With its short page count of about eighty pages, and a generous douse of images by the delectable Quentin Blake, who it seems always elevates Roald Dahl’s stories, The Fantastic Mr Fox packs a lot of punch in the writer’s repertoire. You’d finish the book in a couple of hours tops, if you’re a slow reader. You might even finish it in 30 minutes. Your kids might even enjoy it.
I enjoyed Wes Anderson’s interpretation of the movie, in stop motion animation, which somehow manages to drag the runtime to about 90 minutes. But the original is always best and not many writers can write children’s prose like Roald Dahl, who mentions that the book is his favourite work; his most balanced work.
Hunting for the fox
Farmers Boggis, Bean and Bunce are not nice people. Some would go as far to say that they’re absolute wankers. All are poultry farmers under the plight of a fox who’d come and choose their stock and brings them back to his family. One day, they got absolutely fed up and conveniently, farmer Bean found out the fox’s hole.
The following day, as Mr Fox was coming out for another adventure, he was caught in an ambush where he lost his prided tail, and what’s worse, the farmers grounded him and his family, digging their way through to kill him and his lineage. Fortunately, the digging skills of the fox should not be underestimated, so the foxes (foxen?) dug themselves into a bigger hole.
This isn’t great for the underground animals either, who had become collateral damage thanks to Mr Fox’s nightly adventures. The farmers went home and got their excavators. The foxes aren’t called foxes for a reason though, and they managed to dig through where the chooks are, and all other goodly (edible) possessions of the farmers. At the end, they decided to have an underground party at the expense of the farmers, still waiting for the foxes to come out, miserable in the rain.
An underrated gem in a collection of shinier gems
When you think of the author, you’d associate his name with BFG, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (even its underwhelming sequel), The Twits, The Witches, James and the Giant Peach. Danny, the Champion of the World. This is what you get when you’re as big a name and as prolific as Roald Dahl: some of your work might be pushed aside. But as the title of this article suggests, the Fantastic Mr Fox is fantastic, despite of its low page count.
We can say that the Fantastic Mr Fox is an allegory for the state oppressing the common man, who to begin with, had to resort to theft to feed his family, or we can say it’s the greed of private enterprises which drive Joe Blow to desperate situations, but I won’t. The book is a short, sweet and above all, enjoyable story, the review of which took more time for me to write than for me to finish the book. So I’ll stop here.
