The BFG

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Giants, as dictated by fairytale tradition, have always been depicted in stories as the ghastly, man-eating villains that tower over the hero’s tale, making his quest that much bigger. I find that it’s always nice to find a book that goes against traditional genre tropes. The BFG is one of those books.

The story centres on the friendship developed between Sophie the orphan and the BFG (Big Friendly Giant) after Sophie catches him blowing dreams into children’s bedrooms one night and he snatches her out of bed and takes her to Giant country. In Giant country, there are nine horrible man-eating giants that gallop off every night to guzzle humans. Together Sophie and the BFG concoct a marvellous plan to rid the world of these brutes forever.

So there’s a hint of Beauty and the Beast happening with the whole Stockholm Syndrome, kidnapped girl making friends with her captor thing going on, and any advocates of Freud's Dream Theory would squirm as the tale throws manifest and latent content completely out the window, but ultimately The BFG is a story about unlikely friendships and finding one’s inner courage. 

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It’s also the book where Dahl let’s loose with language. In many of his books Dahl creates new, strange words that help to solidify his quirky fantasy settings, but The BFG is the book where he completely indulges in that activity and creates an entirely new vocabulary that the giants use, which not only serves as a good world-building tool, but also brings various levels of humour into the book: some for the kids and some for the grownups. 

The story itself is more or less entirely original and, while it does stick to some generic stereotypes, most of it is completely fresh and a wondrous way to look at the world. The central messages about the power of friendship, inner courage, and the celebration of the underdog – Sophie being an orphan and the BFG being considered a runt- all blend together to make a positive and exciting bedtime adventure.

The BFG was first published by Jonathan Cape Ltd in 1982 and has been adapted into two feature films, the more recent coming from Disney in 2016.