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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic, funny and not a little cruel., September 19, 2001
There seems to have been a major shift in children's literature recently, thanks, of course, to the pre-eminence of Harry Potter. The latter is a hero parents can be proud of - bespectacled, middle-class, studious: the subtext is education is fun, enlightening and empowering. The major children's writer before JK Rowling was Roald Dahl, who boasted few of these virtues, offering children cruel wit, and a morbid, often murderous mistrust of parents, adults, education and authority in general. He also implied that children could be malevolent and destructive. Parents hated him - I had to discover Dahl through friends; my mum bought me Enid Blyton. There was always the thrilling feeling that you were doing something illicit or conspiratorial reading Roald Dahl. The hero of 'Fantastic Mr Fox' is a thief, a violater of property and business, and a murderer and torturer of animals, traits unlikely to endear him to the English middle classes. On the other hand, he rejoices in family values, still endearingly in love with his wife, and a great father. Under impossible odds, he tries to save his family and a host of other animals from the cruelty of three vile farmers, Boggis, Bunce and Bean, who are sick of the varmint's nocturnal sorties for their produce. First they try to shoot him, but only pepper his tail (a deliciously gruesome episode). Next they dig into his tunnel, but he can dig faster. They use huge mechanical diggers, turning a hill into a valley. They try to starve him, surrounding the area with weapon-wielding minions. The story of 'Fox' is very simple with few twists and turns. The impact, however, can be traumatic, and not just for young children - I read this to my wife (as you do), and we both got very anxious for our heroes, faced with the terrifying industrial might of the farmers. The irony of the story is ecological - while trying to save a few goods for business, the farmers nearly destroy the countryside and an entire animal network; the fox can only do what is natural, which is steal and kill (to which Dahl is faithful with admirable unsentimentality). The image of the three farmers waiting, possibly forever, at the hole for the fox to starve, is chilling and close to Beckett. Once again, Dahl gets a great deal of pleasure in frightening his young audience, and his way with alliterative insults is as delightful as ever, while Quentin Blake's scribbles, though not part of the original book, are now so synonymous with Dahl's world, it's impossible to imagine it without them.
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