- Hardcover: 222 pages
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0718118642
- ISBN-13: 978-0718118648
- Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 14 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 422 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
The nameless narrator has revealed snippets of the lovable, lascivious Uncle Oswald's life in other collections, but this is the only novel--brief though it is--dedicated solely to the diaries of "the greatest fornicator of all time." Inspired by stories of the aphrodisiac powers of the Sudanese blister beetle, the palpable seductiveness of the lovely Yasmin Howcomely, and the scientific know-how of Professor A. R. Woresley, Uncle Oswald anticipates the concept of the Nobel sperm bank by some 40 years, flimflamming crowned heads, great artists, and eccentric geniuses into making "donations." The life of a commercial sperm broker has a few surprises even for a sophisticated bon vivant, and Dahl manages his signature sting-in-the-tail ending even in one of his lightest comic works.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Book Description
Uncle Oswald, the great rogue and fornicator, has discovered the world's most powerful aphrodisiac and a method of quick-freezing sperm. So with the help of the gorgeous Yasmin Howcomely, he sets out to preserve 51 living geniuses and crowned heads, from James Joyce to King Albert and Henry Ford.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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First Sentence
I am beginning, once again, to have an urge to salute my Uncle Oswald. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
I am beginning, once again, to have an urge to salute my Uncle Oswald. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A delighting, funny, totally weird story,
By hjonkers (The Netherlands) - See all my reviews
This review is from: My Uncle Oswald (Paperback)
Those who only knew Dahl as a writer of funny short stories and haunting children's books, should look here. This is one of his more lengthy stories, although it doesn't have much more than 200 pages. His witty and capricious style hasn't changed either: this is a book as funny as you'll seldom read them. It's not for the youngest kids though, mainly because of its main subject. For there is just one thing this whole book depends on: sex. Not the kind of it you meet in most books, though: the story is rather a caricature of all sexual values that have ever existed. The story's main person, Oswald Cornelius (who is called 'uncle' because the whole story is quoted from his 'diaries' by a nephew), is, according to Dahl, "the greatest rogue, bounder, connoisseur, bon vivant and fornicator of all time". He seems to get every lady, not regarding age or whatever else, into bed with utmost ease. This gentleman comes across a lot of absolutely ridiculous adventures that are all described in this wicked book. This story takes place around 1912, when Oswald is barely seventeen. In spite of his young age, he is already a great diplomat and communicator. When he hears about a mysterious African beetle that, when stamped to powder, increases a man's potency highly, he's the first to go on expedition to Africa and get hold of some of these beetles. He accomplishes his mission and gets back to Europe where he sells his 'high-potency pills' at exorbitant prices to noble people from all over the world. But then he realizes there's much more (money) to get. Oswald then develops an ultimately ridiculous plan. Take a look at the cover if you're curious about it, I'd say. Anyway, to execute this plan he needs help. He picks out two people as his sidekicks: a chemist called A.R. Woresley and his schoolmate Yasmin Howcomely, "a girl absolutely soaked in sex" as Dahl describes it. And off they go for their mission... While Oswald is presented as a great bon vivant in the beginning, I need to say that his person changes during the story. At the start he's an audacious boy who fears nobody and even dares to challenge older ladies, but during the second part of the story Oswald is mainly a witness of Yasmin's actions. He has become a businessman who lets others do the work for him. And as with real businessmen, not everything goes as they had planned it... But in the end any kind of character development doesn't matter all that much, for this novel is just a very humorous story that made me laugh as I'd seldom did before with any book. The undertaken actions, and especially the way Dahl describes these, are incredibly funny. You're really in for a (hopefully positive) shock if you haven't read anything like this before. I can absolutely recommend this book for anyone who likes a very lucid and deliciously weird read.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Dahl's gem shines on,
By "buster225" (ohio) - See all my reviews
This review is from: My Uncle Oswald (Paperback)
When encountering dahl's metaphysical view of man and nature it's best to approach his works from a geo-sensitive literary mindset. This I say, of course, with all neo-pretentions aside.His characters have an opaque luster and that sheen only grows as the character reveals himself through dahl's social-societal inclinations to reveal that which has thus far remained cloaked. And the book is cloaked, in a sense. Cloaked with an aged, starched blanket enriching words and breathing life into paradigms once left unexplored save for the recesses of a sharp yet dusty mind. But this you see, of course, and don't you?
5.0 out of 5 stars
laugh out loud, deliciously sexy...,
This review is from: My Uncle Oswald (Paperback)
This book is sexy but not pornographic, an adult book which is clever, funny and ironic. If you liked any of RD's children's books and you are an adult now, who possesses a raunchy sense of humour and an appreciation of subtlety, you will LOVE this book.
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