My Uncle Oswald

by Roald Dahl

Paperback, 1990

Status

Available

Call number

823.914

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

Penguin Books (1990), Edition: Reprint, 208 pages

Description

Volume XX of the Diaries of Oswald Hendryks Cornelius, word for word as he wrote it . . . Uncle Oswald is, if you remember, the greatest rogue, bounder, connoisseur, bon vivant and fornicator of all time. Here, many famous names are mentioned and there is obviously a grave risk that families and friends are going to take offence . . . Uncle Oswald discovers the electrifying properties of the Sudanese Blister Beetle and the gorgeous Yasmin Howcomely, a girl absolutely soaked in sex, and sets about seducing all the great men of the time for his own wicked, irreverent reasons. 'Immense fun' - Daily Telegraph. 'Raunchy exuberance and cheeky entertainment' - Sunday Express'Deliciously silly' - Observer. 'Extravagantly funny' - The New York Times Book Review.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member MeditationesMartini

Well, you can't take this seriously, of course. Dahl's fictional uncle, a seducer of repute (this is before the First World War, when there were such things) makes a fortune with a sort of aphrodisiac, then makes a larger fortune by administering said drug to various intellectual and artistic

luminaries with the help of a female accomplice and collecting their ejaculate to amass a sort of Sperm Bank of the Stars. I'm unconvinced Picasso's sperm would sell for more than the beetle powder, which seems to be a sort of combination viagra, ecstasy, rohypnol and spanish fly, but leaving that aside this is a breezy read, laffs abide, and the deflection into history of the action allows Dahl to sort of pull off "archly ribald" for the most part, although there are plenty of cringe-inducing "oo-er, missus" moments of uncomfortable prurience (the bit where Yasmin dresses up as a boy to de-sperm Proust could have worked as bawdy, if you didn't keep reflecting on how the straight geniuses all had the drug to excuse their animalism but the gay can barely keep it in his pants from go), and a few downright "the filthy minx wanted it" bits of misogyny that the author can't quite disown on his glib and greasy unc. With the oversexedness--with the very concept--comes a sort of sexual naivete that you want to mock--the winking sexual descriptions that fall back on piston and machine-gun metaphors and a sort of "just bang her harder, that'll loosen her up!" idea of women's sexuality are almost adorable, but then there's the treatment of rape as a sort of peccadillo . . . I guess we effete moderns didn't shoot down five Ju-88s over Crete, but it weirds me out that the budding change in sexual mores had to go through this "you dirty little bitch" stage to get off the ground. It makes you shudder at what the Victorians would have said about sex in print if they'd felt freer to. But as long as you can take this in a sort of racist-granddad spirit, and not be too weirded out that it's by the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, there is some definite enjoyment to the absurdity of the caper and Oswald's revelry therein.

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LibraryThing member tripleblessings

Vulgar and misogynistic, treats women as objects. I strongly dislike it, for the same reasons as Dahl's Switch Bitch. Just nasty.

LibraryThing member ericalynnb

This is one of the funniest books I've ever read. But don't judge this book by the author, this definitely isn't kid's stuff, although it contains the same kind of humour that made his children's books so popular.

LibraryThing member myfanwy

I've long been a proponent of Roald Dahl's adult short stories. My Best of Roald Dahl collection has been loaned out and rebought three times so far. He is one of my alltime favorite authors and has a knack for combining believable dialogue with the fantastical and the borderline grotesque. I have

read nearly everything that man has written, and this was a frivolous reread for me.

I had just watched a short film that shamelessly stole from one of Dahl's stories, based on his character Oswald Cornelius. Cornelius is a flagrant womanizer and epicurean. The story was so titillating that Dahl wrote a whole book from the fictional diaries of this character. In this brief novel Cornelius explains how he made his millions.

It's not Dahl's best book though it does carry his characteristic flavor. It is, in short, the story of what one man can do when he is wealthy, entrepreneurial, clever, completely unscrupulous, and in sole posession of the world's greatest sexual stimulant. What I hadn't realized is that My Uncle Oswald ages less well than his other stories. After all, we live in a world where we are bombarded by ads for cheap Viagra, where artifical insemination is not uncommon, where the pill and the condom have lead to unprecedented sexual freedom. He did write this in 1979, so it's not like it hadn't already begun but what was titillating then is now less shocking by far. A fun brief read, but now I'll go back to my Best of Roald Dahl collection, or perhaps dig up his WWI Royal Air Force stories that I still haven't read. Goodbye Dahl, for now, and thanks for an amusing romp.

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LibraryThing member extrajoker

first line: "I am beginning, once again, to have an urge to salute my Uncle Oswald."

second line: "I mean, of course, Oswald Hendryks Cornelius deceased, the connoisseur, the bon vivant, the collector of spiders, scorpions and walking-sticks, the lover of opera, the expert on Chinese porcelain, the

seducer of women, and without much doubt the greatest fornicator of all time."

A hysterical novel about sex and salesmanship. Not for the easily offended.

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LibraryThing member Bestine

Fun, but not up to the quality of his short stories.

LibraryThing member -Eva-

Oswald Cornelius' diaries tell of his adventures when he and his companions set out to procure the sperm of the crème de la crème of early 1900s society with the help of an infallible aphrodisiac. It's raunchy at its best and a bit dirty-old-man at its worst, but of course quite funny at the same

time. I can only imagine that Dahl had a great time imagining the various proclivities of the various artists and the royals. Interesting that he makes the painters into the most intriguing characters and the writers either boring or peculiar - you would think it would be the other way around. I do admit that I prefer his children's stories and his Tales of the Unexpected a lot more than this, but it's still worth a gander, if only to take a different look at the Dahl brain.

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LibraryThing member kaelirenee

I still crack up when I see this book shelved with the kid's books. This offering by one of the greatest children's authors of all time is definatly not for the young ones. This is the story of Oswald, a man who's wicked ways presented many hillarious, bawdy tales. All the characters a

well-presented and written and the stories flow along beasutifully. Just as the world isn't always beautiful or black-and-white in James and the Giant Peach, the world of adults is often strange, fantastical, and hillarious.

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LibraryThing member lauren.castan

Easily my favourite book, ever. I often re read it when I am on holiday, and it still gives me the giggles, even after many years. I have owned and given away many copies of this book, and need to acquire another one now.

LibraryThing member liz.mabry

Dirty, hilarious, and fantastic.

LibraryThing member areadingmachine

Roald Dahl getting raunchy and sexy! Seriously and hilariously entertaining we follow a young man and his sexual trysts throughout the world.

After finding an exceptional powerful aphrodisiac our protagonist decides to start a very lucrative business selling the sperm of famous people to mothers who

want to have the offspring of a genius. He and his team visit countless men of art, literature, psycology and science, seduce them, bag their boys and sell em.

So wonderful to have read this mans books as a kid and then find he is just as dirty and torrid as the rest of us in adulthood.

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LibraryThing member AliceAnna

Fairly clever concept but it got a bit old. I was glad to see the cocky young protagonist get his comeuppance He really was a terrible person.

LibraryThing member sandra.k.heinzman

Well, what can I say about this book? It was not the Roald Dahl type of book I was expecting, but it was strange, weird, crazy, and I think I liked it, ha ha. It is definitely an ADULT book, so do not let your young kids read it!! It was soft "erotica."

LibraryThing member SadieBabie

This is the first of Dahl's adult novels I've ever read, though his children's books are some of my favourites of all time. But I really don't know how to feel about it... It's a children's book with an adult theme - Dahl's wonderful prose, crazy schemes and wily protagonists seen in books like

George's Marvellous Medicine or Fantastic Mr Fox are turned on a subject that made me feel very uncomfortable. It is a story about rape, basically. Both the men who are used for their semen and Yasmin who collects it are being raped in different ways, and I didn't enjoy the fact that this was presented so flippantly. I was glad at the outcome, but I didn't feel it was enough.

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LibraryThing member PeggyK49

I only recently "discovered" Roald Dahl. Don't get me wrong, I knew of him, it's just that I never thought to read anything he had written. That changed after reading a book of his short stories. I decided to read whatever of his writings I could find. Another book of short stories followed, and

then I decided to try a novel, My Uncle Oswald, which is definitely different from Dahl's short stories that I have read so far. BUT, there is a running theme in this novel that I discovered in his short stories. The art of the con! (I know I'm probably very late in that discovery, since I only recently began my immersion into Dahl's writing.)

My Uncle Oswald, which is definitely an adult book, delves into a long con, involving sex and greed. with a twist just at the end. I found it a very enjoyable read!

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LibraryThing member lucthegreat

I hesitate in giving this book 5 stars for it is no edifying work of superlative genius. Rather, it is a superbly-crafted and saucy tale that is impossible to put down. I shall have to read more by Mr. Dahl.

LibraryThing member Dabble58

A quick and naughty read, with all the fun of one of Dahl’s Children’s books but a great many more sex scenes.
Suffice to say, if a luscious woman offers you a chocolate, perhaps you should consider carefully before you accept it.
Made me laugh- rumpy bumpy and nefarious schemes abound, and Dahl

can surely turn a phrase.
NOT A CHILDREN’S STORY.
Of course it is entirely inappropriate, speaks of sexual assault as a fun thing, uses a woman rather shamefully (though she is a willing participant) and of course it is full of sexism and stuff. It’s not great literature. But anyone who has read any Ronald Dahl knows that he pushes an image about as far as any author can. All of his stories are vaguely scandalous. Don’t read if it you are easily offended. For me, the image of a naked George Bernard Shaw, undone by a doctored grape and desperate for some some with the heroine of the tale was amusing.
I’m shallow that way, I guess.

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