Why Roald Dahl Does Not Deserve a Second Chance

Dahl's books repeatedly describe villainous characters as ugly and fat, but he doesn't stop there. He describes clothes as tight as sausage casings, rolls of flesh bulging. He talks about bottle-dyed hair and caked-on makeup and wrinkles and hairy upper lips and moles with obvious disgust. Through his descriptions of antagonists, and especially as they're placed against the lithe, lovely descriptions of his heroes, Dahl sends a clear message that a person's physical descriptions will match the way they act.

The result is two-fold: there is a good way to look and a bad way to look, and if you look bad, you are bad. I can hear eye rolls from here. I know that people will be on the defensive, insisting that I am oversimplifying. It's okay to be wrong. Yes, I've read his quote about thinking good thoughts and they'll shine out of your face like sunbeams and make you lovely no matter what you look like. It's crap and does not match the way he wrote characters throughout his entire career.