Beyond the Chocolate War

Robert Cormier has, perhaps, the surest touch of any novelist I know in seeking out the worst in all of us and parading it before our horrified eyes. Beyond the Chocolate War clearly demonstrates that he has suffered no diminution of this skill. Cormier makes double fools of us -- he lets us believe that we have cracked the code of his book and then, at the last moment, twists it breathtakingly away from us. He places us in a position of superiority, only to demonstrate that the characters we have judged and found wanting are an undeniable part of us all. Yet in all this fine writing there is a flaw -- in his description of the sexual relationships of the two main characters, Archie and Obie. Obie's relationship motivates him to rid himself of Archie's domination and Archie's provides a further insight into his manipulatory powers. It is the unpleasant coyness of the description of the sexual act which shocks - not the act itself. Cormier has here failed to resolve the dilemma implicit in this area: it is not explicit language which is the issue but a failure to describe a sensitive subject in an acceptably honest way. This aside, Beyond the Chocolate War is tailor-made for GCSE wider reading - offer it selectively to maturer fourth and firth readers.