Roald Dahl's Going Solo

The nonfiction novel Going Solo by Roald Dahl is an autobiography that tells the story of Dahl’s time in the Royal Air Force during World War II. “You cannot open a book without learning something” means that all books allow you to gain some knowledge on subjects that you did not know much about to begin with. The quote can be used to perfectly describe the information the reader learns from the novel. Going Solo was able to teach me lessons and provide me with ideas that I had never given much thought to before. Throughout the book I learned that things in life do not always go right and events can easily change from being an enjoyable situation to an unpleasant occurrence in a matter of seconds.

While I was reading Going Solo, I learned
more about the idea that things in life are not always going to go the way you want or the way that would be easiest for you. However, even when life gets tough, you still need to continue trying and moving forward. In the novel, Roald Dahl tells the reader about how he was a pilot for the Royal Air Force during the events of the Second World War. An accident that occurred during an emergency landing led to doctors telling Dahl that it would be nearly impossible for him to return to flying like he had been before. Dahl decided that he would not give up after one near-death experience, and he returned to the Air Force so that he could continue to fly and support his country in the war. This example from Going Solo supports the idea that life is not always going to go the way you want it because although Dahl was close to losing his life, he still returned to do the job that was important to him. Dahl did not allow any fear of getting injured again stop him from fighting for his country in the war.

While Roald Dahl uses Going Solo to teach the reader that you always have to keep going even when life becomes more difficult, he also shows the reader that an event that is going well can easily go wrong very quickly.
When something you are doing changes so fast, it is hard to be entirely ready to alter the actions you are performing. One situation Dahl uses to emphasize the point is the story of the Battle of Athens. When twelve pilots, one of which was Dahl, were flying their planes over Athens as a way to boost the morale of the Greek people, they were greeted by what they guessed to be nearly two hundred German planes. When the pilots returned to their camp they discovered they had lost five of their planes, leaving them with only seven in the entire country of Greece. This story emphasizes the knowledge that situations can easily go from good to bad by showing the reader that what had begun as a calm flight to reassure the people of Athens that all was well had quickly become a battle in the sky. While Dahl had used his plane to fight German planes when he had been performing his patrol duties, he had never been opposed by such a large number of enemies. Dahl had been able to witness what war could really be like if you were not completely prepared for everything that could possibly happen in a short span of time.
I believe the quote, “You cannot open a book without learning something,” is able to perfectly explain the information and knowledge I gained while reading
Roald Dahl’s autobiography Going Solo. Dahl’s story taught me that although life might throw up obstacles, there’s always a way around them. You may not end up where you intended to be, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Those changes in direction can make life more exciting.