For our discussion on December 16, 2014, the Banned Book Club selected Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. We wanted to read something lighter for the holiday season and slightly related to the holidays since it's about a candy factory. I had seen the first movie version, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, from the early 1970's starring Gene Wilder many years ago. More recently I had seen parts of the mid-2000's movie starring Johnny Depp and directed by Tim Burton. But I had never read the book. It's fairly short at 155 pages. My copy was published in 2013 and had a graphic for Wonka 50 Whipple-Scrumptious Years. The book was first published in 1964. My copy had illustrations by Quentin Blake from the 1995 edition. Just inside the cover is a golden ticket, though with abridged wording. The full wording is on page 50, nearly one-third of the way into the book. Inside the back cover is the "About the Author" section. It states that Roald Dahl was born in Wales of Norwegian parents. He has written many other famous children's books such as James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Twits, and a sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. I read about Roald Dahl's daughter, Ophelia, in the book Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. She cofounded Partners in Health with Dr. Paul Farmer and Dr. Jim Kim.
As the title indicates, the book is written from the point of view of a child, Charlie Bucket. Among the first characters introduced are Charlie's four grandparents. "Every one of these old people was over ninety." (p. 8) Grandpa Joe is the oldest at "ninety-six and a half, and that is just about as old as a body can be." (p. 9) Ninety-six seems too old for a grandparent of a 10- to 14-year old in the early 1960's but not impossible by any means. Today it's probably quite common. At the discussion some thought that Dahl was just trying to emphasize that the grandparents seemed very old to Charlie. His family is very poor. Very calmly, "with that curious wisdom that seems to come so often to small children in times of hardship, (Charlie) began to make little changes here and there in some of the things he did, so as to save his strength." (p. 40) He leaves his house ten minutes early so he doesn't have to run to school. He sits quietly in the classroom during recess to rest.
Dahl offers some critiques on raising children. Veruca Salt's father has many of his employees look for a golden ticket for his daughter. After they find it, he says, "I rushed it home and give it to my darling Veruca, and now she's all smiles and we have a happy home once again." (p. 25) I felt I could equate each of the bad children to one of the seven deadly sins: Augustus Gloop to gluttony, Veruca Salt to greed, and Mike Teavee to sloth. I wasn't sure about Violet Beauregarde, the champion gum chewer. After her comeuppance, the Oompa-Loompas sing, "The chewing gum will never pay/ the sticky habit's bound to send/ the chewer to a sticky end." (p. 100) At the discussion we decided she corresponded most closely to pride. Mike Teavee's song is a rant against TV: "Oh yes, we know it keeps them still/ They never fight or kick or punch/ They leave you free to cook the lunch/ But … / It rots the senses in their head!/ It kills imagination dead." (p. 139) The song goes on to offer an alternative to TV: "They … used… to… read!" We felt the rant was overly harsh and considered reading more as an alternative to TV than superior. I thought it was interesting when they showed the movie on TV when it rails against watching TV. Charlie is never tested in the book like the other children are. He is tested in the first movie.
Dahl has such a fantastical imagination and silly sense of humor. I liked the room full of "square candies that looked round" and all the different vitamins: "The only two vitamins it doesn't have are Vitamin S that makes you sick, and Vitamin H because it makes you grow horns out of the top of your head." (p. 136) About Willy Wonka the book says, "Covering his chin, there was a small neat pointed black beard—a goatee." (p. 57) I thought this was interesting because neither Gene Wilder or Johnny Depp played Wonka with a beard. We discussed whether beard equated to "baddie" in the movies. Someone mentioned that a beard was like Fidel Castro in the 1960's while clean shaven was like President Kennedy. I only saw one word I didn't know, splutter that means "to talk or utter hastily or confusedly."
I had no idea why someone would ban or challenge Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Unlike most books we read, it doesn't have any sex or death. My initial web searches found that it was banned for espousing "a poor philosophy of life." Further searches uncovered more specific objections. They centered around the Oompa-Loompas. The original illustrations of the book portrayed them as African Pygmies. Wonka describes how he "shipped them over here, every man, woman, and child in the Oompa-Loompa tribe. It was easy. I smuggled them over in large packing cases with holes in them and they all got here safely." (p. 71) Even though later editions portray them of indeterminate race, they still live locked up in the factory slaving away for a wage of cocoa beans and sometimes being experimented upon. One blogger joked that the book should be banned for "implying that overweight children are gluttonous pigs who should be sucked up a pipe and shot into the factory's bowels" and for the "tasteless suggestion that the unemployed and infirm (i.e. Charlie's grandparents) are just lazy bums who won't get out of bed in the morning but are perfectly capable of movement when inspired by the promise of free chocolate."
We had a delectable discussion on Tuesday, December 16 at Doyle's Public House. There were six of us despite the busy holiday season. Unlike the previous meeting for Fight Club, we had equal numbers of men and women. They gave me an entire bottle of Fever Tree ginger ale that I saw contained cane sugar. We made many comparisons with the movies, especially the earlier movie. That movie was showing on TV at the same time as our discussion. Most liked the book but felt Charlie should have been tested along with the others. Someone mentioned that earlier drafts of the story had other children coming to more gruesome ends. For the next month, January 2015, we plan to discuss Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. For the "next next" meeting in February we chose Hoops by Walter Dean Myers over A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines. For the "next next next" meeting in March we chose Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins.
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