#28

Going Solo

By Roald Dahl

2/9/11

                         This book begins with a description of a ship that carried Roald from England to Africa. Her name was the SS Mantola. She was an old paint-peeling tube of 9,000 tons with a single tall funnel and a vibrating engine. As one can see, she was quiet old. On the way of 2 weeks journey to Mombasa, she went to six other places. Roald mentions about how nowadays, we can fly to Mombasa within a few hours but not getting to sight-see anymore. I wish I would have an opportunity to take a ship to Mombasa and fascinate by their amazing nature.

             On the ship-ride to Mombasa, Roald shared his cabin with a manager of a cotton mill. Near his bed, there was a port hole on a wall, which abled Roald to look through and see the other side of the wall. One day, Roald was lying on his bunk. He suddenly saw a figure of a naked man working by! Roald at first thought that he had seen a phantom of a naked ghost, but he didn’t. He had actually seen a naked man! The man, Roald realized, was Major Griffiths, a man who had told him only the night before at the dinner table how he had spent thirty-six years in India and was returning once again to Allahabad after the usual home leave. Roald had also spotted another naked figure standing beside him. It was his wife. Goodness, moreover, major called him to join their ‘walk’! The next morning, the major called on Roald during breakfast in front of everybody, ‘You were getting an eyeful of the memsahib, that’s what you were doing!’ If I was Roald, I would’ve punched the major in his nose to make him be quiet. How embarrassing yet funny this part was! Roald later says that there were only dotty people on the ship and he was becoming to be one, too.

           Another part that comes to me is when Roald met the lion, Simba. The story is all about how Simba caught a chef’s wife and how Roald, the chef and the other villagers went to the wild to catch Simba and rescue the wife. I wasn’t supposed to laugh but I couldn’t help it.

           Despite these amazing events that happened in Africa, Roald was sent to the World War Ⅱ air force. With only 6 months of training, he and his pal, David Coke, fights the enemies and somehow survives. Even though Roald doesn’t actually get into his emotions through the book, I could feel through my bone that he and David went through a lot. There is this particular event when Roald stuck in a dessert upside down and got almost blind! Even though he wrote about this fairly… interesting, it wouldn’t have for Roald, actually.

           Throughout, anybody who read this book could tell that it was Roald’s. Even though he’s handling a hard subject, a war, it’s very exciting and thrilling. If I didn’t mention this, in this book, there are a lot of pictures that Roald had taken during those days and in each chapter, there are at least one letter written to his mom. From those pictures and letters, you can feel love to family from Roald. As everyone knows, family is important.