The First Sentence

"It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful."

Matilda, Roald Dahl

That is the first sentence of the first book I ever read on my own. I was five and a half - nearly a month had gone by since my parents had moved us from the lovely rolling flat lands of wheat farms and airplane hangars of Wichita, Kansas to the depths of the Andes in Quito where the mountains rose like dark giants in the night - when my father brought home Matilda from the bookstore. I insisted on trying to read it on my own. I was old enough, I said, to read a whole book. It took me a week to get through it (at the rate of a chapter per night) and upon finishing it, demanded more books by Roald Dahl. It was a first step, I realize now, in being amazed by writing and storytelling. The Witches, The BFG, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, The Twits, James and the Giant Peach, Fantastic Mr. Fox (who could forget Fantastic Mr. Fox?)...they all played like films in my head. But none of them have been as influential on my life as that first one - I wanted to be Matilda. I wanted to read the whole library. To be unapologetic about being smart.
Dahl spoke the language of children - he was an incredibly gifted man. But more than anything, Dahl is probably the best storyteller I´ve ever read or seen. Re-discovering Dahl is always a pleasure, always an experience - as the layers of those children´s books pull back to reveal true storytelling genius.
Part of me still want to keep that promise I made to myself when I finished Matilda - I want to be as good of a storyteller as Dahl was. Someday.
Hopefully....

Categories: books, Roald Dahl, storytelling