Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl
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Amazon.co.uk Review
“It’s a measure of the greatness of this biography that Sturrock is able to get behind these fantasies and exaggerations without losing respect or sympathy for Dahl….There are big gaps between Dahl’s masterpieces….a real joy of this book is that they show just how much work went into those slim volumes, and how much depended on a series of brilliant editors” The Times by Frank Cottrell Boyce
“This is his first biography and it is hard to see how he could have done it better. At all times he is able to view Dahl from within and without - as he saw himself and as others saw him – and to explain the divide... Dahl’s life is a biographer’s dream…full of drama, both comical and romantic and, sometimes, desperately tragic… For all his faults... there was something magnificently bullish about Roald Dahl, a childlike refusal to accept the world as it was. Donald Sturrock captures this side of him beautifully, so much so that I finished STORYTELLER feeling... his was a heroic life” Mail on Sunday by Craig Brown
”Pig-headed, domineering, mendacious, boastful, foul-mouthed, coarse, boorish--as you tick off the adjectives that describe Roald Dahl, the chances of a biographer coming up with a winning portrait seem slim. Yet Donald Sturrock has managed it with zest and aplomb. What shines out from almost every page of this intimately informed biography is Dahl’s vitality, courage and passion for life…What he was was vivid and dynamic, and this vivid, dynamic book gives you the illusion that you knew him”. Sunday Times by John Carey
”It’s hard to imagine anyone do a better job on him than Donald Sturrock… consistently shrewd, well able to embrace his subject’s many contradictions, generally sympathetic and yet never blind to Dahl’s less attractive side… it’s exemplary” Daily Mail by John Preston --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
“This is his first biography and it is hard to see how he could have done it better. At all times he is able to view Dahl from within and without - as he saw himself and as others saw him – and to explain the divide... Dahl’s life is a biographer’s dream…full of drama, both comical and romantic and, sometimes, desperately tragic… For all his faults... there was something magnificently bullish about Roald Dahl, a childlike refusal to accept the world as it was. Donald Sturrock captures this side of him beautifully, so much so that I finished STORYTELLER feeling... his was a heroic life” Mail on Sunday by Craig Brown
”Pig-headed, domineering, mendacious, boastful, foul-mouthed, coarse, boorish--as you tick off the adjectives that describe Roald Dahl, the chances of a biographer coming up with a winning portrait seem slim. Yet Donald Sturrock has managed it with zest and aplomb. What shines out from almost every page of this intimately informed biography is Dahl’s vitality, courage and passion for life…What he was was vivid and dynamic, and this vivid, dynamic book gives you the illusion that you knew him”. Sunday Times by John Carey
”It’s hard to imagine anyone do a better job on him than Donald Sturrock… consistently shrewd, well able to embrace his subject’s many contradictions, generally sympathetic and yet never blind to Dahl’s less attractive side… it’s exemplary” Daily Mail by John Preston --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
‘[A] superb biography…a hugely readable portrait that examines vividly and sympathetically the life and work of a difficult, complex author who was adored by millions of children, loathed by many adults, and was possibly a genius’ Sunday Telegraph
‘A truly magnificent biography…a masterly account’ A.N.Wilson
‘Donald Sturrock [is] a creative and sensitive biographer…minutely researched, Storyteller does Dahl the service, as Dahl did for some of his characters, of revealing the human in the monstrous’ Times Literary Supplement
‘It’s a measure of the greatness of this biography that Sturrock is able to get behind these fantasies and exaggerations without losing respect or sympathy for Dahl…sometimes the very nature of Sturrock’s primary sources is enough to stop you in your tracks’ The Times
‘A tremendously assured piece of work…Deftly, and with great acuity, [Sturrock] manages to embrace Dahl’s numerous contradictions’ Spectator
‘Sturrock has done a fine job of memorialising this extraordinary curmudgeon’ Evening Standard
‘This warts-and-all biography brings [Dahl] vividly to life’ Sunday Express
‘Storyteller is a real liability if you have anything resembling a busy schedule. It hooks you from its opening sentence and before you know it you're up to your armpits in stories about spies and foxes and movie stars and you don't want to tear yourself away. As engrossing as only the best biographies can be.’ Tom Shone
‘The person I met when I met Roald Dahl comes through vividly on the pages of Storyteller. Dahl told me that he was generally disappointed in what people wrote about him, but I believe he would have appreciated Donald Sturrock's beautifully written book.’ Charlotte Chandler
‘Irresistible. I thought I knew quite a lot about Roald Dahl, but now I know much much more. Donald Sturrock's book lucidly describes a complicated life and relates it to the richness of Dahl's storytelling.’ Quentin Blake, illustrator
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Donald Sturrock has penned an immensely enjoyable and readable account of Roald Dahl's life. Comparisons with Jeremy Treglown's biography are inevitable, and the two books rarely differ in their telling of the earlier part of Dahl's life. To my mind, the key difference is that Sturrock has benefited from extensive access to the Dahl family's archives and so his portrait of Dahl's postwar career (until his marriage) is rather fuller than Treglown's, as is his account of the final years of Dahl's life.
This biography has a pleasing tendency to focus on unraveling Dahl's complex (and misunderstood) character using Dahl's archival sources, rather than Treglown's preponderance of 'non-Dahl' sources. Dahl seems to have been somewhat impenetrable to the outsider, and so Sturrock should be commended for the readability and clarity of his work.
Storyteller will become the definitive account of Roald Dahl's life. Some will argue that this being the 'official' biography makes it one-sided or unreliable, but the cooperation of the Dahl family undoubtedly strengthens the credibility of some of Sturrock's descriptions, whilst he is unafraid of highlighting Dahl's hypocrises, temper, lack of sentimentality alongside his talent for writing, his understanding of a child's mentality, his philanthropy and his role as a family man. All in all, a wonderful read.
This biography has a pleasing tendency to focus on unraveling Dahl's complex (and misunderstood) character using Dahl's archival sources, rather than Treglown's preponderance of 'non-Dahl' sources. Dahl seems to have been somewhat impenetrable to the outsider, and so Sturrock should be commended for the readability and clarity of his work.
Storyteller will become the definitive account of Roald Dahl's life. Some will argue that this being the 'official' biography makes it one-sided or unreliable, but the cooperation of the Dahl family undoubtedly strengthens the credibility of some of Sturrock's descriptions, whilst he is unafraid of highlighting Dahl's hypocrises, temper, lack of sentimentality alongside his talent for writing, his understanding of a child's mentality, his philanthropy and his role as a family man. All in all, a wonderful read.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Who doesn't like a good thick door-stop of a literary biography?
This is one an absorbing and a useful corrective to Dahl's own highly distorted, but entertaining, autobiographical 'Boy' and 'Going Solo'. As I understand it there was a lapse of 16 years between this biography being started, set aside and then picked up again by Stewart Thurrock who already knew Dahl well. In that time no doubt some witnesses to Dahl's life had passed on. Fortunately he managed to talk to Dahl's first wife, the oscar winning film star Patricia Neal before she herself passed away shortly before the book went to print.
News to me was Dahl's wartime and post-war 'sexploits' among the rich and famous in Washington DC and New York as was the 'curse' that his family, he thought, lived under. I was a little surprised that his involvement in Anglia TV's 'Tales of the Unexpected' merited barely two lines when for many of us it was our first introduction to the author. That niggle aside this book will remain Dahl's definitive biography. Buy it.
This is one an absorbing and a useful corrective to Dahl's own highly distorted, but entertaining, autobiographical 'Boy' and 'Going Solo'. As I understand it there was a lapse of 16 years between this biography being started, set aside and then picked up again by Stewart Thurrock who already knew Dahl well. In that time no doubt some witnesses to Dahl's life had passed on. Fortunately he managed to talk to Dahl's first wife, the oscar winning film star Patricia Neal before she herself passed away shortly before the book went to print.
News to me was Dahl's wartime and post-war 'sexploits' among the rich and famous in Washington DC and New York as was the 'curse' that his family, he thought, lived under. I was a little surprised that his involvement in Anglia TV's 'Tales of the Unexpected' merited barely two lines when for many of us it was our first introduction to the author. That niggle aside this book will remain Dahl's definitive biography. Buy it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A good and fascinating read, telling you a great deal more about this eccentric and talented writer with unexpected sides to his character.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
"...a marvellous or funny or incredible place...."
This is a very good biography particularly as Sturrock has to strike a careful balance: Dahl is not an easy person to write about and he certainly offended people in his time. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Chaucer
Well researched but...
I'm raining on the parade but despite all the plaudits it's received, I can't help thinking this biography has been written by someone with little love or understanding of... Read more
Published 7 months ago by T. Bently
Comprehensive and honest.
Having recently taught some of Roald Dahl's work to Year 7 pupils, I was already interested before even opening the book. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Lizzie G
Complex contradictory Dahl brilliantly revealed
Roald Dahl children's book threw open the barn doors and released many of the taboos of post war children's writing. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Steven Wilson
good bye roald dahl!
this book surprised me, it taught me things i didn't know. and some of it will stay with me for a long time. Read more
Published 11 months ago by tim book 2
Storyteller
Roald Dahl was a complex man, at times generous and humorous and at others cantankerous and difficult to deal with and this book explores all these sides of his character and... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Spider Monkey
Thoroughly absorbing
Four hundred and forty-eight pages of delightful, macabre, shocking and intriguing stories from a life less ordinary. Read more
Published 15 months ago by kvasey
Roald Dahl The Biography
I've been looking forward to learning more about this complex man and not getting the biography for Christmas, I eventually bought it for myself. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Caroline Prior
A parent who was sparky
'Most great writers are two people, if not more: their art grows out of the splits in their personalities. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Ryan Williams
An Excellent Biography
It appears to me that this is the first book that Donald Sturrock has written; if that's the case, many congratulations to him, because this new biography of Roald Dahl is an... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Mr. R. D. M. Kirby
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