Holes (novel)

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Holes

2001 Paperback edition cover
Author Louis Sachar
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Young adult
Publisher Farrar Straus & Giroux Inc
Publication date 1998
Media type Print (Hardcover or Paperback)
Pages 233 pp
ISBN ISBN 0-374-33265-7
Followed by Stanley Yelnats' Survival Guide to Camp Green Lake (2003)

Holes is a Newbery Medal-winning novel by Louis Sachar. It was later adapted into a screenplay for the 2003 film by Walt Disney Pictures, which starred Shia LaBeouf and Khleo Thomas and was a critical success. In 2006, Sachar published Small Steps, a companion novel which is about one of the characters from holes, Armpit.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

Stanley Yelnats IV is accused of stealing a pair of sneakers donated to charity by a famous athlete, Clyde Livingston (1st baseman). He is sentenced to 18 months at Camp Green Lake, a boys' juvenile detention center in Texas. There, each boy must spend his day in the desert, which contained a lake during the 1800s, digging a hole five feet deep and five feet in diameter. The Warden and counselors at Camp Green Lake tell them that they are digging to build character and break them of their criminal habits, but Stanley eventually finds that the warden is searching for the treasure hidden by the outlaw Kissing Kate Barlow.

[edit] Synopsis

The book's contemporary plot is closely tied to two back stories, occurring 110 years earlier than Stanley's time. The first tells of Stanley's great-great-grandfather Elya Yelnats, his family's curse, and his son; the second relates the history of Camp Green Lake.

[edit] The story of Stanley's ancestors

Stanley's great-great-grandfather was named Elya Yelnats. He was born in Latvia. When he was fifteen years old he fell in love with a neighbor, Myra Menke. Elya went to Myra's father to ask for her hand, but found that Igor Barkov, a 57-year-old pig farmer, was his rival. For Myra's hand, Igor was willing to trade his fattest pig, which seemed to Myra's father a more substantial dower than Elya's promise of affection.

Elya visited Madame Zeroni, a one-legged fortune teller, to ask her for advice. Madame Zeroni told him that he was too young to marry and Myra was stupid and spoiled. She proposed that Elya should go to America, but he refused because of his desire for Myra. To help him, Madame Zeroni gave him a very small pig to give to Myra's father. She instructed him to carry it up a mountain each day, let it drink from a stream which ran uphill, and sing a given song to it. The pig then would grow bigger and bigger each day, and then finally fat enough to please Myra's father. After he finished carrying the pig up to the mountain for the last time, and won Myra's heart, he should bring Madame Zeroni up the mountain so she could become stronger. She warned him that if he failed to come back, he and his descendants would be cursed for eternity.

Elya did as he was told. On Myra's birthday, however, he himself bathed rather than carry the pig to the stream because he didn't want to smell like a pig. Elya then gave his pig to Myra's father, who weighed Elya's pig along with Barkov's and found their weights identical. He left the decision of whom to marry to Myra, who was incapable of making a decision and relied instead on a 1 to 10 guessing game. Elya, disgusted and heartbroken, gave the pig to Myra as a wedding present and went to America. Later, he remembered that he failed to carry Madame Zeroni to the top of the mountain. He felt very sorry for having failed to fulfill his promise to her.

In America, Elya fell in love with a woman named Sarah Miller and married her. Because their life was plagued by ill fortune, he came to believe himself cursed by the Gypsy, Madame Zeroni.

His wife called their son "Stanley" because she noticed it was "Yelnats" spelled backwards. This naming became tradition in their family, so that the Stanley in the main story line is actually Stanley Yelnats IV. Elya translated the song which he had sung to the pig into English, whereupon his wife changed it to make it rhyme. The song and Elya's story were passed from generation to generation.

[edit] History of Green Lake

Camp Green Lake had a lake as well as a town built beside it. This town housed a small human populace, of whom three are germane to the novel's plot: Katherine Barlow, the schoolteacher, who is locally famous for her beauty and for her spiced peaches; Sam, the onion picker, who is locally famous for the medicinal properties of his onions; and Katherine's unpleasant suitor Charles "Trout" Walker, who is locally famous for his motorboat and his athlete's foot. When Katherine's schoolhouse begins to collapse and decay, Sam repairs it in exchange for her peaches which he stores in his boat. Over time, Katherine begins to fall in love with Sam, a feeling returned by Sam. One evening, their shared affection leads to a kiss.

Because Katherine is white, and Sam is black, the courtship is criminal. The local townspeople, led by Katherine's would-be suitor Trout Walker, call for Sam's death, which is supported by local law. Sam is ultimately killed when he tries to escape on his rowboat, the Mary Lou, leading to Katherine taking revenge on the sheriff who refused to protect Sam. She grew angry, and in time, Katherine becomes a bandit known as "Kissin' Kate", due to her practice of kissing the men she robs and kills. Soon after, the lake dries up because of a long-lasting drought. Before her death, "Kissin' Kate" robs a large amount of money from Stanley Yelnats, a wealthy stockbroker, and leaves him stranded in the desert. Kate returns to Green Lake and buries her wealth somewhere in the dried-up lake bed.

Charles Walker and his wife Linda Miller Walker (one of Kate's students) discover her there, half delusional, and demand that she tell them where she buried the money. They explain Walker's fortune had dried up along with the lake, and that they need Kate's wealth to continue their lifestyle. They threaten her with death, but she tells them "I'd been wishing I was dead for a long time", and kills herself with one of the deadly yellow-spotted lizards now found all over the desert. Her last words are the challenge "Start digging".

While stuck in the desert, Stanley Yelnats I finds refuge atop a butte that he names "God's Thumb" because of its resemblance to a giant stone thumb. He is rescued and taken to the hospital where he falls in love with and marries the nurse who cares for him. Since then, the future generations have slid into poverty.

[edit] Stanley's story

Stanley Yelnats IV is sent to Camp Green Lake as punishment for stealing the shoes donated to an orphanage by the famous baseball player Clyde "Sweet Feet" Livingston; a crime he did not commit. The shoes had been stolen by Madame Zeroni's descendant, Hector, who, upon learning of their purpose, abandoned them atop an overpass. Hence, they literally fell onto Stanley, who was walking below, as he thought the shoes were "a gift from God". At trial, the judge gives Stanley a choice, go to jail or go to Camp Green Lake. Falsely believing that Camp Green Lake was like a summer camp and more pleasant than prison, Stanley opts to go to the camp.

At Camp Green Lake, Stanley is assigned to D Tent and given instructions to dig holes conforming to the given description each day. He is to report all incidental discoveries to the camp's counselor, Mr. Pendanski. Before his life at Camp Green Lake, Stanley is teased and bullied by his schoolmates. His family lives in a cramped apartment, and his father tries, with constant failure, to discover a way to recycle old sneakers. Over the following weeks spent in Camp Green Lake Stanley gains strength, stamina, and the acceptance of his peers.

Hector Zeroni has also been sent to Camp Green Lake. Although he is treated with contempt by his peers, who mockingly nickname him "Zero", Stanley befriends him.

During the digging, Stanley discovers a golden lipstick top that had formerly belonged to Katherine Barlow. Persuaded by X-Ray, the self-appointed leader of the tent's community of inmates, Stanley does not reveal that he has discovered this, but attributes it to X-Ray instead. Later, this discovery and the attention it is given leads him to believe that the camp's Warden, Ms. Walker, is searching for something in particular.

Because Stanley is the only inmate who writes to his mother, albeit with much falsification of his experiences, the illiterate Zero requests to be taught how to read and write. Stanley, though hesitant, eventually complies, in exchange for Zero's help in digging holes. When the other boys learn of this, they accuse Stanley of racism (for making the African-American Hector do all of his work).

Later, Hector Zeroni clashes with the camp's officers after they blatantly mock him. He escapes the camp. Hector cannot survive without food and water in the desert, therefore Stanley, who has come to view Zero as his friend, pursues him. He finds Hector underneath a derelict rowboat that had apparently belonged to Sam the onion picker. Hector has been surviving by eating a substance he calls "Sploosh", which is a fermentation of Katherine Barlow's spiced peaches.

Because Stanley has seen, during his days at Camp Green Lake, a butte that he believes to be the "God's Thumb" on which his ancestor found refuge, he and Zero travel to it. Stanley however is forced to carry Zero up the butte since he is too exhausted to scale it himself. There, they discover wild onions and fresh water, much as their predecessors had done. These onions help cure Hector, who had been increasingly ill from the contaminated "Sploosh". During this, Stanley feeds Hector water and sings the melody to him, unintentionally fulfilling the unconsummated charge laid on his ancestor Elya. Almost simultaneously, Stanley's father creates a new concoction, which can cure athlete's foot, with one of the ingredients being peaches. While they rest and recuperate, Stanley comes to believe that they might discover the Warden's secret and capture that which she seeks. They therefore return to the camp in secret and do so.

The thing for which the Warden (and, as revealed, her ancestors Charles and Linda Walker) have searched is the wealth taken from Stanley's namesake. Stanley and Zero discover and retain it, even under pressure from the Warden and her aides along with the threat of the venomous yellow-spotted lizards. Luckily, the onions in their systems act as a repellent to the lizards. After a night of tension, a lawyer, Ms. Morengo, arrives, accusing the Warden of cruel and criminal actions. Stanley, Zero, and the sought-after money are taken to safety. After Stanley and Zero are freed, the unnaturally long drought ends and it finally begins to rain, filling up the lake. Camp Green Lake was disqualified and converted into a Girl Scout camp. This change represents situational irony, as the camp's staff often had chided boys who complained of harsh conditions with the message, "This isn't a Girl Scout camp."

The fortune consists of many jewels, which turn out to be of poor quality and only worth about $20,000 in total. However, also included were stock certificates, deeds of trust, and promissory notes of the first Stanley Yelnats. These ensure, for the current Stanley and Hector, a little less than $1,000,000 each. Stanley buys his family a large house, and they become very prosperous. Hector is able to hire a team of private investigators to help find and reunite him with his mother. At Stanley's party, at which Clyde Livingston and Hector attended to watch the televised commercial for Stanley's father's new cure for foot odor (named "Sploosh"), Hector is seen with his mother, who sings her version of the ancestral melody to him.

[edit] Characters in Holes

  • Stanley Yelnats IV ("Caveman")
  • Rex Alvin Washburn ("X-Ray", "T-Rex", "Rex" in Pig Latin)
  • Alan ("Squid")
  • José ("Magnet")
  • Theodore Thomas Johnson ("Armpit")
  • Ricky ("Zigzag")
  • Hector Zeroni ("Zero")
  • Brian ("Twitch")
  • Lewis ("Barf Bag")
  • The Warden (granddaughter of Charles "Trout" Walker and Linda Miller Walker)
  • Mr. Pendanski
  • Mr. Sir
  • Madame Zeroni
  • Elya Yelnats (Stanley's great-great-grandfather)
  • Myra Menke
  • Igor Barkov
  • Stanley Yelnats III
  • Stanley Yelnats II(Stanley's grandfather)
  • Mrs. Yelnats
  • Clyde "Sweet Feet" Livingston
  • Katherine Barlow ("Kissin' Kate Barlow")
  • Sam the onion man
  • Mary Lou (Sam's donkey)
  • Charles "Trout" Walker
  • Linda Miller Walker (Charles' wife)

[edit] Main character descriptions

[edit] Stanley Yelnats

Main article: Stanley Yelnats

Stanley Yelnats is a misunderstood teenager who is alone and friendless and is rather intelligent. He was sent to Camp Green Lake because he was accused of stealing a famous baseball player's sneakers. Unlike his fellow inmates, he does not harden and does not become discompassionate. Stanley's full name is a palindrome, for it is spelled the same way backwards as forwards. He is cursed as well as his family, because of his great-great-grandfather. They always seem to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. But everything turns out great in the end.

[edit] Armpit

A large African-American boy at Camp Green Lake. Brusque, but loyal to his friends, especially to X-Ray, the self-appointed leader of the group. Although his real name is Theodore, he is nicknamed "Armpit," as explained in the book's sequel, because of pain in the flesh between his arm and his torso. He was sent to Camp Green Lake "because of a bucket of popcorn," which is lightly explained in the book's sequel, Small Steps. In the novel Small Steps, his and X-Ray's life is followed after they leave the camp and they become the best of friends.

[edit] Sam

Sam, a handyman and onion salesman, lived in Green Lake during the late 1800s. He sold onions from a cart pulled by his donkey, Mary Lou. Once or twice a week Sam is said to row across the lake to sell his onions, from whose extracts he made many ointments, syrups, lotions, and pastes for curing many different ailments. These assertions are not proven true or false until many years later, during the more modern days of Camp Green Lake. He was asked by Kate to fix the roof of the school. She continued to ask him to fix parts of the school so that she could talk to him. Soon, Kate falls in love with him and they kiss. But, at the time, it was illegal for a black person to kiss a white person. So the townspeople killed him.

[edit] X-Ray

X-Ray, whose nickname is Pig Latin for his proper name Rex, is D Tent's leader. Another of his nicknames is T-Rex. He is street-smart and dictates to the other boys. He, with the others, later accuses Stanley of being racist to Zero, even though X-Ray himself dislikes Zero. At the end of the book, when Camp Green Lake is closed down and the other boys cheer Stanley, X-Ray is seen hanging back, and then leaving by himself. He also, supposedly has the shortest shovel by a fraction of an inch. Mentioned in the sequel Small Steps, X-Ray got put in Camp Green Lake for selling parsley and oregano, saying it was marijuana. His skincolor is black and he has got glasses.

[edit] Zero

Main article: Hector Zeroni

Hector Zeroni is the great-great-great grandson of Madame Zeroni. He is a "Ward of the State" which indicates his lack of parents and his homelessness. He is the fastest digger in "Group D" and very skilled at mental math, yet he is considered least among his neighbors because of his illiteracy. Eventually he is taught to read by Stanley. His family retains a version of the song taught by Madame Zeroni, which appears more optimistic than that known to Stanley and his ancestors. He is brought to Camp Green Lake because he was caught stealing shoes from a store, and later defends Stanley from another inmate, Zigzag, who was beating Stanley up. Zero and Stanley leave Camp Green Lake after the Warden is arrested.

[edit] Myra Menke

Myra is the spoiled only daughter of a crass Latvian farmer named Boris Menke. She is the object of Elya Yelnats' affections, in that he desires to marry her and believes that they would live a happy life together, despite the protests of his old friend and confidante, Madame Zeroni, a wise Egyptian mystic of great age. Madame Zeroni does all she can to prevent Elya from ruining his chances of a good life by telling him some home truths about Myra: that she is weak, useless, spoiled, selfish and totally incapable of thinking for herself; that, in Madame Zeroni's own words, "Her [Myra's] head is as empty as a flower pot". Elya refuses to listen and gains Madame Zeroni's help to compete with a rival for Myra. Myra is incapable of deciding whom she should marry, so she asks them to choose a number between one and ten. Though it is remarked that Elya is the better choice compared to 57-year-old pig farmer Igor Barkov who competes with him. Disgusted, Elya leaves Myra.

[edit] Magnet

Magnet, whose real name is José, is a Hispanic, lively character. Magnet steals whatever he can get his hands on; he is at Camp Green Lake because he stole a puppy. He manages to steal Mr. Sir's bag of sunflower seeds, which complicates matters for Stanley later on.

[edit] "Kissin"Kate Barlow

Katherine Barlow, now known as Kissin Kate Barlow, was Green Lake's only school teacher. Trout Walker loved her very much for her beauty, however Katherine was in love with Sam, the onion man, who was said to have magical healing onions and who had helped Kate repair the schoolhouse in return for jars of her special peaches. She didn't only love Sam, but Sam also loved her back. When Walker found out that Sam kissed Kate he was furious and ordered the towns people to go and find him...and kill him. From that day she went around killing men that had done her wrong before and kissed them with bright red lipstick and with that she became "Kissin' Kate Barlow," a notorious bank robber and killer. She eventually robbed Stanley Yelnats the first and hid his treasure in the now-desolate lake bottom that has become Camp Green Lake. Trout Walker and his wife returned and captured her to find the location of the treasure. Kate got killed by a Yellow-Spotted lizard. Her last words were, "Start digging." She died laughing.

[edit] Mr. Sir

Mr. Sir is a supervisor at the camp. He is severe, arrogant and nasty. Once addicted to smoking tobacco, he has quit smoking and eats sunflower seeds constantly (one bag a week). However, at the end of the story, he starts smoking again on the grounds that 'Sunflower seeds won't cut it.' It is he who often remarks "this isn't a Girl Scout camp", which generates the irony of Camp Green Lake's transformation into just that. He has a tattoo on his left shoulder.

[edit] Mr. Pendanski

Mr. Pendanski is one of the camp's counselors. He appears to be the most compassionate of the staff at Camp Green Lake– leading to the nickname "Mom"– but eventually proves himself to be as egocentric as Mr. Sir. He insults Zero at every turn. His name is a play on the word "pedantic".

[edit] The Warden

The Warden is the camp's director, and a descendant of Charles "Trout" Walker and Linda Miller Walker. She is secretly trying to find the hidden treasure of Kissin' Kate Barlow. Her ultimate goal is to find the money taken from the first Stanley Yelnats. She lives in the cabin formerly belonging to Kissin' Kate Barlow. It is luxurious and air-conditioned, which contrasts heavily with the hot and strict conditions of the camp. She was forced by her grandparents to dig holes. When the warden came to own Camp Green Lake, she turned it into a juvenile justice facility and forced the campers to dig one hole each day.

[edit] Charles "Trout" Walker

During the 1800s, Trout Walker was a wealthy, loud, stupid, egocentric, display-prone local bully. He was Katherine Barlow's student, albeit more for her company than for an education, until she refused to be courted by him. Trout later killed Katherine's secret sweetheart Sam, who is an African American and at the time it was illegal for an African American to kiss a white woman. After Green Lake dried up, Trout Walker's family lost their fortune, for which Linda Miller had married him for. Trout and Linda found Kate in her cabin and dragged her out in onto the dried- up lake bed, not minding to let her put on her shoes. She was forced to walk on the hot ground, being ordered to give them the hidden cash. If she stopped walking, Trout and Linda would hit Kate on the back with a shovel and demanded her again to lead them to the spot or they'd kill her. Kate shows no affection, claiming how she has wanted to die for a long time, and that they'd never find the loot. Kate dies laughing when she's bitten by a yellow-spotted lizard. They never did find the loot.

[edit] Brian (Twitch)

When Zero runs away, Twitch is put in the D Tent. He twitches a lot (hence the nickname), and has a problem with taking cars on joyrides. When Stanley attempts to bring the truck to where Zero is, Twitch yells, "put it in gear!"

[edit] Yellow Spotted Lizards

Voracious, blood drinking, venomous lizards about a foot long, with eleven yellow spots, red eyes, black teeth, and white tongues, that inhabit Camp Green Lake. The lizards' venom is toxic enough to kill in seconds, and they inhabit the holes dug by campers, eating insects, small mammals, certain cactus thorns, and sunflower seed shells. The lizards are repelled by onions, much like how vampires are repelled by garlic.

[edit] Allusions/references from other works

[edit] Awards

[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

Main article: Holes (film)

In 2003, Disney released a film version of Holes, which was directed by Andrew Davis and written by Louis Sachar. It was a faithful adaptation of the novel and was a modest hit at the box office.

Preceded by
Out of the Dust		 Newbery Medal recipient
1999		 Succeeded by
Bud, Not Buddy
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (September 2007)