Boekverslag : Roald Dahl - Edward The Conqueror / De Dominee Van Dreutelen
De taal ervan is Engels en het aantal woorden bedraagt 1435 woorden.
De taal ervan is Engels en het aantal woorden bedraagt 1435 woorden.
Summary
Louisa walks to the backside of the garden to call her husband Edward for lunch. He is working in the garden. He in pitching brambles on the top of a big bonfire.
When she is next to him they see a cat. He is sitting on the ground, on the far side of the bonfire. He is sitting so close to the fire that the flames sometimes seemed actually to be touching him.
The cat has a very unusual colour, a pure silvery grey colour with no grey in it at all and the hair was very long and silky.
When the couple walks towards the house the cat follows and at the end walks in front of them.
When they have their lunch he gets some milk. After lunch, Edward returned to his gardening. Louisa goes to the piano. Almost every afternoon she spent an hour or so playing for herself.
When she begins to play, the cat which first was sleeping at the sofa now sits bolt upright on the sofa, very tense, the whole body aquiver, ears up and eyes wide open, staring at the piano.
Louisa continued to play, she sees that the cat appreciates the work. She plays all sorts of work. When she played work from Liszt the cat gets all excited and comes running over to sit on the stool beside her.
When Edward comes in she tells him that the cat is a reincarnation of Franz Liszt. Edward doesn't believe a thing of it. It is just a cat, which can do a couple of tricks. He tells his wife to do normal and goes back to work.
When Edward is out of the house, Louisa goes with the cat to the library and returns with three books. Recurring Earth-Lives - How and Why and two books about Liszt. The book about reincarnation can't be true, because it says that humans never return as animals and that very special persons only return ones in the 1.500-2.000 years. And Liszt died in 1886. So that can not be true.
When Edward comes in again to have dinner, he finds his wife very excited. Liszt had five warts on his face. And when she examined the cat's face, she finds five warts at exactly the same place. That proves that the cat is Liszt.
Louisa wants to notify all the important living composers in the whole world. She thinks that when she tells them about her discovery they will come to visit Liszt.
Edward tells her to do not so silly. It is just a cat, which can do some tricks. Louisa makes something to eat, not because Edward had asked for dinner but because the cat hadn't eaten for the whole day. When she walks into the living room with a soufflé and a salad, Edward is walking across the room after having closed the garden door behind him.
Louisa asks him where the cat is. Edward pretends not to know where she is talking about.
He says that the bonfire still burns good. He had just gone out to check it.
Louisa looked at him. Edward asked her what was wrong.
She sees the long thin scratch that ran diagonally clear across the back of one hand, from the knuckle to the wrist.
And he replayed that he knew it, the brambles are terrible. Edward says there is noting to worry about. The impression is made that Albert has thrown the cat in the fire.
Main characters
Louisa:
Louisa is married with Edward. She was a competent pianist and a genuine music-lover, and almost every afternoon she spent an hour or so playing for herself. She believes the cat is a reincarnation from Liszt. She is credulous, because she believes that the cat is Liszt. She wants to invite every musician in the whole world, so that they can meet him. And she thinks that they will come flying in from every corner of the earth, just to see the cat.
Edward:
Edward is not so young anymore. He doesn't believe his wife that the cat is a reincarnation from Liszt. He thinks she is out of her mind to think that the cat is Litszt. He works enjoys working in the garden. This day he is burning the brambles. At the end of the book is seems like he has thrown the cat into the fire.
Theme
It is difficult to find the theme of Edward the conqueror. Louisa loves to play piano, that's why she finds out that he cat is a reincarnation of Liszt.
My opinion
In Edward the conqueror you don't know what happened to the cat. Has there been a cat, wasn't it all imagination? Or if there was a cat what did Edward do with it? Did he throw it in the fire, or did he scare it away, and if he threw it into the fire why would he do such a thing, but it was a funny story to read and I enjoyed it very much.
The books have different themes, but in both there is a lot of humour and they are both a little cruel. Also the people in the books are not what they appear to be. In Royal jelly is Albert half a bee. He gives his daughter Royal jelly and taking it himself without telling his wife. In Edward the conqueror Edward looks a nice man but he throws the cat, which his wife loves, into the fire.
Those two stories stay in your mind once you read them. You want to know the answers to the questions you have after reading them. I think that is why Roald Dahl is such a good writer. You keep thinking about the story.
Literature
Kiss kiss from Roald Dahl
Encyclopedie, grote Winkler Prins
Het ABC van de jeugdliteratuur; J.Linders, J.Staal, H.Tromp, J.Vos
Lexicon van de jeugd literatuur
Internet
Concerning the writer
Roald Dahl was born on September 13, 1961 in Wales. He was the son of Norwegian immigrants. After he had finished a boarding school, he decided not to study, but to travel.
He worked for Shell and was stationed in East Africa.
While he was there the World War II broke out and Roald Dahl joined Britain's Royal Air Force as a pilot. After his serious aircrash in the desert, from which he kept his whole life backache, he was stationed in Washington. In Washington he was member of the British diplomatic corps. While he was in America he met the British author Forester, who encouraged him to draft a story about his most exciting adventure as a pilot. The story was bought by The Saturday Evening Post and his career as a writer began.
Roald Dahl spent the forties and the early fifties publishing short stories for adults. He became famous with two collections bizarre and fantastic stories: Someone like you and Kiss kiss. He achieved his comical and atrocious effects by letting ordinary people react in a conventional way at exceptional unconventional situations.
After he established himself as a writer for adults, Roald Dahl began writing children stories in 1960, after his kids were born. His first two novels, James and the giant peach and Charlie and the chocolate factory have been made into films. Roald Dahl was the winner of England's two most distinguished literary awards, the Whitbread Prize and the Children's Book Award. Seventeen of his works are perennial best sellers.
In 1953 he married the American filmactress Patricia Neal. In 1983 he got divorced from Patricia Neal and married Felicity Crosland
He lived more than thirty years at Great Missenden in an old farmhouse in a village not far from London. Roald Dahl died there at 23 November 1990.
Bibliography
Someone you like (1961)
Kiss kiss (1962)
Over to you (1964)
My uncle Oswald (1979)
Sometimes never (1980)
Tales of the unexpected (1980)
Two fables (1976)
The bookseller/The surgeon (1988)
Memories with food at Gipsy House (1991)
For children:
The Gremlins (1943)
James and the giant peach (1961)
Charlie and the chocolate factory (1964)
The magic finger (1966)
Fantastic Mr. Fox (1970)
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (1973)
Danny The champion of the world (1975)
The wonderful story of Henry Sugar (1977)
The enormous crocodile (1978)
The twits (1980)
George's marvellous medicine (1981)
Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes (1982)
The BFG (1982)
The witches (1983)
Dirty Beasts (1983)
Boy (1984)
The Giraffe and the Pelly and me (1985)
Going solo (1986)
Matilda (1988)
Rhyme Stew (1989)
Esiotrot (1990)
The Minpins (1990)
The Vicar of Nibblewicke (1990)
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