‘The Secret World of Roald Dahl’ closes out podcast series with UNC Charlotte’s Mark West

The final episode of the podcast series “The Secret World of Roald Dahl” was released Monday, March 23, featuring Mark I. West, Ph.D., professor in UNC Charlotte’s Department of English. The podcast is produced by iHeartMedia, Imagine Entertainment and the award-winning audio company Parallax.

After premiering earlier this year, “The Secret World of Roald Dahl” quickly became the #1 trending show on Pocket Casts and peaked as the #1 documentary, #1 series and #3 overall show on Apple Podcasts. The series was also featured on Deadline, Forbes and Radio Online and received the Apple spotlight for New Shows.

Created and hosted by Aaron Tracy, bestselling writer, producer and founder of Parallax, the ten-part series goes beyond Dahl’s iconic children’s books, including “James and the Giant Peach,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “The BFG” and “Matilda,” to explore the complexities and controversies of Dahl’s life and legacy.

West, a leading expert in children’s and young adult literature, corresponded with Dahl for years, even traveling to his home in Great Missenden, a small town outside of London, to interview him just months before Dahl’s death. 

Reshaping children’s literature

Tracy interviewed West to find out how Dahl changed the landscape of children’s literature throughout his career. When Dahl began to focus on writing books for children in 1961, most children’s books before had been intended to provide moral and upstanding messages.

“One of the things that Roald Dahl brought to the whole children’s literature scene was trying to write children’s books that appealed to children’s sense of humor and the way they look at things, which is somewhat different from the way in which adults look at things,” said West.

Dahl also played up the adversarial relationship between kids and adults in his books. West explains that adults often read children’s books for a sense of nostalgia and childhood innocence, while kids are not nostalgic about childhood. 

“One of the things he said to me is, ‘Well, the kids sometimes see adults as the enemy’,” West said. “In some ways, kids think of adults as these big, powerful people who are trying to civilize them, but kids don’t want to be civilized.”

The evolution of Dahl’s work

West is uniquely equipped to discuss how Dahl’s work evolved over the years. While writing his book “Roald Dahl,” published by Twayne Publishers as part of an English authors series in 1992, West received special permission to review manuscripts scheduled for posthumous publication, ensuring that his book accounted for every story in Dahl’s career.

“One of the things that I think is interesting about the progression is you’ll see child characters, the central characters, getting more and more agency,” West said. “Roald Dahl showed that children’s books can have characters where the kids really make a difference, where they have agency, where they can make decisions that matter, where they can outwit adults.”

He describes Dahl’s first children’s books as imaginative and clever, but early protagonists like James and Charlie experience events without driving much of the action. His characters become increasingly active as his stories progress, culminating in Matilda, who demonstrates significant agency.

“In some ways, Matilda actually has more power in terms of her interactions with adult characters that the adults do,” he explained. “She outwits the adults, she outwits the teacher who runs the school.”

Meeting Dahl

As someone who met Dahl later in life, West describes him as a “very theatrical, over-the-top person,” explaining that if he did not like a story, he would ritualistically burn it to prevent rewrites.

When Dahl picked him up at the train station, his initial prickly composition made West worry about how the interview would proceed. However, after settling in, the two spent the day drinking gin and tonics, exploring Dahl’s famous writing hut and discussing literature.

“He was just a very complex and interesting person,” West said. “So I’m very grateful that he took the time out to talk to me, introduce me to his family and buy me many drinks.”