Roald Dahl’s Switch Bitch*, is a world away from Scoop by Evelyn Waugh. This year, our Book Group has been taking it in turns to choose books published in the year of our births, and Switch Bitch is the most recent as it was published in 1974.
Switch Bitch
2017 celebrated Roald Dahl’s books for children, so it’s interesting to read some of his stories that are very definitely for adults only. This book contains four short stories dealing with with sex and deception: The Visitor, The Great Switcheroo, The Last Act, and Bitch. According to Wikipedia, the stories had been published in Playboy previously too.
The first and last stories in the collection feature “Uncle Oswald”, a rather sleazy, cartoon-like character who seems to spend his life sleeping with as many women as he can, but only once. Although he gets his comeuppance in both the stories, I felt the depictions of the female characters were very stereotypical, and something out of a schoolboy’s fantasy. However, I did like the mention of the scorpions in the first story, neatly alluding to the sting in the tail of all the stories.
The second and third stories feature wife swapping, and a widow’s meeting with an ex-boyfriend. I found the second story quite unpleasant as, presumably, the wives had no idea what was going on so the sex could be construed as rape. And the third story was very painful to read, it was so cruel.
Has Switch Bitch dated?
All four stories are, supposedly, black comedies, although I don’t believe The Last Act fits that description. They mainly feature randy men getting their just deserts, and Dahl’s trademark plot twists and dark humour are very evident. But they do feel dated and of their time, unlike some of his other adult stories, and completely unlike his wonderful children’s tales.
Short story vs. novel
Novels have plenty of time for characters’ growth, plot twists, and story development. The art form of short story writing means that there’s usually fewer characters, no subplots, and, of course, far fewer words. The action tends to take place over a shorter time period, and there’s less scope for a detailed back story. And, finally, the short story has to hook the reader much more quickly than a novel, which can take its time. With all of this in mind, I think Dahl wrote four very well crafted short stories, which did keep me reading, regardless of whether or not I liked them.
Would I recommend it?
I think by now it’s clear that I didn’t like Switch Bitch, I couldn’t empathise with any of the characters, although I suspect that was Dahl’s intention. Overall, I found the cynicism and misogyny very hard to deal with. That said, I’ve enjoyed some of his other short story collections such as Kiss Kiss* and Tales of the Unexpected*, because they too had twists, but not such a high level of unpleasantness. And I absolutely love his children’s stories, as does my daughter.
Have you read any of Roald Dahl’s books for adults? What did you think? Did you like them or not?
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I didn’t know he did adult books either! Learn something new every day (; shame you didn’t enjoy it though… maybe he’s knack lies with children’s books instead xx
I think you’re right, his children’s books are absolutely ageless, I think they’re true classics ? xx
This is crazy, I had no idea Roald Dahl did adult’s books, I’ve definitely never heard of these! I’m definitely going to give them a try, I loved his books as a child, I still have the full collection on my book shelves in my room! x
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He was a diverse writer, haha! Even though I didn’t like these four, I still think they’re worth a read. I very much enjoyed some of his other adult fiction though, great black comedies. X
Hmm. I’ve never read a book of short stories. Sounds interesting!
They’re worth a read but I’d suggest starting with Kiss Kiss first, they’re more varied!