His immortal will

There have been men throughout history of whom it could justly be said that, through the sheer ferocity of their character and intellect, the grabbed the world around them by its lapels and thrust it bodily to its knees.  Their names have become bywords in themselves; names like Napoleon, Caesar, Tamerlane.  They differ in their aims, their particular quirks, the times in which they lived, but this quality of their personality is recognizable in each.  And even if they, personally, aren’t always what we might call invincible, it often endures for long enough – animates them just long enough – for great and astounding things to be achieved.  Sometimes terrible.  Always great.

It is not often that I get the opportunity to ascribe this quality to a mere author of children’s stories, but we need to talk about Roald Dahl.

You likely remember him as the author of such classics of children’s literature as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach.  He wrote lots of other things too – including some pretty hair-raising memoirs – but what commends him to our attention at the present hour is the degree to which, when faced with tragedy after personal tragedy involving those he loved, he refused utterly to surrender to despair, or panic, or – in at least two just astounding incidents – even to mild fluster.

The relevant and just incredible material – from a new biography of Dahl by Donald Sturrock ,to be published in September – can be found here.  Go check it out.  I can wait.

So basically we’ve got this in the space of about four years:

An infant son struck by a car and left with a shattered skull, brain damage, and a constant build-up of fluid that presses on the brain and induces blindness that could eventually become permanent – and the blindness is the least of their worries.  Does Dahl freak out and sink into despondency?  No.  He keeps careful notes even from the moment he arrives at the emergency room, consults with doctors and engineers, and finally, with the help of a model-building friend of his, is responsible for the invention of a new sort of valve system to drain fluid from children’s heads into their hearts, where it can then be reabsorbed.  Thousands of lives are saved, though oddly enough his son began recovering before the new valve could be implemented on him.  The boy, reaping the benefits of his parents’ constant care, attention, and apparently unflappable ingenuity, defies all expectations and basically makes a full recovery.

An adolescent daughter is suddenly felled by a case of encephalitis brought on by the measles.  Dahl had already secured a supply of a popular American prophylactic (amazingly) that served as a sort of primitive vaccine to protect his son from the disease, but there isn’t enough for the girl.  It was thought that she, being older and the picture of health, would be robust enough to fight off the disease like most everyone else, but the encephalitis strikes without warning and eventually proves fatal.  Does Dahl freak out and sink into despondency?  No.  Again, he keeps notes on everything, exactly as it happens – every crushing, power-defying detail – and seems to swear an oath that nobody else in the entire world will ever die if he can do something about it.  This oath is later revised somewhat in light of practicality, I guess, but he sure as heck brings it to bear when:

His wife, the popular (Oscar-winning, in fact) actress Patricia Neal, suffers a series of strokes while still a young woman.  She is left a convulsive, gasping wreck, unaware of her surroundings and unable to carry out the most basic tasks, let alone recognize her children or husband.  The prognosis is very grave, and she lives out the rest of her tragically shortened life in her husband’s heartbroken care.  But wait: No, she doesn’t.  Dahl rears up like the wrath of God and, remembering his vow, decides that she isn’t going to lie around deteriorating on his watch.  And so, through an endless regimen involving dozens of their friends and relatives and all of Dahl’s considerable patience, he helps get her back on her feet, both figuratively and literally.  He pushes her hard, day after day, not letting her give up.  Soon she can speak again.  And walk.  And act.  She goes on to earn another Oscar nomination for her role in The Subject Was Roses in 1968, only three years after she had been a battered husk waiting to die in a bed.  She is not done with life, because Roald Dahl is not done with her.

She didn’t just beat that stroke.  She beat the crap out of it.  She died yesterday at her home in Martha’s Vineyard – of lung cancer.