Arbitrary Destiny

The threads of family history and interweaving destinies were, for me, the most problematic aspects of Holes. I found myself more interested in the vignettes of family history and lore than in the struggles of the protagonists in the camp, partly because my own preoccupation with family history helped me relate to this one element of the novel. My family traces its major dysfunctions matrilineally to the night my great-great-great-uncle set fire to the plantation of my great-great-grandparents, and left my great-grandmother a penniless orphan. The rest is too long and complicated a story, but there have definitely been many moments of family life in which I could almost smell the smoke of that ancient fire still burning through the surviving descendents. Sufficed to say, I get it when Stanley curses his "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather!"

However, the fact that Stanley and Zero would not have been able to break the curse without the string of bad luck that led them to Camp Green Lake (and each other) seems curiously circular and self-defeating. Relatedly, the cruelty of the adults who run the camp, and the captivity of the other children seems almost arbitrary in light of this long string of destiny that binds Stanley and Zero (and the warden) to this place. By wrapping up the story so tidily, Sachar makes the day-to-day experiences of the boys in camp, and the themes of racism, bullying, and even revenge all but irrelevant.

I agree with the majority of the class in that I found this book easy, quirky, and fun to read, but I'm perplexed as to why so many of us find the story so satisfying despite the many thematic elements Sachar does not successfully resolve.