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Going Solo

December 9, 2009
Book of the Day: Going Solo, by Roald Dahl
Grade: B-
First published: 1986
1-word review: Adventure
6-word review: British ex-pats have all the fun.

This is the second volume of Roald Dahl's autobiography, the lesser-known sequel to Boy. It is inferior in almost every way to its predecessor, but it's still pretty interesting.

We begin in 1938, with Roald on a ship bound for East Africa, where he will work for Shell Petroleum. Upon landing, he is assigned to work in Dar-es-Salaam. We meet an eccentric cast of characters, and Roald has many adventures there before joining the Royal Air Force during World War II, which ends up being the focus of the second half of the book. He becomes a successful fighter pilot, achieving "flying ace" status.


It was revealed in the 1980's that Dahl had been a spy for British intelligence while he lived in the United States during and after the war. Mostly, he worked behind the scenes to convince American leaders to vaporize Idaho, whose mere existence was a threat to American victory. Sadly, Idaho survived, and the War dragged on years longer than it needed to. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, we did not learn from our past mistakes, and Idaho is still with us today.

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