SWITCH BITCH [Paperback]

Roald Dahl (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Penguin (1988)
• ASIN: B002F1SWVG
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Roald Dahl (1916-1990) was born in Llandaff, South Wales, and went to Repton School in England. His parents were Norwegian, so holidays were spent in Norway. As he explains in Boy, he turned down the idea of university in favor of a job that would take him to"a wonderful faraway place. In 1933 he joined the Shell Company, which sent him to Mombasa in East Africa. When World War II began in 1939 he became a fighter pilot and in 1942 was made assistant air attaché in Washington, where he started to write short stories. His first major success as a writer for children was in 1964. Thereafter his children's books brought him increasing popularity, and when he died children mourned the world over, particularly in Britain where he had lived for many years.The BFG is dedicated to the memory of Roald Dahls eldest daughter, Olivia, who died from measles when she was seven - the same age at which his sister had died (fron appendicitis) over forty years before. Quentin Blake, the first Children's Laureate of the United Kingdom, has illustrated most of Roald Dahl's children's books.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brisk and bold, January 15, 2000

By 

"jzk" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Switch Bitch (Paperback)

An easy read, well-plotted, and often surprising, these four stories should please most readers with a taste for the ironic. The philandering, eccentric character of "Uncle Oswald" is a hedonistic delight, and the two stories involving him are certainly the better half of this small collection. It takes a masterful writer to make such an amoral protagonist work, in any context. The other two tales, involving a wife-swapping and a widow ready to try intimacy again, are less gripping, and a bit anticlimactic with their payoffs.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful collection of my favorite Dahl stories, May 22, 2006

By 

Peter D. Tillman (Taos, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Switch Bitch (Paperback)

..

This is easily Dahl's most sfnal work, and is mostly erotic humor, a micro-genre that is in woefully short supply.

Here's a sample from "Bitch", my favorite. The protag has been dosed with the world's most potent aphrodosiac:

[quote] ...the two of us were millions of miles up in outer space, flying through the universe in a shower of meteorites all red and gold. I was riding her bareback... "Faster!" I shouted, jabbing long spurs into her flanks. "Go faster!" Faster and still faster she flew, spurting and spinning around the rim of the sky, her mane streaming with sun, and snow waving out of her tail. The sense of power I had was overwhelming. I was unassailable, supreme. I was the Lord of the Universe, scattering the planets and catching the stars in the palm of my hand...

Oh, ecstasy and ravishment! Oh, Jericho and Tyre and Sidon! The walls came tumbling down and the firmament disintegrated, and out of the smoke and fire of the of the explosion, the sitting-room in the Waldorf Towers came swimming slowly back into my consciousness like a rainy day..."

What a pity that Roald Dahl didn't write more adult fiction. Anyway, if you haven't read Switch Bitch, some wonderfully sly, bawdy and remarkably well-written entertainment awaits you. Bon appetit!

Happy reading--

Peter D. Tillman

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great short stories from a master, February 8, 1998

By 

The Chalcenteric Kid (Boca Raton) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Switch Bitch (Paperback)

Roald Dahl could easily be the best ever writer of 'twist in the tale' short stories. A few years ago in the UK ( and I'm sure on PBS in the USA ) there was a television show called "Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected" in which some of his stories were dramatized. It was not too successful and I suspect that the reason was that Mr.Dahl's stories are stories to be read. That is, read on a dark night, with a strong drink close at hand, by the light of a single reading lamp.... Then you get the full effect. Yes, these stories are chilling and bizarre and simply wonderful. Though it is not in this book, everyone should read Mr.Dahl's story entitled 'Pig'. In this reviewer's opinion that was the best story that he ever wrote. The word 'shocking' does not even come close.