Dig into Sachar's Sun-Baked Tale (Holes - Louis Sachar)

Member Name: Puggers

Product:	Holes - Louis Sachar
Date:	13/03/09 (263 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A skillful mix of styles and influences, memorable characters.

Disadvantages: The narrative reaches great heights, but can't quite keep them up.

Stanley Yelnats is not a lucky child - far from it. This runs in his family, and has done since his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing great grandfather made away with the pig that earned him his moniker. Luck appears to have taken against Stanley big-time now though, as, convicted of a crime he was entirely innocent of, he has been taken from his comfortable, if slightly smelly home and dispatched to Camp Green Lake. The Camp, it must be said, it considerably less pleasant than it sounds; for starters, there is no Lake, and there's not a whole lot of green either - Stanley's new home is essentially a labour camp for errant youths.

The children rise before the sun, head out onto the hard-baked earth that was once the lake bed and begin digging. The holes, they are instructed, are to be dug once a day, must measure the width and depth of a shovel, and are being created purely to build character. This, Stanley suspects, is a lie - but just what is the sinister Warden really looking for in the middle of nowhere?

Louis Sachar's novel, which made a reasonably successful transition to film in 2003, is pitched at an audience of a similar age to the hero of the story; early to mid-teen. However, the book being a fast-paced mixture of styles and characters, with a strong narrative pulling it along, Holes appeals across the age range.

Although ostensibly a tale of mystery and endurance, Holes appeals so strongly because of the way in which it weaves a multitude of other themes and styles into the storytelling. Wild-West backstories, European folklore and a hint of black comedy pepper the narrative, adding depth and substance to the novel and giving a sense of life beyond the limits of the pages. The book also touches on topics beyond the most apparent ones of the plot; alongside the hardships the children suffer under the gaze of the vindictive Warden, this is also a tale of friendship and learning lessons.

The development Sachar writes into Stanley's character is a reflection of this - although he has ostensibly come to a tough, unpleasant, almost barbaric place, it seems to bring out the best in him physically and emotionally. Toiling under the relentless sun, he becomes a strong, empathetic individual who starts to see the world through the eyes of others. Although we don't explore his life pre-camp in any great detail, we do get a sense that these are traits that are relatively new to him.

Stanley encounters a great range of personalities at Camp Green Lake, all with their own stories of troubled backgrounds that have led them to this place. Sachar conveys the curious group dynamic that has developed at the Camp in a witty, striking manner that occasionally dips into a telling poignancy - the boys have arranged themselves into a makeshift social order, and put together a distinct sense of community at odds with the unrelenting harshness of their surroundings and the demands put upon them.

Holes is an entertaining, exceedingly well-written novel that moves along at a pace sufficient to keep most readers rapt. If there's a weakness it's that it moves away from its most effective sections - those spent digging the eponymous holes - rather sooner than one might wish. Though the novel gains in terms of progressing the plot, it takes awhile before it can again reach for the heights of this part of the book, where Sachar paints a vivid, searing picture of the boys' labour. Every ache and pain felt by Stanley is one we almost experience, such is the delightful skill with which the author renders his world. Nonetheless, this is a minor complaint, and one which is understandable within the greater context of the novel - Holes is an original, eminently readable effort, and should appeal to anyone with the imagination to feel for those digging in the desert.

Summary: Wrongfully imprisoned boy toils and toughens up beneath the baking sun.