Storyteller
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Roald was always a diligent and engaging correspondent, and if he was in the right mood and thought a child’s letter particularly imaginative, he or she would receive a fuller and more memorable response. When the sports journalist and television anchorman Keith Olbermann was seven years old and “Head of Maps” in his class at school, he wrote to Dahl from Hastings-on-Hudson in New York and told him, at some length, about his own writing ambitions and successes. Roald’s reply was thoughtful, generous and full of gentle ironic humor. “My dear Keith,” he began.
It was wonderful to receive a letter from a fellow author. It meant so much more than the usual ordinary message from a mere reader. As “Head of Maps” you will be able to calculate very easily what a long way your letter had to travel in order to reach me in this little village. Thousands of miles. … The postman, an elderly fellow who comes on foot, knocked on the door this morning and said “I have a letter from you from K. Olbermann of Hastings, USA.” I said, “How do you know?” He said, “It says so on the envelope.” He is a very inquisitive postman and he likes to know who is writing to me. “Who is Olbermann?” asked the postman. I opened the letter and read it. “He is a writer,” I said. “He has written more books than me.…”
Olbermann’s parents later told the local newspaper that the letter had given the boy “the kick of his young life.” Mrs. Olbermann added that it “just about proves that there still are some very nice people left in this old, beat-up world. If all adults acted with such loving attention to children, would it not be wonderful?”65
Dahl was quite sincere when he argued that he thought children alone were decent judges of whether a book written for them was any good or not. In 1962, he had written to a child critic of James and the Giant Peach to tell him that, “up to now, a whole lot of grown-ups have written reviews, but none of them have really known what they were talking about because a grown-up talking about a children’s book is like a man talking about a woman’s hat.” It was an approach that, in the future, would come to define his attitude towards adult critics who disparaged his work.66 But, despite letters of support from many teachers and librarians, he remained bitterly upset by Cameron’s article and the equally unpleasant follow-up letter from a celebrated children’s science fiction writer, Ursula K. Le Guin. Le Guin acknowledged that one of her children had been “truly fascinated” by Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, describing how, as soon as her daughter finished the book, she would start rereading it. Her conclusion was not that the book had made a wonderful connection with the child’s inner world, but that, under its influence, her “usually amiable” daughter became “quite nasty.”67
Roald was “stopped cold” by these criticisms. He wrote to Richard Krinsley at Random House that the article had caused him “to lose my appetite for doing another book. I haven’t written or wanted to write a line since then. I am playing chess with Theo, Ophelia and Lucy, and I am cultivating my orchids. I don’t mind ordinary bad reviews, but I do mind those that imply personal bad taste and the possibility that I’m causing actual harm to young readers. This has temporarily taken away from me the intense pleasure I get from writing for children and with it, the enthusiasm and drive.”68
His disillusion did not last long. In a few months he completed Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, his sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and had soon embarked upon Danny The Champion of the World. Then, with his hankerings to be an adult writer still not entirely spent, and perhaps encouraged by Gottlieb’s reputation as a fiction editor, Roald decided once again to try his hand at a comic novel for grown-ups, My Uncle Oswald. This rollicking picaresque comedy, set in 1919, was ostensibly drawn from the diaries of Dahl’s fictional uncle, Oswald Henryks Cornelius—an early twentieth-century Casanova, who had first appeared in his 1964 short story, The Visitor. Using the charms of his glamorous assistant, Yasmin Howcomely, and the world’s most powerful aphrodisiac as bait, the sophisticated, worldly and cynical Oswald attempts to make his fortune gathering sperm from the world’s greatest geniuses in order to sell it to women who want to have brilliant children. Inspired by a request from Playboy magazine for another Oswald tale for their twenty-fifth anniversary edition, Roald told a journalist that this one had simply “refused to stop” and grown into a book.69 He would later describe it as “the longest and dirtiest story” he had ever written.70 It was also one that he took a particular pleasure in researching, for he wickedly enlisted the help of a number of local librarians to check biographical information about famous writers, artists, musicians and scientists in the 1920s, relishing the fact that they had no idea of the context in which their researches were going to be used. On the title page of the first draft, he wrote: “I hate the pompous, And I hate all pomp. But I love the romptious, And I love a romp.”71
Roald’s notes for the novel make entertaining reading. “D H Lawrence: Went to Italy in 1919 (Frieda) Impotent! Ravel: Kept Siamese cats. Never married. Diaghilev (homo) so no but tempted.”72 He corresponded earnestly with scientists in Cambridge about the art of preserving semen and with experts at the Milk Marketing Board in the UK about the precise details of insemination techniques. By December 1978, he told Bob Gottlieb that the book was “now two inches thick” and that its subject was “fucking.”* Gottlieb replied that he very much wanted to see it, and jokingly noted that “as for fucking, I seem to remember it.”73 From the correspondence between them, it is clear that Gottlieb enjoyed editing My Uncle Oswald, persuading Dahl that there were too many painters in the first draft and that he needed more “giants of the day” in the narrative. Later he persuaded him to take out a particularly scurrilous section about the size of Stravinsky’s penis. “I think you should eliminate the size of his pizzle,” he commented. “Madame S is still alive (and wonderful) and I feel she would be distressed.”74 Roald was delighted with Gottlieb’s input. “You did a marvellous job. More or less all your points valid. Some super. Huge thanks.”75
The book was eventually published with a short introduction from Dahl, declaring his uncle’s diaries to be a document of “considerable scientific and historical importance.” This comic conceit allowed him the opportunity to elaborate once more upon one of his favorite subjects: the ridiculous nature of male sexual behavior. Once again the male was presented as a strangely pathetic creature, dominated by the needs of his penis. Among many bizarre comic vignettes, the cerebral Sigmund Freud flaps his arms “like an old crow” and hysterically tries to analyze what is happening to him as “his doodly came alive and stuck out as though he had a walking-stick in his trousers.” Yasmin, who has disguised herself as a boy so she can seduce the homosexual Marcel Proust, discreetly disposes of the banana she has used to fool him, before getting trapped in an embrace that reminds her somewhat of a “mechanical lobster.” The self-righteous George Bernard Shaw, on the other hand, once dismissed as “all hen and no cock,” turns out to have been a virgin.76 Oswald’s cultivated eye observes the follies of human behavior with a detachment that is reminiscent of his creator’s. But did Dahl in fact see himself as Uncle Oswald? That was just “wishful thinking,” he told the Australian journalist Terry Lane a year before he died. “I would like to have been like him and I think that all men would like to be like him.”77
At the same time as Roald was writing My Uncle Oswald, other, more commercial, concerns were weighing on his shoulders. For much of the 1970s, Knopf had paid the American royalties at his request in the form of a salary, around $60,000 to $75,000 per annum.78 It was an efficient way of dealing with the fact not only that a writer’s income could be very inconsistent but that Britain had immensely high rates of personal taxation. Even after Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979 and began to cut taxes, the rate of tax payable on earned income over £20,000 was still 60 percent, and on interest and dividends above this 75 percent, so it was hardly surprising that Roald began to focus on how to get the balance of his royalties—which amounted to more than $1.25 million—out of the United States with
the minimum of interference from “the voracious Revenue men.”79
In 1970, on advice from a tax lawyer recommended to him by Cubby Broccoli, Dahl had sold the copyrights of his short stories to a company in Liechtenstein called Anric. All the revenues from the popular Anglia Television series Tales of the Unexpected were remitted to this company, which paid Dahl a salary as and when he invoiced them. It was managed by a banker from Lausanne called Gerard Schlaeppi. Now Dahl decided to set up a subsidiary company, a “Societé Anonyme” improvidently called Icarus, also registered in Switzerland, into which he asked Knopf to pay all these outstanding book royalties. It was a scheme he would later describe to Tom Maschler as “semi-legitimate.”80
Bob Bernstein went along with these plans, but then informed Roald that there was a catch. In order for the procedure to get round the U.S. IRS requirements, Icarus had to provide the publishing house with a service that appeared to justify these payments. The lawyers at Knopf, sensing an opportunity to tie down their fractious author, proposed a contract where the royalties would be paid over in four installments—as if advances for four new books.
The four-book deal cost him more than $100,000 in legal fees to negotiate and set up.81 My Uncle Oswald would be the first of these four books, to be followed by three shorter children’s books. But almost at once the agreement began to go sour. Moreover, he felt—for the first time in his life—controlled by his publishers and consequently under pressure to write fast. My Uncle Oswald was virtually complete, but the children’s books were not yet begun. By the time he started The Twits and George’s Marvellous Medicine, which would become the second and third of these short books, there were already problems administering the plan. Unusual royalty splits with Dahl and his new illustrator Quentin Blake needed attention, and agents’ percentages had to be factored in. Further redrafting was required. Dahl was soon confused by his own creation. “This all gets a bit complicated and is really too much for me,” he told Gottlieb in January 1980.82 A month later, Gottlieb, who had tried to keep himself clear of the business side of the arrangement, responded that he too was perplexed by it. “The only thing I can see clearly is that you are in as much of a muddle as I am about the business side of everything. I hate it.”83
When it came to literary matters, things were thankfully simpler. Gottlieb liked the earthy humor of The Twits, a comedy about a grotesque husband and wife who delight in playing unpleasant tricks on each other. “I like it VERY MUCH,” he told Roald. “You’re right: what we want (or should want) for these little ones is stuff with meat, not the yuchy [sic], sweetly pretty material we’re exposed to.”84 He suggested removing a particularly graphic passage about nose-blowing and also a few changes to the text that might have made it more comprehensible to an American audience. Roald agreed to drop the nose-blowing, but rejected most of his other suggestions. “Do they Americanise the Christmas Carol before publishing it, or the novels of Jane Austen?” he asked. “Let the kids figure it out for themselves. Let them also figure out ‘long knickers.’ ”85
With George’s Marvellous Medicine, too, Gottlieb’s “literal mind”86 was able to offer Roald some useful advice about issues of scale and about the “emotional payoff” at the end. But behind these cordial exchanges, the strain of delivering these new short books in order to collect royalties he had already earned was beginning to tell. The editors in Random House’s children’s division were also becoming ever more resentful of their author’s remoteness and hauteur. Frances Foster, who was editing the book as it were under Gottlieb’s cover, told her boss that she thought the ending was flawed, but felt she would have either “to hold her tongue” or “bide her time” before she could say anything to her author. By now, as well, the artifice of the Icarus arrangement was beginning to chafe with everyone. Dahl had begun, playfully enough, sending his manuscripts “direct” to Random House, “at the request of my employers, Icarus S.A.”87 However, a month later, Gottlieb complained to Dahl about the “hideous contract,” which was time-consuming and complex to administer.88 Now Roald was asking for increased royalties on the two new books, which would require further changes to the agreement.
Knowing that there was dissatisfaction with the ending of his latest manuscript, Random House’s legal department suggested that the firm hold up the next payments until Dahl finished rewriting it. “Icarus has demanded payment due for delivery of George’s Marvellous Medicine,” their lawyer wrote to Gottlieb, “but under our contract, payment is due on delivery of a manuscript in content and form acceptable to [Random House]. I understand that the manuscript for the above title was delivered in February, or perhaps sooner, but that Roald Dahl has been asked to re-write the last chapter. If that is the case, the payment will not be due until he has rewritten the manuscript to make it satisfactory.”89 The arrangement, which Roald had devised to benefit himself, was now starting to work against him.
Furthermore, Roald could not charm Gottlieb as he had charmed Alfred Knopf, Sheila St. Lawrence, Ann Watkins or Tom Maschler. So when, in March 1980, he wrote to Gottlieb, politely asking for a supply of his favorite pencils, the request was not treated as a priority. Roald had written with these pencils ever since the war. For years, Ann Watkins and Sheila St. Lawrence had sent them out to England for him. It was probably a sign of his deteriorating relationship with Mike Watkins—no longer his main agent, but now a subagent to Murray Pollinger—that he had started turning to his publishers instead. But Gottlieb was a busy man. He was editing perhaps a dozen other books and he was not used to looking after his authors that way. For three months, Dahl’s letter went unanswered. In June, he followed it up again. “Quite a long time ago I wrote, either to you or addressing it to your secretary, asking if someone could buy for me and send over: 1 gross DIXON TICONDEROGA PENCILS, 2 5/10 MEDIUM. Did anyone get the message?” Lest Gottlieb should think him importunate, he added: “I’ve used no other pencils since I started writing thirty-seven years ago. They little erasors [sic] on top. I’d be awfully grateful if someone could do this for me. Airmail. Let me know how much and I’ll send a cheque (check).”90
A week later, Gottlieb’s assistant replied: “I’m afraid we’ve not had too much luck. No one seems to carry Dixon Ticonderoga any longer. The enclosed is the closest we could come, and the salesman assured us that these were very similar to the Ticonderoga. But, since they’re $65.00 for a gross I thought it would be a good idea for you to give them a try before purchasing that many.”91 Unfortunately, no one had appreciated how important these pencils were to Roald. “They don’t have erasers on top. They are too hard. And they are the wrong colour,”92 he wrote back, asking if she would mind phoning the Joseph Dixon Crucible Co. in Jersey City to find out if they were still manufacturing them. Curiously, the pencils were not that hard to come by. They were and still are standard in many U.S. schools, so it is strange that Gottlieb’s assistant failed. Yet from the contact details and prices scribbled on the letter, she had clearly tried at least five local stationery stores. Roald, of course, was unaware of this. To him, it seemed that his American publishers were now unwilling even to supply their author with one of the key fetishes he required to perform his craft. The conclusion was obvious: he was no longer appreciated or valued at Random House.
That summer, the royalty storm continued to simmer. Gottlieb, who didn’t care how the royalties were paid “as long as they were legal,” found Roald’s demands increasingly “exaggerated … dotty … unrealistic and unmeetable,” recalling that “waves of hostility” were growing apace between them. Roald himself was ill, tired and under stress. His marriage to Pat was on its last legs. He wrote to old Alfred Knopf to see if he could help. But by now this King Lear had played out his last rages and was powerless to assist him. “At the office I only know what I am told,” he wrote to Dahl, “and don’t ask too many questions, so I know of your troubles only from you. I hope, for sentimental reasons, that they will not drive you from the firm, which I think still bears a fine reputat
ion.”93 If Mike Watkins had been more sensitive and manipulative, he might yet have headed off the storm. But Roald no longer trusted Watkins’s judgment and Watkins now did little more for him than simply collect his percentages. Sooner or later there was bound to be an explosion.
In August 1980, Roald sent Gottlieb the last of his four titles, a book of scurrilous and witty poems for children called Dirty Beasts. “Icarus has asked me to forward the enclosed to you direct to save time,” he wrote, adding that “Tom Maschler and his gang have seen each one as it’s come along and we have collaborated closely upon the correct and most economical proper length this book should be. They all seem to be enormously high on it … I believe this completes the contract between you and Icarus and no doubt you will be dealing with Mr. Schlaeppi regarding what you owe him.”94 Gottlieb replied with a lengthy critique of the book, and concluded by reminding him that he was “no longer involved with the contract side.” Business stuff was not his domain, he insisted; it put him in a “no win” situation.95 Three weeks later, Roald had still heard nothing and he was furious. “I would like to hear from you or from someone that the nefarious four book contract between Knopf and the foreign company has now been completed,” he fumed. “That would be a small act of grace and thoughtfulness. I have felt that fucking contract clutching at my throat like a bloodsucking vampire ever since it was written.”96 Gottlieb replied that the Juvenile Department would get back to him, and on October 20, Dahl received a letter saying that the manuscript had been accepted and that the final sum of money could be released.