Big Friendly Writer

In his puckered-up faces (like a dog's bottom) I saw my own teachers; his savage giants were my school bus bullies. And in his world of candy I saw myself. Here's Roald Dahl:

“Every now and again, a plain grey cardboard box was dished out to each boy in our House,” Dahl writes in “Boy.” Inside were eleven chocolate bars—aspirants to the Cadbury line. Dahl and the other boys got to rate the candy, and they took their task very seriously. (“Too subtle for the common palate” was one of Dahl’s assessments.) He later recalled this as the first time that he thought of chocolate bars as something concocted—the product of a laboratory setting—and the thought stayed with him until he invented his own crazy factory.

It's a good profile: of his good and bad and the reasons behind his decisions. (Hat-tip to Menaka, who'd do well to blog more often.)