Aaron

I was just a researcher and writer.

But one of the people we interviewed back then was Solomon Rushdie.

It was before the Fatwa and all that.

Very nice fellow.

And I told Rush, I said, I did with Roald Dahl the other day, and this is what he said.

And Solomon said, yeah, I'm not really surprised.

Not because he knew about his anti-Semitism, but he said...

There's a cruelty in Dahl's writing that is extraordinary and that makes it quite attractive in many ways.

But I can see how that cruelty could turn into something like anti-Semitism, which I thought was a very interesting comment.

Absolutely.

That's really interesting.

Just to be clear, this was your only interaction with Roald Dahl, the phone call?

Yeah, I may have called him again, but it wasn't of any substance.

Yeah, this was the only one.

And, you know, you've obviously, you've spoken a lot about that phone call, but did you have any other takeaways from the call?

Any other impressions of Dahl, his personality, or anything else from talking to him?

And how long was the phone call, by the way?

15 minutes, 20 minutes.

Well, it was this sort of juxtaposition of incredible courtesy, right?

And vile opinions.