السادير جري
- السادير جري كاتب وفنان اسكتلندي ولد عام 1934 اشهر رواياته لانارك والتي استغرف في كتابتها قرابة 30 عام
- كتب في السياسة والاشتراكية والاستقلال لاسكتلندا وفي تاريخ الادب الانجليزي
- ولد في جلاسكو وكان والده قد جرح في الحرب العالمية الاولى وكان يعمل في مصنع وكانت امه تعمل في دكان
- خلال الحرب العالمةي الثانية تك ترحيلة اولا الى بيرثشير ومن ثم الى لانارك شير وهو ما انعكس لاحقا في ادبه
- عاشت العائلة على المخصصات التي منحت لوالده بسبب اصابته في الحرب وبعض المساعادات من رامج تعليمية كانت تمنح مجانا
- تزوج مرتين مرة عام 1961- 1970 والثانية من 1991 ولديه ولد واحد ولد عام 1964 وما يزال يعيش في جلاسكو
- - كتب عن والديه وكيف عاشا في اسرة من الطبقة العاملة وفي منطقة يسكنها سكان من الطبقة العاملة ليظهر ان الاشتراكية تخدم الفقراء
- في رد على سؤال ان كانت محتويات روايته تعكس احداث حياته اجاب بأنها في الجزء الاول وحتى العام 20 هي تسجل التعاسة التي واجهها في حياته المبكرة
- في عام 1940 تم ترحيل الام والاب والابنة من جلاسكو الى مزرعة في بيتشير حيث اثر العيش هناك سلبا على صحة السدير واشتدت الاكزما والازمة عليه
- عاد لينضم الى والده مرة ثانية عام 1942 بعد ان حصل والده على عمل
- ماتت امه عام 1952 وكان عمره عندها 18 عاما
- عام 1973 مات والده

يتيم الام في سن 18

The New York Trilogy is a series of novels by Paul Auster. Originally published sequentially as City of Glass (1985), Ghosts (1986) and The Locked Room (1986), it has since been collected into a single volume.
Plot introduction
Ostensibly presented as detective fiction, the stories of The New York Trilogy have been described as "meta-detective-fiction", "anti-detective fiction", "mysteries about mysteries", a "strangely humorous working of the detective novel", "very soft-boiled", a "metamystery" and a "mixture between the detective story and the nouveau roman"[citation needed]. This may classify Auster as a postmodern writer whose works are influenced by the "classical literary movement" of American postmodernism through the 1960s and 70s[citation needed]. There is, however, "a certain coherence in the narrative discourse, a neo-realistic approach and a show of responsibility for social and moral aspects going beyond mere metafictional and subversive elements"[citation needed], which distinguish him from a "traditional" postmodern writer. The New York Trilogy is a particular form of postmodern detective fiction which still uses well-known elements of the detective novel (the classical and hardboiled varieties, for example) but also creates a new form that links "the traditional features of the genre with the experimental, metafictional and ironic features of postmodernism."
A 2006 reissue by Penguin Books is fronted by new pulp magazine-style covers by comic book illustrator Art Spiegelman]
City of Glass
The first story, City of Glass, features a detective-fiction writer become private investigator who descends into madness as he becomes embroiled in a case. It explores layers of identity and reality, from Paul Auster the writer of the novel to the unnamed "author" who reports the events as reality to "Paul Auster the writer", a character in the story, to "Paul Auster the detective", who may or may not exist in the novel, to Peter Stillman the younger to Peter Stillman the elder and, finally, to Daniel Quinn, protagonist.
Ghosts
The second story, Ghosts, is about a private eye called Blue, trained by Brown, who is investigating a man named Black on Orange Street for a client named White. Blue writes written reports to White who in turn pays him for his work. Blue becomes frustrated and loses himself as he becomes immersed in the life of Black.
The Locked Room
The Locked Room is the story of a writer who lacks the creativity to produce fiction. Fanshawe,[1] his childhood friend, has produced creative work, and when he disappears the writer publishes his work and replaces him in his family. The title is a reference to a "locked room mystery", a popular form of early detective fiction.

روايات بول أوستر محتفى بها فى أوروبا، ولكن الأمر ليس كذلك فى وطنه أمريكا. لحسن الحظ هو يعتبر هذا إطراء.

تقول إحدى شخصيات رواية بول أوستر الأخيرة (سانست بارك): "ليس من المفترض أن يتحدث الكتاب إلى الصحفيين." هذا أمر محبط، أقرأ هذا وأنا فى طريقى لأحاور أوستر. تكمل الشخصية: "الحوار هو شكل أدبى وضيع لا يهدف إلا لتبسيط ما لا يجب تبسيطه." هذا سيكون مثيرا للسخرية.

أثناء توجهى نحو منزله، البنى الضخم الواقع فى شارع محفوف بالأشجار ببروكلين- نيويورك، شعرت بالاضطراب، لأننى رأيت أوستر ينظر إلىّ من النافذة بوجه حجرى، كأحد الشخصيات الكئيبة فى رواياته وأفلامه (شارك فى إخراج فيلمى دخان وكآبة على الوجه).

ولكن الانطباع الأول كان خاطئا، فأوستر رحب بى بشدة عندما وصلت وأنا أحمل حقائبى؛ فلم يكن لدىّ وقت لأمر على الفندق قبل ذلك.

قال وهو يتقدم ليساعدنى: "تبدين كأنك جئت لتبقى.. مرحبا بك لو أحببت أن تبقى هنا."

أوستر، 63 عاما، يجلس على كرسى مخملى لونه كاكى، تبرز منه أشغال خشبية لامعة، روائع من الفن الحديث على الجدران، كتب ومجلات ملقاة بلطف هنا وهناك، آنيات زهور مرتبة.

يعيش هنا مع زوجته الثانية الروائية سيرى هاستفيت، أما ابنته صوفى، 23 عاما، الممثلة والمغنية، فتعيش بالقرب منه فى مانهاتن. وبينما كان يشعل أولى سجائره الصغيرة سألته لماذا ينزعج من الحوارات.

قال باهتمام: "اسمعى.. أنا مخلص للناشرين، ولا أريد أن أكون منفرا، أريد أن أكون ذو روح حلوة، لذلك فأنا أجرى حوارا من آن لآخر، ولكنى أعتقد أن الفن لا يمكن إيجازه أبدا وبأى شكل، يمكن تحليله ومناقشته، ولكنى لا أعرف إن كان على الفنان أن يفعل ذلك."

يختلف الأمر باختلاف من تستمع إليه، فربما يكون أوستر هو أعظم كاتب فى جيله، أو هو تجريبى وغامض جدا لدرجة أنه لا يُقرأ. يتنهد ويقول: "نحن جميعا نتلقى الضربات.. على مر السنوات تلقيت انتقادات فظيعة وتلقيت مديحا مبالغا فيه، ونادرا ما تلقيت شيئا فيما بينهما."

أرجأت قراءة كتبه (الصعبة) لسنوات، وفوجئت حينما وجدتها ليست كذلك. (سانست بارك) روايته السادسة عشر المنشورة للتو تدور أحداثها فى بروكلين، المكان الذى يعرفه جيدا.

إنها تدور حول قصة تحول تقليدية نسبيا، عن شاب يتسلط عليه ضميره ويهرب من عائلته، وينفق على نفسه عن طريق تنظيف المنازل التى أخليت لتوها. ولكن نحن نقرأ رواية لأوستر، فلا يوجد شىء يسير بالضبط كما نتوقع، ولكنها قصة جذابة.

سألته إن كان يزعجه قول الناس إن كتبه غير مفهومة. "لا.. هذا لا يزعجنى، ولكن الشىء الطريف هو أننى أعتقد أنها سهلة الفهم، فكتبى عن العالم الواقعى، أنا لا أكتب عن أخيلة وهمية، اسمعى..." قال هذه الكلمة التى يستخدمها مرارا ليعطى إحساسا بالأهمية: "ما أكافح من أجله هو الوضوح فى كل جملة."

كان يرتدى قميصا أزرق غاليا، وبنطلون بدلة أسود، وحذاء جلديا لامعا. بدا أوستر كسياسى أنيق وشديد التهذيب. كان يكرر مشجعا: "هذا سؤال رائع."

لماذا أصبح كاتبا؟ قال أوستر: "هذا هو السؤال غالبا؟ اسمعى، أعتقد أن الكتابة تأتى من إحساس شديد بالوحدة، إحساس بالعزلة." ولكن أليست الكتابة تزيد من هذا الإحساس؟ "لا.. أنا لم أشعر أبدا بذلك.. وإنما كنت أشعر أننى مبتهج وأنا أكتب. بدأت بكتابة أشعار بشعة للغاية وأنا فى التاسعة أو العاشرة تقريبا، وارتقيت إلى القصة القصيرة وأنا فى الحادية أو الثانية عشر."

نشأ فى ساوث أورانج- نيوجيرسى، كابن ليهوديين مهاجرين من بولندا؛ صمويل وكوينى، كانا غير متفاهمين وانفصلا فى النهاية. كان أبوه بائع أثاث، ثم سمسار عقارات، وتتضح فى كتاب أوستر الأول (اختراع العزلة) طبيعة علاقتهما الصعبة.

لم تكن هناك كتب كثيرة فى المنزل، حتى سافر عمه المترجم وترك مكتبته لأسرة أوستر. "عندما كنت فى الثالثة عشر من العمر ذهلت من (الحارس فى حقل الشوفان)، لم يكن هناك شىء يشبه هذا الصوت." ولكن الصاعقة الحقيقية جاءت عندما قرأ (الجريمة والعقاب)، "هذا الكتاب غيرنى، أذكر أننى كنت أفكر: لو كانت هذه هى الرواية فهذا هو ما أود أن أفعله. كنت أقرأه وأنا مضطرب جدا."

ذهب إلى جامعة كولومبيا، ثم بدأ يعمل على ناقلة بترول: "أردت أن أقوم بمغامرة؛ كنت قد حصلت على البكالوريوس والماجستير، وأردت أن أفعل شيئا مختلفا."

فى سن الثالثة والعشرين توجه إلى فرنسا ليحصل على عيشه ككاتب. يقول أوستر: "ما كنت أفعله هو أن أحصل على الطعام.. عندما عدت من باريس، كنت فى السابعة والعشرين، وكل ما كان معى هو تسعة دولارات. كنت قد نشرت كتابا واحدا فى الشعر، وربما كتابا أو اثنين فى الترجمة. بقيت مع أبى حتى أجد مكانا لأعيش فيه. كان مرتبكا، لم يكن يدرى ماذا يصنع بى، ولكننى أتعاطف معه، فقد كنت مجنونا."

"كان كلامه منطقيا، قال لى: أنا لا أفهمك.. ستموت إذا لم تفعل شيئا، هذا غير مقبول. لأول وهلة أثر فىّ رأيه، وفكرت فى أن أكون أستاذا جامعيا، ولكنى فى النهاية ظللت أكتب."

مات الأب قبل أن يصبح أوستر مشهورا، "الآن أستطيع كسب عيشى من كل هذا، وفى الحقيقة أنا أحيا بشكل أفضل مما توقعت على الإطلاق.. كان سيصبح سعيدا جدا." أما عن أمه: "هى تضع كتبى بفخر على أرفف مكتبتها، ولكنى لا أعتقد أنها قرأتها، كانت دائما مهتمة أكثر بالأفلام التى صنعتها، الأفلام هى التى استطاعت التواصل معها.. وليس الكتب."

رواياته التى لفتت الانتباه هى (ثلاثية نيويورك)، تلك الروايات البوليسية الثلاث المنفصلة المتصلة التى يستكشف فيها مسائل الهوية واللغة. الروايات اللاحقة أكدت على صوته المتميز، حتى أصبح شهيرا خاصة فى أوروبا؛ حيث حصل على الجائزة الثقافية الفرنسية للأدب الأجنبى، وجائزة أمير أستورياس بأسبانيا.

"فى فرنسا يشعرون أننى مثلهم، كونى أتحدث الفرنسية يساعدنى على ذلك، فأنا لست عدوا أمريكيا."

فى الولايات المتحدة يقدر أوستر بشكل أقل: "كل قصصى عن أمريكا، كلها متشربة بالتاريخ الأمريكى والأدب الأمريكى، ولكن.. الناس لا يهتمون كثيرا بالكتب، لا توجد ثقافة كتاب هنا."

ومع ذلك فقد تأثر بالاحتفاء بجوناثان فرانزن الذى جعلته روايته الأخيرة يتصدر غلاف التايم. يقول أوستر بحماس: "هذا رائع، لم أر شيئا مثل هذا من عقود.. أنا سعيد أن أحدا جاد إلى حد ما يحصل على هذا الاهتمام."

سألته إن كان يغار من ذلك، هل كان يحب أن يكون على غلاف التايم؟ يضحك: "أعتقد أن فرصة حدوث ذلك معدومة، أنا لا أفكر فى ذلك، فما أفعله بعيد جدا عن الذائقة الأمريكية، ولم أقل أبدا لنفسى: أريد أن أكتب كتابا عن الأزمة الاقتصادية فى أمريكا، أو عن مؤسسة الزواج."

"أنا لا أعرف حتى ما يمكن أن أفعله، أنا فقط أكتب ما أكتبه، لدىّ دافع هائل للتواصل، أريد أن أتغلغل تحت جلد القارئ وداخل عقله وقلبه، أن أتحداه وأحركه، وأفتح عينيه على أشياء ربما لم يفكر فيها من قبل."

هو يزعم أنه لا يقرأ المقالات التى تكتب عن أعماله: "هى إما ستحبطنى أو ستطرينى بشكل غير مقبول. فى مرة كنت أقرأ جريدة ساعة الإفطار وتصادف أن رأيت مقالا عنى وأخذنى الفضول."

كان يقول: "بول أوستر لا يؤمن بقيم الرواية التقليدية. هذا بدا كأنه هجوما سياسيا، لو بدلت جملة قيم أسرية بجملة قيم روائية. هذا يعبر بشكل كبير عما يعتقده النقاد الأمريكيون عن عملى.

مثل العديد من الكتاب ينزعج أوستر من أمريكا: "ربما تأتى اللحظة التى سأنزعج فيها بالقدر الذى سيضطرنى للرحيل." قال ذلك مازحا إلى حد ما. "أشعر بتعاطف شديد مع أوباما، أنا لا أعتقد أننى رأيت مثل هذا الصراع فى الحكومة، الجمهوريون يسعون عمليا على إفشال أوباما، سيشعرون بسعادة كبيرة إذا مات، وأعتقد أنه أظهر حلما كبيرا بتحكمه فى نفسه."

وأوستر يعرف كيف يكون حليما، ففى مرة قُدّم إليه ناقد كان يهاجم كتبه، هذا فى الوقت الذى كان لا يزال يقرأ فيه النقاد: "عندما سمع الناقد اسمى شحب وجهه، توقع أن ألكمه، والحقيقة أننى كنت أريد ذلك لأن ما كتبه أغضبنى جدا."

"بعد ذلك قلت لنفسى أن أفضل طريقة للتعامل مع الأمر هو التظاهر بأننى لا أعرفه، لذلك قلت له: أنا سعيد جدا بلقائك." يضحك ويقول: "لحظته يتنفس الصعداء من رئتيه، ولكنه لا يزال ينتقدنى، لذلك أشعر الآن أنه كان علىّ أن ألكمه."

أبطال روايات أوستر غالبا ما يكونوا قد تعرضوا لخسارة كبيرة قبل بداية القصة: "أنا مهتم بأن أبدأ قصصى بأزمة ما لأرى كيف ستتعامل الشخصية معها." هل تعرض لخسائر مشابهة فى حياته؟ "العديد من الناس ماتوا أمامى فجأة، فهذا الشعور ليس غريبا علىّ."

أكثر من أى شىء آخر تمتلئ روايات أوستر بالحوادث والصدف؛ عندما كان فى الرابعة عشر رأى أوستر صبيا يموت مصعوقا حينما كانوا فى رحلة بمعسكر صيفى. يقول: "ربما تكون تلك التجربة هى أكثر شىء أثر على رؤيتى للعالم."

يستعيد القصة كأنه يستعيد رعب تلك اللحظة: "كنا تائهين فى الغابات، وهبت فوقنا عاصفة رعدية شديدة، وكانت تلقى بصواعقها على الأرض، كان الأمر أشبه بقذف القنابل."

"أحد الصبية قال إنه من الأفضل أن نتوجه بعيدا عن الأشجار، تحركنا فى صف واحد تحت سياج من الأسلاك الشائكة، الصبى الذى كان أمامى كان تحت السياج مباشرة عندما ضربته الصاعقة، مات فى التو، ولكننا لم ندر ذلك."

"جذبناه واستلقينا على الأرض معه طوال العاصفة، أتذكر أننى كنت أمسك لسانه حتى لا يبتلعه، وشاهدت لون جسمه يشحب. عندما ترى ذلك وأنت فى الرابعة عشر، تبدأ فى إدراك أن العالم أقل استقرارا بكثير مما كنت تعتقد."

"الحياة ليست مرتبة بعناية، فأنت تذهب إلى العمل فى يوم ما، فتصطدم طائرة بالمبنى وتجد نفسك احترقت."

هل وعيه الدائم بهذه التبدلات يجعل الحياة صعبة العيش؟ "اسمعى، الأمر لا يعنى أننى أسعى باحثا عن هذه الأشياء، أنا مثل الجميع، لدىّ أحلام وأهداف، وأشعر بالإحباط عندما لا تتم. إنما الفكرة أن هناك العديد من الأشياء ليست فى قدراتنا. لقد قابلت سيرى بالصدفة، الحظ جعلنا نعيش سويا لثلاثين عاما حتى الآن."

تقابلا فى أمسية شعرية بنيويورك، أوستر كان قد تزوج من قبل بليديا ديفيز، كاتبة قصة قصيرة، ولديه منها ابن؛ دانييل. مؤخرا وصفت سيرى اللقاء كالتالى: "ذهبت إلى الردهة ورأيت هذا الرجل الوسيم، قدمت إليه ووقعت فى حبه فى ظرف عشر ثوان."

يقول أوستر: "لو لم يظهر أحدنا لما تقابلنا أبدا، كانت فرصة وحيدة.". وبالصدفة أيضا فُتح الباب لأرى امرأة شقراء طويلة. ابتسمنا جميعا. قال: "ها هى سيرى." وكان يبدو هو نفسه متفاجئا.

يكتب أوستر رواياته فى شقة قريبة، "أذهب إلى هذا المكان المتقشف، لا شىء هناك سوى العمل، أكتب فى دفتر، أحيانا أمزق كل ما كتبت، لو استطعت كتابة صفحة واحدة أرى أننى أنجزت فى اليوم، أتوجه بعد ذلك لأكتبها على آلتى الكاتبة."

لا يملك بريدا إلكترونيا ولا كمبيوتر، "ليس لدىّ موقف فلسفى من ذلك، أنا فقط أشعر بنفسى أكثر حرية وانطلاقا بدون أن تكبلنى هذه الأشياء."

مؤخرا بدأ فى العمل على رواية جديدة، ولكنه يقول إنه فى الأعوام الأخيرة أصبح من الصعب عليه إيجاد الأفكار.

"كنت معتادا على أن أحتفظ بقصص غير مكتملة، ولكن من أعوام مضت وجدت الأدراج خاوية، أعتقد أننى وصلت للوقت الذى أخبر فيه نفسى أننى لو لم أكتب كتابا آخر فتلك ليست مأساة، هل يعنى كثيرا أن أنشر 16 أو 17 رواية؟ لو لم يكن هذا ملحا، فلا معنى للكتابة."

Paul Benjamin Auster (born February 3, 1947) is an American author known for works blending absurdism, existentialism, crime fiction and the search for identity and personal meaning in works such as The New York Trilogy (1987), Moon Palace (1989), The Music of Chance (1990), The Book of Illusions (2002) and The Brooklyn Follies (2005).
Auster was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Jewish middle class parents of Polish descent, Samuel and Queenie Auster.
ولد لابوين يهوديان من بولندا
He grew up in South Orange, New Jersey and graduated from Columbia High School in adjoining Maplewood.
نشأ في نيوجرسي
After graduating from Columbia University in 1970, he moved to Paris, France where he earned a living translating French literature.
بعد تخرجه من جامعة كولومبيا عام 1970 سافر الى فرنسا وعمل في ترجمة الادب الفرنسي
Since returning to the U.S. in 1974, he has published poems, essays, novels of his own as well as translations of French writers such as Stéphane Mallarmé and Joseph Joubert.
عاد الى الولايات المتحدة عام 1974
He and his second wife, writer Siri Hustvedt, were married in 1981, and they live in Brooklyn.
تزوج للمرة الثانية عام 1981 وعاش مع زوجته في بروكلن
Together they have one daughter, Sophie Auster. Previously, Auster was married to the acclaimed writer Lydia Davis. They had one son together, Daniel Auster.
He is also the Vice-President of PEN American Center.

Writing
Following his acclaimed debut work, a memoir entitled The Invention of Solitude,
---------------
Thee Invention of Solitude is the debut work of Paul Auster, a memoir published in 1982.
The book is divided into two parts, Portrait of an Invisible Man, which concerns the sudden death of Auster's father,
في مذكراته التي نشرت عام 1982 يكتب اوستر عن وموت والده المفاجيء
and The Book of Memory, in which Auster delivers his personal opinions concerning subjects such as coincidence, fate, and solitude, subjects that have become trademarks of Auster's works.

Portrait of an Invisible Man


This first part is a meditation on the nature of absence in relation to Auster's recently deceased father, Samuel Auster. "Even before his death he had been absent, and long ago the people closest to him had learned to accept this absence".


الكتاب الاول في مذكراته يعالج موت والده المفاجيء والذي كان غائبا منذ زمن بعيد وقد تعلم الناس الاقرب اليه ان يتعاملوا مع فكرة غيابه


Auster reconstructs his father's life from artifacts he has left behind, using his judgement of the dead man's failings as a father to justify his own life and relationship with his own son.


The Book of Memory


The second part of the book comes across as more of a critical essay concerning many of the themes found in Auster's works: the order of events, absurdism, chance as well as the overarching theme of the relationship between father and son.


"For this act of saving people is in effect what a father does: he saves his little boy from harm. And for the little boy to see Pinocchio... become a figure of redemption, the very being who saves his father from the grips of death, is a sublime momentof revelation. The son saves the father." Although The Book of Memory may be seen as less autobiographical than Portrait of an Invisible Man due to the characterisation of Auster as "A.", it is his personal account of concepts and feelings and contains references to his life.


The opening pages of The Book of Memory make mention of mnemotechnics (the ancient art of memory), and some of the earliest writers on the topic - Raymond Lull, Robert Fludd and Giordano Bruno.

=------------
Auster gained renown for a series of three loosely connected detective stories published collectively as The New York Trilogy. These books are not conventional detective stories organized around a mystery and a series of clues. Rather, he uses the detective form to address existential issues and questions of identity, space, language and literature, creating his own distinctively postmodern (and critique of postmodernist) form in the process. Comparing the two works, Auster said, "I believe the world is filled with strange events. Reality is a great deal more mysterious than we ever give it credit for. In that sense, the Trilogy grows directly out of The Invention of Solitude."[7]
The search for identity and personal meaning has permeated Auster's later publications, many of which concentrate heavily on the role of coincidence and random events (The Music of Chance) or increasingly, the relationships between men and their peers and environment (The Book of Illusions, Moon Palace). Auster's heroes often find themselves obliged to work as part of someone else's inscrutable and larger-than-life schemes. In 1995, Auster wrote and co-directed the films Smoke (which won him the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay) and Blue in the Face. Auster's more recent works, Oracle Night (2003), The Brooklyn Follies (2005) and the novella Travels in the Scriptorium have also met critical acclaim.

Themes

According to a dissertation by Heiko Jakubzik at the University of Heidelberg, two central influences in Paul Auster's writing are Jacques Lacan'spsychoanalysis and the American transcendentalism of the early to middle 19th century, namely amongst others Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
In short Lacan's theory declares that we enter the world through words. We observe the world through our senses but the world we sense is structured (mediated) in our mind through language. Thus our subconscious is also structured as a language. This leaves us with a sense of anomaly. We can only perceive the world through language, but we have the feeling of something missing. This is the sense of being outside language. The world can only be constructed through language but it always leaves something uncovered, something that cannot be told or be thought of, it can only be sensed. This can be seen as one of the central themes of Paul Auster's writing.
Lacan is considered to be one of the key figures of French poststructuralism. Some academics are keen to discern traces of other poststructuralist philosophers throughout Auster's oeuvre - mainly Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard and Michel de Certeau - although Auster himself has claimed to find such philosophies 'unreadable'[3].
The transcendentalists believe that the symbolic order of civilization separated us from the natural order of the world. By moving into nature - like Thoreau in Walden - it would be possible to return to this natural order.
The common factor of both ideas is the question of the meaning of symbols for human beings.[8] Auster's protagonists are often writers who establish meaning in their lives through writing, and they try to find their place within the natural order to be able to live within "civilization" again.
Edgar Allan Poe, Samuel Beckett, and Herman Melville have also had a strong influence on Auster's writing. Not only do their characters reappear in Auster's work (like William Wilson in City of Glass or Hawthorne's Fanshawe in The Locked Room, both from The New York Trilogy), Auster also uses variations on the themes of these writers.
Paul Auster's reappearing subjects are:[9]

· coincidence


· frequent portrayal of an ascetic life


· a sense of imminent disaster


· obsessive writer as central character/narrator


· loss of the ability to understand


· loss of language


· depiction of daily and ordinary life


· failure


· absence of a father


· احد الافكار الرئيس التي تتكرر في كتاباته هي غياب الاب


· writing/story telling, metafiction


· intertextuality


· American History


· American Space


Coincidence

Instances of coincidence can be found throughout Auster's work[ Auster himself claims that people are so influenced by the continuity among them that they do not see the elements of coincidence, inconsistency and contradiction in their own lives:

“

Failure in Paul Auster's works is not just the opposite of the happy ending. In Moon Palace and The Book of Illusions it comes from the individual's uncertainty about the status of his own identity. The protagonists start a search for their own identity and reduce their life to the absolute minimum. From this zero point they gain new strength and start their new life and they are also able to regain contact with their surroundings. A similar development can also be seen in City of Glass and The Music of Chance.
Failure in this context is not the "nothing" - it is the beginning of something all new.

Identity/Subjectivity

Auster's protagonists often go through a process that reduces their support structure to an absolute minimum: They sever all contact with family and friends, go hungry and lose or give away all their belongings. Out of this state of "nothingness" they either acquire new strength to reconnect with the world or they fail and disappear for good.

“

"Over the past twenty-five years," opined Michael Dirda in The New York Review of Books in 2008, "Paul Auster has established one of the most distinctive niches in contemporary literature." Dirda has also extolled his loaded virtues in The Washington Post:
Ever since City of Glass, the first volume of his New York Trilogy, Auster has perfected a limpid, confessional style, then used it to set disoriented heroes in a seemingly familiar world gradually suffused with mounting uneasiness, vague menace and possible hallucination. His plots — drawing on elements from suspense stories, existential récit and autobiography — keep readers turning the pages, but sometimes end by leaving them uncertain about what they've just been through.
Respected literary critic James Wood, however, offers Auster little praise in his piece "Shallow Graves" in the November 30, 2009, issue of The New Yorker:
What Auster often gets instead is the worst of both worlds: fake realism and shallow skepticism. The two weaknesses are related. Auster is a compelling storyteller, but his stories are assertions rather than persuasions. They declare themselves; they hound the next revelation. Because nothing is persuasively assembled, the inevitable postmodern disassembly leaves one largely untouched. (The disassembly is also grindingly explicit, spelled out in billboard-size type.) Presence fails to turn into significant absence, because presence was not present enough.[15]

Published works

Fiction

· Squeeze Play (1982) (Written under pseudonym Paul Benjamin)


· The New York Trilogy (1987)


o City of Glass (1985)


o Ghosts (1986)


o The Locked Room (1986)


· In the Country of Last Things (1987)


· Moon Palace (1989)


· The Music of Chance (1990)


· Auggie Wren's Christmas Story (1990)


· Leviathan (1992)


· Mr. Vertigo (1994)


· Timbuktu (1999)


· The Book of Illusions (2002)


· Oracle Night (2003)


· The Brooklyn Follies (2005)


· Travels in the Scriptorium (2006)


· Man in the Dark (2008) [19]


· Invisible (2009)


· Sunset Park (2010

ureadblog:
Writer Paul Auster’s speech at the Prince of Asturias Awards, Letters 2006. (Reposted from here.)
Your Majesty, Your Highnesses, Distinguished Authorities, Ladies and gentlemen,
I don’t know why I do what I do. If I did know, I probably wouldn’t feel the need to do it. All I can say, and I say it with utmost certainty, is that I have felt this need since my earliest adolescence. I’m talking about writing, in particular writing as a vehicle to tell stories, imaginary stories that have never taken place in what we call the real world. Surely it is an odd way to spend your life -sitting alone in a room with a pen in your hand, hour after hour, day after day, year after year, struggling to put words on pieces of paper in order to give birth to what does not exist -except in your own head. Why on earth would anyone want to do such a thing? The only answer I have ever been able to come with is: because you have to, because you have no choice.
This need to make, to create, to invent is no doubt a fundamental human impulse. But to what end? What purpose does art, in particular the art of fiction, serve in what we call the real world? None that I can think of -at least not in any practical sense. A book has never put food in the stomach of a hungry child. A book has never stopped a bullet from entering a murder victim’s body. A book has never prevented a bomb from falling on innocent civilians in the midst of war. Some like to think that a keen appreciation of art can actually make us better people -more just, more moral, more sensitive, more understanding. Perhaps that is true -in certain rare, isolated cases. But let us nor forget that Hitler started out in life as an artist. Tyrants and dictators read novels. Killers in prison read novels. And who is to say they don’t derive the same enjoyment from books as everyone else?
In other words, art is useless -at least when compared, say, to the work of a plumber, or a doctor, or a railroad engineer. But is uselessness a bad thing? Does a lack of practical purpose mean that books and paintings and string quartets are simply a waste of our time? Many people think so. But I would argue that it is the very uselessness of art that gives it its value -and that the making of art is what distinguishes us from all other creatures who inhabit this planet, that it is, essentially, what defines us as human beings. To do something for the pure pleasure and beauty of doing it. Think of the effort involved, the long hours of practice and discipline required to become an accomplished pianist or dancer. All the suffering and hard work, all the sacrifices in order to achieve something that is utterly and magnificently… useless.
Fiction, however, exists in a somewhat different realm from the other arts. Its medium is language, and language is something we share with others, that is common to us all. From the moment we learn to talk, we begin to develop a hunger for stories. Those of us who can remember our childhoods will recall how ardently we relished the moment of the Bedtime Story - when our mother or father would sit down beside us in the semi-dark and read from a book of fairy tales. Those of us who are parents will have no trouble conjuring up the rapt attention in the eyes of our children when we read to them. Why this intense desire to listen? Fairy tales are often cruel and violent, featuring be-headings, cannibalism, grotesque transformations, and evil enchantments. One would think this material would be too frightening for a young child - but what these stories allow the child to experience is precisely an encounter with his own fears and inner torments - in a perfectly safe and protected environment. Such is the magic of stories: the might drag us down to the depths of hell, but in the end they are harmless.
We grow older, but we do not change. We become more sophisticated, but at bottom we continue to resemble our young selves, eager to listen to the next story, and the next, and the next. For years, in every country of the Western world, article after article has been published bemoaning the fact that fewer and fewer people are reading books, that we have entered what some have called the “post-literate age”. That may well be true, but at the same time this has not diminished the universal craving for stories. Novels are not the only source, after all. Films and television and even comic books are churning out vast quantities of fictional narratives, and the public continues to swallow them up with great passion. That is because human beings need stories. They need them almost as desperately as they need food, and however the stories might be presented -whether on a printed page or on a television screen -it would be impossible to imagine life without them.
Still, when it comes to the state of the novel, to the future of the novel, I feel rather optimistic. Numbers don’t count where books are concerned -for there is only one reader, each and every time only one reader. That explains the particular power of the novel, and why in my opinion, it will never die as a form. Every novel is an equal collaboration between the writer and the reader, and it is the only place in the world where two strangers can meet on terms of absolute intimacy. I have spent my life in conversations with people I have never seen, with people I will never know, and I hope to continue until the day I stop breathing.
It’s the only job I’ve ever wanted.

- لماذا أصبح كاتبا؟ قال أوستر: "هذا هو السؤال غالبا؟ اسمعى، أعتقد أن الكتابة تأتى من إحساس شديد بالوحدة، إحساس بالعزلة."

- نشأ فى ساوث أورانج- نيوجيرسى، كابن ليهوديين مهاجرين من بولندا؛ صمويل وكوينى، كانا غير متفاهمين وانفصلا فى النهاية.

- كان أبوه بائع أثاث، ثم سمسار عقارات، وتتضح فى كتاب أوستر الأول (اختراع العزلة) طبيعة علاقتهما الصعبة.

- لم تكن هناك كتب كثيرة فى المنزل، حتى سافر عمه المترجم وترك مكتبته لأسرة أوستر. "عندما كنت فى الثالثة عشر من العمر ذهلت من (الحارس فى حقل الشوفان)، لم يكن هناك شىء يشبه هذا الصوت." ولكن الصاعقة الحقيقية جاءت عندما قرأ (الجريمة والعقاب)، "هذا الكتاب غيرنى، أذكر أننى كنت أفكر: لو كانت هذه هى الرواية فهذا هو ما أود أن أفعله. كنت أقرأه وأنا مضطرب جدا."

- ذهب إلى جامعة كولومبيا، ثم بدأ يعمل على ناقلة بترول: "أردت أن أقوم بمغامرة؛ كنت قد حصلت على البكالوريوس والماجستير، وأردت أن أفعل شيئا مختلفا."

- فى سن الثالثة والعشرين توجه إلى فرنسا ليحصل على عيشه ككاتب. يقول أوستر: "ما كنت أفعله هو أن أحصل على الطعام.. عندما عدت من باريس، كنت فى السابعة والعشرين، وكل ما كان معى هو تسعة دولارات. كنت قد نشرت كتابا واحدا فى الشعر، وربما كتابا أو اثنين فى الترجمة. بقيت مع أبى حتى أجد مكانا لأعيش فيه. كان مرتبكا، لم يكن يدرى ماذا يصنع بى، ولكننى أتعاطف معه، فقد كنت مجنونا."

- "كان كلامه منطقيا، قال لى: أنا لا أفهمك.. ستموت إذا لم تفعل شيئا، هذا غير مقبول. لأول وهلة أثر فىّ رأيه، وفكرت فى أن أكون أستاذا جامعيا، ولكنى فى النهاية ظللت أكتب."

- مات الأب قبل أن يصبح أوستر مشهورا، "الآن أستطيع كسب عيشى من كل هذا، وفى الحقيقة أنا أحيا بشكل أفضل مما توقعت على الإطلاق.. كان سيصبح سعيدا جدا."

- أما عن أمه: "هى تضع كتبى بفخر على أرفف مكتبتها، ولكنى لا أعتقد أنها قرأتها، كانت دائما مهتمة أكثر بالأفلام التى صنعتها، الأفلام هى التى استطاعت التواصل معها.. وليس الكتب."

- أبطال روايات أوستر غالبا ما يكونوا قد تعرضوا لخسارة كبيرة قبل بداية القصة: "أنا مهتم بأن أبدأ قصصى بأزمة ما لأرى كيف ستتعامل الشخصية معها." هل تعرض لخسائر مشابهة فى حياته؟ "العديد من الناس ماتوا أمامى فجأة، فهذا الشعور ليس غريبا علىّ."

- أكثر من أى شىء آخر تمتلئ روايات أوستر بالحوادث والصدف؛ عندما كان فى الرابعة عشر رأى أوستر صبيا يموت مصعوقا حينما كانوا فى رحلة بمعسكر صيفى. يقول: "ربما تكون تلك التجربة هى أكثر شىء أثر على رؤيتى للعالم."

- ولد لابوين يهوديان من بولندا

- نشأ في نيوجرسي

- بعد تخرجه من جامعة كولومبيا عام 1970 سافر الى فرنسا وعمل في ترجمة الادب الفرنسي

- عاد الى الولايات المتحدة عام 1974

- تزوج للمرة الثانية عام 1981 وعاش مع زوجته في بروكلن

- في مذكراته التي نشرت عام 1982 يكتب اوستر عن وموت والده المفاجيء

- الكتاب الاول في مذكراته يعالج موت والده المفاجيء والذي كان غائبا منذ زمن بعيد وقد تعلم الناس الاقرب اليه ان يتعاملوا مع فكرة غيابه

- احد الافكار الرئيس التي تتكرر في كتاباته هي غياب الاب
- لم يكن زواج والديه زواجا سعيدا
- انفصل والديه بالطلاق وهو في سن التوجيهي وانتقلت الام لتيعش مع ابنتها وابنها في شقة منقصلة
- بدل من حضور حفل التخرج من المدرسة سافر الى ايطاليا واسبانيا وفرنسا واقام هناك الى ان افتتحت الجامعات في الفصل التالي ليلتحق بالجامعة
- سافر الى فرنسا لانهاءسنته الاخيرة فيها لكنه افصل عن الجامعة وعاد ليلتحق بجامعتهفي امريكا
- عمل للانفاق على دراسته في عدة اعمال
- انهى دراسته الجامعية عام 1969
- عام 1971 سافر الى فرنسا من جديد

زواج الاب والام كان تعيسا ينتهي بالطلاق و واستر ما يزال في الثانوية، موت طفل وهو في سن الرابعة عشره كان يسير امامه تماما من صاعقة، سفر الى اوروبا متكرر، موت الاب الذي كان غائبا اصلا ، شعور دائم بالعزلة والوحدة.

مأزوم ومحاصر بتجربة موت صديقه في سن الـ 14 ويتيم اجتماعي.

.

والان مع سر الروةعة في رواية:

88 ـ ذا بي إف جي، للمؤلف رولد دال.

The BFG (short for "Big Friendly Giant") is a children's book written by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake, first published in 1982. The book was an expansion of a story told in Danny, the Champion of the World, an earlier Dahl book. An animated film based on the book was released in 1989 with David Jason providing the voice of the BFG and Amanda Root as the voice of Sophie. The book went on to win a Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis prize in 1985. It has also been adapted as a theatre performance.
British writer, famous for his ingenious short stories and macabre children's books. Dahl's taste for cruelty, rudeness to adults, and the comic grotesque fascinated young readers, but upset many adult critics. Several of Dahl's stories have been made into films, including Matilda, dir. by Danny DeVito (1996).
'Aunt Glosspan,' the boy said, ' what do ordinary people eat that we don't?'
'Animals,' she answered, tossing her head in disgust.
'You mean live animals?'
'No,' she said. 'Dead ones.'
(from 'Pig' in Kiss, Kiss, 1959)
The BFG (1982).
Plot
The story is about a little girl named Sophie, after the author's granddaughter Sophie Dahl One night, when Sophie cannot fall asleep during the "witching hour", she sees a giant blowing something into the bedroom windows down the street. The giant notices her, reaches through the window, and carries her to his home in Giant Country.
Once there, he reveals that he is the world's only benevolent giant, the Big Friendly Giant or BFG, who operating in the strictest secrecy, collects good dreams that he later distributes to children. By means of immense ears he can hear dreams and their contents (which manifest themselves in a misty Dream Country as floating, blob-like objects) and blow them via a trumpet-like blowpipe into the bedrooms of children. When he catches a nightmare, he explodes it, or uses it to start fights among the other giants, who periodically enter the human world to steal and eat "human beans", especially children. The BFG, because he refuses to do likewise, subsists on a foul-tasting vegetable known as a snozzcumber, and on a drink called frobscottle, which is unusual in that the bubbles in the drink travel downwards and therefore cause the drinker to break wind instead of burp; this causes noisy flatulence known as Whizzpoppers.
Sophie and the BFG become friends early on; later, she persuades him to approach the Queen of England on behalf of capturing the other giants. To this end, the BFG creates a nightmare introducing the man-eating giants to the Queen and leaves Sophie in the Queen's bedroom to confirm it true. Because the dream included the knowledge Sophie's presence, the Queen believes her and speaks with the BFG. After considerable effort by the palace staff to create a table, chair, and cutlery of appropriate size for him to use, the BFG is given a lavish breakfast, and the Queen begins a plan of eliminating the other giants. She calls the King of Sweden and the Sultan of Baghdad to confirm the BFG's story - the giants having visited those locations on the previous two nights – then summons the Head of the Army and the Marshal of the Air Force. The said officers, though initially belligerent and skeptical, are brought to co-operate.
Eventually, a huge fleet of helicopters follows the BFG to the giants' homeland. While the child-eating giants are asleep, the Army ties them up, hangs them under the helicopters, and (after a brief struggle with the largest and fiercest of the giants, known as the Fleshlumpeater), flies them to London, where a special pit has been constructed from which they will not be able to escape. With thousands watching closely, the BFG unties the giants, then feeds them snozzcumbers which they will eat for the rest of their lives as a punishment for eating human beings.
Afterwards, a huge castle is built to serve as the BFG's new house, with a little cottage next door for Sophie. While they are living happily in England, the BFG writes a book of their adventures, which is stated to be the same book in which the afore-mentioned story is narrated (a literary device also apparent in James and the Giant Peach and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar).
Characters
· Sophie: The orphaned protagonist of the story, who becomes heroic by causing the man-eating giants to be captured.
· The BFG: A 24-foot-tall individual possessed of superhuman hearing and immense ability of speed, whose primary occupation is the collection and distribution of good dreams to children. He also appears in another novel, Danny, the Champion of the World, in which he is introduced as a folkloric character.
· The Queen of England: The Queen is based on Elizabeth II.
· Mary: The Queen's Maid
· Mr. Tibbs: The Palace butler
· Mrs. Clonkers: The unseen director of the orphanage to which Sophie originally belongs; described as cruel and often abusive to her charges.
· Head of the Army: Very dependent on guns
· Head of the Air Force; Very dependent on bombs
· King of Sweden: Sometimes Queen of Sweden in play versions
· Sultan of Baghdad: Often omitted from plays and films as he is portrayed in a slightly racist and dated way.
· Monsieur Papillon: The Queen's chief cook.
[edit] Giants
The nine evil giants in the story
· The Fleshlumpeater
· The Bonecruncher
· The Manhugger
· The Childchewer
· The Meatdripper
· The Gizzardgulper
· The Maidmasher
· The Bloodbottler
· The Butcher Boy
Most of the evil giants are only mentioned by name; some are given a larger role, such as Fleshlumpeater, who is the largest and most dangerous of them all (and therefore something of a leader), and Bloodbottler, who invades the BFG's cave early in the story. The BFG later narrates the hunting methods of Childchewer, Gizzardgulper, and Meatdripper. It is also remarked that each giant has his favourite hunting ground, though they vary at times. Because every ethnicity of humans is said to taste different from the others, the giants have certain preferences, although all detest Greece as a hunting ground. This is because the flavors supposedly reflect the names and/or principal exports of the native land: therefore, Greeks taste greasy; Turks, taste like turkey;Danes taste like dogs (Labradors - those from Labrador taste like Great Danes), and Swedes taste sweet and sour; people from Wales taste of fish (because the name sounds like that of "whales"); etc. Also, the BFG says that evil giants are twice as tall as him, so he's a comparatively runty giant. (In his own words, "24 feet is puddlenuts in giant country.")

Roald Dahl was born in Llandaff, Wales, of Norwegian parents. His father, Harald Dahl, was the joint owner of a successful ship-broking business, "Aadnesen& Dahl" with another Norwegian.
ولد رولد دال في ةيلز لاب نرويجيين زكان والده يعمل تاجرا
Before emigrating to Wales, Harald had been a farmer near Oslo.
قبل ان يهاجر الى ويلز كان الاب يعمل مزارعا بالقرب من اسلو
He married a young French girl named Marie in Paris; she died after giving birth to their second child.
تزوج الاب من فتاة فرنسة في باريس وماتت بعد ولادة ابنهم الثاني
In 1911 he married Sofie Magdalene Hesselberg.
في عام 1911 تزوج الاب من صوفي هسلبرغ
Harald died when Dahl was four years old, and three weeks later his elder sister, Astri, died from appendicitis.
مات هرالد الاب ودال في سن الرابعة
The family had to sell their jewellery to pay for Dahl's upkeep at a private school in Derbyshire. When Dahl was 13 he went to a public school named Repton.
باعت العائلة الذهب من اجل تدريس دال
His years at public schools in Wales and England Dahl later described without nostalgia: "I was appalled by the fact that masters and senior boys were allowed literally to wound other boys, and sometimes quite severely. I couldn't get over it. I never got over it..." (from Boy: Tales of Childhood, 1984)
Dahl especially hated the matron who ruled the school dormitories. These experiences later inspired him to write stories in which children fight against cruel adults and authorities. "I have never met anybody who so persistently writes words meaning the exact opposite of what is intended," one of Dahl's English teachers commented.
تأثر كثير ا في بيئة المدرسة التي كان يسمح فيها للطلاب الكبار ضرب الصغار وقد تأثر على ةجه الخصوص بما واجه في السكن الداخلي الذي كان بيئة عنيفة
Parents and schoolteachers are the enemy," Dahl once said. "The adult is the enemy of the child because of the awful process of civilizing this thing that when it is born is an animal with no manners, no moral sense at all." In WITCHES (1973) behind the mask of a beautiful woman is an ugly witch, and in MATILDA (1988) Miss Turnbull throws children out of windows. Both parents are eaten in JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH (1961), but the real enemies of the hero of the story, a little boy, are two aunts.
At eighteen, instead of entering university, Dahl joined an expedition to Newfoundland.
سافر في رحلى استشكافية وهو في سن الثامنة عشر الى الاراضي الجديدة newfound land
Returning to England he took a job with Shell, working in London (1933-37) and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (1937-39).
عمل في لندن ما بين 1933 و1937 وفي دار السلام تنزانيا ما بين 1937 – 1939
During World War II he served in the Royal Air Forces in Libya, Greece, and Syria.
انضم الى سلاح الجو البريطاني خلال الحرب العاملية الثانية وخدم في ليبيا واليونان وسوريا
He was shot down in Libya, wounded in Syria, and then posted to Washington as an assistant air attaché to British Security (1942-43).
اسقطت طائرته في ليبيا وجرح في سوريا واخيرا ارسل الى واشنطن كحارس امن ما بين 1942 و 1943
In 1943 he was a wing commander and worked until 1945 for British Security Co-ordination in North America.
عمل في الامن ما بين 1943 و 1945 في امريكا الشمالية
In the crash Dahl had fractured his skull, and said later: "You do get bits of magic from enormous bumps on the head." While he was recovering from his wounds, Dahl had strange dreams, which inspired his first short stories.
سقوطه في الطائرة ادى الى حدوث جروح في الجمجمة وقال لاحقا انك تحصل على السحر من الاورام التي يمكن ان تصيب رأسك وبينما كان في مرحلة النقاهه من جراحه كان يرى احلام غريبة جعلته يكتب قصته الاولى
Encouraged by C.S. Forester, Dahl wrote about his most exiting RAF adventures. The story, A Piece of Cake, was published by the Saturday Evening Post. It earned him $1,000. The same story was later included in OVER TO YOU: THE STORIES OF FLYERS AND FLYING (1946). Dahl's first children's book, THE GREMLINS (1943), about mischievous little creatures, who eventually join the Allied forces in the Battle of Britain, caught also Walt Disney's attention. Later it inspired a popular movie. Dahl's collection of short stories, SOMEONE LIKE YOU (1954), gained world success, as did its sequel, KISS KISS (1959). The two books were serialized for television in America. A number of the stories had appeared in the New Yorker. Dahl's stories were seen in Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-61) and in the Tales of the Unexpected (1979) series.
In 1953 Dahl married the successful and wealthy actress Patricia Neal; they had one son and four daughters – the eldest daughter Olivia died of measles when she was eight. Dahl's wife suffered a series of brain hemorrhages at the age of 38; while pregnant with their fifth child she had a stroke. She described her recovery and her husband's solicitous help in the autobiography As I Am (1988). The marriage ended after other family tragedies; she also discovered that Dahl had been having an affair with her friend, Felicity Ann Crossland, who was 22 years his junior. Dahl married her in 1983. Patricia Neal received in 1964 an Oscar for her performance in Hud. She died in 2010.
The only stageplay Dahl ever wrote, THE HONEYS, failed in New York in 1955. After showing little inclination towards children's literature, Dahl published JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH (1961). It was first published in the United States, but it took six years before Dahl found a published in Britain. James and the Giant Peach was followed by the highly popular tale CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (1964), which has inspired two film adaptations. The story dealt with one small boy's search for the ultimate prize in fierce competition with other, highly unpleasant children, many of whom come to sticky ends as a result of their greediness. It presented the central theme in Dahl's fiction for young readers: virtue is rewarded, vice is punished. In the end the fabulous chocolate factory is given to Charlie, the kind, impoverished boy. THE WITCHES (1983) won the Whitbread Children's Book Award in 1983. The judges described the book as "deliciously disgusting". Later Felicity Dahl collected her husband's culinary "delights", such as "Bird Pie", "Hot Frogs", and "Lickable Wallpaper" in Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes (1994).
MY UNCLE OSWALD (1979) was Dahl's first full-length novel, a bizarre story of a scheme for procuring and selling the sperm of the world's most powerful and brilliant men. Dahl received three Edgar Allan Poe Awards (1954, 1959, 1980). In 1982 he won his first literary prize with THE BFG, a story about Big Friendly Giant, who kidnaps and takes a little girl to Giantland, where giants eat children. In 1983 he received World Fantasy Convention Lifetime Achievement award. Dahl died of an infection on November 23, 1990, in Oxford. Dahl's autobiographical books, BOY: TALES OF CHILDHOOD and GOING SOLO, appeared in 1984 and 1986 respectively. The success of his books resulted in the foundation of the Roald Dahl Children's Gallery in Aylesbury, not far from where he lived.
"Good ghost stories, like good children's books, are damnably difficult to write. I am a short story writer myself, and although I have been doing it for forty-five years and have always longed to write just one decent ghost story, I have never succeeded in bringing it off. Heaven knows, I have tried. Once I thought I had done it. It was with a story that is now called 'The Landlady'. But when it was finished and I examined it carefully, I knew it wasn't good enough. I hadn't brought it off. I simply hadn't got the secret. So finally I altered the ending and made it into a non-ghost story." (from Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories, 1983)
Dahl's stories have unexpected endings and strange, menacing atmospheres. The principle of "fair play" works in unconventional but unavoidable ways. Uncle Oswald, a seducer from 'The Visitor', gets seduced. In 'Parson's Pleasure' an antique dealer tastes his own medicine and the Twits from THE TWITS (1980) use glue to catch birds and meet their own gluey ends. In 'Lamb to the Slaughter' the evidence of a murder, a frozen leg of lamb, is eaten by officers who in vain search for the murder weapon. The story was inspired by a meeting with the writer Ian Fleming at a dinner party. Puns, word coinages, and neologism are more often used in the children's stories, whereas in adult fiction the emphasis is on imaginative plots. In addition to his children's books, Dahl also aroused much controversy with his politically incorrect opinions - he was accused of anti-Semitism and antifeminism and when a prowler managed to get into Queen Elizabeth's bedroom, Dahl was wrongly suspected of giving to the unwanted guest the whole idea in one of his books,