Dahl Study: A Dip in the Pool

My author study of Roald Dahl started with a reading of his Collected Stories while watching the accompanying episode of Tales of the Unexpected. Each Friday I'll recap a story and show (with spoilers, just so you know), but I encourage you to read and watch them on your own if you're interested!

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"A Dip in the Pool" from Collected Stories (read 1/3/19)

A man is on a cruise. There is some sort of auction where passengers vote on how far they think the ship will travel in a day. It seems a storm is coming, so the man bids on a low number and goes to bed. He wakes up to a beautiful day, and the ship is speeding to make up time. He gets scared because he bet his life savings and his wife will be mad, so he decides to slow the ship down. He makes sure someone will see him, then jumps overboard. But the person who saw him was an old woman who just thought he was jumping in to get some exercise.

"A Dip in the Pool" from Tales of the Unexpected (viewed 1/3/19)

The film was pretty much the same as the story. The actor playing Mr. Botibol was better than I could have imagined! Everything about him was perfect. I want to go back and re-read the story with him in mind. The film actually clarified the auction/betting aspect of it for me, too, so this might be one of the rare cases where watching the film first might be a good thing to help flesh out the story.

I think this has been one of my favorite stories and film adaptations of Dahl's so far!