The Twits

Roald Dahl

I have long been a huge fan of Roald Dahl's work, both the kids' books and the adult stuff. Some few pieces of his oeuvre have escaped me over the years, and so I figure it's time to track them down.

The Twits is an amusing little tale of a husband-and-wife team who are ugly, mean, and stupid (perhaps presaging the parents in Matilda?). They train monkeys and eat bird pie for supper once a week. The monkeys and birds get fed up, and decide to give the Twits a taste of their own medicine.

It's amusing, for what it is, but it doesn't seem to have quite as much heart in it as do Dahl's great efforts. The Twits themselves don't really have the depth to make them the memorable characters one normally finds in Dahl's best books (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Danny the Champion of the World, etc.), and the plot of the thing feels more as if it's been stuck on with Hugtight Sticky Glue than it does an integral part of the story.

Fun, but if you want to become a true Dahl fanatic, start somewhere else. I'd suggest Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was what made me a lifelong devotee when i first read it as a six- or seven-year-old.