Boy: Tales of Childhood

Dahl begins his book with an anecdote about his father, Harald Dahl, whose arm is amputated after a drunk doctor misdiagnoses a broken arm as a dislocation during his childhood in Norway. This shocking story establishes archaic medical and safety standards as a recurring and frequently explored theme in Dahl’s work.

Dahl, sometimes with bemusement and sometimes with condemnation, recollects the vastly different standards which existed in the 1920s. Dahl remembers vividly the operation in which his adenoids are sliced off with a scalpel, without warning of the incoming pain and without any kind of anesthesia. Dahl remembers that “the roof of my mouth seemed to be on fire” (81). No pain relief is offered at any point. The nonchalance with which this invasive surgery is conducted is further heightened by Dahl’s recollection that he and his mother simply “started walking. I said walking” to his grandparents’ home immediately after it (81). His emphasis on their “walking” illustrates his shock that a young boy would have a part of his body cut off and then be expected to go for a long walk home right away. Dahl recalls that in 1924, when his adenoid operation is conducted, “taking out a child’s adenoids, and often the tonsils as well, without any anesthetic was common practice” (82). Similarly, Dahl vividly remembers the unconventional treatment of his friend Ellis, who had a towel thrown in his face while the doctor violently lanced his boil at the St. Peter’s Sick Room. He directly asks the reader to consider how drastically these standards have changed in the 100 years since Dahl’s childhood.

With some amusement, Dahl recalls that operations, including his sister’s appendix removal and the reattachment of his own nose, were conducted by a visiting doctor at their family table, simply with a sheet thrown over it.

Dahl remembers that his half-sister receives only two half-hour lessons on how to operate the family’s new car, the first one they have ever owned. This hour of tutelage is “considered quite sufficient … in that enlightened year of 1925” (119). Dahl’s reflections on these lax attitudes toward driving are clearly tongue in cheek; his sister’s unpreparedness for driving is made clear in the car crash that sends the family members through the respective windshields of the car and leads to Dahl’s almost losing his nose. As in many of his anecdotes, the content is both humorous and distressing.