The Chocolate War -- Robert Cormier Chapters 6-11

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?

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