Author: Roald Dahl
Title: Madness: Tales of Fear and Unreason
Year of publication: 2016
Page count: 237
Rating: ★★★★
Madness is one of eight centenary editions of Dahl’s short stories for adults, grouped together by theme, and collects ten short stories published between the mid-40’s (Katina, 1944) and the late 70’s (The Boy Who Talked With Animals, 1977) that explore, not so much what happens when we let go of our sanity (although there certainly are some of those as well), but rather the pleasures, dangers, and consequences of indulging in an odd obsession or eccentricity that might well be perceived as madness by others.
Out of all the themed collections so far, this was by far my favorite (not counting Innocence, which was largely non-fiction)—there was only one story I didn’t enjoy (An African Story), but none I actively disliked. Every story was incredibly memorable, and there were more stand-outs than ever before: I love when he writes about women gone rogue, particularly meek wives who finally take a stand against their domineering husbands, so my highlights included The Way Up to Heaven, William and Mary, and The Landlady, which I was already familiar with, but it still held up as one of my favorites in Dahl’s body of work. I also love his sardonic black humor, so Pig and A Dip in the Pool deserve a mention as well—it’s often not entirely clear which character is meant to be the one on the brink of insanity, an ambiguity I loved. This is a great selection of stories that flow well from one to the next, particularly in the second half, which contains the better tales; if you only pick one of these themed collections up, Madness gets my vote.
Edward the Conqueror · ★★★
A piano-playing wife convinces herself that the long-haired silver cat that shows up in their garden one day is the reincarnation of famous classical composer Liszt. Her husband is none too thrilled, with catastrophic consequences… the ending is foreshadowed from the start, but the predictability makes it no less upsetting.
Katina · ★★★½
Published in 1944, as WWII was still ongoing, this is a story introduced as “some brief notes about the last days of RAF fighters during the first Greek campaign“—Dahl himself fought in these battles, and I wonder how much of this is autobiographical. It’s a vivid, memorable, and gut-wrenching outlier of a story about a nine year old Greek girl who lost her entire family in a bombing, and is “adopted” by the British fighter pilots who find her vacantly staring at the ruins of her home. I ponder why this was put into the collection dealing with madness, when there is one focused on war—is it the madness of war-waging? The madness of such an innocent and pure girl turned fierce and numb with rage? Or the madness of hope?
The Sound Machine · ★★★½
An eccentric man obsessed with sound constructs an apparatus which is able to make vibrations that are beyond the human ear heard, and he excitedly decides to test it to hear sounds of nature. It’s up to the reader to decide whether his device actually worked or if it simply triggered his lunacy, but I sure will never look at a lawn or flower bouquet the same way again.
An African Story · ★★
An odd story within an even odder story, set in the Kenyan Highlands and involving the mystery of milk vanishing out of an old man’s cow overnight. It was a bizarre and cruel tale, and I’m not sure what the point of the framing story was—it was just as bizarre as the main one, and quite elaborate, yet we never return to it.
The Landlady · ★★★★★
This is one of my all-time favorites short stories by Dahl, but it’s the first repeat I’ve come across in these themed collections—it’s also included in Innocence (bizarrely; it works much better here). It takes less than ten minutes to read this delicious horror tale, but it fills the reader with a mounting sense of dread, and I found it so evocative despite its brevity that I could almost taste the tea the accommodating landlady brewed for her unfortunate new tenant.
Pig · ★★★★
When newborn Lexington’s parents are killed in an unfortunate encounter with the police, he is adopted by an old aunt, and grows up to be an accomplished vegetarian cook who goes on a quest to write a book of recipes. Even by Dahl standards, this is one of the most sinister, twisted, violent and cruel stories I’ve encountered yet, and a stand-out—I particularly liked the generous use of black humor, it lent it a jarring and surreal feel. A cautionary tale about the dangers of shielding children from the realities of the world, which will cause them to grow up into naive and all too trusting adults.
The Boy Who Talked With Animals · ★★★
The narrator is vacationing in Jamaica when a group of sailors come back to the resort with the catch of a lifetime: A huge, ancient sea turtle. Rich guests want to buy it for its shell while the hotel manager wants it for its meat, but a young boy becomes hysterical, shaming the adults for their cruelty, and his parents volunteer to buy the turtle in order to save its life. This paired nicely with the preceding story, but I found it too long for what it was… or mostly just wish I had my own giant turtle friend to carry me away from all my problems to an uninhabited tropical island.
Dip in the Pool · ★★★½
On a cruise ship, there is a betting pool wherein passengers try to correctly guess the number of miles the ship will travel that day, within ten miles above or below the captain’s own guess. On a suddenly stormy day, a passenger places a huge bet on “low field”, but when he wakes up to bright blue skies and realizes that he will lose years of savings, he makes a rash decision to ensure he’ll still win. I saw the deliciously macabre ending coming from several nautical miles away, but still very much enjoyed the voyage to get there.
William and Mary · ★★★★
After William, emotionally abusive and controlling husband, dies of cancer, his late wife Mary receives a long letter in which he tells her that he underwent an experimental procedure in the hope of retaining consciousness beyond death. This disturbing Frankenstein-esque story was probably the goriest by Dahl I’ve read yet, and I could see it working really well as a Black Mirror episode…! It was perversely satisfying, a stand-out in the collection, but the reason I’m docking a star is because I’m not very fond of epistolary exposition, and it was very heavy on dull medical pseudo-science-talk—it would’ve packed more of a punch without it.
The Way Up To Heaven · ★★★★½
An otherwise perfect, elderly wife’s only peculiarity is that she’s very anxious about being punctual, but lately, her husband seems to enjoy tormenting her by trying to make her late. When he does this as she’s trying to catch a plane to Paris for a six week solo trip to visit her daughter and grandchildren, she makes a fateful decision… this was a masterfully crafted short story. The building tension made my palms sweat (I, too, am very anxious about being late), all the subtle hints and foreshadowing, and then the amusingly sadistic ending that I didn’t see coming! A great way to end the collection.
watercolorstain 