e assim terminei 'Boy'

outro livro que os miúdos lêem na escola e de onde saiu afinal Harry Potter.

"I began to realize how simple life could be if one had a regular routine to follow with fixed hours and a fixed salary and very little original thinking to do. The life of a writer is absolute hell compared with the life of a businessman. The writer has to force himself to work. He has to make his own hours and if he doesn’t go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him. If he is a writer of fiction he lives in a world of fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not. Two hours of writing fiction leaves this particular writer absolutely drained. For those two hours he has been miles away, he has been somewhere else, in a different place with totally different people, and the effort of swimming back into normal surroundings is very great. It is almost a shock. The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. It happens to be a fact that nearly every writer of fiction in the world drinks or whisky than is good for him. He does it to give himself faith, hope and courage. A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it."

Roald Dahl em Boy. nas quotes inspiracionais tiram as frases do whisky. temos pena mas foi aquilo mesmo que ele disse.

seja como for: limpo, claro, engraçado, revelador, sério, solidário. e uma parte importante da história da ilha da chuva.

"Roald Dahl wrote his books in a brick hut , which was built especially for him , on the edge of the orchard at Gipsy House."

'Going Solo'

infelizmente Going Solo caiu também nas redes dos lesson plans e dos resources (main concept, creative writing e coisas parecidas). mas para além de toda essa parafernália, é um livro de leitura rapidíssima, duas tardes, e de apaixonantes descobertas: Tanganika antes de mudar de nome, o território neutro moçambicano, as mambas verdes e negras, atravessar o deserto, a Palestina, a invasão alemã da Grécia e o bombardeamento do Pireu, Alexandria, o Egipto, o Quénia, a aviação militar, a estratégia militar e a sua ausência, o fantástico snake-man, as personagens do império e a mulher que não tocava em nada com os dedos. é uma excepção esta: a vida do jovem Dahl conseguiu mesmo assim ser menos fantasiosa do que as suas histórias, mas não por muito. por outro lado, saber o segredo da Chocolate Factory e o sr. Cadbury vai para sempre alterar o meu olhar sobre o Cadbury, pelo menos com saudade da antiga marca.
a destruição alcançada em cem anos foi um feito inacreditável.

títulos para rir:

"It turns out, your favorite children's book writer had a very dark taste in art."
(sobre Roald Dahl, o mesmo que faz desaparecer crianças idiotas no mundo do chocolate)