Esio Trot

Esio Trot is a 1990 middle-grade novel by children’s author Roald Dahl. It also features illustrations from long-time Dahl collaborator Quentin Blake. Esio Trot tells the story of Mr. Hoppy, a shy, older man who is desperately in love with his neighbor, Mrs. Silver. Unfortunately, he is too shy to speak to her. Mr. Hoppy creates a plan to win her heart by going to absurd lengths to impress her. Dahl uses Mr. Hoppy’s story to explore themes of loneliness in later life, companionship, deception, and more. Esio Trot was Dahl’s final novel.

This guide refers to the Kindle e-book edition.

Note: Because this novel is short and does not have chapters, this guide will divide its summaries and analyses into three blocks of pages. The first block covers the pages in which Dahl describes the backgrounds and situations of the main characters. The second block covers the execution of Mr. Hoppy’s plan. The final block focuses on the falling action and aftermath of his plan.

Content Warning: Esio Trot includes deception as a major plot point and frames Mr. Hoppy’s deception as a positive element. He wins Mrs. Silver’s love, but only by tricking her; he is rewarded for his plan, not punished. The story also uses the word “slave” in implying that it would be a good thing if Mrs. Silver were Mr. Hoppy’s “slave.”

Plot Summary

When the story begins, shy Mr. Hoppy is contemplating his two loves: his flowers and his neighbor, Mrs. Silver. Mrs. Silver lives in a flat below him in their tall, concrete apartment building. From Mr. Hoppy’s balcony, where he keeps his flowers, he has watched her work on her balcony for years. They are superficial acquaintances who make frequent small talk, but there is no sign that Mrs. Silver is aware of his adoration.

Mr. Hoppy has an unlikely rival in the contest for Mrs. Silver’s love: her small tortoise, Alfie. She constantly coos to Alfie, gives him kisses, strokes his shell, and showers him with love. Mr. Hoppy decides that he would become a tortoise if he could experience the same delights as Alfie.

One day, Mrs. Silver remarks that Alfie still weighs a mere 13 ounces, despite being a few years old. After a flash of insight, Mr. Hoppy tells her that he knows how to make Alfie grow. He writes down a series of magic words that he calls tortoise language. The magic words are backward English phrases that command Alfie to eat a lot and grow bigger. He instructs Mrs. Silver to repeat the words three times a day and has her practice for him aloud once.

Mr. Hoppy then visits every pet store in town. By the time he is done, he has collected 140 tortoises of various sizes, all sharing approximately the same color as Alfie. He then creates a metal claw on the end of a tube, which he calls a “tortoise catcher.” When Mrs. Silver goes to work, he reaches down onto her balcony with the claw and brings Alfie up to his balcony. Then, he places a tortoise that is a couple ounces heavier back onto her balcony. He repeats this for eight weeks, and “Alfie” nearly doubles in size.

Mrs. Silver is overjoyed. Encouraged by her delight, Mr. Hoppy overcomes his shyness and asks her to marry him. Mrs. Silver accepts and says that she doesn’t know why he took so long to ask her. After they marry a couple of weeks later, they are able to spend their remaining years together. Mr. Hoppy never tells her about his plan and returns the original Alfie to a pet store along with the other tortoises. A girl named Roberta Squibb buys Alfie shortly after. By the time Roberta is in her thirties and has two children of her own, Alfie finally reaches the size Mrs. Silver wanted.