Books |
The Chocolate War
Robert Cormier
By
Published: Dec 05, 2022
Category:
Fiction
Why, we read them right away, don’t we?
That is, if we are Good Citizens and Concerned Readers.
Well, and also if we’re looking for some really good smut.
Because of its “language and sexual references”, protectors of the young have been trying to ban Robert Cormier’s teen novel since it was published in 1974. It’s now considered a taut, brilliantly written classic — a book that teenagers should read, a book that grownups can read. I expected, therefore, to find a story that has mellowed over time, characters that seem dated, and “hot stuff” that wouldn’t shock a Bratz doll.
But “The Chocolate War” is still 100% relevant.
The plot is simple: At Trinity High, a Catholic school for boys, there’s an annual sale of chocolates. You know the drill: kids “volunteer” to sell, parents are forced to buy. This year Brother Leon decides that the students will sell twice as many boxes — 50 boxes each.
Brother Leon has allies among the students: The Vigils. This secret society is Skull & Bones at the adolescent level — unseen but powerful, sick to its core, so male-focused you have to wonder if these teenaged boys are covering for some doubts.
And then there’s Jerry Renault. He’s a sad sack. Mother just died. Not handsome or rich or super-smart. Nearly friendless. And a dreamer: In his locker, he’s pasted the quote from Eliot’s “Prufrock” — “Do I dare disturb the universe?”
Each day, at assembly, the boys are polled as to their sales.
Each day, Jerry says — in the beginning, he doesn’t even know why — that he declines to sell any.
A power struggle ensues. Jerry vs. the administration. Jerry vs. the Vigils. You can’t miss the issues: the wisdom of authority, the rights of the individual. Of course the defenders of youth want to honor those rights — they just don’t want to see them in action.
But the “problem” with this novel is not just that Jerry is a trouble-making do-your-own-thinger. It’s the language and the sex. Guys look at breasts, and girls press those breasts against those guys’ arms. Guys masturbate — excuse me: jerk off — and sometimes they do it in school. Non-conformists are, of course, gay.
Amazing stuff for 1974. [To read an excerpt, click here. To buy the Kindle edition from Amazon, click here. For paperback, click here.]
What jumps out at me now, of course, is the power of Group Think. When two or three are gathered together, it would seem, something like “Lord of the Flies” is the result. Is it just that boys can be unspeakably, horribly cruel? Or is it girls as well? Or is it…us, too?
