Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - A Royal Biographer’s Affair with Matthew Dennison

Episode Date: May 4, 2023

In this episode, Anthony talks with British biographer Matthew Dennison. With the coronation of King Charles fast approaching, Matthew gives Anthony his take on all things Royal, from his magisterial biography of the late Queen Elizabeth II, to what the Brits really think of Meghan Markle.  Matthew’s latest book looks at the much-loved children’s author Roald Dahl, uncovering a life many of us wouldn’t expect, and he examines the censorship issue Dahl’s books now face.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm going to make something of this job. Rain. Be the bridges I burn. Night my way. Forever. I just love my job. Get tickets now. The Devil Wears Prada 2. In theaters May 1st, directed by David Frankel. Hello, I'm Anthony Scaramucci, and this is Open Book,

where I talk with some of the brightest minds out there. about everything surrounding the written word, from authors and historians to figures in entertainment, neuroscientists, political activists, and of course, Wall Street. Sorry, I can't resist. Before we get into today's episode, if you haven't already, please hit follow or subscribe, wherever you get your podcast, and leave us a review. We all love a review, even the bad ones. I want to hear the parts you're enjoying or how we can do better. You know I can roll with the punches, so let me know. Anyways, let's get to it. Today I'm talking with British biographer Matthew Denison. As Matthew tells me in our conversation, writing a biography is a little bit like having an affair.

You must live obsessively with the person to really get to grips with who they are. I'll tell you, not that people are queuing up for the gig, but God help, whoever writes the Anthony Scaramucci biography. Matthew has had some great affairs demonstrated through his fantastic books from Queen Elizabeth herself, to his most recent on the much-loved author, Roald Dahl. So what don't we know about UK's longest reigning monarch? How will King Charles fare? And which one of Matthew's subjects was really a spy? You'll find out all of this and more on today's open book.

So joining us now is Matthew Denison. He's an award-winning author, and he wrote a brand new book, Roald Dahl, hopefully I'm pronouncing Raul Dahl's name right, you'll have to educate me. Teller of the Unexpected. What a brilliant book. And so for many of us, we grew up with Charlie in the Chalkin Factory, James and the Giant Peach, to the BFG. Just a incredible story, Matthew. Thank you for writing it. Why don't we get started with Rualdahl himself? Why did you pick him to write a biography? I was fascinated by the idea of somebody who had shaped generations of childhood landscapes,

someone who had had such an incredible impact on the imaginative life of children now for 50 years. And I had a suspicion that he was going to be somebody who turned out to be personally complex. And of course, that's always exciting for a biographer. He describes himself as an ordinary fellow, just slightly taller than the average person. But he's way more than that. He's a very complex human being. Let's start with his mom, Sophie Magdalene, for a second, who was a great teller of tales, particularly with the loss of his father, Harold.

And I want to get into his father, Harold, and his sister, Astry, all of which impacted him greatly. There's a theme here around their tragic endings. And maybe you could share a little bit of that with our listeners. I think the key things about Dahl's childhood is the sense of male absence, followed by family tragedy, and of course, the two are related. Dahl loses his father when he's only three. he has two elder sisters. At that point, his mother is pregnant. She has an adult. He has a step-sister, so we're up to four sisters and a mother. He does have a much older step-brother, but he's essentially a fairly absent part of the family. So here we have a boy who grows up in this house that's thick with sisters, who's referred to by his mother as boy, not by his Christian name. So he's defined by gender. He's also his mother's favorite. So there's a sense that gender makes you special. And I think that that idea that does,

has of being a man or a boy, and that being absolutely key to his identity, but also key to his specialness is something that shapes him throughout his life, particularly as he's born into a kind of broken family, not broken in the sense of divorce or any kind of abusive behavior, but broken in the sense of death and loss. And what Dal seems to absorb from that is an idea that he should be able to fix stuff. So maleness is important, but maleness, remember we're talking into war period. It's a long time ago. Mellness implies being able to do things. It's an active role. And he clings to that right up until his death in 1990.

Let me set the scene for you, okay? It's 1974. I'm 10 years old. I'm in the fourth grade, which is elementary school in the United States, and I'm reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. What do you think Mr. Dahl wants me to feel about that book? And how do you think he wants me to be influenced by his right? writing. I think he wants you to have a sense of excitement. He was evangelical about the idea that it was so important for children to be readers and obviously what makes children read as well, absorbing books. Dahl, although he's genetically entirely Norwegian, genetically he has no British or English blood at all, defines himself as British and picks up on a number of British prejudices.

And I have to say, one of his early prejudices was a kind of snobbishness about America, which he subsequently lost. And he, he, one of the things that he didn't like about America was he felt that television had that nation in its grip. And television to Dahl threatened the power of writing, the power of reading. And so I guess one of the things we take from Charlie in the Chocolate Factory is everything that's going on with my TV. What else does he want you to think that? He wants you to think that dreams come true. He wants you to believe that the underdog will make it. And he wants you to believe that there is always hope wherever there is love and an ability to believe in things. All right.

So I, you know, and I found that book fascinating. I read it to my children. I've also read James and the Giant Peach, which will get to. Gene Wilder also had a big impact on me. I'm just wondering, what did he think of Gene Wilder's rendition of Willie Wonka? Well, he hated that, Phil. But he hated anything really that kind of came between his writing as originally. written and as received. So he wasn't somebody who is ideally placed to have film adaptations

because any kind of adaptation inevitably involves some form of change or transformation, and Dahl resisted that. So he didn't like that film and he didn't like Gene Wilder as Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. But I agree with you. I love that film. Yeah, you know, listen, the film was a great childhood memory for me. Of course, Gene Wilder being one of the most accomplished comedians of our time. He's an interesting guy. I mean, I'm reading about him, I'm going to ask you a couple of yes or no questions. Was he an anti-Semite? He said no. He said that he was anti-Israel. Yeah, so he was an anti-Zionist.

Yes, he was. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there are some pretty explicitly anti-Semitic statements all behind the idea of Israel. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because here's this childhood symbol of creativity and virtue and the underdog and so forth. And yet, you know, he had these elements of bias. and predispositions, you know, which is so fascinating by human life because we have so many contradictions about our own personalities and the way we think about the world. He had a brush with death. You write about it eloquently. He spent some time in the Royal Air Force in Africa. And then obviously what happened to him in Greece, he says, you know, you report that he

cherished his brush with death. Why is that, Matthew? Why did he cherish that? I think because he aspired to heroism. This idea of himself as hero fits with this idea of himself, he absorbed as a boy, as rather the boy in the family. And so, you know, the idea of kind of wartime daring do and distinguishing yourself in a situation of extraordinary bravery, but that can also kind of buy into some patriotic narrative. And remember, he is of an imperial generation. So that kind of old-fashioned patriotism is still in his mindset at this point. I think it's really important. I think it was also a moment of incredible freedom for him. It was a moment when he was totally absorbed by what he was doing. The war usefully came to his rescue.

He was somebody who craved adventure and he was terrified of the commonplace, the ordinary. So he was terrified of the idea of just having to do an ordinary job and somehow the war rescues him and it, you know, parachutes, no pun intended, parachutes him into this, this kind of incredible action man world which absolutely suits his idea of himself as immensely tall, good-looking, an heroic, active, effective man. Well, you know, during the war, he had a couple of different vocations, didn't he? Tell us about the royal doll that we wouldn't know as an author. What was he doing during the war?

Well, I guess what we could easily lose sight of nowadays when he's become a rather controversial figure is that essentially he was on a paid charm offensive to the USA. You know, he was a disabled airman who was tall, good-looking, looked kind of fantastic in uniform. He was there to decorate Washington drinks parties and persuade isolationist Americans that maybe they should step in and help the British in their mission to rescue the world from what felt like a very dark evil. But at the same time, there was clearly a kind of overlap into a world of subterfusion, something that he would later describe as spying. We will never know to what extent that was official. To what extent that was something he embraced because, again,

and it fitted with his narrative of excitement, his inability ever to obey rules. But certainly, you know, he got close to President Roosevelt. He mixed in very high circles. He moved information on, although he always claimed the people whose information he moved on knew that he was doing it. Would you characterize him as a spy? I think he's probably much too indiscreet, really, to be a spy. But I think what he loved about spying was the bond dimension of it.

You know, that kind of intelligence agent absolutely appealed, I think, to Dahl's sense of himself. So the reason I find your work so fascinating is that in doing a biography, you have to capture the personality of the human being. And here is a very erudite man. He's incredibly sophisticated. He's had a loss that he's had to deal with. He obviously lost his dad. He sister, he lost his daughter, Olivia, to measles in 1962. And so he's this complex guy, but then he's writing about wonder and excitement and the simplicity of being a kid. You know, I just did the, I was the guardian for the recess for my six-year-old today. And he was running around in the playground. And I was thinking of the innocence and the cluelessness, you know, and the lack of

awareness of what's going on and they're just in this little bubble of security. And here is Raul Dahl Dau, all of the smoldering passions underneath him, writing about this simplicity. When you, when you finish this book, what was your reaction to his personality? He's the third children's author I've written about. So I wrote previously about Baird's and also Kenneth Graham, the man who wrote The Wind in the Willows. And what joins all three of is that despite having difficult circumstances as children, they idealise a concept of childhood. And it's partly that I guess all three would have liked to have gone back and it been better. But also all three felt kind of passionately about the importance of childhood to other people.

I guess we could easily say there's an element of kind of self-therapy going on here with Dahl. But I think also this is somebody who felt constrained by the restrictions of adult life, sometimes constrained by the responsibilities, although he embraced a certain amount of responsibility in terms of his kind of sense of himself as male within a family. Childhood, of course, is a time of a potentially extraordinary misrule, but it also for some people feels like a time when you can make stuff happen just by wanting it to happen badly enough. And I don't mean that in some kind of, I don't know, kind of corporate job preparation sense.

I just mean in that transformative personal opinion. epiphany sense. And here was somebody who never lost the idea that really he would be happiest climbing a tree and he might just get up the tree and find that there was something magic there. And I think that belief in magic, albeit he stressed it, was something that he did feel at some deep level. And it exasperated him that other adults couldn't connect with this idea. You know, listen, I mean, I think about him often because, you know, it was a big part of my childhood to read those books. And he certainly captured my imagination and helped me with my love of reading. And as you get older, though, as I guess somebody said, it maybe was Churchill, that there is

no hero, Matthew to a man's valet. Is that a fair assessment of life that we all have our frailties and we all have our indiscretions and weaknesses? Yet, when I finished this book, this was a life well lived by this man. What am I missing? What do you think his legacy is, basically? I mean, I agree with you. I think it is a wonderful and rich life. And there are many facets of this life that are immensely inspiring. I think, for example, you know, if there are people out there who are, you know, maybe a middle-aged people considering a change of career, Roald Dahl was super successful starting in his mid-50s. It didn't happen to him in his 20s. And he never gave up. And he was always convinced he could make this happen. He also really wanted to give something to people. And he gave something to people.

and in enriching other lives, he enriched his own life. Are you missing something? No, I don't think so. If you write biography, it's a little bit like having an affair. You live with someone obsessively throughout the period. They kind of overwhelm your life. They overwhelm your dreams and your subconscious. There's an old idea that as a biographer,

you mustn't fall in love with your subjects, but I think you also can't write about someone whom you don't deeply admire at some level. And albeit, duh, like all the rest of us, is a multifaceted character, and there are points of darkness. There is much that's hugely admirable about him, and I think immensely inspiring and exciting.

And that's why 300 million copies of his books have been sold. And just as he appealed to us, maybe the first generation of his child readers, he now appeals to our children in much the same way. I think what I'm most interested in about his life, which I'd like to get your reaction to, is there's a universality of kindness in these books. There's a universality of the good guy is going to win.

You have to believe in yourself. You have to take the risk, the golden lottery ticket, or you have to take on something that you're fearful of and you're going to overcome. And I guess what I'd like to ask you is, did he have to do that for himself? Meaning, when you think about his life and the complicated upbringing and time in the war,

Is this almost a part of himself that he's writing about as almost a form of symbolism of his own life? Yeah, I'm sure so, although I'm also equally sure that he would say no. I think if we were to put that question to him now, a kind of old-fashioned Britishness would kick in and he would deny all of it. But I think you're, I think you're spot on here. Right. So let's go to the world that we live in today, Mr. Denny. And we live in a fairly complicated world. It's a righteously critical one.

We have a tendency to get very upset at each other for words. I was watching the comedy anchorman on the way back from Europe. And I was like, okay, this can't be produced today. I mean, they wouldn't allow this in Hollywood now. Mr. Dahl is being censored by one of his publishers. They're taking out words. What would he think of the world of social media? Would he have a Mike Instagram as opposed to a Mike TV?

Would he find this whole time to be abhorrent? Would he like it? What would your reaction to censorship and social media? What would his reaction be, in your opinion? Censorship, he'd be furious because he was a man who had significant input on the part of his editors. And yet he was somebody who really cherished the concept of his own creative talent. He did not undermine his ability. He rated his own ability incredibly highly.

And albeit some of his novels involved an element of collaborative effort between him and his editor, either his editor at London or his editor in the States, he would still take full credit for that. And he did agonise about his writing. He devoted a year, seven days a week, to these books for children. That was a lot of time spent writing and rewriting and listening and then resounding. So he would be cross at rewriting, not least because, of course, he's writing books for children. If you write for children, there's an anticipation of those books. will be read aloud. If a book is read aloud, then the prose has to have a rhythm and cadence.

Change the words, you change the rhythm, you change the rhythm, you change the impact. Suddenly, you've changed the story. So he'd be pretty cross, would be my feeling. He also felt that the people who tinkled with children's books were grown-ups, and he said he didn't care about grown-ups. He cared about children. And what about social media? Would he be enthralled with social media? Because it's obviously curtailed all of our willingness or wanting to read. What do you think he would feel about that? He was not averse to publicity. So I've got a feeling that he would have been deeply tempted by social media. But, you know, there's an element of self-destruct about Dahl's public pronouncements that makes me fear that social media could have been dangerous for him.

Interesting. I want to go to the Royal Family for a second. They're in the news. You wrote a brilliant book about Queen Elizabeth II. What is the legacy there? Obviously, this great loss, this woman was with me and you for our entire lifetime. She had an incredible way about her, which I obviously greatly admired. Tell us a little bit about Queen Elizabeth and her family. I guess in terms of her legacy, you know, the truth is that by the time the Queen died, that there was a reverential attitude towards her among many people in this country. And it was partly that the turbulent period of the early and mid-90s was a long way behind her.

She'd sailed into calmer waters, perhaps sort of intemperate, criticism, that things that happened in some people's marriages was her fault had been set aside. I think we recognise in this country and people across the world, recognise that she did embody virtues that though societies, cultures and individuals don't necessarily practice, many people pay lip service to and recognise the value of them. And somehow in her last years, there seemed to be a growing acknowledgement that that creed of others before self-sellate, of a kind of dogged continuance, of a sense of unchanging values, unchanging verities, of a kind of compassionate engagement with the world at large, was immensely valuable

and something that perhaps wasn't mouthpiced as broadly as it could, you know, in all cultures across the world, you know, in our own nation. So, you know, she was for us a lone spokeswoman over that 70-year period. Nobody else trumpeted those virtues through. what was going into eight decades. And the British royal family occupies a different position in our national life from any other royal family than the Japanese, apart from the Japanese family in Japan. It is different from other European monarchies in that there has always been a kind of bond of affection between crown and country. The crown is part of the political executive

of our nation. Nothing can become law without royal assent. The crown represents a kind of stopping block to political extremism, but it also is a kind of focus for emotion and affection. And that's not simply wishful thinking on the part of monarchists. We see time and again this kind of unifying force, which we saw on a huge scale at the Queen's death. Do you think Roeldaal had British values in that sense? Well, he certainly thought he was. He would say of himself that he was an Englishman, that he was very English. I mean, you know, nowadays people who are genetically English to find themselves as British. Before the Second World War, somebody who was British might call themselves English. So when he says English, he means British. I think that kind of batting for the

underdog in his fiction is something that in Britain we've always regarded as a British feeling. I think the fact that though he was a perfectionist, an incredibly disciplined about his writing, he liked to pretend that it just happened. He is part of that kind of British cult of the amateur. He was very generous in many ways. You know, if people wrote to him with an ill child, he would write very significant checks for hospital equipment. You know, in that way, he had a sense of giving back, which obviously is not uniquely British,

but he felt it was a British thing. Yes, he was, but of course he also was aware that his Britishness was a thin veneer. And I think part of the spikiness in his character is this funny sense that he was an insider outsider. He had a kind of standard upper middle class education, but he wasn't one of those people with kind of long roots in this country. You know, when I think about the royal family and I think about the tradition, I think of Dow himself as a traditionalist, we're now in this sort of cross current of new traditions being built.

And it seems like a younger generation wants to rip up the past or relitigate the past and then designate who are the winners are, who the losers. you know, listen, there's some atrocities that have happened in the past. I'm not here to give alibis to any of these atrocities, whether there's colonialism, imperialism, slavery. I'm not saying that, but I think not recognizing them for what they were and trying to revise them, I think, puts us in great danger. It's almost Orwellian. And I'm just wondering your reaction to the censorship issues and the wokeism. And what do you think Mr. Dole's reaction would be? I've read a lot recently about a relationship between British slave-owning families and the people who lived in the areas in which they owned plantations and also slave labour.

And there has been, unsurprisingly, a movement in Britain among people who are descendants of those families to go out to the Caribbean to see these places. And you won't be surprised to hear that what people say to them when they get there is white British people. apologising doesn't get them anywhere. You know, what matters in life is, is action. And in a similar way, dull was somebody who believed profoundly in words as something that could shape dreams and could improve lives, but also recognise that there were moments when there had to be actions, that words on their own weren't enough, and that sometimes words could be inappropriate, that sometimes people use words maybe to make themselves feel better rather than to make other people's lives better. I think Dahl would have been intolerant of wokeism simply because

his mind was formed in a culture that was so profoundly different. But if he recognized that really what wokeism, what political correctness is doing is a kind of enforced good manners to other people, a sort of enforced consideration and enforced compassion, then he would feel that he was all for that, albeit at different moments in his life, he was incredibly rude to any number of people and occasionally uncompassionate. It just find it fascinating that we were at this crossroad because obviously the protests related to the censorship, we now have two versions of his book. It's sort of like Coke and original formula and new Coke. I'm wondering what you think of that. Do you think that this is a moment in time where people 10 or 20 years from now will say, wow, that was absolutely

ridiculous, we're going back to the original text. Do you think that we'll have two versions of these stories going forward, or do you think that the new version will eventually win out? What is your opinion there, sir? I'm not convinced the new version will win out. For example, in one of the books, the word black was taken out. So the BFG wears a black cloak. In the new version, he wears a dark cloak. In EZio Trot, the word dark is taken out every time and replaced with something different. There's no consistency about any of this. And the truth is, I think a child that reads about a piece of clothing that described as black, recognises that that is not connected to skin colour, it's not connected to race.

There is no implication either pejorative or positive about that. Obviously, we live at a time when we elevate choice. Choice is a kind of ultimate virtue of our time. And so suddenly what's going to happen in Britain is that people will have the choice to buy the new version or the old version. Part of the protest in this country was that if you had doll books on your kind of, they were automatically updated to the new version, even if you bought the old version some time ago. And that seems wrong, doesn't it? Because that's a denial of choice, and it's a kind of imposition of a political agenda. Dahl's publishers, certainly in Britain, have been forced to agree to keep the original versions in print.

And I suspect those versions will remain popular, certainly in the short term, because those are the versions that parents, like you and I, had when we were children, that we remember and we, You know, we may even have our own copies, which is what we share with our children. Yeah, I'm all about the original formula. I'm not going anywhere. But I wonder what his favorite book was. Did he ever say, what was the favorite book that he wrote? He was very keen on Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. He had an attachment to James and Giant Peach because it was the first of his children's books.

Obviously, the BFG overlapped with painful moments in his life. Those made-up words of the BFGs, the neologisms were saying that his first wife, the actress Patricia Neal had said when she was recovering. There is much of Dahl's own life in the witches, but Dahl is also Matilda. He claimed that he wasn't Willie Wonka, but he was Charlie Bucket. So I think maybe at the end of the day, you know, we come back to Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. But the truth is he was a man who saw things his own way.

So there is a bit of him in, I think, all of his writing. I do this with all my authors. I have like a, I want to get a quick fire reaction. from you to these five different words or people. I'm going to say the name of the person and that I want you to tell me your reaction. Queen Elizabeth II. Well, I loved her deeply. Why?

Tell us why. I'm Italian. We like the opera. We like drama. Yeah, I'll go for some un-British emotion on this one. I mean, she just, I think that it was an extraordinary achievement in her lifetime to maintain belief in the crowd. This is not a moment in time when people read it. believe in slightly vague abstract concepts. And she just seemed to me lovable and wholly admirable.

So yeah, I thought she was just an incredible human being, but also an immensely successful. Yeah, I mean, you had this massive shift in the family, right? I mean, Edward was to be the king. He abdicates. Her father has to assume the responsibility during the war. She bears witness to all this as a young girl. And so she has to do this for God, country, her family, but also her father. She has to be this pillar that represents that institution. And she does it marvelously. I'm not saying she was perfect. Of course she wasn't. We all have our faults. And she had some rough times. And maybe she wasn't the best mother-in-law. Who the hell knows? But she was definitely a person that you could look up to and respect. She was in my mind, unless you tell me otherwise, you wrote the biography.

She seemed like a person that was always trying to do the right thing. Am I missing that? No, I think I was absolutely right. She was somebody who, you know, more than once said that what she was trying to be was the best version of herself that she could be, which I guess is not unique to her, but it's a good lesson for most of us. Have you had any mother-in-law issues, Matthew, that you'd like to divulge here on Open books? Yeah. Do you know, I was so lucky my mother-in-law, who is now dead, was one of my best friends. So, I mean, whoa, I am off the hook on that one. Oh, there you see there? So this is, you're getting positive publicity for her. No, I mean, listen, I mean, it can be brutal. As you know, I mean, I've been fairly lucky myself, but, you know, I get it. I see it in action. I see there's an instantaneous need for parents to judge the relationships that their children have. I mean, it is what it is. All right, let's go to King Charles III. So, I mean, the deal for us is that there's never been a Prince of Wales in British history who has done more active good than he has. And his legacy is incredible. His challenge is to transcend the mighty. shadow of his mother. And I think that's incredibly difficult. I would hope that what he doesn't do is

try and reinvent the wheel. Do you think he comes to the crown too old? Yeah, it's just different, I think. You know, part of what got the queen off to a great star was that she was beautiful and glamorous and she was a kind of royal version of a Hollywood film star. Obviously, that's not going to happen to a man in his 70s, but most cultures traditionally have equated age with wisdom, and so, you know, he has a different road into all of this. Prince Harry. You know, we are all members of families, and all of our lives overlap with institutions. And I struggle with the idea that anybody would bite the hand that feet,

them, but also that anybody would air such bitter grievances so publicly in a way that cannot be productive and constructive. All right, so I'm going to test the theory on you. You know these people better than me, and I know a lot of it gets blamed on his wife, making more call, but I'm wondering if he was an unexploded bombshell as a result of everything that happened to him in his upbringing. And so a couple of triggers, and then before you know it, there's a moment. emotional bomb is released. It may have happened with or without Megan Markle, but I think it was

certainly coming one way or the other. What is your reaction to that? I think that's perfectly possible that, you know, goodness me, one extraordinary childhood. How could we do anything but sympathize enormously with that childhood and the horrors of the death of his mother? And maybe it just takes a catalyst for that to come out. You know, the truth is, as a nation that is attached to its royal family, we are always going to prefer to blame a non-royal. Right. No, of course. No, I get it. I just, having read the prodigal son many times in my life, I'm hoping that they can patch things up. You know, the Scaramucci family crest is, let's put the word fun and the word dysfunctional. You know, most families are dysfunctional, but we have to figure out a way

to get along anyway. All right, my last two, sir, Megan Markle. What's your reaction to her? I mostly try not to react to her because the truth is, given current British feelings about the Sussexes, she is a person who is easy to demonize. But I think what we all know is human beings and what I certainly know as a biographer who spend my time studying, you know, human motive, is that nobody is single-sided, that everybody has complexities and depths, everybody has good qualities and bad qualities. I think the British view of Megan Markle is that she, at a profound level, misunderstood what monarchy was all about. Monarchy is not celebrity with better jewelry. It's not.

It's a really different thing. You can't be a celebrity royal because celebrities are people who inspire a kind of cult fascination at a moment. in their lives. Royals have to remain interesting for the whole of their lives. Royals exist in this very uneasy contract with the British people, which is that we mostly happily, materially, shower them with every possible blessing, but we expect a great deal back in return, and we expect the idea that they don't really enjoy the material rewards of the position, that they regard it as a kind of elevated servant ship. Oh, it's interesting. No, listen, it's complex. I hope they figure it out, you know, because I have a lot of family members, some of them which I frankly do not like, but you know,

you got to bite the bullet. You know, there's a great British novelist, essayist, G.K. Chesterton wrote a great rendition about family. You know, unfortunately, the universe where God chooses these people to be in your life. You don't get a chance to choose them. And so it's a test of your humility and your graciousness and generosity to try to get along with every one of them. And, you know, we'll have to see what happens there. Okay. So my last person, which is the protagonist of your latest book, Roald Dahl. What would you say of him, sir? I would say that he was, he's a leviathan figure at some sense. He's just an enormous person. And I think the problems of his life arise when it is simply difficult to be a person on that scale interacting with other people.

I think this is often the case with enormously dominant people. And I guess it goes back to what you were saying about humility. If humility is missing, then it makes for a bumpy rise. with anyone who's in the car with you. But I think he was an immensely talented, immensely gifted, extremely resilient person. I think there is inspiration in his resilience, inspiration in his talent, and inspiration in this legacy that if we take, the kind of grown-up arguments out of it is a legacy of joy for millions of children, you know, across continents, across cultures, irrespective of background.

And that's an amazing thing to have given the world. And how could he not be an interesting person as the person responsible for that? Yeah, listen, I agree with you. I mean, I was gravitated to your book primarily because of my childhood, but I enjoyed reading it. It was very timely, given the censorship issue around him. And you're a fascinating person in your own right, Matthew Denison. So what are we doing next? What's your next project?

Are you allowed to talk about it? Yeah, I'm writing a group biography about the Bloomsbury Group. My first group biography since I wrote about the 12 Caesars. So there is a tiny overlap, but not much. Yeah. Well, the Bloomsbury Group, that'll be a fascinating thing for people. Obviously, for my viewers, some of which are listeners and viewers that are younger. This is a group of 20th century philosophers and intellectuals artists, which included Virginia

Wolf, John Maynard Keynes, Ian Foster, right? And it was basically a group that got together often. and they transformed the world in many ways. Certainly Keynes did as it relates to my world, which is the world of finance. And so I look forward to that. That'll be great. Hopefully I can get you back on Open Book when you publish it, Matthew. Thank you very much.

My pleasure. So let's face it, Matthew Denison is the reason why I started Open Book. Hard to believe, but I am a bonkers book nerd. And I find his personality and the way he writes and the way he writes and the way he thinks about people. Absolutely fascinating. I have lived with Royal Dahl since 1974 when I first read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Since then, I've read several other of his children's books to my children, and I find him completely and totally fascinating, but I had no idea the nature of his life or the unexpected trials and tribulations that he had, which made Matthew's rendition,

Raul Dal Teller of the Unexpected, his biography is so fascinating. Moreover, when you think about the monarchy and you think about the institution that it has been not just to the United Kingdom, but to the entire world, what a pillar of grace and rectitude and tradition Queen Elizabeth really has been. Over centuries, I am absolutely convinced 500 years from now, people will be writing about her reign. it'll be hard to, unless we've solved for the longevity crisis and we live forever, it'll be hard to have a longer reign than Queen Elizabeth's own reign. And for her to do it in the way that she did it, grace was such tradition and wit and compassion

for people. It's just truly fascinating to hear him talk about her and the coronation of King Charles. We're living through history. Not many of us have witnessed this type of history before. and it is fun for me to talk to a biographer who is, let's face it, if you're writing a biography, you're one part psychoanalyst, you're one part psychologist, you're one part sociologist, and you have to set people into the era that they live in and what their personality's response is to that era. And Matthew Denison does this beautifully.

Hello? All right, Ma. How are you? I'm okay. All right. You like being on the show, though, right? Tell the truth. Yeah, let's hear it. So do you remember the book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Yeah. Okay.

Do you remember reading it to me? You probably don't, right? Well, I used to read you quite a bit, and you became an avid reader, and people can't trick you on any kind of event in history, that's for sure. Okay. I have a photographic memory. All right, but let me ask you this, okay? Do you remember James and the Giant Peach or Matilda?

I remember the books, but I don't remember the stories of it. I'm maybe six years old. All right. I don't remember the stories. Okay. So it turned out that the author was a spy for the British government. What do you think of that? Do you think the British government should have been spying on the United States?

They should be flying? No, spying, spying. You think the British government? Oh, spying. Absolutely not. I don't think we should have any spies. Okay, but, I mean, they are friends of ours, right? Why do you think they would spy on the United States or try to influence the United States?

I don't think they would try to spy. I don't agree with that. I don't think they would try to spy. by the United States, no matter even if we're jimble-jambled today, is the strongest country in the world. You still... And you still like the United States better than all the other countries. Of course. Okay.

Okay. So let me ask you this, Ma. What did you think of Queen Elizabeth II? I liked her. Okay. Tell me... She was a very regal, very appropriate person to be Queen of England. And she held herself with great respect, right?

Yeah, I liked her. Okay. What do you think about the other British Royals? What do you think about the kid, Harry? I think that he's acting very immature, and he should be proud to be where he's at, and then we're not fight the whole thing. I don't think he should fight it. Okay, but he's probably a little upset about the way what happened to his mom, though, right? Or no? Absolutely, and it's a spill because of that, but his mom's been going a long time, so he has to go forward. Right, and he probably shouldn't be fighting with his dad, right? Well, honestly, I don't think he's the right person to become king. I think his son is probably the right person and his wife, Kate.

Okay. They have a different kind of presents than him and Camellia, whatever the hell of names. Okay. And what? You like her or you don't like her? Oh, Camilla. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I think she looks very inappropriate for 10th. Okay. I'm a close horse, even at 86, and I find her very inappropriate. Kate dresses beautifully and she's walked straight like my mother used to and she has a good presence. So you like Kate better than Camilla. You would want Charles to just pass the whole thing down to William. Absolutely. All right.

So if you were the monarchial expert in the UK, that would be your best advice. That would be my best advice. Okay. I think Charles looks like a sweeper and I couldn't be wrong until he could prove himself. I thought Diana looked better with him. Okay. Yeah, but I guess they didn't get along that well, Ma. You know?

Right. All right. Love you, Ma. All right. I am Anthony Scaramucci, and that was Open Book. Thank you for listening. If you like what you hear, tell your friends, and make sure you hit follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. While you're there, please leave us a rating or review.

If you want to connect with me or chat more about the discussions, it's at Scaramucci on Twitter or Instagram. You can also text me at plus 1, 917, 909-29-29-966. I'd love to hear from you. I'll see you back here next week.