This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

We've come a very long way together this season.

Roll Doll has gone through a lot.

And when you look back at all of our episodes,

all the different stages of Doll's life,

a pattern does begin to emerge.

I think Doll's entire life, like for so many of us,

was about a search for who he really was and where he belonged. And when Dahl's entire life, like for so many of us, was about a search for who he

really was and where he belonged. And when you really think about it, that may also be the key

to understanding his work. Matilda is entirely about her search for identity. The same could be

said about Charlie and about James and Sophie and so many of the others. And what they all seem to figure out by

Story's end is that their true selves come to fruition not from conforming to other people's

expectations, but from embracing the thing that makes them unique, which, as we've heard,

is also exactly what Dahl discovered in his own life. But it took him trying on all these

different masks, all these different personas, in order to get there.

He was the ambitious young businessman with Shell Oil, the courageous fighter pilot in the war,

a Playboy spy in D.C. in New York, a disgruntled screenwriter in L.A., an urbane, sophisticated author

publishing in The New Yorker. And finally, the world-famous children's author who champion the underdog and weaponized

mischief while espousing views that could have made him an antagonist in one of his own

stories.

For My Heart Podcasts, Imagine Entertainment, and Parallax.

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