Essay Questions

Much of this memoir is Dahl providing home and garden advice based on experiences he’s collected over the decades. What is his advice on keeping moles away from your garden?

The chapter for “February” includes an extended essay on mole behavior. Dahl counts himself among the fans of moles because they are effective as pest control thanks to their diet. But he admits that moles themselves can become pests for those with a garden. His advice on controlling one’s mole population in order to preserve whatever vegetation one is raising in a garden is, as might be expected, quite benevolent and involves nothing that harms much less is fatal to the little rodent. While it is relatively common knowledge that moles possess very bad eyesight as a species, many people don’t extrapolate from that condition that they likely have evolved to develop a keener sense of hearing. As a result, they are repelled by loud noise. Dahl thus suggests taking advantage of this condition by creating a mole repellent using open bottles and wind that serve to create a vibration causing an intense humming sound.

What unusual and interesting trivia about golfing in Africa does one learn from reading this book?

Dahl developed a love for Africa after living there for several years immediately after school. The fruit of those experiences permeate his fiction, but also show up briefly in this memoir. The chapter for “May” commences with Dahl nostalgically recalling a youth dominated by sports. This leads to his ruminating on the relationship between athletics and education with his assertion that sports teaches things that can’t be learned in the classroom. From this he leaps to an idea in which he would make it almost mandatory for kids to learn golf because it provides a good workout and teaches socialization skills which can be put to use in practically any country on the planet, thanks to the omnipresence of the game.

This section concludes with Dahl reflecting upon the peculiarly African idiosyncrasies one confronts when playing there. Hazards on Tanzanian courses include the occasional cobra. In Kenya, one can lift the ball out of the footprint of a rhino with being penalized a stroke for interference. And in Nigeria, one must always approach the green with a sense of cautious awareness that they become a target for a mango tossed by a nearby monkey.