Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

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Title Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

Original book cover of Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator with illustrations by Joseph Schindelman
Author Roald Dahl
Illustrator Joseph Schindelman
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Fantasy
Children's novel
Publisher Alfred A. Knopf
Released September 1972
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 161 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN ISBN 0-394-82472-5 (first edition, hardback)
Preceded by Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator is a children's book by British author Roald Dahl. It is the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, continuing the story of young Charlie Bucket and eccentric candymaker Willy Wonka as they travel through space in the Great Glass Elevator.

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator was first published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. in 1972, and in the UK by George Allen & Unwin in 1973. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was written by Roald Dahl in 1964.

Unlike the preceding book, no film adaptation of this book has ever been made. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory angered Dahl so much that he refused to allow the producers to adapt the sequel, while Tim Burton and Johnny Depp have announced that they have no intention of making a sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The book continues directly from the events of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Willy Wonka has just given Charlie ownership of his factory, and in a flying contraption known as the Great Glass Elevator they crash through the roof of Charlie's house and inform his family of the good news.

Charlie's grandparents -- George and Georgina on his mother's side, and Josephine on his father's (Grandpa Joe is already with Charlie in the Great Glass Elevator) -- are nervous about going inside the travelling elevator, and after twenty years in bed, refuse to get up. The bed is thus pushed into the elevator, which then takes off. At a critical moment during the return trip to the factory, a panicking Georgina grabs Wonka away from the controls and strands the elevator with its occupants in Earth's orbit. The elevator circles the planet until Wonka sees the chance to link it with the newly-launched Space Hotel, a private enterprise of the United States government.

In the White House, President of the United States Lancelot R. Gilligrass and his Cabinet see this mysterious object dock with the Space Hotel and think it contains hostile agents of a foreign or extra-terrestrial government. The approaching space shuttle containing the hotel staff and three astronauts is being left behind by the mysterious object as they race for the Space Hotel, and the shuttle's crew prepares for the worst. On the Hotel, Wonka and the others hear the President address them across a radio link as Martians, and Wonka proceeds to tease Gilligrass with nonsense words and grotesque poetry. But in the midst of this, the hotel's elevators open, revealing five gigantic, brown-green, boneless creatures shaped something like eggs with eyes. They change shape, each forming a letter of the word SCRAM, and Wonka motions everybody to get out of the Space Hotel quickly.

Those shape-changers, Wonka tells the others, are predatory extraterrestrials called Vermicious Knids that have infested the Space Hotel. Since they can't reach Earth's surface to prey on its natives because they burn up in the atmosphere as shooting stars, the Knids are waiting in the Space Hotel for the new arrivals in the shuttle, many of whom they instantly devour. Capable of flying in anaerobic space at improbable speeds, they pursue the survivors but are unable to board the space shuttle. Instead, they dive-bomb the shuttle's engines and hull, destroying the rockets as well as the cameras and radio antenna.

Seeing all this from the relative safety of the Great Glass Elevator, Charlie suggests that he and his companions use the Elevator to tow the shuttle in to land. Willy Wonka, in agreement, pilots the Elevator into range, wherapon Charlie's Grandpa Joe connects the two vessels by means of a steel cord. This move, however, holds new opportunities for the Knids. Within minutes, they change into living segments of a towing line, with which they intend to drag the spacecrafts away. One large Knid wraps his body around the Elevator, providing an anchor for this operation.

This plan proves again to be a double-edged sword. Willy Wonka activates the Elevator's retro-rockets and plunges to Earth, taking the shuttle and the Knids with it. The Knids burn to ashes as a result of the friction. At the right moment, Wonka releases the shuttle, which floats safely home. The Elevator crashes into the chocolate factory, ending its flight in the garden-like central room.

2001 book cover of Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator with illustrations by Quentin Blake
2001 book cover of Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator with illustrations by Quentin Blake

Since Charlie was presented the factory as a gift by Wonka, he wants his family to help him run it. But George, Georgina, and Josephine still refuse to move out of their bed. Wonka proposes a pill he invented, Wonka-Vite, to make them young again. (He says that it is too valuable to waste on himself, which is why he needed an heir in the first place.) However, the three bedridden recipients get greedy and take much more than they need to. Instead of becoming a mere twenty years younger, the three grandparents lose eighty years, making George one year old, Josephine three months, and Georgina absent altogether, having become "minus two" (she was seventy-eight). Charlie and Wonka make the journey in the Great Glass Elevator to Minusland to get Georgina back with Vita-Wonk, a sprayable compound that makes people older. Minusland is a dark, gloomy region far beneath the surface of the Earth, filled up entirely with fog, and inhabited only by the invisible and highly dangerous Gnoolies. After administering an even worse overdose of Vita-Wonk to Grandma Georgina, they return to the upper world.

There, Georgina has become centuries old. Her memory entails much of History, beginning with the Pilgrim voyage in the ship "Mayflower" and ending in the present moment, spanning over many wars and truces in between. Using a more cautious dose of Wonka-Vite, her companions subtract much of this age from her, leaving her at seventy-eight as she was before. Turning to George and Josephine, Charlie and Mr. Wonka administer Vita-Wonk enough to recall their original age.

The grandparents, finally restored to their proper ages, are still incensed with Wonka's adventurous nature. They refuse, as before, to come out of bed. The Oompa-Loompas then come in and give Wonka a letter from the President, congratulating the occupants of the Great Glass Elevator on saving the lives of the shuttle astronauts and hotel staff and inviting them as the guests of honour to a White House dinner. The grandparents don't want to be left out, so they leap out of bed and join Charlie, Grandpa Joe, Wonka, and Charlie's parents to enter the helicopter sent to pick them up.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Awards and Nominations

[edit] Editions

 v • d • e Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl)
Characters:

Willy Wonka | Oompa-Loompas | Charlie Bucket | Augustus Gloop | Veruca Salt | Violet Beauregarde | Mike Teavee | Grandpa Joe | Mr. Slugworth | The Candy Man | Prince Pondicherry | Vermicious knid | Mr. and Mrs. Teavee | Mr. Salt | Mr. Beauregarde | Mrs. Beauregarde | Dr. Wilbur Wonka (only in Tim Burton film)
Books: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
Films: 1971 | 2005
Misc.: Differences between the book and film versions | Golden Ticket | Wonka Bar | Video Game | other Roald Dahl films | other Roald Dahl books
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