My Uncle Oswald
by Roald Dahl · first published 1979
71% recommend29% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Bawdy, darkly comic fiction about a young man in early 20th-century Europe who develops a method for boosting libido; readers enjoy its mildly amusing sexual satire and surprise at seeing Dahl write for adults.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Roald Dahl's first-ever novel presents the scurrilous memoirs of that delightful old reprobate from switch bitch, Oswald Hendryks Cornelius - connoisseur, bon vivant, collector of spiders, scorpions, odd walking sticks, lover of opera, expert on Chinese porcelain, and without doubt the greatest fornicator of all time. In this delightful picaresque story, it is revealed how Uncle Oswald first achieved great wealth - all thanks to the Sundance blister beetle, which when ground to powder has the most electrifying aphrodisiac qualities. It is 1919 - armed with the powder and aided by the beautiful
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…of Happiness --- FICTION --- Switch Bitch Lost Horizon The Cuckoo's Egg The Simlarillion The Time Traveler's Wife The Alchemist The Count of Monte Cristo A Canticle for Leibowitz Neverwhere My Uncle Oswald Stories of Your Life and Others Invisible Cities Life of Pi Atlas Shrugged --- WALL STREET / FINANCE --- When Genius Failed Liar's Poker Buffett (Lowenstein) Bull! Black-Scholes and Beyond (textbook)…
on “Ask HN: Good books?” ↗> respectable literature along with scandalous content (for instance, Roald Dahl If you've never heard of "My Uncle Oswald", you're in for a surprise...
on “Scanning a Braille Playboy (2011)” ↗Boy you'll love e.g. "My Uncle Oswald" - I've only consciously discovered Dahl while looking for dark humored books in my teens and then was surprised to find out he was the author behind a lot of very well known childrens books also!
on “Roald Dahl's writing shed (1982) [video]” ↗Non-Fiction: travels by Michael Crichton. Fascinating book that gives you different perspective on a variety of topics. Very well written Fiction: My Uncle Oswald by Roald Dahl- nsfw story about a young guy in early 20th century Europe who develops a method for increasing libido - hilarity ensues.
on “Ask HN: Best books you read in 2023” ↗It's worth reading My Uncle Oswald, which is a mildly amusing story about sex and Nobel prizewinner sperm banks.
on “Roald Dahl – the storyteller as benevolent sadist (2010)” ↗The most sadistic and surprising of Dahl's novels is the totally overlooked My Uncle Oswald. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/My_Uncle_Oswald It is a real-person slashfic about raping famous men for money. (Freud, Picasso, Shaw, all by name.) Seriously.
on “Roald Dahl – the storyteller as benevolent sadist (2010)” ↗…from both their new revision edition and from a new release of old editions for all the outraged new self declared Dahl fans that want only the original works with the enormously fat descriptors. Dahl's My Uncle Oswald would have loved the marketing here.
on “‘Dilbert’ dropped by The Post, other papers, after cartoonist’s racist rant” ↗