The Landlady By Roald Dahl
I forgot to take a book with me to a coffee shop this morning, so ended up downloading this very short story via my son's school website.
I've read a few adult short stories from Roald Dahl in the past, and this follows a similar vein - mysterious circumstances with an overriding feeling of foreboding and dread for the main character. Dahl seems to take great pleasure in presenting these sweet and innocent old women and having their character be completely at odds with their image. This also reminded me a little of a Charlotte Perkins Gilman short story I read recently about a boarding house.
Creepy and unsettling. Roald Dahl This is my first time reading anything of Roald Dahl's that wasn't a children's book and I have to say that I wasn't a huge fan. This book was so dull and predictable that I didn't really feel the creepiness or scariness that I was supposed to feel from the story. Roald Dahl What a bizarre sense of dread you get from this incredibly brief story!
This is not a supernatural or ghost story. Instead, it's about an elderly lady who appears to be lovely and accommodating, albeit a little senile. She owns a Bed & Breakfast, and Billy Weaver, 17, is in need of a place to stay. Billy feels impelled to stop at the B&B, despite being directed to a tavern for lodging only down the road. Billy knocks on the elderly lady's door, and she promptly invites him in, as if she had been waiting for him. The creepiness multiplies tenfold from this point on!
The story is presented in such a way that it is clear that the lady has done something to her former lodgers. You just don't know what it is - and that is what makes the story so good! Dahl instills a real sense of unease. Something is wrong, and you grow concerned that the young man isn't getting it, and you want him to get out of there! Billy doesn't seem to realize he's in trouble, even after recognizing that his tea tasted faintly of bitter almonds.
We never learn what the old lady's motivations were. We don't understand why she does what she does, which adds to the unpleasant nature of the plot.
My only criticism is that I wish the story had been a little bit longer! I craved more! Roald Dahl Disturbometer: 3 - 4 out of 10
Number 5 on my “most disturbing story ever list
Okay, so the landlady
Sometimes it’s dangerous to be cute!
Heh, I found the story cute almost more than I found it disturbing. Sure, the implication is most certainly disturbing, but to me it felt almost like a fairy-tale, and pretty fun to read; especially as, despite some foreboding and foreshadowing from the start, you don’t see the specifics of what’s going on until right at the end, .
Despite the disturbia, a short, fun little read. Roald Dahl Okay, this one was weird. And kind of disturbing. And somehow I still remember everything that happened in it with stark detail. Maybe it was because we had to write our own endings for the story and my ending creeped me out... Roald Dahl
The Landlady is a brilliant gem of a short story from Roald Dahl, the master of the sting in the tail.
In The Landlady, Roald Dahl, one of the world's favourite authors, tells a sinister story about the darker side of human nature. Here, a young man in need of room meets a most accommodating landlady...
The Landlady is taken from the short story collection Kiss Kiss, which includes ten other devious and shocking stories, featuring the wife who pawns the mink coat from her lover with unexpected results; the priceless piece of furniture that is the subject of a deceitful bargain; a wronged woman taking revenge on her dead husband, and others. The Landlady
Written in the 1950's this short horror story set in England was a home run with my grade 7 &8 students during our short story unit that we've just completed. A young man looks for a place to rest his head for the night and discovers a Bed and Breakfast that no reader will ever forget! Roald Dahl Cool! We read this during the English lesson back in High school, and I'm surprised that it was so good! I really enjoyed this story; I only wish it was a bit longer. And I think this was my first Roald Dahl.
The tea tasted faintly of bitter almonds...
...............
Before we started this story, our teacher gave us one question: Who is the Landlady.
And my answer was: Creepy killer. But I would say this to anything. Roald Dahl Un joven viajero acaba de llegar a destino en medio de la noche. Consultando en la Estación donde hospedarse le recomiendan un hotel cercano, pero de camino ve otro sitio que súbitamente le llama la atención y lo atrae. finalmente decide hospedarse en este sitio y es recibido por una amable mujer que parece haberlo estado esperando. La anfitriona, ademas de increíblemente atenta con su huésped, resulta ser bastante peculiar y excéntrica, entre otras cuestiones se dedica a la taxidermia, con un talento para emplear este arte que fue muy difícil para el viajero percatarse que el loro y el perro de la recepción en realidad no estaban vivos. Pronto el viajero comenzará
a hacerse varias preguntas.
Una narrativa sencilla y concisa. Con un notable manejo de lo explicito/ implícito, al punto de prescindir de un final per se, porque las cartas ya están echadas sobre la mesa.
Un ejemplo de la habilidad del autor para conectar con el lector juvenil y también con el lector adulto evocando la nostalgia con sus historias y embelleciendo lo siniestro. Roald Dahl wow, just wow!
I swear I once watched a horror movie inspired by this story.
I had no idea this was a horror story, I just read the title and started reading, and I'm glad I didn't because I'm not fond of scary things.
It's unbelievable that it came out of Roal Dahl's pen. I had no idea he could write such creepy stories.
Right from pages 1 I could feel my legs weaken, my heart pounding and the chills going up and down my spine. I was terrified, yet I wanted to keep reading.
Everything was just perfect, I could see it happening right in front of my eyes, I could see the parrot, I could see the book, the names, I could taste the sweet almonds flavored tea, I could see Billy realizing what would happen next.
I'm wowed, I'm definitely going to need more. Roald Dahl Oooh, this was really good! It's a creepy little short story about, well, a landlady, and her rather unfortunate tenants. This is the best kind of horror- really subtle, just at the fringes, a lingering sense of unease and an open ending that has an implied conclusion but lets you fill in the blanks. Read it here. Roald Dahl
