Relatos de lo inesperado

by Roald Dahl

Other authorsAntonio Samons, Carmelina Payá

Paper Book, 1981

Status

Available

Call number

823.914

Series

Tales of the Unexpected [Dahl]

Genres

Publication

Barcelona Argos Vergara 1981

Description

In this collection of stories, Dahl tantalizes, amuses, and sometimes terrifies readers into a sense of what lurks beneath the ordinary. Included in this collection are such notorious gems of the bizarre as "The Second Machine," "Lamb to the Slaughter," "Neck," and "The Landlady." Other stories explore: A wine connoisseur with an infallible palate and a sinister taste in wagers. A decrepit old man with a masterpiece tattooed on his back. A voracious adventuress, a gentle cuckold, and a garden sculpture that becomes an instrument of sadistic vengeance. Social climbers who climb a bit too quickly. Philanderers whose deceptions are a trifle too ornate. Impeccable servants whose bland masks slip for one vertiginous instant. With the inventive power of a Thomas Edison and the imagination of a Lewis Carroll...Roald Dahl is a wizard of comedy and the grotesque, an artist with a marvelously topsy-turvy sense of the ridiculous in life." -Cleveland Plain Dealer… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member xiWen

This book was a good read. I found most of the endings somewhat 'predictable', but each story was very different from one another and original. I always thought i'ld out-grow Roald Dahl and his writings but somehow he appeals to both the young and the wise.

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LibraryThing member RachelPenso

Great stories. I could guess or nearly guess the ending of most of them, but still great fun to read.

LibraryThing member Vivl

About a month ago I wrote: I'm going to try and keep reading this - I've only got through about four stories so far. My main problems are boredom - as others have said the plots of these stories are anything but unexpected, rather being entirely predictable - and the complete lack of any positive

qualities, even in passing, in any of the characters. I used to think Dahl was a misogynist, based particularly on 'Kiss Kiss', another collection of his short stories, but I'm beginning to think he was actually a misanthrope. I feel as though I'm slogging through a mire of revolting, and not even very interesting, human behaviour and it's just bloody depressing. With some of Dahl's other writing I've come across really startling and beautifully crafted writing, making up for the general sense of misery. So far I'm yet to find any such magical writing in this collection.

I finished reading last night, and have to say things didn't really improve. The writing was very pedestrian and I can't think of any one story whose ending wasn't predictable. I remember enjoying the TV adaptation of this when I was a kid, but it seems the "plot twists" aren't twisty enough for me as an adult. I won't be rushing to read any more Dahl.

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LibraryThing member AliceAnna

Some really terrific short stories. A master of the twist ending and the twisted psyche.

LibraryThing member Equestrienne

A series of well written little shockers. Thoroughly enjoyable.

LibraryThing member et.carole

A favorite. Dahl definitely has types in this book, but the twist endings are a delight, the conceits each a charming curiosity. "Hitchhiker" was one of the stories which made me want to write.

LibraryThing member Jonathan_M

Roald Dahl's name is so closely associated with children's literature that people are often surprised to discover he wrote for adult audiences, too. And, while many of the stories collected in Tales of the Unexpected are essentially comedic even when dealing with crime or general human

unpleasantness, a few of them qualify full-bloodedly as horror stories: not only "Man from the South" (Dahl's single most famous story for adults, and one which has been anthologized in some horror collections), but also "The Landlady" and "Skin." The former is a near-perfect vignette about a seventeen-year-old Londoner who accepts a job in a strange town and seeks lodging upon his arrival; the latter, in which a broken old man recalls his friendship with a famous painter (who commemorated that friendship with a singular gift), contains the most chilling closing paragraph of any story I've ever read.

The aforementioned are the highlights for horror fans (those interested in Dahl's take on sci-fi absurdism may also enjoy "Royal Jelly"), but all of the stories are eminently readable.

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