Let me be blatant and say that despite the book turning out to be better than expected (I already had high expectations from it and had heard many a good thing about it from avid readers and literature-crazy online bloggers), the climax disappointed me. The book grows on you with every page and every chapter, reaches a pinnacle but reaches a sudden end. That, to me, was underwhelming. And now let me clarify - that is the only flaw in the book, unless you’re the sort who can get offended by black humour in children’s books.
Aah yes, how can you read a Roald Dahl book and not expect disturbing humour even if it’s meant to evoke peals of laughter from children? How can they not roll laughing out loud at instances where an obstinate obese kid splashes in a chocolate river and is then sucked into narrow glass tubes? How can they not cheer when a perpetual gum-chewing brat ends up being an oversized purple balloon? The author is uninhibited and completely over-the-top, and while the book had its share of scathing remarks from reviewers at the time who believed the jokes were tasteless and rude, the book was widely regarded as a children’s classic.
Storyline: For those urban kids who’ve not been fed on Dahl’s extraordinary fable, it’s about a little boy named Charlie who belongs to a family of very limited means. There are seven people in his household (Four grandparents, parents and he) and they barely manage to eat regular meals. There is a chocolate factory near to where he lives and he longs to see what actually goes in there. But no one knows how the factory operates to come up with the world’s finest chocolates and candies. One day, Mr. Willy Wonka, the factory owner declares that he has five golden tickets in five chocolate bars prepared and packaged from within his factory. The five lucky finders of these bars would get a chance to go around the factory to see how chocolate is prepared, along with getting lifetime supplies of free chocolate, candies and goodies for them and their families! Will Charlie, who only gets to eat only one chocolate bar a year, be lucky enough to get what he has always dreamt of?
Analysis: Dahl’s product of wild imagination is hard not to fall in love with, if creativity in fiction writing is what you admire and appreciate. But that’s not all there to like in the book. Along the way, the book presents some wildly fascinating and interesting characters (The Chcocolate factory owner’s name instantly flashes across your mind) along with some lucid storytelling. There are no fillers and no portion in the book that can be deemed unnecessary or lackluster. It is unabashedly non-stop and unputdownable from its first page.
There are also some moral science lessons that can come across as slightly preachy to teenagers and adults, but the author presents them in such entertaining and over-the-top manner that you just cannot help but relish them like a bar of RICH CARAMEL CHOCOLATE. Jokes are aplenty (rude and inoffensive both). Reading it, you might feel so too - Dahl is completely uninhibited in creating absurd situations and his writing rims with a childlike enthusiasm. Its awfully difficult to come up with a piece of fiction that appeals to children if the writer is someone who has faced hardships as a child and seen enough of world around during his later years (having been Wing Commander and an Intelligence Agent). But with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Dahl proves why he is often regarded as one of the best storytellers for children.
The descriptions of rooms and chocolates are sure to make one drool, whether a lover or chocolates or otherwise. It teases your imagination, makes you visualize pictures and sequences, and hurls you amid the proceedings. You imagine being amid the chocolate rivers and meadows, the sugar room, nut room, and also the extraordinary glass lift that moves across blazingly from one room to another :-) It’s a wildly fantastic journey that is sure to leave an impression on your senses.
As talked about initially, the sudden end comes across as a disappointment. Not because it was poorly conceptualized and written but it gives the impression the writer was in a hurry to pack things up because of pressure from publishers to meet deadlines sooner. In comparison with the rest of the wacky, razor-sharp storytelling, it stands apart as a sore thumb. A minor blemish though it was, its effect could have been less severe had something like this had not happened in the climax.
Rest said, it’s an eternal classic which is sure to win your hearts, whether your age lies below 10 years or above 60. It’s a book for all - an enchanting classic read with universal appeal. Those who’ve read it - they might just want to give it another read. A book for all seasons, a book for all age-groups, a book that .. well.. leaves an effect hardly like any other book does.
Two thumbs-up for Dahl’s extraordinary story-tellng.