2nd Post

For this post, I decided to read a short story in the book Skin by Roald Dahl. While Dahl is most known for writing children's books such as Matilda and The BFG, he also has written fractured fairy tales and some short stories that are a little dark. The story in Skin that I read is the title story, Skin. The story is about a man who got a tattoo of his wife on his back when he was nearly passed-out drunk. The tattoo artist was a melancholy painter who first painted a portrait of the man's wife, then tattooed over it. The painting was actually more in the mannerism style than a true still life, but it was beautiful. The man remembers that night when he sees a painting by the same artist in a gallery. He goes into the gallery to see more paintings by the man, but he is asked to leave. Drioli, the main character, gets very frustrated, and tears off his shirt as proof that he has a work by the artist in question. The people in the gallery see the tattoo, and a man offers 200,000 francs for the work. Drioli asks how that would happen, and the man invited him to dinner so they could discuss the plans. One idea was for him to live with the man at his hotel, but that was tossed out. The two went to dinner, and Drioli and the man were never seen again. Later, the painting showed up for sale in Buenos Aires, but it wasn't on Drioli's back, if you catch my drift. Another creepy fact is that the buyer didn't own a hotel in Cannes as he said. This story is creepy on so many levels. The ending is open-endedly chilling and kind of scary if you think about it. However, Drioli wouldn't have suffered the same fate if he had listened to his wife and the painter and had not gotten the tattoo. Still, I don't know why the man would go to such lengths as to cut the design off of his back to get a beautiful painting. I guess some people will go to great lengths to get what they want.