Books I Love, Part 2

Roald Dahl.....what images come to mind when you hear that name? Flowing rivers of chocolate, entire worlds inside of pieces of fruit, glass eyes in mugs of beer....one thing is for sure, the image that comes to mind will be a very abstract one. Roald Dahl's stories are an amuesment park for the abstract mind.

My personal Roald Dahl favorite has always been The BFG.

The BFG (Big Friendly Giant) is the only giant that is not a cannibal. He is a dream catcher. He catches dreams, and the blows them into the windows of sleeping children. Sophie is a little girl from an orphanage who happens to see him one night. Because she saw him, he has to take her with him. He shows her the other giants, who eat people every night. Together they devise a plan to capture the giants.

The BFG is the most wonderful character. Even though he is the runt of the giants, his strength of character is huge. The giants torment him for not eating humans, and yet he refuses to become like them. Even the thought of eating disgusting snozzcumbers for the rest of his life doesn't make him question his choice to do what he believes is right.

He takes Sophie with him one night to catch dreams. This part of the story has always put such great visuals in my head. What the dreams look like when you put them into the jar....seeing the BFG figure out what the dream is about and write it on the label...his reaction to catching a nightmare...

I always loved the way the BFG spoke. He was uneducated, but would come out with the greatest truisms...for instance, when Sophie expresses her disbelief that a vegetable called a snozzcumber exists, he says:

"Yesterday, we was not believing in giants, was we? Today we is not believing in snozzcumbers. Just because we happen not to have actually seen something with our own two winkles, we think it is not existing. The matter with human beans is that they is absolutely refusing to believe in anything unless they is actually seeing it right in front of their own schnozzles."

Ain't it the truth...