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Jason's Reviews > The BFG
The BFG
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"What a spiffling whoppsy room we is in! It is so gigantuous I is needing bicurculers!"
Please kill me now. No, I mean it. Seriously. Kill me now.
"I am brimfull of buzzburgers, This is a sizzling-hot muckfrumping country..."
Please, God. Oh please, please God, make it stop, make it stop, just make it...
"What a phizz-whizzing flushbunking seat. I is going to be as bug as a snug in a rug up here..."
NOOOO!! Sweet mother of God!!!!
Am I still alive? Is it over? Please tell me it's over.
I scan through these 5-star reviews, and I feel like I'm on crazy pills. This book is awful! It's unendurable. This is a classic? How? How? Nothing happens in it. There is no story. There is no wit. There is no magic. Giant Country might as well be Walmart, for all the magic it evokes. Flat! Dull! Dull! And then there's the cave. The cave! I've read some of these 4-star reviews - they grudgingly admit that their kid's attention began to wander somewhere in the middle....yeah, yeah, yeah, admit it! They hated it! It's the Emperor's New Clothes! I know caves. Caves can be magical. Plato's cave. Tom Sawyer's cave. Robinson Crusoe's cave. Those are magical caves. This cave? Not magical. This is not a magical cave. This is the boringest cave ever. What transpires in this cave? Nothing. I kid you not - nothing. Nothing transpires in this cave. 100 pages transpire in this cave. Two thirds of this book, literally a full two thirds, consists of a single unending dialogue in this cave between Sophie and the Giant. Sophie asks a question, and the Giant answers in his INSUFFERABLE DIALECT!!!!, providing some cutesy, backwards explanation about how things work in Giant Country. Then she asks another question. And he answers. Back and forth. And the answers are invariably moronic, punny, unfunny, uninteresting, and utterly irrelevant. They are winks at the adult reader. His entire personality, his every utterance, is a wink at the adult reader. He is not an attempt at character creation. No Big Friendly Giant would ever say these things. He is a fraud. This whole book is a fraud. I kept waiting for the dialogue to end, so something would happen. No luck. It just kept going and going and going, chapter after chapter after chapter....
I love children's fantasy novels. I love them. I teach them, for God's sakes! But this book is a load of swashbickling scrumdiddliumptious crap. I am genuinely mystified by the love this book engenders in people. Am I raping people's childhood by suggesting this? This book raped my adulthood.
Kids know. They know. I began by reading this to my 7 year-old daughter. This was supposed to be our nightly bonding ritual. We started. A few evenings went by. She seemed restless. She seemed distracted. She kept picking her toes. After 4 chapters, I noticed a definite shift. She started avoiding me come sundown. She would look at the clock and get nervous. She kept finding excuses to get out of story-time. She was tired. She was drawing. She had a headache. I pleaded. I coaxed. I offered bribes. Nothing. No good. "Let's watch the trailer again, Daddy!" The trailer. She prefers the trailer! She likes the big hand that comes in the window. She likes John Williams. She likes Mark Rylance, I think. And so here I sit, book on lap, daughter somewhere else in the house - playing, living, being free - and I stare heavily downwards, sunken heart, faced with the unthinkable prospect of having to finish the goddamn thing myself.
And I did, somehow. Sweet Jesus. It was painful. Insincere. Affected. Artificial. Tedious.
Just so you know, my daughter and I sped through Baum's The Wizard of Oz in about a week. Two, sometimes three chapters a night. She loved it. Couldn't get enough of it. You know why? Because kids know. They know, I tell you. How do parents not know? Why do parents keep inflicting this book on their poor, helpless children? Because of the message? Bullying is bad? Being different is okay? Do the right thing? Here's a good message: don't read shit to your children. Please, stop it, now. Read them Dr. Seuss. Read them Wizard of Oz. Read them Peter Pan. Read them The Wind in the Willows. Read them The Enchanted Castle. Just not this. For the sake of the children.
Because they know.
Please kill me now. No, I mean it. Seriously. Kill me now.
"I am brimfull of buzzburgers, This is a sizzling-hot muckfrumping country..."
Please, God. Oh please, please God, make it stop, make it stop, just make it...
"What a phizz-whizzing flushbunking seat. I is going to be as bug as a snug in a rug up here..."
NOOOO!! Sweet mother of God!!!!
Am I still alive? Is it over? Please tell me it's over.
I scan through these 5-star reviews, and I feel like I'm on crazy pills. This book is awful! It's unendurable. This is a classic? How? How? Nothing happens in it. There is no story. There is no wit. There is no magic. Giant Country might as well be Walmart, for all the magic it evokes. Flat! Dull! Dull! And then there's the cave. The cave! I've read some of these 4-star reviews - they grudgingly admit that their kid's attention began to wander somewhere in the middle....yeah, yeah, yeah, admit it! They hated it! It's the Emperor's New Clothes! I know caves. Caves can be magical. Plato's cave. Tom Sawyer's cave. Robinson Crusoe's cave. Those are magical caves. This cave? Not magical. This is not a magical cave. This is the boringest cave ever. What transpires in this cave? Nothing. I kid you not - nothing. Nothing transpires in this cave. 100 pages transpire in this cave. Two thirds of this book, literally a full two thirds, consists of a single unending dialogue in this cave between Sophie and the Giant. Sophie asks a question, and the Giant answers in his INSUFFERABLE DIALECT!!!!, providing some cutesy, backwards explanation about how things work in Giant Country. Then she asks another question. And he answers. Back and forth. And the answers are invariably moronic, punny, unfunny, uninteresting, and utterly irrelevant. They are winks at the adult reader. His entire personality, his every utterance, is a wink at the adult reader. He is not an attempt at character creation. No Big Friendly Giant would ever say these things. He is a fraud. This whole book is a fraud. I kept waiting for the dialogue to end, so something would happen. No luck. It just kept going and going and going, chapter after chapter after chapter....
I love children's fantasy novels. I love them. I teach them, for God's sakes! But this book is a load of swashbickling scrumdiddliumptious crap. I am genuinely mystified by the love this book engenders in people. Am I raping people's childhood by suggesting this? This book raped my adulthood.
Kids know. They know. I began by reading this to my 7 year-old daughter. This was supposed to be our nightly bonding ritual. We started. A few evenings went by. She seemed restless. She seemed distracted. She kept picking her toes. After 4 chapters, I noticed a definite shift. She started avoiding me come sundown. She would look at the clock and get nervous. She kept finding excuses to get out of story-time. She was tired. She was drawing. She had a headache. I pleaded. I coaxed. I offered bribes. Nothing. No good. "Let's watch the trailer again, Daddy!" The trailer. She prefers the trailer! She likes the big hand that comes in the window. She likes John Williams. She likes Mark Rylance, I think. And so here I sit, book on lap, daughter somewhere else in the house - playing, living, being free - and I stare heavily downwards, sunken heart, faced with the unthinkable prospect of having to finish the goddamn thing myself.
And I did, somehow. Sweet Jesus. It was painful. Insincere. Affected. Artificial. Tedious.
Just so you know, my daughter and I sped through Baum's The Wizard of Oz in about a week. Two, sometimes three chapters a night. She loved it. Couldn't get enough of it. You know why? Because kids know. They know, I tell you. How do parents not know? Why do parents keep inflicting this book on their poor, helpless children? Because of the message? Bullying is bad? Being different is okay? Do the right thing? Here's a good message: don't read shit to your children. Please, stop it, now. Read them Dr. Seuss. Read them Wizard of Oz. Read them Peter Pan. Read them The Wind in the Willows. Read them The Enchanted Castle. Just not this. For the sake of the children.
Because they know.
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Reading Progress
March 22, 2016
–
Started Reading
March 22, 2016
– Shelved
May 2, 2016
–
Finished Reading
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Murf the Surf
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May 02, 2016 07:18PM
I absolutely adored Wind in the Willows.....you can read that a million times and kids will beg for more. I guess I'm Mr Rat at heart too my friend. Murf
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Murray Winship (MURF) wrote: "I absolutely adored Wind in the Willows.....you can read that a million times and kids will beg for more. I guess I'm Mr Rat at heart too my friend. Murf"Yes! I adore Wind in the Willows!
"Because kids know. They know, I tell you. How do parents not know?"The key thing is to listen to one's children - as you did. Then the parents have no excuse for not knowing, and everyone is happier.
Cecily wrote: ""Because kids know. They know, I tell you. How do parents not know?"The key thing is to listen to one's children - as you did. Then the parents have no excuse for not knowing, and everyone is hap..."
Agreed!
haha, lovely. I read a lot of Roald Dahl as a kid. Many of his books. But I never finished this one either. I'm not going to boldly claim you just picked the wrong one. But I was recently in the subway and a woman was reading aloud Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and I grinned happily and when she asked her daughter if she should read another chapter I said "Yeah!" But I don't know if I could really and truly come back to any of these books as an adult. Thinking about it now, there's a lot of mean-spiritedness in them and I actually think that was a part of the attraction! The BFG himself is pretty goddamn creepy isn't he? Doesn't the book effectively start out with a kidnapping?I recently read one of his books for adults, a group of four short stories published under the title Switch Bitch. It was mean too, but really honest about it, I thought. I liked it a lot! There were many laugh moments and his filthy mind was on full display.
Yeah, the kidnapping was awesome! That's what's so frustrating about this book - it begins so promisingly. Then he takes her to his cave, removes her from his pocket.....and they start to talk. And that was the end of the joy for me. But yes, it does begin very well.
THANK YOU. Somehow, I grew up and never read this book. I'm a 32-year-old school librarian and this title is one of our BOB (Battle of the Books) books for next year, so I figured I should read it and after all, I liked "The Enormous Crocodile" and "The Witches" and I loved "Mathilda" and "James and the Giant Peach." And, as you accurately said, it begins so promisingly.
And then I thought I must be a despicable human being because I hated it. Loathed it. I'm talking, wanting-to-smack-people-who-love-it-with-a-sack-full-of-festering-turds hate it. Thank you for the knowledge that I am not alone.
Btw, want an amazing book to read to your daughter, if you haven't already done so? "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane" by Kate DiCamillo. :)
Bridget wrote: "THANK YOU. Somehow, I grew up and never read this book. I'm a 32-year-old school librarian and this title is one of our BOB (Battle of the Books) books for next year, so I figured I should read i..."
Glad I could oblige. :) There are more of us than you know...And, thanks for the recommendation!
Does nobody who hates this book realise the purpose of "Gobblefunk" the language Dahl invented for this book?!?
Your daughter likes John Williams??? Kids today DO have good tastes in music, after all! Lol
I think you need to calm down a little bit this is a book for children you know.
I grinned from ear to ear, I laughed out loud, and I even nodded in grave seriousness.
Sir, I salute you and this review. So glad I'm not alone.
Most children love the book. I couldn't stop reading it.
So I dissgre with you.
this review makes me sad
I read this book a long time ago and liked it just fine, but Dahl never gets more than fine from me. He’s just not my fave. I do have to say, I’m listening to the audio right now and while the story may only be 2-3 stars, the narrator is 5+. He’s so fantastic it makes the story seem even better! Agree that kids always know! My school is heavily into the Battle of the Books and I cringe every year when I see the list. There’s always some dumb so-called “classic� that none of the kids (nor I) like. I always read all the books but sometimes it is truly torture.
Great review!!!
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