The Twits
First edition
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| Author | Roald Dahl |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Quentin Blake |
| Cover artist | Quentin Blake |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's novel |
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape (London) |
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Publication date
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1980 |
| Media type | Print (hardback, paperback) |
The Twits is a humorous children's book written by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake. It was written in 1979, and first published in 1980. The Twits was adapted for the stage in 2007.
The idea of The Twits was triggered by Dahl's desire to "do something against beards", because he had an acute hatred of them. The first sentence of the story is, "What a lot of hairy-faced men there are around nowadays!"
A hideous, vindictive, spiteful couple known as the Twits live together in a brick house without windows. They continuously play practical jokes on each other out of hatred for one another. They also keep a family of pet monkeys, the Muggle-Wumps. The Twits, who are retired circus trainers, are trying to form the first upside-down monkey circus, leaving the monkeys to stand on their heads for hours on end. If they fail to do what Mr. Twit says, Mrs. Twit beats them with her cane. Mr. Twit also coats tree limbs with a strong sticky glue in hopes of catching birds for Mrs. Twit to make into a bird pie. The monkeys try to warn the birds, but since the monkeys speak in an African language, the English birds cannot understand them, so the poor birds wind up boiling in Mrs. Twit's pie. One week, the Roly-Poly bird flies in from Africa to visit the monkeys, and acting as an interpreter of languages, keeps the birds from sitting anywhere Mr. Twit has spread glue. Mr. Twit tries several times to catch the birds, spreading the glue on an increasing number of perches, but the Roly-poly bird changes his warning to reflect the new traps. Tired of chasing the birds, the Twits decide to buy guns to kill them. The Muggle-Wumps, tired of being forced to stand on their heads, with the help of the birds, use Mr. Twit's powerful glue to attach the couple's furniture to their ceiling while they are away to trick them into thinking that they are upside-down and that their ceiling is actually their floor. The birds also smear glue on the Twits' heads, which permanently fixes them to the ground so that they catch the "Terrible Shrinks" (a disease that Mr. Twit had convinced Mrs. Twit that she had earlier in the book), resulting in them shrinking away into nothing, leaving the Muggle-Wumps free to escape.
Mr. Twit is a wicked person, having hair that covers his entire face, with the exception of his forehead, eyes, and nose. His hair (which he falsely believes makes him appear "wise and grand"), is spiky and hard. Because he never washes it, his beard holds scraps of food dropped there while he ate, including tinned sardines, stilton cheese, and corn flakes. Occasionally, he licks these scraps out and eats them. Instead of wiping his mouth with a cloth, Mr. Twit simply wipes it on his sleeve. Mr. Twit is a beer drinker – even drinking at breakfast. He is known to seem very quiet when he is plotting evil tricks, the victim of which is usually his equally unpleasant wife. He and his wife mistreat their monkeys.
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Wikipedia