The Chocolate War (original 1974; édition 2004)

4/10/22

Boy what a page turner! Very disturbing book with no happy resolution. ( )

Slow, confusing and boring. ( )

[Review written by my younger self]
The depravity of the institutions of religion and education is one of the major factors that causes the conformity in The Chocolate War to exist, mainly because this corruption destroys the outlets to which the protagonist, Jerry Renault, and the other students can turn.

Despite the fact that the majority of the novel takes place in a Catholic private school, neither the teachers nor religion are presented as dependable. Religion is not a main element in any of the students' lives, and all the religious images Cormier uses are sinister and pessimistic. A man in the Common is pictured as "some grotesque John the Baptist" while the students rendering a beat-up Jerry invisible "was like the parting of the Red Sea."

The teachers, too, with their guises of being both educators and religious leaders, are shown as dishonest and hypocritical. In fact, by the end of the novel, one of the most prestigious educators is allied with the leader of the school's cult-like conformist society, the Vigils. With teachers being so unreliable and religion so nonexistent, it is no wonder that the students feel the need to conform to the Vigils, to be part of something even as more stable institutions fall apart.

Among these institutions, too, are the parents, who quickly become the most disrespected fixtures in the students' lives. For most students, their parents are metaphorically dead, living day to day without spontaneity or life. Even as the kids saw their parents giving in to the stresses of their society, they repeat this cycle in following the Vigils.

It is with this breakdown that Cormier is most effective in presenting the indifference held by many adolescents today. The Chocolate War, as ugly and repulsive as it may be to many readers, is written as it is because there exists a section of adolescents who lack a source of guidance and naturally act indifferently towards life. With this they try to find some place to belong, no matter how cruel or corrupt that place may be.

Everything about the adolescent culture Cormier describes--the breakdown of major institutions, the intolerance of differences, the carelessness towards life and authority--pushes his characters to conform and leave all individualism behind.

Why is this book, in all its grimness, important today? Because it is this very commentary on conformity that people do not want to listen to. In the cruel world of The Chocolate War, conformity is merely a means of survival, since disturbing the universe, as Jerry himself learns, is bought only at the highest price of pain. When Jerry wonders, "Do I dare disturb the universe?", he is partially speaking for the author himself, who chooses with his words to disturb the universe no matter how many schools ban his book from their presence. Hidden in this negativity is Cormier's own voice countering that of his characters and telling readers that they can disturb their universes without giving in to the conformity it enforces. ( )

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