The Secret World of Roald Dahl

Listen to half of the podcast and stop, if you just want to learn about Dahl’s life and not the host’s side quest enthusiasms. Also, they use an AI voice for Dahl while being cagey about doing it is, which is unnecessary, unwelcome, and confusing in a podcast that contains so much actual documentary footage. It’s a creepy and violating thing to do to a dead man. The biographical info in this podcast is very good, but it peters off halfway through as the host suddenly gets into professor mode. I’m glad this podcast addressed Dahl’s problematic aspects, but I wish it had focused more on how they showed up in his life and work. For example, I remember when Neal first discussed how he treated her recovery, and there was a lot of controversy about the dynamics of their marriage and him possibly being abusive (which Neal disputed). You wouldn’t know how any of that played out in the media from this podcast, and it was a complex and memorable news story at the time. This was like reading a biography that stops halfway through and turns into a series of essays about how to read problematic work along with some reviews of movie adaptations. The interviews with academics weren’t rigorous enough to be intellectually satisfying and were therefore just sort of common sense personal opinions. Who cares? I wish the host had kept the biographical about Dahl, kept his irrelevant enthusiasm for Tarantino etc to himself, and ditched the odious AI. If you’re going to use it, at least be honest with your audience about it. An actor would’ve been more fun to listen to and a more honest representation.

Really enjoyed this informative well structured (though sometimes repetitive) podcast. My only real issue is the abrasive ads that seem to come out of nowhere. Too many, too often, too disconnected

I found this to be a thoughtful, well-crafted, and fascinating exploration of an author whose work was a significant part of my childhood, yet whose life I knew very little about. Roald Dahl lived an extraordinary life filled with remarkable highs and devastating lows I had no idea about - I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about this extraordinary man behind his extraordinary stories. One caveat: prior to listening, I was unaware of Dahl’s antisemitic remarks. I was surprised by how much credit and admiration the podcast hosts and guests afforded him, given the nature of those statements. In my view, what Dahl said was deeply troubling and difficult to forgive, though I appreciate the apology his family has since issued. I am not Jewish, but I believe bigotry is bigotry, regardless of who it targets, and it should never be normalized or excused. I also tend to fall into the camp that does not fully separate the art from the artist. That being said, I thought the host did an excellent job presenting the complexity of both Dahl’s creative genius and his deeply flawed character, and in doing so has made me grow up a little in trying to see if I could become comfortable with that discomfort. Ultimately, I think the podcast intended to challenge listeners to wrestle with this tension for themselves. It asked important questions about legacy, accountability, and how we view the work of people whose actions or beliefs we find objectionable, without taking away from the brilliance of the work and the experiences that shaped it. For me, that was one of the most compelling aspects of the series. Dahl’s “secret life” was, in many ways, truly a secret to me before listening to this podcast.

I am wowed (I almost never say that). I never knew any of this about Dahl and have been so pleased to discover his many-layered extraordinary life in this well-presented, heartful, and very engaging story. My only complaint is I will soon be finished all the episodes!

Yes, Roald Dahl was an unrepentant antisemite. However, the very valid point he made about Israel’s complicity in terror and genocide in the Middle East was undermined by the podcast host and guest trying to use this to prove Dahl’s pattern of prejudice. The podcast frequently uses the term “what was going on in the Middle East” to minimize real displacement, genocide and war that Dahl witnessed and that we still witness today. A point is made that a component of antisemitism involves blaming Jewish people for complacency and also for terror (“damned if you do, damned if you don’t”), which in encouraging the audience to more deeply consider Dahl’s stance on Zionism completely removes it from a conversation about Israel’s culpability. There are many anti-genocide experts of Jewish heritage that could have also been interviewed in order to provide balance — or the host himself could have done more research into discourse around Israel’s entanglement in global politics and terrorizing of Syria/Lebanon/Palestine instead of claiming “I do not know.”