Expectations are high when Eric
Idle reads a novel by Roald Dahl.  Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
is the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (reviewed in Metapsychology April 2003).  In this story, Charlie,
now the inheritor of Willy Wonka’s confectionary business, goes on a journey
with Mr. Wonka and his family in a great glass elevator. 

In this story, Willy Wonka is a
less sympathetic character; he makes mistakes and shows a callous indifference
to other people’s feelings, even when they have done nothing wrong.  Charlie is
put in the position of trying to mediate between the inventor and his
uncooperative and nervous older relatives.  The story is full of adventure and
silliness, and Dahl’s writing remains clever and charming.  Nevertheless, as a
whole, the novel is less gripping than most of Dahl’s other novels.  The set
pieces and humorous devices are already familiar from the first Charlie novel, and
the characters are less endearing so one cares less what happens to them. 
Maybe for those readers who are not already familiar with Dahl’s other fiction
for children, this work will have enough new to win them over, but it has to be
said that it is not his best work. 

© 2004 Christian
Perring. All rights reserved.

Christian
Perring, Ph.D., is Academic Chair of the Arts & Humanities
Division and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Dowling College, Long Island. He is also
editor of Metapsychology Online Review.  His main research is on
philosophical issues in medicine, psychiatry and psychology.

Categories: Children