 First US edition | |
| Author | Roald Dahl |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Charles Shields (US) |
| Genre | Suspense, thriller |
| Publisher | Michael Joseph (UK) Alfred A. Knopf (US) |
Publication date | 1974 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 140 |
| ISBN | 0-14-004179-6 |
| OCLC | 4800308 |
Switch Bitch (1974) is a book of adultshort stories by British writerRoald Dahl. Four stories, originally published inPlayboy between 1965 and 1974,[1] are collected. They are linked by themes ofrape by deception: in each one, some major act of cunning, cruelty, or hedonism underpins the sexuality.
The book is notable for its introduction of theUncle Oswald character, a wealthyhobbyist andgadabout who stars in both the first and last stories (although the first story seemingly presages his imminent decline and death). He later appeared in Dahl'scomic novel for adults,My Uncle Oswald. Oswald is amale fantasy figure described as "the greatest fornicator of all time", his adventures recounted by a nephew who inherits his diaries and decides to edit them for publication. Despite the stories inSwitch Bitch being dark and cynical in tone, the Oswald tales are also humorous and satirical, resembling crude comic anecdotes.
Wealthy gadabout Oswald Hendryks Cornelius is stranded in Cairo when a Syrian businessman picks him up by the side of the road and offers him a room for the night in his desert mansion. While there Oswald meets the man's wife and daughter, both of whom are extremely beautiful. A midnight liaison occurs and Oswald wonders whom it was he spent the night with, when the businessman reveals to him new information that could be fatal.
Two middle-class suburban men at a neighbourhood party devise a ruse whereby each can sleep with the other's wife, without either wife realising the deception. They compare sexual techniques beforehand, and one receives a rude awakening the morning after.
After being widowed a woman reconnects with the man she left for her late husband years ago. The man is a gynaecologist, recently separated, and unbeknownst to the woman still harbours a grudge for her breaking off their relationship. He begins to seduce her, and a terrible revenge ensues.
Oswald Cornelius becomes entangled with a Belgian olfactory expert who claims to have discovered an eighth smell-related nerve that, when stimulated, unlocks certain aspects of human sexual experience. The expert develops a perfume to stimulate the nerve, causing chaos when it is exposed during a high society dinner for an American women's movement that Oswald is attending.
The stories have been criticised for their cruel andmisogynistic elements. The central conceit of "The Last Act", in particular, has been described byJeremy Treglown, Dahl's biographer, as having "no purpose as a mechanism other than to lead to a crudely sensationalist conclusion",[2] and by British novelistZoe Heller as describing "in obscene detail the rape of a menopausal woman by a gynecologist."[3] In the same article forThe New Republic she commented generally on Dahl's later adult stories: "the sexual sadism is at its crudest and the 'wit' at its most vestigial... [they] are almost unbearable to read."
Despite this negative reception, the stories have also been praised.Alfred Hitchcock, for whosetelevision programme Dahl's story "Man from the South" was adapted, was fond of "The Visitor" and in later life recounted its plot on American talk shows as adark joke.[4][5]
These stories were originally published byPlayboy magazine. Published in Great Britain in book form by Michael Joseph 1974. Published in Penguin Books 1976.
