Going Solo
1986
- 1939-1945 world war
- 20th century
- authors,english
- biography
- british personal narratives
- english authors
- english personal narratives
- welsh authors
- world war, 1939-1945
- world war (1939-1945) fast (ocolc)fst01180924
The story
The fascinating story of Roald Dahl's life continues in Going Solo, a marvelous evocation of the author's wartime exploits. As a pilot in World War II, Roald Dahl had some wonderfully exciting -- and frighteningly near-death -- experiences including encounters with the enemy, battles with deadly snakes, and incredible dogfights. Told with the same irresistible appeal that has made Dahl one of the world's best-loved writers, Going Solo brings you directly into the action and into the mind of this brilliant man.
What it’s like
Brisk, sun-bleached memoir prose with the wry, deadpan lightness of a storyteller who finds the absurd in danger. Dahl's voice here is conversational and vivid: a young man's desert heat, cockpit glare, the dusty smell of Libyan airfields, the scrape of a snake in a bathroom, the clipped drone of engines at altitude. Scenes are short and cinematic, cutting quickly from one improbable situation to the next, so the book reads in brisk sittings and suits a long-haul flight, a lazy weekend afternoon, or a reader who likes true stories with a comic edge. The emotional register is brave and playful rather than grim, with an undercurrent of youthful bravado and a few sharp shocks of mortality. Violence is present and real: aerial combat, crashes, and the threat of enemy fire appear on the page, with frank, unsentimental detail, though it is never lingered on for gore. Snakes and near-death moments produce tension and fear, not horror. Sexual content is minimal. It suits readers who enjoy wartime memoir, adventure, and the particular charm of Dahl's storytelling, especially those who want the playful voice of his children's fiction turned toward his own life.
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