Someone Like You by Roald Dahl

A Golden Ticket to the Land of Terror.....

     I recently read The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin, and there among the many mentions of other literary works, was one about a short story that I had read in high school and I remember my entire class feeling fascinated at the end of reading it. The story was "Lamb to the Slaughter" by Roald Dahl.

    Roald Dahl was a stranger to me back when I was in high school. This was just before the internet took over and when Enid Blyton and Carolyn Keene's Nancy Drew were our staple reading material. Imagine the surprise when I realised that " one of the greatest storytellers for children" also wrote for adults!! So thanks to Ms. Zevin, I picked this book up to read.

    Someone like You is a collection of 18 short stories. Some of these stories like Taste, Dip in the Pool, My Lady Love, My Dove have originally appeared in The New Yorker. A few of these classics have been adapted into movies or television series ( the infamous Alfred Hitchcock Presents series) so even if you know how the story ends do read them to appreciate  Roald Dahl's writing and his magic magic.

  Let's take sneak peek into a couple of stories from the collection.

   Lamb to the Slaughter and Man from the South are fairly well known so skipping those...

  In Dip in the Pool, William Botibol a passenger on board a British cruise ship bids  200 GBP on a betting pool where passengers try to guess the number of miles the ship would travel on a given day. Botibol bets on a "low field" hoping the bad weather would slow the ship down. He wakes up to find a bright, sunny weather and the ship having made up its course. Botibol immediately sets about staging "an accident" but destiny has a mind of it's own.

  Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned in Nunc Dimitiss,when Lionel Lampson designs an elaborate revenge on his younger girlfriend Janet de Palagia.

   A wine connoisseur's skills are put to the test at a dinner party in Taste. Richard Pratt  stands to win two houses from Mike Shofield, the host if he can guess what wine is being served at the table. The stakes are doubled when Pratt seeks Mike's daughter, Louise's hand in marriage.

   Besides Lamb to the Slaughter and Man from the South I enjoyed reading Nunc Dimittis and Mr. Feasey. Tales of terror, tales of macabre, watch out for the twist in the end of each tale.

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

"Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live." 

                                                             - Morrie Schwartz

    There is an element of danger in reading books written about people who are dying. Hence, when this book was recommended and I had bought the book ( on an impulse mind you, the book cover is quite plain, unappealing actually), it just sat on my bookshelf in its pristine condition. The right moment to read the book finally presented itself when I had to take a quick weekend trip. A spiritual trip, so I was in the  right temperament too.

   The best thing about this book for me is that, though it is about a dying man, Tuesdays with Morrie was not depressing to read. I did not find any ground shattering revelations about dying nor did I tear up while reading.  The "life lessons" were about living than about accepting death or regrets in life . This I like. And introspectively, Morrie Schwartz wouldn't have wanted either, he did say that death was inevitable but life goes on. The narrative style is fairly simple, Mitch Albom does not depend on dramatic effects to stir one up, he allows Morrie's aphorisms to do that.

    Now I am not ready to look for any bird on my shoulder and ask it " Is today the day I die?". And in retrospect, having read the book, most of the aphorisms, I believe are quite common or known to most of us. We have heard ( or read) it said by " any wise man". But what puts this book on a pedestal is how Morrie strings together these revelations as something easy to imbibe.


" Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to create something that gives you purpose and meaning."

   Isn't this simple? Simple but forgotten in our rat race, in our daily grind. We have gone astray. and this is when we need a teacher, a guiding light, people like Morrie Schwartz who can light up the path. Morrie Schwartz was truly " A Teacher to the Last" Spend some time and read the book, if you haven't already, it will be worth every moment.