I think my logic bone just exploded. . .
The title of the book The Chocolate War refers to a fundraising candy sale at a private boys’ school. One boy refuses to participate, and the others boys turn on him. In one scene, the head bully insults the rebellious boy by suggesting in rather crude terms that he is gay. Another boy later asks the bully if he thinks the rebellious boy really is gay. The bully says no, but that the insult hurts more if the target isn’t actually gay.
I believe this is the only “talking about homosexuality” in the book. There are no gay characters and certainly no gay sex. Just teenaged boys insulting each other.
fauxpas, if your teacher doesn’t like you it is probably because you are ignorant and obnoxious. Perhaps you should stop making foolish and bigoted objections to the books assigned to you and actually try to pay attention to the things you are supposed to be learning.
Well said, Lamia. I couldn’t agree more.
I remember reading this book when I was 12, and I’ll go so far as to say that it changed my life. It stresses independent thinking, sticking up for what you believe in, not going along with the crowd because that’s the easiest way out.
I wasn’t the same afterward. I haven’t picked up the book to review it since, and it’s been nearly 30 years, but I haven’t forgotten its lessons.
The OP should indeed buckle down and pay attention. I doubt the kid even read the book.
I heard Cormier’s sequel, Uncle Schraft Rides the Cleveland Steamer is even more controversial.
AP: Foreign dignitaries expelled prior to Chocolate Rebellion.
Sofa King - blast! I had that book on my Amazon Wish List. But seeing as how it’s wrapped in controversy, I’d best skip it and retire with a more mundane kind of novel.
I am almost in tears.
I am amused that fauxpas called for the banning of a book, but did it “very nicely.”
I picture a scary cross of Mr. Rogers and Fahrenheit 451 where a army of cardigan wearing nice guys come into houses searching for books, and then burn them in the town square while roasting marshmallows and singing Kumbaya.
Then I reread the post and realized fauxpas seems to be equating homosexuality and filth and decided to just despise her.
Minor point, Hamlet: According to his profile, fauxpas is male.
That is an interesting visual, though.
Thanks for explaining. I read it a few years ago, but it didn’t leave much of an impression on me, so I barely remembered it. I’m confident though that I would have remembered gay sex between under-age school boys.
Isn’t that the one about Sanchez the Filthy?
friedo
How old were you when you read the book?
It’s easy to bash a book as a “boring and hackneyed tale of typical teen angst.” as an adult, as your perspective is different. This book was one of my favorite books I read as a 13-year-old. It deals with cliques and group mentalities and struggling to do what you think is right in defiance of others. It’s certainly not Proust by any stretch, but it isn’t supposed to be – it’s a kids/teenager book.
Do you find “The Little Engine That Could” to be contrived and idealistic and silly?
(If you read this book as a young teenager, then I guess we have to agree to disagree.)
Anyway, re: the homosexual taunting in the book – 2 Things:
- Right or wrong, teenage boys to taunt each other by calling each other “faggot” and “homo”. We hope that with some maturity they grow out of it.
- This book was written in 1974, which was light-years away from the PC society we live in today.
Just one question Faux, does your head make a squeaking noise, what with the sides rubbing together like that?
Please, don’t breed.
I’m sorry…I know this is so wrong, but I keep seeing this thread below the “Your fat is spilling into my seat” thread and thinking:
“You got your chocolate war in my peanut butter war!”
“No, your peanut butter war is in my chocolate war!”
What’s even more wrong is that I’m amused by this. A lot.
I was thinking the OP was being sarcastic-at least, I HOPE he was!
:eek:
yes I was being sarcstic. The book was good and bad. Pardon my punctuation and grammer, my first language being foreign, but then again I’m a teen so I don’t have an excuse. Friedo, In a really really weird way, I was hoping you’d come along and bash my a$$-hat mind while I acted like nothing occured. You succeeded too! 
I miss the fights and the long discussions we had last year, it’s great.
By “sarcstic” do you mean “intentionally posting something that is not true in order to provoke a response from other posters, particularly friedo”?
Children, children. The OP was quite clearly sarcastic. While it was, indeed, a bad choice for fauxpas to have not included a rolleyes or “::removes tongue from cheek::”, and especially to have let this thread fester for 23 hours, accusing him of trolling is out of line.
I’m not accusing fauxpas of trolling, I am merely asking him to clarify his claim that he posted the OP in order to get friedo to bash him. If that is in fact what he did then he was trolling and he has admitted to it. But perhaps he was just being “sarcstic”.
No, seriously i somehow knew friedo would come and bash me. I didn’t want him to, but he did it. But I was being sarcastic about being sarcastic. No, I was not trolling, I was just curious if friedo would somehow read this and then see my name and then he’d clikc here and well…read what I had to say.
Why bother?