Once upon a time there lived in England in a charming and God-fearing vicar called Reverend Lee…as a boy, Robert Lee had suffered from severe dyslexia. However, guided by the Dyslexia Institute in London and helped by some excellent teachers, Robert made splendid progress.
This book was written for the specific purpose of benefiting the Dyslexia Institute in London. And that accounts for what may seem to be a bit of product placement in this quote. The product is education and assistance for those seeking help with learning disability and thus hardly qualifies as for negative connotation of placement. This is what the story is about. The Vicar and his dyslexia.
“I am Eel, Miss Twerp! I am the new rotsap, the new raciv of Nibbleswicke! Dog help me!”
The anxiety of taking over as the new vicar at the church has the effect of making something go “click in his brain” which brought back some elements of his childhood dyslexia. This is quite different from standard dyslexia where the problem lies in reading words in which the letters get mixed and rearrange. The new form of dyslexia is eventually diagnosed by a local doctor as “Back-to-Front Dyslexia.” Instead of reading words with the letters out of order, Reverend Lee now finds he has trouble saying some words, many of which comes out of his mouth with the letters in backward order.
“It is very common among tortoises, who even reverse their own name and call themselves esio trots.”
In explaining the rarity of Front-to-Back Dyslexia, Dahl engages in a little bit of self-referential fun. Esio Trot is the title of another of his stories, about a man who schemes to win the love of a woman who is very close to her pet tortoise. While that is a cute aside, the doctor actually plays a significantly serious role in the story. Not only is he the one who diagnoses the problem for the vicar, but he is aware of the idiosyncratic cure for this rare condition which the vicar accepts and allows him to live happily ever after: walking backwards while speaking.
