Someone Like You (short story collection)

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Someone Like You
Someone like you.gif
Dust-jacket from the first edition
Author Roald Dahl
LanguageEnglish
Genre Mystery, horror, science fiction
Publisher Alfred A. Knopf
Publication date
1953
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (hardback)
Pages359 pp

Someone Like You is the second collection of short stories by Roald Dahl. It was published in 1953 by Alfred Knopf.

Contents

Contents

It contains eighteen short stories. The final four are grouped under a collective title. [1]

He secretly commissions a portrait of Janet from Roydon and visits Europe while it is finished. The portrait is publicly displayed and admired before it is delivered to Roydon's house, where he expertly removes the outer layer of paint, revealing Janet in her undergarments. He throws a society dinner by candelight, with Janet in attendance. At the end of dinner, he turns on the lights and leaves as Janet reacts in horror at seeing her portrait.
Lionel becomes a social outcast. Eventually, Janet sends him a conciliatory letter and a half pound of caviar, which he finds irresistible. As he eats it, he finds that he feels sicker and sicker.
  • "The Ratcatcher": A ratcatcher comes to Claud's petrol station to combat an infestation. He scatters some poisoned oats around a hayrick across the road. When he arrives to collect the dead rats a few days later, he is peeved to find none.
To regain the waning respect of his clients, the ratcatcher puts a ferret and a rat in his shirt and stands motionless while the ferret kills the rat. He then bets the men he can kill a rat without using his hands or feet. To win the wager, he kills it with his teeth. As he spits out the blood, he claims rat blood is the secret ingredient in liquorice.
  • "Rummins": Claud Cubbage is walking his greyhound when he comes across Rummins. He tells Rummins a ratcatcher has been to the hayrick across from Claud's petrol station. Rummins huffs that all hayricks have rats, but Claud insists the infestation in this one is unusual.
Rummins and his son Bert decide to dismantle the hayrick. Claud and the narrator watch as the rats start to flee the structure. As Bert cuts bales out of the hayrick, his knife hits an obstruction. He uneasily grinds through it upon his father's urging.
The narrator recalls when Rummins built the hayrick in June. He and Claud and other men, like the town drunk Ole Jimmy, had helped Rummins and Bert with the effort. They were in a hurry to finish before a storm approached. During a break, Claud and the narrator crossed the road to the station to make sandwiches. Jimmy disappeared for a nap, having drunk some beer. When Claud and the narrator returned, Jimmy was gone. Rummins assumed he had gone home and continues frantically piling hay as the storm grew nearer.
Finally, Bert cuts through the obstruction and throws down a bale to his father. He is horrified by what he sees. Rummins knows right away what Bert has bisected and runs away as his son starts to scream.
  • "Mr. Feasey" (First published as "Dog Race" in The New Yorker , July 25, 1953): [8] Claud and Gordon swap a ringer for the greyhound they have been racing at Mr. Feasey's tracks. The original dog, Black Panther, is a terrible runner, barely able to beat out dogs who come up lame. Having established his incompetence, Claud brings Jackie, a nearly identical dog who is very fast, to Mr. Feasey's latest race.
Knowing how inept Black Panther is, Mr. Feasey refuses to let him run until Claud wagers a quid that the dog will not finish last. Gordon's job is to place small bets with all the bookies at the race. The odds on Black Panther are 25-1. Jackie easily wins the race, and Feasey realizes the dog is a ringer. When Gordon collects his winnings, none of the bookies pay out.
  • "Mr. Hoddy": Claud Cubbage is visiting his fiancee Clarice's father, Mr. Hoddy. He knows Mr. Hoddy will look down on his scheme to win greyhound races with a ringer. So, he regales his host with tales of the maggot farm he is planning to open with his friend Gordon. Mr. Hoddy is disgusted by the notion.

Reception & Legacy

Groff Conklin called Someone Like You "certainly the most distinguished book of short stories of 1953 ... all superb". [9] Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas praised the collection's "subtly devastating murder stories [as well as] two biting science-fantasties, plus a few unclassifiable gems" and concluded the volume "belong[ed] on your shelves somewhere in the Beerbohm/Collier/Saki section". [10]

Van Morrison's song "Someone Like You" is named after this collection. [11]

Adaptations

Alfred Hitchcock Presents adapted several stories from the book:

Tales of the Unexpected also adapted several stories from the book:

Awards

References

  1. "Someone Like You". www.roalddahl.com.
  2. Dahl, Roald. "Taste", The New Yorker , December 8, 1951. 36–41.
  3. Dahl, Roald (1 September 1953). "Lamb to the Slaughter". Harper's Magazine. Harpers. Retrieved 30 May 2017.(subscription required)
  4. Dahl, Roald. "Collector's Item", Collier's , September 1948. 14, 59–60.
  5. Dahl, Roald. "My Lady Love, My Dove", The New Yorker . June 13, 1952. 20–6.
  6. Dahl, Roald. "A Dip in the Pool", The New Yorker , January 19, 1952. 23–7.
  7. Dahl, Roald. "Skin", The New Yorker , May 17, 1952. 31–7.
  8. Dahl, Roald. "Dog Race", The New Yorker . July 25, 1953. 27–45.
  9. Conklin, Groff (May 1954). "Galaxy's 5 Star Shelf". Galaxy Science Fiction. pp. 129–133.
  10. 1 2 "Recommended Reading," F&SF , August 1954, p.79.
  11. "Van Morrison interview". Marty at Midday , RTÉ lyric fm. November 4, 2016.
  12. "Radio City Playhouse". Radio Days. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
  13. "List of Works", WilliamSchumann.org. Archived June 2, 2003.
  14. "Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Dip in the Pool (1958)". Internet Movie Database.
  15. Gottlieb, Sidney (2003). Alfred Hitchcock. University Press of Mississippi. pp. liii. ISBN   978-1-57806-562-2 . Retrieved 25 October 2008.
  16. "Tales of the Unexpected: A Dip in the Pool (1979)". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 26 December 2015.
  17. ""Tales of the Unexpected" Poison (TV Episode 1980) - IMDb". IMDb . Retrieved 5 July 2021.

Further reading