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And now we come to the end of my re-read of Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War.

Previous installments are here, here, here, and here.

This is, hands down, the most bizarre cover I've come across. Is that a girl? Dancing? With a sock puppet? I don't even. THERE AREN'T EVEN ANY MAJOR FEMALE CHARACTERS IN THE BOOK.

Chapter Twenty-nine: The sale turns around.

• Thanks to the Vigils, selling chocolate is suddenly cool. Carter hands wads and wads of money over to Brian Cochran and then tells him who to credit the sales to: it takes Cochran a few days before he realizes that Carter is distributing the sales to make it look as if EVERYONE is participating in the sale—not counting Jerry, of course—even though it's really only a few students doing all of the selling.
• Boys cheer when Cochran updates the sales roster, and it makes him feel like a football hero... which is ironic, as it's actually Jerry who's the football player.

Chapter Thirty: Brother Leon is now enjoying homeroom IMMENSELY.

• As in previous homeroom scenes, we get this from Goober's perspective: Goober, by the way, has stopped selling chocolates to stand in solidarity with Jerry. He hasn't gone so far as tell anyone—not even Jerry—but nonetheless, he did stop.
• Meanwhile, now that selling chocolates is cool, many of the other students have turned on Jerry. Which Brother Leon loves. Apparently everyone—including Brother Leon—has forgotten about that whole Nazi lesson back in Chapter Six.
• Later, Goober is dismayed to discover that his sales numbers have been updated: according to the roster, he's sold 50 boxes, rather than the 27 that he actually did sell: Out in the corridor, The Goober's breath came fast. But otherwise he felt nothing. He willed himself to feel nothing. He didn't feel rotten. He didn't feel like a traitor. He didn't feel small and cowardly. And if he didn't feel all these things, then why was he crying all the way to his locker? Again and again, Cormier highlights the feelings of shame that the victim feels: Jerry felt it when his locker was vandalized, and Goober feels it now. In each case, the wronged party is the one who feels guilty.

Chapter Thirty-one: The return of Janza.

• Janza accosts Jerry and tries to goad him into starting a fight by calling him gay. Which literally almost makes Jerry vomit. (I'd like to say that everything about that situation is another example of dated material in the book, but... sadly, not so much.)
• Rather than beating Jerry personally, though, Janza does him one worse and hires a bunch of LITTLE KIDS to do it. I hate Janza.

Chapter Thirty-two: But, oh no, beating the crap out of him isn't enough.

• Jerry drags himself home and into bed, but the phone calls continue. And now they're staking out his apartment building, cat-calling and stage-whispering "Jerry, come out to PLAAAAYYYYYY" and the like. Which, of course, made me think of this bit from The Warriors. (Twin Peaks fans: NOTE THAT THAT IS A YOUNG JERRY HORNE. Always crazy, is our David Patrick Kelly.)

Chapter Thirty-three: Janza and Archie.

• As if anyone had any doubt, it was Archie who put Janza into beating up Jerry. (Using the kids, though, was Janza's own brilliant idea, and Archie isn't happy about it: not only because he likes being completely in control, but because strategically, the less people involved, the less possible problems.)
• Archie also suggests to Janza that there might not actually be a blackmail photo: a statement that makes Janza feel both relieved and angry.

Chapter Thirty-four: Jerry's day of invisibility.

• Everyone ignores Jerry. They don't just ignore him, they look through him. EVEN THE TEACHERS. His locker has been emptied and scrubbed clean, like he's been erased. Goober isn't in school that day, so he has no anchor.
• But then, something snaps, the period of invisibility is over, and someone tries to push him down a flight of stairs.
• Meanwhile, the final tally has been done, and, according to the numbers, every single box of chocolates has been sold. Well, every box except for Jerry's 50. Brian Cochran briefly starts wondering about Jerry, about this one stubborn kid standing against the Vigils, against Brother Leon, against Trinity itself, and he has a moment of almost-compassion. But then he figures, oh, whatever, who cares, I'm out of here at the end of the year.
• Archie informs Obie that there's going to be a school-wide, students-only assembly the next night, and it will involve Jerry Renault, the last fifty boxes of chocolates, and a raffle.

Chapter Thirty-five: If Archie Costello promised you anything "fair and square", would you believe him?

• Archie promises to give Jerry a chance, "fair and square" at revenge, and Jerry goes along with it. So, now he and Janza are standing in a boxing ring, stripped to the waist, and waiting for the raffle tickets to be sold. 

Chapter Thirty-six: And what, exactly, is the deal with those raffle tickets?

• Well, I'll tell you: on each raffle ticket, the purchaser writes down a boxer's name—Renault or Janza—the move said boxer is to execute, and then the purchaser's own name.
• If you think that many students are going to allow Jerry to throw any punches, you're going to be sorely disappointed: Archie might be a sociopath, but he's got a decent-if-pessimistic understanding of human nature: "You see, Carter, people are two things: greedy and cruel. so we have a perfect set-up here. The greed part—a kid pays a buck for a chance to win a hundred. Plus fifty boxes of chocolates. The cruel part—watching two guys hitting each other, maybe hurting each other, while they're safe in the bleachers. That's why it works, Carter, because we're all bastards." 
• That explanation leaves Carter—who apparently has always thought of himself as "one of the good guys"�feeling understandably uncomfortable and guilty. But, you know: he doesn't do anything about it.
• Obie—along with, it turns out, Carter—makes an attempt to take Archie down by bringing out the box of marbles. In the Hollywood version of this story, Archie would draw a black one. But not in Cormier's world: Archie is forced to draw two marbles, one for Jerry, one for Janza, and his luck holds both times.
• HA. On a hunch, I just looked it up, and SURPRISE, SURPRISE, they changed this scene in the movie: Archie pulls a black marble and has to take Janza's place in the boxing match. Also, crazily enough, ADAM BALDWIN PLAYS CARTER.

Chapter Thirty-seven: The fight.

• It's just as awful as I remembered it being.
• And, of course, Brother Leon stood there and silently watched the whole thing happen.

Chapter Thirty-eight: The aftermath.

• Goober holds Jerry's broken body in his arms as he and a few stragglers wait for an ambulance. And Jerry tries to tell Goober what he's learned from all of this, but there's "something wrong with his mouth, his teeth, his face" and so the words won't come out right. But this is what he wants to say: They tell you to do your thing but they don't mean it. They don't want you to do your thing, not unless it happens to be their thing. It's a laugh, Goober, a fake. Don't disturb the universe, Goober, no matter what the posters say." Not one for sugar-coating things, was Cormier.
• Archie and Brother Leon, meanwhile, get away with everything, their power and reputations intact: Beautiful. Leon and The Vigils and Archie. What a great year it was going to be.

Chapter Thirty-nine: Obie and Archie, back in the bleachers.

• Judging by their conversation—much of which mirrors their first conversation in the book—not much of anything appears to have changed: if Jerry overheard it, he'd be likely to assume that his attempt to disturb the universe had no affect whatsoever. But Goober will be forever changed by it, and possibly even Carter. And someone informed Brother Jacques about what was happening. So, on the surface, no. Nothing was disturbed. But underneath? Maybe.

Ag. Now I'm all emotionally drained and busted. I need a nap. And maybe some ice cream.

Links!

Kelly: Inspired by -- and Read Alikes to -- The Chocolate War

Liz: The Chocolate War Wrap Up

I'm going to finish up my re-read of Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War with TWO BIG POSTS.

Previous installments are here, here and here.

Okay, settle in!

Chapter Eighteen: In which Jerry has a long dark night of the soul.

• It turns out that Jerry didn't mean to continue to refuse to sell the chocolates. He'd been looking forward to the ordeal being over: the tension with Leon, the shunning by the other students, being watched by the Vigils. But that 'No' just popped out of his mouth.
• He lies there in bed, these thoughts going round and round in his head, and even thinking of the girl he saw downtown in a sweater that "bulged beautifully" (<--gross) doesn't help to distract him.

Chapter Nineteen: In which Jerry fully commits to his stance.

• Before homeroom, Jerry is approached separately by three other students: two upperclassmen and The Goober. The upperclassmen praise Jerry; The Goober pleads with him to back down, because "Brother Leon won't let you get away with it."
• A poster in Jerry's locker with a T.S. Eliot quote—Do I dare disturb the universe?—is described in detail, as it's one of those images that always comes to me when I think of the book (like the eyes on the billboard in The Great Gatsby), I was surprised that its appearance came so late in the story.
• And the chapter ends with this: He was swept with sadness, a sadness deep and penetrating, leaving him desolate like someone washed up on a beach, a lone survivor in a world full of strangers. The imagery ties back to the poster, of course, but I especially love the mix of emotions that it suggests, some of them conflicting: he's both abandoned and been abandoned by everyone else; he has gained an understanding of the world (even if it's a vague feeling that he can't fully articulate) that no one else seems to share; he's sad for everyone and everything.

Chapter Twenty: In which we see that Obie really is sick and tired of Archie.

• And who could blame him, really? Everyone knows that Archie is the true leader of the Vigils, and so he gets all of the glory for every stunt that they pull off... but who's the one who has to deal with the real pressure, who has to be sure that all of the stunts run smoothly? Obie, that's who. Archie doesn't respect him, doesn't appreciate him.
• The prank described in this chapter—every time a certain teacher uses the word 'environment', the students all jump up and dance around like crazy for a minute—is brilliant and hilarious. (Though, like many of the others, it creates an undercurrent of fear and apprehension, too.) But it's also a great example of Archie, once again, playing puppetmaster with EVERYONE: he has no loyalty to anyone but himself, and once he's bored with the teacher's discomfort, he turns the tables and makes the students the victims.

Chapter Twenty-one: Jerry's insurrection is a spark that threatens to become a conflagration.

• Students are talking; Jerry's outward show of defiance has made him somewhat of a symbol/inspiration to his peers—even though he certainly never meant for it to, and even though he'd rather for it to have never happened. Which actually makes me think of another unwitting/unwilling person-turned-symbol: Katniss in The Hunger Games. One of the major differences being, of course, that Katniss has A) a support network, and B) a clear-cut enemy to rebel against. Jerry isn't rebelling against an obvious authoritarian regime—though obviously the school administration and the Vigils are both authorities that bring pressure to bear—he's rebelling (again, though, not completely consciously) against his perception of WHAT LIFE IS. Ag. Poor Jerry. I do feel for him.
• This chapter is a great example of the portrayal of the objectification/dehumanization of women that plays out in The Chocolate War: in the first vignette, we have Kevin Chartier's take on his mother—...trying to ignore his mother who stood near the phone making sounds at him. Kevin had learned long ago to translate whatever she was saying into gibberish. She could talk her head off now and the words reached his ears without meaning.—and then we have Richy Rondell, who stands around outside the drugstore 'feast[ing] himself' on the girls who walk by by committing 'rape by eyeball'.
• Meanwhile, in an effort to discomfit Archie, Obie—who, even though he pretty much brings about our innocent hero's downfall, is one of the more likable characters in the book—tells him that Jerry has A) defied the Vigils by continuing to refuse to sell chocolates, and B) reminds Archie that he promised Brother Leon that the Vigils would support the sale.

Chapter Twenty-two: Sales numbers are down; Brother Leon is taking it hard.

• Sales haven't just slowed, they've virtually come to a halt. And Brother Leon—who sees Jerry Renault as just as much of a symbol as the students do, but a symbol that needs to be crushed—forces Brian Cochran to read every single name and number on the list aloud. It's a creepy scene, and suggests that Leon has gone round the bend.

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Goober refuses to play ball.

• The Goober is tired of Trinity. The Vigils are a part of it, but only a part. He feels like there's something 'rotten' and 'evil' there, and he doesn't want to give any more of himself to Trinity than he already has: so he's quitting football, and he's not going out for track in the spring.
• He never says it, but it seems likely that the 'rotten' feeling he's picking up on has to do with the fact that he seems to be the only one who feels any amount of sympathy for Brother Eugene, or guilt for his part in his nervous breakdown.
• Jerry, meanwhile, is in love with Ellen Barrett, a girl at their bus stop. I could be wrong, but she might be the only named female character in the entire book.

Chapter Twenty-four: Brother Leon and Archie throw down.

• There are a lot of references to obscene phone calls in this book—in this chapter specifically, Brother Leon's heavy breathing is likened to one—and that, along with the hippie, is one of the few things that date the book. (Because that's not really still a thing, is it? Obscene phone calls? Now that we have caller ID and *69 and all that?)
• Archie and Leon are both starting to lose their grasp on authority: Leon out-and-out orders Archie to use the Vigils to deal with the failing chocolate sale, which A) means that he's admitting that the situation is out of his control and B) that Archie and the Vigils have legitimate power, but C) not so much power that he can't order them around. I feel that there are approximately one billion possible term papers in this book.

Chapter Twenty-five: Jerry is summoned to appear before the Vigils.

• It doesn't go particularly well: Archie asks Jerry to start selling chocolates. He doesn't manipulate him into offering, he doesn't even order him. He asks. It's a scene that makes it even more evident that Archie is losing his grasp on power: he knows it, Obie knows it, and Carter—remember him? the supposed President of the Vigils?—knows it.

Chapter Twenty-six: Jerry calls Ellen Barrett.

• It doesn't go well.
• Also, she uses the word 'crap', which 'destroys all illusion' about her. Which is yet another great example of the Women As Non-Human thread in the book.
• Despite crashing and burning on the phone, Jerry's proud of himself for taking the plunge. And he has a moment—a moment—of pride about standing firm about the chocolates.

Chapter Twenty-seven: The Vigils REALLY begin to implode.

• Archie missteps by bringing in Frankie Rollo in for an assignment. Rollo, a junior already known for being trouble, mocks the proceedings (and the Vigils, and Archie) until Carter steps in and punches him.
• Which changes everything, because to keep the power dynamic intact, Archie has to let it ride, and in doing so, endorses physical violence as an option.
• But even after all of Archie's strategizing, Carter makes his move, and puts Archie on 'probation' until the Jerry Renault situation is handled and the Vigils are once more feared and respected on the Trinity campus.
• Archie is DISPLEASED.

Chapter Twenty-eight: Things start to get bad for Jerry.

• Someone assaults him on the football field, he gets prank phone calls at home at all hours, his locker is vandalized—the poster gets especially trashed—and one of his school assignments is stolen.
• In the midst of all this, he suddenly understands the poster: ...the solitary man on the beach standing upright and alone and unafraid, poised at the moment of making himself heard and known in the world, the universe.

Links!

Kelly: The Chocolate War: A Cover Retrospective, Foreign Editions and The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

Liz: The Chocolate War: Read A Long Part 4 and Review: The Chocolate War

My re-read of The Chocolate War continues!

Previous installments are here and here.

Chapter Twelve: In which Jerry has his last perfect moment in a long, long time.

• Jerry's at football practice, and his frustration about—and this is my interpretation, as he hasn't actually articulated the feeling—being rudderless and acted UPON rather than being the ACTOR in his own life, as well as being dismissed as insignificant and a nonentity by all of the forces who use him continues: What infuriated Jerry was that Carter toppled him gently, lowering him to the ground almost tenderly as if to prove his superiority. I don't have to murder you, kid, it's easy enough this way, Carter seemed to be saying. Long-windedness cut short: FORESHADOWING.
• Then the next pay is successful, and Jerry has a moment of "absolute bliss"... but then he goes inside to change, he finds a letter from the Vigils taped to his locker.

Chapter Thirteen: The first day of the chocolate sale.

• The Room Nineteen prank isn't sitting well with The Goober. At first, he felt like a folk hero and he enjoyed the butt-patting popularity, but there are rumors that Brother Leon is carrying on an investigation and that Brother Eugene has had a nervous breakdown. Also, there's this: The room would never be the same again, of course. The furniture creaked weirdly, as if it would collapse again without warning. The various teachers who used the room were uneasy—you could tell they were apprehensive. Once in a while, some guy would drop a book just to see the teacher flinch or leap in panic. So. Things that are broken—like, completely, utterly destroyed—and then mended... are never quite the same again. UNSETTLING THOUGHT, INDEED. By which I mean: FORESHADOWING.
• And then Brother Leon does role call, and asks each boy if he will participate in the chocolate sale, and every boy in the room says yes... except Jerry. And, as you might expect, even though this sale is supposedly entirely voluntary, refusing does not go over well: "You may pick up your chocolates in the gym, gentlemen," Brother Leon said, his eyes bright—wet bright. "Those of you who are true sons of Trinity, that is. I pity anyone who is not." That terrible smile remained on his face. "Class dismissed," Leon called although the bell had not sounded.

Chapter Fourteen: Time passes. Boys sell chocolates. 

• I love the structure of this chapter: Cormier shows the passage of time with brief vignettes of random students selling chocolates interspersed with scenes of the daily battle of wills between Brother Leon and Jerry in homeroom. His ability to create three-dimensional, believable characters with just a few paragraphs is lovely, as is his trust in his audience to be able to keep up with the rapid pace of the scene changes. 
• Using The Goober as our window to those homeroom scenes is another great choice on Cormier's part: he's already been shown to be more sensitive to and aware of tension and conflict than many of the other students, so his view of the situation is especially perceptive.
• Meanwhile, the kid who was appointed Candy Treasurer is pretty sure that Brother Leon is cooking the books...

Chapter Fifteen: In which we find out what Archie is holding over Janza's head.

• And, in a word, is is nothing: he's just PRETENDING to have a photo of Janza masturbating in a school bathroom. I don't even. (If it'd been a different character, this situation never would have worked, but as Janza is, as Willow Rosenberg would say, ID BOY, it makes complete sense to me that he would wander into a bathroom and think, "Hmmm, broken lock, no real privacy, well, now's as good a time as any.")
• The Archie/Janza scenes are always interesting; Janza acts like he thinks he's Archie's equal, but clearly knows that he isn't—he craves acceptance, but would never ever admit it; Archie very definitely looks down on Janza, but respects the fact that his unpredictability and inherent brutality makes him dangerous.
• I just noticed, too, that Archie and Jerry are the only two characters who are regularly referred to by their first names. Oh, wait, Obie, too.

Chapter Sixteen: In which a random student has a devastating flash of insight.

• Brother Leon holds a bad grade over David Caroni's head to find out what the deal is with Jerry Renault: Were teachers like everyone else, then? Were teachers as corrupt as the villains you read about in books or saw in movies and television? He'd always worshipped his teachers, had though of becoming a teacher himself if he could overcome his shyness.
• Which, of course, makes me think of River Phoenix's monologue in Stand By Me about stealing the milk money. Like I said, devastating.
• Anyway, now Brother Leon knows that Jerry's Vigil assignment ends tomorrow, and that he will say 'yes', start selling chocolates, and all will be right with the world.

Chapter Seventeen: In which Jerry does the unthinkable.

• He says no.

Links!

Kelly: Guest Post: Why The Chocolate War Matters by Angie Manfredi

Liz: The Chocolate War Read A Long Part Three

Continuing my chapter-by-chapter recap of Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War! If you need to catch up, the first installment is here.

Chapter Six: In which Brother Leon practically BEGS for someone to sue the school.

• So, Brother Leon basically treats his classroom of boys as a captive audience... for psychological torment. WHEEE!!! Seriously, the guy is a sadist. He pulls a student up in front of the class, accuses him of cheating, "accidentally" slashes him in the face with his pointer—"Bailey, I'm sorry," Leon said, but his voice lacked apology. Had it been an accident? Or another of Leon's little cruelties?—gets the whole classroom to laugh at this poor boy who's done committed no crime but get good grades...
• ...and then, after one brave(ish) unidentified soul in the back of the room says, "Aw, leave the kid alone," Leon tells that the classroom of boys are no better than Nazis for not speaking up sooner.
• He claims that it's a lesson—and maybe it was, sort of—but despite his praise of Bailey at the end of the "exercise", it's clear that he enjoyed frightening and shaming Bailey, a complete innocent.

Chapter Seven: Introducing Emile Janza

• Archie's a sociopath and Brother Leon is just a twisted, hateful, bitter old bastard, but Emile Janza is a psychopath. Archie enjoys messing with people in a clinical, detached way, whereas Janza gets off on it. Literally: And if you told anybody, it would be hard to explain. Like how he sometimes felt actually horny when he roughhoused a kid or tackled a guy viciously in football and gave him an extra jab when he had him on the ground. So, yeah: he's a real peach.

Chapter Eight: The Goober completes his assignment

• I love The Goober. I love that he's described as being gawky and awkward at rest, but as a thing of beauty in motion. I love that Cormier conveys perfectly, in just a couple of pages, that while Goubert has the body of a young man, that he's still a boy: it's a good reminder of how young most of these characters really are.
• Anyway, he's in the classroom, loosening screws, and he's been there for six hours and it's dark and he's terrified that he won't ever finish... when a few masked guys show up and help him finish. Not because they feel sorry for him, but because "the assignment is more important than anything else". Three hours later, the job is done.

Chapter Nine: Jerry's home life.

• When Jerry's mother was dying, he was scared: scared of seeing her waste away, scared of his own grief. He saw his father's stoicism as strength. After she died, their respective routines—his father's job at the pharmacy and Jerry's classes and football practices—saved them...
• ...but now Jerry's starting to consider a whole life of routine, and it palls: He hated to think of his own life stretching ahead of him that way, a long succession of days and nights that were fine, fine—not good, not bad, not great, not lousy, not exciting, not anything. I'd forgotten how much more there is to this book beyond the stuff with the chocolates.
• So, that bit where Jerry sees his mother's face superimposed over his father's face? I know I SHOULD have found that emotionally moving or something, but really all it made me think of was that time on Twin Peaks where Mrs. Palmer is talking to Stupid Donna Hayward and she has a vision of Laura's face and then she does what she does best and freaks out.

Chapter Ten: The chocolate sale is officially announced.

• Now that I have Twin Peaks on the brain, this book suddenly has a Lynchian vibe. Especially this: The student body watched with glee as Leon's stooges tried to scotch-tape the posters to the wall at the rear of the stage. The posters kept slipping to the floor, resisting the tape. The walls were made of concrete blocks, and tacks couldn't be used, of course. Hoots filled the air. 
• HOOTS, EVEN.
• Now I'm thinking that, since the movie is pretty much universally reviled—at least in terms of being NOT REMOTELY TRUE TO THE BOOK—that David Lynch should remake it. Holy cow, it would be brutal.
• Anyway, back to the actual book: Archie muses on about how he'll pick a few guys to sell his chocolates for him—AS IF he'd lower himself to sell any—and pats himself on the back for being such a Good Guy. 

Chapter Eleven: Room Nineteen

• It takes thirty-seven seconds for everything in the room to collapse—including the chalkboard—and Cormier's description of the pandemonium is AMAZING. (Have I convinced you to read this book yet, or what? Because, MAN. I do love it.)
• The perfection of the moment—well, from Archie's perspective, as poor Brother Eugene's view of things is entirely different—is ruined by Brother Leon, who rips into him in front of everyone and accuses him of orchestrating the chaos. Which, of course, he did. OBVIOUSLY. But that doesn't stop him from being completely furious: He turned and saw some guys staring at Leon and him. Staring at him! Archie Costello humiliated by this snivelling bastard of a teacher. His sweet moment of triumph spoiled by this nut and his ridiculous chocolate sale!
• So, what do you think? Archie Costello's fatal flaw... could it possibly be related to HIS EGO?

Links!

Kelly: The Chocolate War: A Cover Retrospective, English Editions.

Liz: The Chocolate War: Read A Long Part 2.

As you've probably already learned from Kelly and Liz, the three of us are giving Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War a close look this week. If you've read it, I'm guessing that even if you're hazy on the details of the plotting and the characters and the structure, you can still tap into your emotional reaction to it. It's been well over ten years since I read it last, and I know I can.

It blew my mind when I read it as a teenager, it blew my mind when I read it in my 20s, and I fully expect it to blow my mind again now. It's a brutal story—emotionally, philosophically, physically—and Cormier doesn't pull any punches or offer any platitudes. Life isn't fair, bad things happen to those who don't deserve it, justice isn't always served, and people can be broken.

And yet.

And yet, despite where the story leaves him, there's something inspiring in Jerry Renault's attempt to matter, to find meaning, to disturb the universe. If you're interested in YA, and you haven't read it, you really ought to—Cormier is a cornerstone, and without him, we wouldn't have authors like Chris Crutcher or Chris Lynch—and if you have read it, but it was years and years ago, I'd say that this would be the perfect time to pick it up again.

So, without further ado, here I go, back into The Chocolate War.

Chapter One

• First line: "They murdered him." In this scene, it's in the context of football, but of course, it's also some HEAVY DUTY MEGAZORD FORESHADOWING. Um, spoiler, I guess? Oh, wait, it originally came out in 1974. A twenty-year statute of limitations on spoilers is more than fair, I think. Jerry's response to getting nailed again and again in practice—to get up and keep going, almost despite himself, like his force of will is stronger than his logic—is, of course, also HEAVY DUTY MEGAZORD FORESHADOWING.
• Cormier's description is killer: "A telephone rang in his ears. Hello, hello, I'm still here. When he moved his lips, he tasted the acid of dirt and grass and gravel. He was aware of the other players around him, helmeted and grotesque, creatures from an unknown world. He had never felt so lonely in his life, abandoned, defenseless." 
• In less than four pages, we get a strong impression of Jerry's personality and state of mind, a bit about his mother's recent death and a bit about what he's searching for without really being aware that he's searching. And Cormier does it all without overt exposition.
• Also, there's the first of many references to masturbation—because, HELLO, high school freshman—which is one of the various reasons that this book still gets challenged again and again.

Chapter Two

• And now we shift to Obie, the mixed-feelings-having right-hand man of the school's resident sociopath, Archie. Archie is smart and charismatic and controlling and devious, and while sometimes I wholeheartedly appreciate characters like that, he's one who makes my skin crawl.
• Archie's coming up with assignments for The Vigils, and while they aren't overtly explained—the assignments or The Vigils, another example of Cormier's avoidance of the infodump—it's pretty clear that The Vigils is some sort of underground student gang, and that whoever the assignees are, well, they've probably got some ugly days ahead of them. 
• Jerry Renault is the last boy that Archie puts on his list—along with the word chocolates—and he includes him in good part because of his mother's recent death. Which kind of says it all about Archie.
• What else? Ah. The setting: a Catholic school is called Trinity.
• Challenge fodder: Lord's name in vain, etc., etc.

Chapter Three

• Three days later, Jerry gets accosted by a jerk of a hippie—They really say man, Jerry thought. He didn't think anyone said man anymore except as a joke. But this guy wasn't joking.—and even though he's fully aware that the hippie is a jerk, what the hippie says—that Jerry is sleepwalking through life, just going through the motions rather than actually living—resonates.
• This bit really got me, just because it's such a perfect encapsulation of where Jerry's at:

Why? someone had scrawled in a blank space no advertiser had rented.

Why not? someone else had slashed in answer.

Jerry closed his eyes, exhausted suddenly, and it seemed like too much of an effort even to think.

Chapter Four

• Back to Archie, who has just had a major realization: "Archie became absolutely still, afraid that the rapid beating of his heart might betray his sudden knowledge, the proof of what he'd always suspected, not only of Brother Leon but most grownups, most adults: they were vulnerable, running scared, open to invasion."
• While I'm on the subject of Brother Leon: what a bastard. On the surface, he's just as horrible as Archie, but I think he's even worse because A) he's an adult, and B) while Archie does what he does because it's in his nature, Brother Leon does what he does because he's nasty and grasping and hateful and mean. I have such incredibly strong negative feelings about him that Archie almost looks good by comparison. ALMOST.
• Long story short: while the Head is in the hospital, Brother Leon will be the interim head of Trinity. The annual chocolate sale is coming up, and he bought a ton of cut-rate boxes—twenty thousand of them instead of the usual ten—in the hopes of making double the money twice over. Brother Leon wants the Vigils to ensure that the sale is successful, but he can't come out and say anything about them, because obviously the school can't acknowledge their existence. Some cat-and-mousing goes on—the balance of power tips back-and-forth a couple of times—and it's a wonderfully tense scene.

Chapter Five

• Enter the Goober: Despite his height, he was easily six-one, he reminded Archie of a child, someone who didn't belong here, as if he'd been caught sneaking into an Adults Only movie. He was too skinny, of course. And he had the look of a loser. Vigil bait.
• As the Assigner, Archie isn't technically the head of the Vigils—the President is Carter, a bruiser of a football player—but everyone (including Carter) knows that the Assigner is the true leader and the President is merely an enforcer.
• Goober gets his assignment: he has to go to Brother Eugene's homeroom and loosen every single screw in the room. Every desk, every chair, the blackboard, everything. On the surface, that doesn't sound so bad—it'll take a long time, and it'll be a lot of work, but beyond that it seems tame—but as I know where the story goes, reading this chapter made me feel ill.
• LOVE THIS. The Vigils have a fail-safe to keep the Assigner from going too bananas with his assignments: every time he gives one, there is a 1 in 6 chance that he'll have to carry it out, rather than his intended victim.

Links!

Kelly: First Impressions

Liz: The Chocolate War: Read A Long Part 1

Click through for the details! 

...a Gatsby collection.

It's a bit* out of my price range, but DAMN, I love some of the pieces in it.

Very Chuck Bass!

(Unless I'm missing it, there doesn't appear to be a women's line, so the whole out-of-my-price-range thing is slightly less painful.)

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*And by 'a bit', I mean COMPLETELY.

From an essay by David Levithan at Out magazine:

We wrote the books for ourselves, and we wrote the books for the teenagers who came after us, the teenagers we would never get to be again. There’s a great line in “Canon,” a poem in Talking in the Dark, where the narrator says of a trip to the library, “You pace by the aisle until it’s empty, read that anthology in a safe corner, embarrassed by the cover, though there’s really nothing threatening about it. And then there are those first loves: Auden, Doty, Whitman. They say, Here is the world. Here. It’s yours and it’s all right.” We had each, in our way, found this sustenance, but we had largely done it in secret. Now it was time to do it with everybody watching.

It's a lovely piece, and a must read.

At the Horn Book:

Enter Harriet M. Welsch, who became my role model and savior. I read Harriet the Spy soon after it came out (and I now bless the school librarian who put it on the library shelves for me to find). I was absolutely shocked by it at the time. Shocked that Harriet could defy her parents and her friends and still survive. Shocked that she loved and missed Ole Golly so much that she threw a shoe at her father to express her anger. Shocked that an adult author could know so well what really went on in the minds of children.

Seriously, go read it. By the end, I was all weepy.

Love Harriet, now and forever.

(The essay originally ran in the January 2005 issue of the Horn Book, but just re-ran at the website yesterday.)

Thank goodness he changed it: Matilda is one of my all-time faves.

From the New Yorker:

But in early drafts of “Matilda,” Dahl had painted her as a wicked child who uses telekinesis to fix a horse race, a pursuit that ultimately kills her. Although Dahl was known for archness, even cruelty—remember Violet Beauregarde, in Willy Wonka’s factory, blowing up into a huge blueberry—the new book seemed unusually savage.

The article is actually more about the stage production of Matilda, but WOW. I clearly really need to read Storyteller.

I used to post about older books a lot more. Somewhere along the way, though, in an effort to keep up with the never-ending supply of review copies and new books at the library (and new books that I buy!), that except for the rare special series, I've gotten away from that.

So, for the foreseeable future, anyway, I'm going to start covering older titles on Fridays. And what better way to start than with The Perks of Being a Wallflower?

It begins:

August 25, 1991

Dear friend,

I am writing to you because she said you listen and understand and didn't try to sleep with that person at that party even though you could have. Please don't try to figure out who she is because then you might figure out who I am, and I really don't want you to do that. I will call people by different names or generic names because I don't want you to find me. I didn't enclose a return address for the same reason. I mean nothing bad by this. Honest.

I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn't try to sleep with people even if they could have. I need to know that these people exist.

That second paragraph breaks my heart. Which is an impressive feat, breaking a reader's heart before she even really gets to know the narrator. (And yes, this was a re-read, but it'd been so long that I may as well have been going in completely cold.) 

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is, as you probably already know—at this point it's shifted, I think, from cult-classic status to modern-classic status—comprised of the letters that our narrator, Charlie, writes to an unnamed confidante over the course of his first year in high school. It's not surprising that it gets challenged again and again and again, as Charlie witnesses—and sometimes directly experiences—many of the very things that parents want to shield their children from: sexual assault, suicide, molestation. Add to that the empathetic and friendly portrayal of homosexuality, the profanity and the drug use, the frank talk about masturbation, and the brief mention of bestiality, and from some perspectives, I'm sure that the book looks like a veritable cornucopia of objectionable content.

The thing is, though—and the way that the book was embraced when it first came out, passed from hand to hand, locker to locker, backpack to backpack, backs me up on this—is that many adolescents not just want, but need to reflect on and talk about these things. Pretending they don't exist is impossible; we—and they—see them every day, if not in our own homes, then in the halls of our high schools or colleges, and certainly on tv.

But The Perks of Being a Wallflower isn't only about the scary things in our world: far from it. There are joys here—making deep and real connections with other people, loving them, feeling infinite—and those joys are every bit as important a part of Charlie's experience as the other parts. It's about a boy climbing out of darkness into the light, about finding his way from the fringes of life into a comfortable center, about a wallflower becoming a participant. And it's a book written with such honesty, that feels so profoundly human—to me, anyway—that even trying to articulate that feeling has me choked up and starting to cry.

So I'll just finish up by saying that it's a book in the same bloodline as The Catcher in the Rye, and deserves every bit of love that gets thrown its way.

BONUS POINTS: It's a book that stands up as literature, too, beyond its emotional impact: over the course of the book, Charlie's voice and writing style strengthens and changes and matures, but in a subtle and organic and believable way. It's so subtle, in fact, that it's almost undetectable as it happens, but if you finish the book and then immediately turn back to the beginning (as I did), it's quite striking.

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Author page.

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Amazon.

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Book source: Personal copy.

Link!

Via.

Graphic designer Sharm Murugiah created a whole set of them, though this one is my favorite:

As usual, click on through for the rest.

Via.

Jeez, Amazon is bound and determined to make me spend money this weekend.

Anyway, yes: all of the Narnia books are $1.99 today.

I give you... the first Much Ado About Nothing trailer:

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

From the Guardian:

[Sebastian] Faulks, who is becoming used to slipping into the skin of classic authors, after publishing a bestselling James Bond novel in 2008, was approached by the Wodehouse estate to take on the first ever authorised Wodehouse follow-up. Jeeves and the Wedding Bells, described as "a homage to PG Wodehouse" by the author's estate, will be published on 6 November by Hutchinson, also home to Wodehouse's later novels.

I'm perfectly fine with unauthorized fan fiction (like this and this), but for some reason the idea of an AUTHORIZED Wodehouse sequel is making me twitch.

Can you explain my brain to me? Please?

(Relatedly? My ringtone is currently the Jeeves and Wooster theme song.)

Chapter Four
WORST. CHRISTMAS DINNER. EVER.

• Pip arrives home to receive this charming Christmas greeting from Mrs. Joe: "And where the deuce ha’ you been?"
• Speaking of Mrs. Joe, I'm starting to hear her dialogue in Alison Steadman's voice. This was the part that really, really did it: "Perhaps if I warn’t a blacksmith’s wife, and (what’s the same thing) a slave with her apron never off, I should have been to hear the Carols,” said Mrs. Joe. “I’m rather partial to Carols, myself, and that’s the best of reasons for my never hearing any."
• Heh. OF COURSE no one is allowed in the parlor except for when the Christmas guests are over. And here's a classic zinger: "Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by their religion."
• In his Sunday best, Joe looks like "a scarecrow in good circumstances". And Pip is in a bad way, too: "Even when I was taken to have a new suit of clothes, the tailor had orders to make them like a kind of Reformatory, and on no account to let me have the free use of my limbs."
• Poor old Joe, by the way, was forced to spend his Christmas morning sitting outside on the kitchen doorstep while Mrs. Joe was cleaning. 
• Introducing: Mr. Wopsle, clerk at church and guest at Christmas dinner: He's exceedingly proud of his skills of recitation. Like, REALLY, REALLY PROUD.
• Introducing: Uncle Pumblechook, another guest at dinner, and technically Joe's uncle, though Pip isn't allowed to call him that. (Of course, he calls him that multiple times in his narration.)
• Introducing: Mrs. and Mr. Hubble, guests at dinner: She's "a little curly sharp-edged person", (<--LOVE THAT) much younger than her husband, who is a "tough, high-shouldered, stooping old man, of a sawdusty fragrance, with his legs extraordinarily wide apart: so that in my short days I always saw some miles of open country between them when I met him coming up the lane." (<--LOVE THAT, TOO)
• Dinner is profoundly uncomfortable, what with Pip's fear about his thievery being found out, "the Pumblechookian elbow" in his eye, the corner of the table digging into his chest, the fact that he's not allowed to speak and that he's given all of the crappy pieces of meat. But most of all, it's uncomfortable because all of the adults (except Joe) give him hell for the entire meal. For instance, after grace: "Upon which my sister fixed me with her eye, and said, in a low reproachful voice, “Do you hear that? Be grateful.”" And it just goes downhill from there. I particularly liked Mr. Hubble's opinion: "Naterally wicious."
• Joe, of course, attempts to make Pip feel better... by spooning a half-pint of gravy onto his plate. (<--I continue to think that Pip is all about the exaggeration. Which is fine by me, as it's generally hilarious.)
• And Mr. Wopsle goes on about what he'd sermonize about at Church if HE WERE IN CHARGE, and Uncle Pumblechook suggests that PORK would be a great topic. PORK.
• AHAHAHAHA: 

(“You listen to this,” said my sister to me, in a severe parenthesis.)

Joe gave me some more gravy.

• Oh, Mr. Wopsle is AWFUL. He's telling Pip about how great his life is, AND THAT IT'S WAY BETTER THAN A PIG'S LIFE. WELL, THANK YOU SIR. Every time he throws another verbal dart at Pip, Joe ladles more gravy onto Pip's plate.
• Oh, no, and now Mrs. Joe is giving Uncle Pumblechook brandy—the brandy that Pip watered down in order to hide his theft—but it turns out that he accidentally watered it down with TAR WATER, so Uncle Pumblechook runs outside and barfs, and then Mrs. Joe calms him down with some nice gin and hot water, BUT THEN she goes to get the pork pie (that Pip stole), and Pip TOTALLY FREAKS OUT BECAUSE HE KNOWS HE'S SCREWED, so he jumps up and runs for the front door... but then he runs into a bunch of soldiers at the front door, one of whom SHAKES A PAIR OF HANDCUFFS AT HIM. And... scene!
• MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE! WOOOOOO!

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Index.

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Author page.

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Amazon.

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Book source: Review copy from the publisher.

...in an Ohio school district:

The book “The Perks Of Being A Wallflower” is billed as a coming-of-age novel, but some parents in the Grandview Heights City School District want the book banned because they said it is “too hot” for high schoolers.

...Brian Jacques' Redwall: snag it while you can!

At the New York Times:

So it’s no surprise that the real Dr. Seuss, Theodor Seuss Geisel, was a hat lover himself. He collected hundreds of them, plumed, beribboned and spiked, and kept them in a closet hidden behind a bookcase in his home in the La Jolla section of San Diego. He incorporated them into his personal paintings, his advertising work and his books. He even insisted that guests to his home don the most elaborate ones he could find.

At the CBC: Anne Shirley... goes blonde:



(It's an unauthorized edition, BUT STILL. Also, it was apparently in that round-up of hideous cover art that Jezebel did a couple of weeks ago, but I missed it because the art on The Bell Jar was so wrong that I ran screaming (or, well, clicked away) before seeing the rest of the slideshow.)

From Deadline:

Universal Pictures beat out four studios today to acquire a pitch for a new film version of the Frances Hodgson Burnett novel The Secret Garden that will be scripted by Oscar-nominated Beasts Of The Southern Wild co-writer Lucy Alibar. She will work closely with Guillermo del Toro, who’ll produce with Mark Johnson.

JUST AS LONG AS THEY DON'T KILL OFF DICKON.

Yes, I'm still traumatised by the end of the 1987 version.

(via the CBC)

...correspondence related to the film adaptation of S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders.