10 Matilda

Let’s tackle Roald Dahl’s iconic children’s chapter book Matilda. It’s surprisingly dark for a children’s book, but also has some fascinating structural traits that bear studying.

I also get really mad about the idiotic imaginary high art/low art divide and genre bigotry. And I quote a professor who once told us IN CLASS, verbatim: “Genre fiction can’t be good.” It’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard an intelligent person say. And that’s saying something.

Literary fiction is also a genre, by the way, with tropes and conventions of its own. Whoops, getting mad again.

Drama is a genre. Poetry is a genre. I might need to go for a walk. Except it’s midnight on a street with no lights and no sidewalks where people drive sixty.

SO ANYWAY.

Matilda is fantastic! I love it so much. I had forgotten how dark it is and had never noticed the way the plot runs into trouble and takes a sharp left two different times. I love that you can see this, can see Dahl going, “Hmm, this isn’t going to work,” and changing direction.

I also answer listener questions. Do you have any? Send them to me at sacredcheesepodcast@gmail.com

Guess what I didn’t talk about at all? My own writing! That I haven’t been doing! Oh no! Well, I keep having to leave the house for long periods of time during which I undergo strenuous exertion, and I quit coffee, both of which seriously interfere with the writing process.

However. I’ll get back on that bike. Horse. Whatever. We’ve got this!