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- [00:00]
Caller
Foreign.
- [00:08]
Alison Stewart
This is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful that you're here. Coming up on today's show, sports reporter Matt Futterman will help us kick off our Winter Olympics coverage as the events get underway tomorrow in Milan. And listeners, we want to hear the the competitions you're most excited for. And musician Jesse Mallon will perform live in our studio. His new one man Off Broadway show is called Silver Manhattan. That's the plan. So let's get this started with a beloved children's author. Picture this. During the Second World War, A young former RAF pilot charms his way through Washington, D.C. and New York City in his job as a British spy. He gambles with powerful figures like Harry Truman and media mogul Charles Edward Marsh and seduces movie stars, heiresses and other people's wives, all in the name of British intelligence. And no, his name was not Bond, James Bond. But keep that in mind. His name was Roald Dahl, who went on to become one of the most read writers in the world. His books like James and the Giant Peach, Matilda and of course, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory have sold millions of copies and they are continually being adapted for stage and screen. A new podcast chronicles the early life of Dahl, from his days as a fighter pilot to his life as a spy to his accidental writing career. It also looks at how his traumatic childhood and numerous battle scars might have informed him some of his more prickly tendencies, as well as some of his more controversial statements without excusing them. It's called the Secret World of Roald Dahl and its creator and host is author and screenwriter Aaron Tracy, who is here with us now. Welcome to the show.
- [02:17]
Aaron Tracy
Thanks so much. I'm so happy to be here.
- [02:18]
Alison Stewart
Listeners, what is your favorite work by Roald Dahl? What questions would you like to know about him? Give us a call. 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. What's your first Roald Dahl story?
- [02:34]
Aaron Tracy
I think the first one I read, like so many people, was James and the Giant Peach when I was a little kid, probably first grade. It was also the first book that Dahl wrote, which I was really surprised when I did my research. That was the first book he wrote. He was 46 when he wrote it. He had such a big life before he ever got into children's book. So many different chapters of his life.
- [02:55]
Alison Stewart
It's interesting because you teach creative writing at Yale. What do you think a student can learn from Dahl as a writer?
- [03:01]
Aaron Tracy
I mean, so much. Dahl contains multitudes as a writer. He not only wrote these extraordinary children's books like James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda, but he also wrote a ton of adult fiction. He wrote for Playboy, he wrote for the New Yorker. He wrote all sorts of screenplays and teleplays for Alfred Hitchcock. So depending on, you know, what kind of writing you're interested in, depending on your age, you can find almost anything in Doll.
- [03:31]
Alison Stewart
What made you go down the rabbit hole of Roald Dahl?
- [03:35]
Aaron Tracy
Yeah, I. I was looking for someone to write about. I'm, as you said, I'm a dramatic writer. And Doll kind of was the perfect person sitting out there. One, because there had not been a ton about him. There have been very few movies where he appears as a character. But he does hold this kind of rarefied place in the public consciousness and that he shaped so many of our childhoods. And then when I started digging into him, like I said, his story is just extraordinary. He was a fighter pilot. He was a British spy for MI6. He was an amateur neuroscientist. And so it was just sort of the perfect subject to dive into.
- [04:14]
Alison Stewart
When you're researching something, you go back to a certain source over and over again. Sometimes you go back to the source at the beginning. It makes more sense after you've gone through what you consider to be your research. What was one area that you went back to again and again on him?
- [04:30]
Aaron Tracy
That's a good question. I mean, I'm a huge movie buff, and so I was really interested in the Hollywood chapter. When Dahl was 26 years old, he wrote a short story called the Gremlins, which has nothing to do with the Steven Spielberg produced classic, but it was this short story that was all about British American cooperation in order to defeat the Germans. And it got passed around Washington and Eleanor Roosevelt got her hands on it and loved it. And it got to Walt Disney eventually. And Disney wanted to make it into a movie. And so he flew Dahl out to Hollywood and put him up at the Beverly Hills Hotel and got him a driver. And it was like Dahl was going to be a screenwriter. He was going to be Ben Hecht, or he was going to be some great screenwriter. But things did not work out. Dahl was not able to collaborate. Disney eventually dropped the project. Dahl did not give up and had a series of failures in Hollywood, as so many people do. But when we think of Dahl, we think of extreme success in writing. But it was sort of one miss after the next in Hollywood for him, which I was really interested in until he wrote the fourth James Bond movie, which was informed by his own experiences in MI6. And that was a huge hit and set him up for the rest of his life.
- [05:43]
Alison Stewart
I'm speaking with Aaron Tracy, creator and host of the Secret World of Roald Dahl. Paul cast. It's the first three episodes are out now wherever you get your podcast. And we're asking you what is your favorite work by Roald Dahl? Would you. What question would you like to know about him? Give us a call. 212-433-969-2212. Am I saying his name right?
- [06:05]
Aaron Tracy
That's a great question. I think people, people I know certainly say Roald Dahl.
- [06:10]
Alison Stewart
Right.
- [06:11]
Aaron Tracy
But the correct pronunciation is Ruel.
- [06:14]
Alison Stewart
Ruel Doll.
- [06:15]
Aaron Tracy
Yeah, but you sound kind of. I don't know, I'm too embarrassed to pronounce it that way. I think that I would sound kind of silly. But yes, his wife, Patricia Neal certainly says Ruel.
- [06:25]
Alison Stewart
All right. So I'm not going to. I'm going to say Roald Dahl. Roald Dahl. Just sort of.
- [06:29]
Aaron Tracy
Interviews accepted.
- [06:31]
Alison Stewart
Okay, thank you. It's an unusual name.
- [06:33]
Aaron Tracy
Yes.
- [06:34]
Alison Stewart
Where's it from?
- [06:35]
Aaron Tracy
He's Norwegian. His parents were Norwegian and British. And honestly, I think that's one of the things. Having such a strange name to American ears and being 6 foot 6 and being as striking looking as he was has kind of contributed to this overall impression that we have of him being a real life bfg. He just seems so otherworldly.
- [06:59]
Alison Stewart
I wanted to ask you before we get into the podcast, some of the details of the podcast. How did you just decide to deal with his difficult side and the anti Semitic statements that he made?
- [07:10]
Aaron Tracy
Yeah, yeah. The anti Semitism is certainly a very personal issue for me. It's something I was really grappling with. So I brought on a bunch of critics and thinkers much smarter than I am on this issue and talk to them on the podcast. So I bring on the Atlantic, Sierra Rosenberg. I bring on Roxane Gay, Claire Dederer, who wrote sort of a definitive text on this issue. And everybody comes down in a different way. You know, Dahl is sort of. He was an unrepentant anti Semite. There was an interview he gave with a New Statesman in 1883 where he said there is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity. Even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason. There's a play coming to Broadway, starring John Lithgow, that's gonna really tackle that interview specifically and this subject. So it's difficult for me. I think the reason that I'm able to still read Dahl and enjoy Dahl is because I can't locate the anti Semitism in the text. Some people say they see anti Semitic tropes in the witches. I'm not sure I agree with that. And if I can't see it in the text, then it feels a little bit hypocritical for me to deprive my children, for instance, of reading Dah when I don't deprive myself of watching the movies and reading the books of people that we now know are monsters.
- [08:35]
Alison Stewart
He grew up in England. Where did he grow up? What was his childhood like?
- [08:40]
Aaron Tracy
Yeah, he grew up in a place called Buckinghamshire, and his childhood was really tragic. When he was three years old, his father and his sister died within three weeks of each other. So that colored Buckinghamshire for him. That really, obviously was the biggest event of his childhood and something he never got over. And a big part of my podcast is about Dahl's search for identity. His whole life, he was searching for who he was. And I think part of that stems from not having a father growing up, because it very much feels like he was trying to figure out not only what kind of man he was, but what it even meant to be a man in his part of the century. So he became a businessman first, and that didn't quite take. And then he became a fighter pilot, and that didn't take. And then he became a spy and a playboy and a screenwriter and a short story writer like Hemingway. And he was just trying on all of these different. What felt to me like masks of masculinity, trying to figure out who he was.
- [09:38]
Alison Stewart
Let's take a couple of calls. Let's talk to Allison, who's calling in from the Bronx. Hi, Alison. Thanks for taking the time to call, all of it.
- [09:47]
Caller
Hi.
- [09:48]
Thank you. I grew up in Cincinnati, and when I was in the third grade, which was the early 1990s, our entire class each wrote individual letters to Rhode Dahl because our teacher was reading us James and the Giant Peach, and we each had to do a book report on a Roald Dahl book. But he actually took the time to write our entire class back. It was just one letter, but it was neat because he would answer some of the questions that some of us had written to him. And I remember he had opened up the letter and he addressed it to our teacher, and he called her the Miss Boy, the Beguiling Miss Carol. And we all thought that was quite funny. So that's all I wanted to share.
- [10:30]
Alison Stewart
Thank you so much for sharing that story. Does that surprise you?
- [10:33]
Aaron Tracy
No. I mean, that's a beautiful story for all of the terrible things that Dahl's wife of 30 years said about him in her memoir. And there were a lot of terrible things. She always said what a great, great father he was. Dahl was fantastic with kids. He truly loved kids. So all of the dark side, you know, that. That was really separate from the way he treated. You know, certainly your. Sounds like you and your classmates and. And children in general.
- [11:02]
Alison Stewart
Let's talk to Laura, who's calling in from Manhattan. Hi, Laura. Thanks for calling, all of it.
- [11:09]
Caller
Hi.
- [11:11]
Yeah, so I was gonna say I.
- [11:12]
My I. My son's 4, and I'm starting to read him books out loud, which I love. My mother did to me. And we started with Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, because his name is Charlie and he loves chocolate. And we read it in, like, we read it on long car rides. But then we tried to read the second one, the Great Glass Elevator, and it's just, like, too bizarre. Like, I don't know what the. I actually don't even know what the plot of that book is. There's, like, aliens, and then the United States is involved in sort of a hysterical way that feels very relevant today. But we never finished it. We moved on to James and the Giant Peach.
- [11:49]
Alison Stewart
Thanks for calling in. There's two interesting things that we discover in the podcast that Charlie initially was supposed to be a black boy.
- [11:57]
Aaron Tracy
Yeah.
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Alison Stewart
Did you tell us that story?
- [11:59]
Aaron Tracy
Yeah. Dahl spent a bunch of time when he was trying to be a businessman. He was working for Shell Oil, and they sent him to Africa, to Tanzania, and he was. He had a lot of time to just sort of sit around and observe. And that's where he came up with the idea for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. And so the character was based on a little boy he knew. And it's just. It's remarkable to think about how different the story would have been perceived. You remember, the family in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is they're incredibly poor. The grandparents all share a giant bed. And then Charlie triumphs at the end. And I think if he had remained black, the way Dahl wanted him to be before his editors insisted that he become white, I think it could have been seen as a story of, you know, sort of a racial. It just would have been very, very different. It's. It's fascinating to think about.
- [12:54]
Alison Stewart
I'm talking about the new podcast, the Secret World of Roald Dahl. I'm host, talking to its host and creator, Aaron Tracy. The first three episodes are out now. We're asking you to call in with your favorite work by Roald Dahl or what Would you like to ask a question about him? Perhaps you have one. Give us a call at 212-433-WNYC 212-433-9692. I want to get into his spy life a little bit because the first three episodes talk about that quite a bit. He became part of a cohort called the Irregulars. It sounds like dun, dun, dun. The Irregulars. Who were they? What was their mission?
- [13:32]
Aaron Tracy
It's amazing. It's. It's this group of British spies living in D.C. and New York, all working for this sort of legendary spy named William Stephenson in New York. They actually worked out of 30 Rock, where Saturday Night Live is filmed now, very strangely. And that's where Dahl got the idea for the great class elevator, actually the incredible elevator in 30 Rock. But the Irregulars were a group that was operating right before America got into the war. And their job was to help bring America into the war on Britain's side. It was Britain's darkest hour, and they were going to do anything they could to get America's help. So they had all these 20 somethings, including Dahl, coming up with propaganda missions. And there was a lot of seduction. Dahl's job was to seduce the wives of powerful Americans who were not yet on the Allied side, in order to sway them or even blackmail them. And so there's a bunch of examples of that. And one of the most striking things to me is the eye for talent that Stevenson had. So he brought on Dahl, but he also brought on Ian Fleming, who would go on to create James Bond. He brought on David Ogilvy, who would go on to become the father of modern advertising and was inspiration for Mad Men, and Noel Coward, the playwright. So the way I sort of think of it, these dashing young men, you gotta think of Noel Coward, Roald Dahl, James Bond and Don Draper all hanging out at a Georgetown bar at midnight at 26 years old, throwing back whiskeys and coming up with propaganda ideas.
- [15:09]
Alison Stewart
How did he become a spy at 26 years old?
- [15:13]
Aaron Tracy
They saw something in him. Dahl was this incredibly handsome, tall former fighter pilot who was a fantastic storyteller and incredibly charming. And British Intelligence saw all of that and said, you know, you're being a little bit wasted in the raf. We can use your talents in the espionage game. And so they sent him to D.C. and New York in order to get involved.
- [15:37]
Alison Stewart
Was he good at it?
- [15:38]
Aaron Tracy
He was really good at it, yeah. His stories of seduction are pretty legendary, and he was such a creative storyteller that a lot of the ideas, a lot of the stuff that the Irregulars that they were doing. We don't know specifically what exactly came from Dahl, but probably a bunch of it. And it's all very creative and sort of fun and interesting.
- [16:00]
Alison Stewart
This text says, my kids grew up with Dahl on repeat. Part of the reason is that in the tradition of children's literature, he deals with the darkness of the world and. Which I think is very cathartic. Where do we see that?
- [16:14]
Aaron Tracy
I totally agree with that. I mean, all of his children's books, honestly have gruesome elements to them. Certainly the other kids on the Chocolate Tour and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda. There's a lot of darkness and gruesomeness which you see in the stage play adaptation. And I totally agree with that text. Dahl knew that kids didn't just want sugary, sweet, saccharine stories where everything is fine. Children like the darkness because it makes them feel older. It makes them feel a little bit respected, that, you know, that they're starting to sense that the world can be a. An unfair kind of dark place. And so this is someone who's actually, if not telling them the truth, at least respecting them enough to, you know, show them some dark sides.
- [16:58]
Alison Stewart
This says, talk about weird doll stories. The magic Finger kid becomes a hunted duck, and the story is traumatic, or. Where do you think he pulled that darkness from?
- [17:10]
Aaron Tracy
I mean, I think a lot of it does come from his real life, the tragedy of his youth with his father and his sister dying within three weeks of each other when he was three years old. And then when Dahl got older, he had a bunch more family tragedies. I mean, just horrible stuff. His poor son, who was only a few months old, got hit by a taxi on the Upper east side. His daughter died of measles at 7 years old. His wife, the famous Oscar winner Patricia Neal, had a series of strokes. So Dahl was dealing with so much darkness and tragedy in his personal life, and like any writer, it found its way onto the page.
- [17:46]
Alison Stewart
Let's talk to Rachel, who's calling in from Philadelphia. Hi, Rachel. How are you?
- [17:52]
Caller
Hi, Alison. I'm doing well, and I'm originally from New York. I just have to say I grew up in Brooklyn.
- [17:58]
All right.
- [18:01]
So my question is about. Actually, one of the gruesome stories of dolls that I read when I Believe I was too young for it. It's called the Swan, and it's from the wonderful tale of Henry Sugar and six more. Essentially, I'm just curious why, with these gruesome themes, the story of the swan is a boy is bullied by two other boys. He's tied up to rail railroad tracks. The train rolls over him. He survives. And then they. There's animal cruelty in which that involves a swan and the boy with the swan's wings, he flies away. The boy who was bullied. But I'm just curious why we do consider Dahl a. A children's author when these. These themes are. Are pretty dark. And I know I read this too young since I read it once and it's stayed with me probably 30 years later. Also, to your guest Aaron's point about not being able to read antisemitism in the text, this. There's a particular instance when the boy is being tied up that he realizes he needs to lie completely flat in order to survive the train that rolls over him. But there is a lengthy description of the boy's nose and how large it is and how in order to survive, he needs to move the rocks from behind his in order to compensate for his large nose. And so with themes of bullying, with themes of violence against Jews. I'm just wondering if he does see some antisemitism in that text and also just why certain texts are considered children's stories when perhaps they shouldn't be.
- [19:45]
Aaron Tracy
Yeah, I mean, I think that's really interesting and well observed. The whole wonderful tale of Henry Sugar and the other short stories there. I actually would call those adult stories. Dahl wrote, as I said, a bunch of short stories for the New Yorker well before he ever thought about writing for kids. And I would definitely put that book in the category of adults. I mean, the title story, the Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, is an absolutely beautiful story. It might be my favorite of all of Dahl's works. It's very much a metaphor for the writing life and how someone can be changed for the better through meditation and sort of persistence with their craft. So, yeah, I think because Roald Dahl is so famous as a children's author, we tend to sort of, you know, assign some of his stories that were not meant for kids to kids, which is, you know, very detrimental.
- [20:43]
Alison Stewart
Let's talk to Mike on six. Hi, Mike. Thanks for calling, all of it.
- [20:48]
Caller
Hey, yeah, I was just calling to say that I might have missed you might have touched on this earlier in the segment. I just hopped in, but I always really liked his book Kiss Kiss. I always like short stories and it was kind of dark and, you know, in. In the vein of like the Twilight Zone or Tales from the Crypt just. Or Edgar Allan Poe stories. So that was a great short story book. And then there was my Uncle Oswald that I'd read when I was younger. And it was. Had a lot of sex in it and was, you know, pretty steamy book. And just when I was younger, those, you know, getting out of the. All the children's books that I knew them better as I thought those were two really interesting books.
- [21:33]
Alison Stewart
Thanks so much for calling in. Let's talk to Patty in Brooklyn. Hi, Patty. Thanks for calling all of it.
- [21:39]
Caller
Hi. I just wanted to talk about Champion of the World. I was a teenager and my mom loved this story, and so she gave it to me and my brother and sister. And it's about these two poachers in that they're in Ireland and they want to get all these sevens off this estate. So they push a baby pram out and they've loaded it with fruit soaked in alcohol and they toss it around and the birds start falling off the trees and getting drunk, basically. And they pile the pheasants into this baby pram and push it home and push it along the road. And it was just hilarious. And it inspired my mom on a visit to London to soak a lot of raisins in alcohol and distribute them in Trafalgar Square to see if any of the pigeons fell off.
- [22:58]
Alison Stewart
That is quite a quiet with your mom.
- [23:01]
Aaron Tracy
Yeah. These books are not instruction manuals. I just want to make clear.
- [23:07]
Alison Stewart
This is from Alec from Hell's Kitchen. I have a bunch of old doll stories from my dad. I admit they've been collecting Dusk. As someone who has not read Dahl before, what is a good text that is generally representative? What is another text that stands apart from the others? Stylistically?
- [23:24]
Aaron Tracy
Great question. I mean, it really depends what you're looking for. If you're looking for something to read to your kids, I think Matilda is right now my favorite of the children's books. It's just such an extraordinary, beautiful story that's probably a little bit less gruesome than his other children's books. If you're looking for something for yourself, the wonderful story of Henry Sugar, I think, is, as I was saying, just a beautiful story about the power of meditation and persistence with craft. And it's very much about him as a writer. Also, Netflix made a great adaptation of it. And then if you're looking for something, as a previous caller brought up. If you're looking for something sort of raunchy, my Uncle Oswald is. You will be very surprised that the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory also wrote this very sort of hard R book.
- [24:09]
Alison Stewart
What is the one thing you learned about Roald Dahl during the making of this podcast?
- [24:14]
Aaron Tracy
I mean, I truly did learn so many things. I think the most amazing thing might be that I mentioned his son was hit by a taxi and was in and out of the hospital as an infant for years. And he developed hydrocephalus, which is water on the brain. There was no valve, there was no device to get the water off the brain without infection. And Dahl said, you know what? I know I'm a writer. I know that this is not my business, but my son's life is at stake. He created a writer's room, he brought in a toy maker, and he brought in a neuroscientist. And the three of them together invented a medical device, a valve that was able to save people who suffered from hydrocephalus. And it got manufactured around the world and it's credited with saving 3,000 lives.
- [25:02]
Alison Stewart
If you want to know more about the secret world of Roald Dahl, you should listen to the podcast. I have been speaking with its creator, Aaron Tracy. Thank you so much for joining us.
- [25:11]
Aaron Tracy
Thanks so much for having me. This is great.
- [25:13]
Alison Stewart
Since WNYC's first broadcast in 1924, we've been dedicated to creating the kind of content we know the world needs. Since then, New York Public Radio's rigorous journalism has gone on to win a Peabody award and a DuPont Columbia Award, among others. In addition to this award winning reporting, your sponsorship also supports inspiring storytelling and extraordinary music that is free and accessible to all. To get in touch and find out more, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.