“Parson’s Pleasure”
The stories in this collection are constructed upon an ironic twist. In a sense, this makes them somewhat like Dahl’s tales of the unexpected, but the reversal in these stories tend to be less grotesque, macabre and final. Perhaps the closest that any come to that level of cruel irony—and it is not really even all that close—is the manner in which crooked antiques dealer Cyril Boggis receives his comeuppance. Having cheated a simple farmer out of an expensive original piece of Chippendale furniture by telling him it is worthless and he only wants it so he can saw off the legs to attach to a table at home, he is ironically upended by that very same simplicity. The farmer does him the favor of cutting off the legs for him so it will fit into the disguised parson’s small vehicle.
“Rummins”
“Rummins”
This is a story which does actually come pretty close to the levels of the grotesque displayed in some of Dahl’s other stories, but the irony is of a different nature. The story ends with a brutally horrific revelation of what happened to a missing person and it is quite unpleasant. This places the story’s conclusion on ironic juxtaposition with its opening paragraph which is essentially an imagery-laden description of the kind of beautiful, perfect morning which nobody ever expects is going to end so horrifically:
The Opening:
“The sun was up over the hills now and the mist has cleared and it was wonderful to be striding along the road with the dog in the earning morning.”
The Ending:
“the boy seemed to freeze, staring stupidly at the newly exposed face of the rick, unable to believe or perhaps refusing to believe what this was that he had cut in two…Rummins…moved so fast he was through the gate and halfway across the road before Bert started to scream.”
“Mr. Hoddy”
Claud Cubbage, the character that unifies the stories in this collection is a schemer constantly at work trying to make a score. A compulsive gambler, he is also a man who is cursed by the Ace of Spades, destined forever to be on the losing end of his attempts to make a quick buck. By all reason, Claud should be at the very best a rogue and, at worst, something less than endearing. The great irony of the collection is that Claud is actually rather lovable and he is portrayed at his most endearing when forced to come up with a spectacularly unlikely plan for attaining the financial independence necessary to take care of his girlfriend, Clarice.
As Claud rolls out this absolute tenable and absurd fake scheme to Clarice’s father, what becomes more apparent than anything is just how surprisingly much he actually cares of the man’s daughter to whom he makes a truly heart-felt assurance that all he thinks about day and night is taking care of her. Of course, there is another level of irony in the fact Claud’s honesty here masquerades the fact the fact that most of the ways he thinks of taking care of her involved outlandish schemes certain to fail.
“The Champion of the World”
Maybe the most outlandish scheme of all takes place in this story about poaching pheasants. The point isn’t to make money, but to embarrass a local man who has gotten a bit too uppity. The plan involves soaking raises in Seconal to drug pheasants, making them easy to capture and remove from the man’s property in advance of a big social event. By getting away with 120 birds, Claud displaces his father as champion of the world when it comes to poaching, but before he can fully pull off his plan, the drugs begin to subside and the birds make an ironically public demonstration of his criminal behavior; the same criminal behavior which earned father a backside filled with buckshot.
“Mr. Feasey”
The ironic ending of this story basically centers on the concept of cheaters being cheated. The symbolic of its irony is a large reddish-brown cardboard suitcase which Claud brings to the greyhound races in advance of taking home two-thousand pounds worth of winnings to be gained by using two lookalike dogs to manipulate the odds set by the bookies. The story ends with everyone laughing at Claud’s co-conspirator as off in the distance Claud stands with the empty suitcase waiting to find out that they have both become victims of cheating by the bookies they had conspired to fleece.
