Skip to main content

Soldier, by Roald Dahl

I bought a book, The Roald Dahl Omnibus when I was in Singapore last April. It has more than a dozen short stories and I've read only the first three stories since buying the book.

Of the first three, "Lamb to the Slaughter" was my favorite. I really like how the Dahl is able to twist thing about. There's something sinister about his writing. Sinister and mysterious, but still in a believable way. Just like how in "Lamb of the Slaughter" I found myself sympathizing with the character though the character had committed a gruesome crime.

The fourth story, "Soldier" is about a soldier. :D
The narration is pretty deceptive I must say. It didn't dawn on me that the narrator and the character portrayed at the beginning were the same person. This soldier is unfortunately having some kind of post-war mental issues. Probably his experience had been so terrifying that it had blueprinted some sort of problem in his head. Ha, sometimes I wish that a force of such magnitude could happen to me. Preferably a force with an advantageous outcome.

Unlike the ending of "Lamb to the Slaughter," "Soldier" safely brought me back to reality. Not that the story won't be real if it didn't end the way it did, but Dahl cleverly rerouted my preconceived ending, which is good. Again, Dahl has a box of surprises for his readers.

Can't wait for my next story. :D

Comments

Anonymous said…
i've got one of those collection of his too. great great read! i remember reading "the visitor" also "the wonderful story of henry sugar". true, he's got a way of twisting your brain...
8:22 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Exactly is ICC?

Arasaratnam and Doerfel's (2005) study on defining intercultural communicative competence (ICC) may be dated, but I believe their discussions are very relevant to the current situation of ICC.  Their study aimed to define ICC from a grounded exploratory approach.  Their reasoning behind this is because of the subjective understanding of what intercultural is, and what competence is.  Communication, from an intercultural perspective, is typified as spoken discourse. To come to a definition of ICC, the study interviewed a group of international and local students studying in an American university.  The students were asked what they thought ICC is, and what they thought are key components of a person who is interculturally competent.  Though responses were diverse, a common thread was induced. But would this common thread still be applicable to different cultural contexts?  Probably from a qualitative perspective it would be, but perhaps not if viewed wit...
Post a Comment
Read more

Unwelcomed

Picture taken from the bus stop I was waiting at.  The structure with the curved roof is the bigger bus stop. Since arriving here, I’ve heard a lot of stories about International Students getting beaten up or mugged or both.  At times I was skeptical when I was told about stories like this, but I believed it, most of the time.  We can’t deny that word of mouth is sometimes sensationalized.  On Thursday nights, shops all over Newcastle will open longer than usual.  This is to give students as well as other people the chance to do some late night shopping or simply hang around.  Last Thursday night, Bill, Jen, and myself were at the bus stop waiting for Bill’s bus to come.  It was half past eight and we were at a bus stop waiting for Bill’s bus to arrive.  We talked for a bit, and realized that we were supposed to wait at the smaller bus stop facing the larger one.  We crossed the road and walked towards the bus stop.  There were on...
6 comments
Read more

now i know how it feels

to be the one standing near escalators, or on the side walk, trying to grab people's attention. Today I was promoting the International Students Volunteer at the orientation program the uni had for the new students. I volunteered to run around the courtyard and wait at the entrance for people who were passing by. I did manage to get quite a number of flyers out. However, I had many futile attempts in getting people to grab a flyer. A girl literally ran when she saw me extending my hand out to her; a guy said his hands were full; another guy took the flyer and left it at the table behind me; another guy (who was from the goon society) came up to me and started dancing... I asked him, why are you dancing, and he said: why not? then it dawned on me...yes, it's the goon society, all they do is drink and be merry (they did drink a lot, i saw them going back and forth refilling their table with booze from the godfrey tanner bar right behind the expo room where we were - and th...
3 comments
Read more