suffering a crash shortly out of flight training, and recuperating for more than two months, Dahl was assigned to Greece. He fought in the Battle of Athens, and as fantastic as the situations became, Dahl tells them all with his trademark wit and nonchalance. As if surviving great terrors are on par with being caned for putting a dead mouse in a candy jar.
Dahl’s own story is no less interesting and wildly-spun than any of his other books. A thrilling conclusion to Boy.
Title: Going Solo
Author: Roald Dahl
Publisher: Puffin
ISBN: 0141303107
Review written by: Tracy Elledge
Reviewer's Rating:9
Reader's Rating: 10.00
Reader's Votes: 1
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