second road dahl book i’ve read. the first one was matilda, which happened to be my favourite movie/musical as a child. perhaps they still are. what stuck out to me in this book was:
- 1.
the lack of character depth in charlie and willy wonka
unlike the movie, it does not show anything about wonka’s past, and it does not explain why he is the way he is. this isn’t bad by itself, no - i am all of lack of explanation, specially in children’s books. i love when things are left for the reader to imagine and treated as just a usual part of the reality. however, the movie did add depth to his character and his idiosyncrasies by showing the vulnerable man behind the eccentric.
charlie, however, disappointed me as he was just plain. morally virtuous characters in children’s books are not uncommon - take sara from a little princess, or edna conway from a dear little girl. unlike mary, from the secret garden, or the other children in charlie and the chocolate factory, these girls are shown as morally righteous and innocent.
however, sara’s morality is explained through her thought processes. edna’s character makes mistakes, as children do, and learns from them. and matilda, oh, matilda - her own disobedience is her most virtuous character. learning how to stand up for herself, and for others, against injustice and grown ups, is one of the main points of the book.
charlie, on the other hand, makes no mistakes in the book, and has nothing to learn from. he mostly watches the other children fail and judges them, like the others around him already do. the family and the townspeople all judge the children and the parents, and their actions are not seen as right by anyone but themselves. they are blatantly contrasting with charlie’s apparent perfection - which is shown by how very little he does in the book.
his interactions with the characters are little. the movie shows at least a bit of the children’s dynamics with one another, and this also helps contrast each individual child’s flaw through cross-examination. the book is divided in chapters in which each character’s and parents’ moral shortcomings cause them consequences, but it doesn’t show how they relate to each other, as if separating each individual flaw in a little box.
and in the movie, charlie defies wonka’s logic. both movie charlie and book charlie show concern for the other children’s wellbeings, but only movie charlie questions wonka’s character for it. putting these children through traumatizing moral trials is, at the very least, something to raise an eyebrow to - something book charlie didn’t do.
book charlie is seen as morally virtuous for not questioning and for obeying. very opposite to matilda’s character whose naughtiness was what saved her from the Bad Guys (her parents and trunchball). it bothered me how utterly plain and unexplored charlie and wonka were - and their dynamic.
i would be fine if it was just wonka’s eccentricness left unexplained, because the character being so weird is what is fun about it. but this, along with charlie’s moral… beigeness, just irked me a little. it reminded me of rf kuang’s babel’s robin. he obeyed professor lovell through his childhood and remained silent and inactive and this was one of his main character flaws to be explored, as opposed to griffin - unruly and rebel.
in a little princess, i remember, sara did say something along the lines of never being tested for her morality, and not knowing if she was sure she was good or not because it never was. that was the problem to me. charlie’s morality was not tested. not in the book, at least.
let’s see the children’s traits: augustus is gluttonous, veruca is spoiled, mike is addicted to television, violet is competitive, and charlie is kindhearted and obedient. all of these children were morally tested based on these traits - augustus was told to not be gluttonous, veruca was told she could not have something, mike was tempted to be on television like a rat on a cage with just cocaine, and violet wanted to be the first to chew that special piece of gum.
on the movie, charlie’s obedience is challenged when he is offered the factory in place of his family. and he says no, because his virtue does not allow him to abandon those who love him and he loves for the money and infinite food. his obedience is challenged and he stays true to his moral character despite his trait - showing that he was virtuous without being a fucking doormat. book charlie takes screaming elderly people to a factory against their will. so, yeah. movie charlie beats book charlie.
- 2.
the songs
oh, i did love them. i thought them absolutely funny. slightly offensive, yes. but i love rhymes and meter so. idc.
- 3.
the oompa loompas
i did initially think that i was the friend that was too woke, but no - anthropologists have criticized this as culturally insensitive. and yes - it is very weird to say these tiny humans were happily, willingly imported directly from their primitive and dangerous land for labour to be paid in… food? i mean. in a little princess and the secret garden, you can clearly see the traces of colonialism in there. but india was still under UK’s rule when the books came out. road dahl wrote this in 1964.
- 4.
margarine
to finish off, margarine. i mean, in matilda margarine was also poor people’s food. i just thought it was funny because my household eats margarine a lot and i had not seen margarine as a class indicator until i read matilda for the first time. and as a child, because margarine came from the supermarket and butter from the farm, i did think it was the opposite. only later would i find out butter is more expensive.
*
so that’s it. i liked the book, but i expected more after matilda. a children’s book can be simple without being plain. charlie had no character development whatsoever whilst the others (and i mean the children from this book and the ones mentioned) had. charlie was good and recognized as good from the start, remained good throughout the book, and ended on the very same place - the only transformation in him was how he was rewarded by this goodness through basically luck in winning the golden ticket.
i prefer matilda. :p