Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

Published as an audiobook by HarperFestival, 1 November 2002.
Narrated by Eric Idle.
First published 1964.

We found this audiobook to put on the background while we washed dishes. I think we finished it about a week later.

Roald Dahl and Eric Idle - what a match! The narration being done by a member of Monty Python really highlights the ludicrous nature of Dahl's writing.

This is one of Dahl's most popular stories, for a reason. The scaffold of the chocolate factory tour and the slowly reducing number of contestants helps to focus in some of the author's more eccentric story-telling habits (something that is much more on show in the sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, that Elise and I are now listening to!), and even the bizarre additions to the story are all quite on theme - like the 'square sweets that look round'.

Having not read the story in years, I forgot how much the early half of the book leans into Charlie's poverty, even acknowledging that the Bucket family begin to starve. This highlights Charlie's selflessness, as well as 'upping the stakes' a bit, but it also reminds me that children's stories don't have to be 'toned down' in order to work well.

Of course, the morality lessons that come through in some of Dahl's best stories are openly on show here, with the four other children in the book being terrible examples who end up with terrible consequences for their bad behaviour. Each also gets an Oompa Loompa song about them that doesn't hold back on just how horrible the Oompa Loompa's (and perhaps Dahl himself) thinks such behaviour is.

And if none of this makes any sense to you, I recommend reading the book yourself, or hunting out one of the two cinematic adaptations available, both good in their own way.

Completed, with Elise, 27 June 2024.



(Elise Books)



Previously completed 7 September 2018.

(2018 List)

Previous Book ~ Next Book

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