Roald Dahl Reads His The Enormous Crocodile and The Magic Finger. Two funny and magical tales on this classic record. From the back cover: Do you ever wish you could reform or destroy the 'villains" in your life? Like the kid who always picks on you for no reason, or the adults who do things you don't like and don't take you seriously when you tell them how you feel? Roald Dahl takes such secret wishes and turns them into satisfy. ing and bizarre fantasies in which the villains get what they deserve, and good triumphs in the end.
There is a fairy-tale quality in these stories. We are at once both the villain and the “good." The villain represents our own destructive wishes, -- the magic our projective wishful thinking. The moralistic tone of these tales does not detract from their effectiveness. They are fun to listen to!
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Roald Dahl Reads His The Enormous Crocodile and The Magic Finger
Vinyl: Factory Sealed
Cover: Factory Sealed VG+ some bumps and minor shelf wear.
Album Tracks:
Side A: The Enormous Crocodile 17:28
Side B: The Magic Finger 22:13
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Let us enter now into the individualistic fantasy world of Roald Dahl. But leave behind your sense of the possible and the impossible. It only gets in the way. Let yourself believe! And have fun!
The Enormous Crocodile is Mr. Dahl's newest and youngest children's book. This one lends itself wonderfully to storytelling. The greedy, scheming crocodile (the villain) sets off in search of unsuspecting children to eat. On the way he can't resist bragging to the hippopotamus, biting the elephant's leg, and snapping at the monkey and the Roly-Poly Bird-just to show how mean and nasty he is. He masquerades as a see-saw and a picnic on sale bench, a coconut palm and a carousel animal in his sneaky attempt to catch some children. Alas, he has so alienated the other animals that they expose his every disguise.
But he won't quit. He has an endless supply of "secret plans and clever tricks” and all the nastiness and growing hunger he needs to continue his search for human prey until he succeeds. Now here is a dastardly, untrustworthy villain that must be finished off. The surprisingly abrupt ending of the story does the job nicely.
The Magic Finger is quite different. The villains here are less villainous than the crocodile, and the magic is more magical and lots more fun.
The villains in this story are a father and two sons who love, more than anything else in the world, to go sport-hunting. Their next-door neighbor, who narrates the story, hates hunting more than anything else in the world. Whenever she tells them how she feels, they laugh at her. The hunters take no one outside themselves seriously. They are presented as unaware, callous people who choose to remain insensitive to the feelings of their prey, For this group of "villains" there is hope. They merely need to be educated. This situation calls for the Magic Finger!
The narrator does not know how she got her strange power. It comes to her when she is angry. One fateful Saturday morning as her neighbors, the Greggs, bring in a slain deer and tell her to mind her own business, she lets them have it. She gets angry and sees red and, before she can stop herself, she puts the Magic Finger on the whole family.
The ensuing events are marvelous. The Magic Finger turns the tide. It gets even. And the culprits are given a chance to reform.
That same afternoon the Greggs shoot sixteen wild ducks. The following morning they wake up to discover that enormous duck wings have taken the place of their arms, and that they themselves have become very tiny. When they fly out the window to try their wings, a family of enormous ducks with human arms takes over their house. They are forced to build a nest in a tree to have a safe place to sleep. You may be able to guess the ending!
This very original tale plays out that wonderful fantasy of being able to control or change the people who won't listen to you or what you want. Don't you sometimes wish you had that kind of power?
The villainous extremes in Roald Dahl's fantasies free you to be fiercely who you are. Enjoy your sojourn in his unpredictable world. But be careful. Roald Dahl is habit-forming! -KATHY SHEA
Kathy Shea is a free-lance writer, story-teller, consultant on children's literature, and mother of two who lives in New York City.
Roald Dahl lives in England with his actress-wife Patricia Neal and their four children. He is the author of forty-three celebrated short stories, many film scripts and several of the most widely-read children's books, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Fantastic Mr. Fox (all available on Caedmon records TC 1476, TC 1543, and TC 1576 respectively), Charlie and the Glass Elevator, Danny: Champion of the World, and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More.
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Product code: Sealed Roald Dahl on sale Reads His The Enormous Crocodile and The Magic Finger Vinyl Record Album LP TC1633