Going Solo

Roald Dahl had an incredible life. Maybe that's why he wrote such timeless stories. Going Solo follows Boy with his adventures in Africa, as a salesman for Shell first and as a pilot in World War II later.
His story is candid and portraits a nice and happy go lucky young man, who brushes off his encounters with death with lightness and charm. It is a nice and personal perspective of war, and its futility and huge dimension.
Easy to read, it drags on a little at the beginning but really picks up with all the war stories.

"Going Solo" by Roald Dahl is a book that has resonated very deeply with me. A memoir of his time in Africa and the Middle East before during World War II, "Going Solo" show a young Dahl in his early twenties confronting the joys, struggles, and ironies of... growing up during a time of war, all of which he does with his characteristic wit and energy. The narrative is very engaging and one gets a deep sense of Dahl's thoughts and experiences as a young person in the wider world for the first time - forced to "go solo" and come fully into his own by the circumstances of this time. The stories are fascinating and passages well written. Written nearly forty-five years afterwards, the book teams with youthful energy and one finds themselves drawn into his exuberance. The book can be readily divided into two parts. In Part One, Dahl is an employee of Shell Oil in East Africa in 1938. Here he encounters a dying world: the teetering British Empire. It is a world of privilege and danger, with sharply drawn characters and dazzling images to feed the imagination. Part Two explores his time as a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force fighting in the Mediterranean Theater during World War II. These section give the reader a less than rosy picture of the war, depicting the dark and often futile fight for Greece and Palestine during the first part of the war. It is here is where his ironic pen can do the most damage - he was one of approximately twelve RAF fighter pilots in all of Greece and forced to take on thousands of German planes and constantly face to face with the possibility of death through the sheer incompetence of the British military effort during these years. This book will give the reader a deeper sense of Dahl's personality and add a new dimension to his more well-known works. The book is a fantastic, enjoyable coming of age story that ends too soon and no review can do fully do it justice. Highly recommended.