Holes by Louis Sachar: Fantasy, Realism, and Modern Fairy Tales

Fantasy Meets Realism in Holes

Louis Sachar makes this fantasy story seem realistic by the way he intertwines elements of the supernatural with the everyday events of the plot. The story opens with a description of Camp Green Lake — a brief glimpse into why anyone would go to a lake where there is no lake — before moving to Stanley's arrival at camp. The more or less mundane discussion of Stanley's problems in school, his troubles with a bully, his arrest and conviction for a crime he didn't commit, and the constant failure of his father's experiments create an atmosphere of gritty realism. Then, in the midst of all this, Stanley begins thinking about his "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-great-grandfather." It is a family joke: "Whenever something went wrong, they always blamed Stanley's no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-great-grandfather."

Then the realism starts to bend. Stanley meets Mr. Sir. He receives his "camp clothes." He learns about the four-minute cold showers. The story elements remain realistic but are exaggerated and distorted — and finally, the most implausible "realism" of all appears: digging holes. Precise holes. Five by five by five feet, one every day. Stanley meets his counselor and the boys he will be living with, and it is while digging his first hole that the supernatural is introduced into the story through the explanation of the "curse."

The Curse of the Yelnats Family

Stanley's great-great-great-grandfather was named Elya Yelnats. He was born in Latvia. When he was fifteen years old, he fell in love with Myra Menke — not knowing he was Stanley's great-great-grandfather. Myra was fourteen and would turn fifteen in two months, at which time her father had decided she should be married.

By establishing that Elya was born in a faraway, mysterious-sounding country, and that the girl's father makes the decision about when she will marry, Sachar begins moving the story firmly into fantasy. The intent is to evoke the tone of a fairy tale. The explanation of how the curse comes about continues with a brief description of the rival for Myra's hand. Igor Barkov is old, fat, and — one would guess — rich by the standards of the area. He can offer a fat pig. Elya has only a "heart full of love." In desperation, Elya seeks the advice of an old woman, a fortune teller. The story moves more strongly toward fantasy: Madam Zeroni is Egyptian, dark-skinned, and "when she looked at you…you felt that she was looking right through you." She is also described as a cripple.

"Elya, what's wrong?" she asked, even before he told her he was upset. She was sitting in a homemade wheelchair. She had no left foot — her leg stopped at the ankle.

"I'm in love with Myra Menke," Elya confessed. "But Igor Barkov has offered to trade his fattest pig for her. I can't compete with that."

Madam Zeroni tells Elya it is a good thing that Igor can make the better offer. She tells him that Myra, though beautiful, is useless and dim. "Myra's head is as empty as a flower pot," she says. Of course, as a fifteen-year-old boy, all Elya can see is her beauty. Madam Zeroni feels sorry for him and agrees to help. She gives him the runt of a litter of piglets and tells him exactly what he must do. As with any magic formula, he must follow the instructions precisely — and once he has completed the ritual for the pig, he must perform the same ritual for her. In his eagerness to make the best impression, Elya does not follow the instructions to the letter, and his pig ends up weighing exactly the same as Igor's. This situation leads to scenes in which it becomes painfully clear that Myra has no real feelings for Elya. In his disappointment, he boards a ship for America. After the ship has sailed, he remembers that he has broken his promise to Madam Zeroni. He is troubled by this, but since he doesn't believe in curses, he is not afraid.

How the Curse Shapes the Present-Day Narrative

Sachar creates the reality of the curse by allowing it to live on in the family in both the past and the present of the novel. The curse appears real because the men in the Yelnats line are always suffering bad luck. When Elya moved to America, he always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Elya had a son named Stanley — Stanley I. When Stanley I was older, and traveling out west with his life's savings, he was robbed and left stranded in the desert by the outlaw Kissin' Kate Barlow. Kate took the chest of jewels and stock certificates he was carrying and buried it somewhere in what is now the dried-up lake. When he was finally found, he was delirious, and when he said "I found refuge on God's thumb," nobody understood or believed him.

Stanley II — our Stanley's father — was trying to invent a cure for bad foot odor, though he was having persistent trouble developing an effective product. His landlord was threatening to evict him because of the smell coming from the sneakers used in his experiments. On the way home from school, Stanley was in the wrong place at the wrong time when a pair of shoes fell from an overpass and hit him on the head. The shoes had belonged to the famous athlete Clyde Livingston, who had donated them to an orphanage — so Stanley was accused of theft and ended up at Camp Green Lake. These elements of the novel demonstrate how Sachar transforms the fantasy of the curse into something that feels real by threading it through the present-day lives of the Yelnats family.

The fantasy is further developed through a series of "strange coincidences" woven into the story. Camp Green Lake just happens to be the place where Stanley I was robbed. The Warden is a descendant of one of the people who killed Kissin' Kate. Zero — unknown to anyone, including himself — is a descendant of Madam Zeroni, and he and Stanley wind up at the same place at the same time. Without realizing it, Stanley's care for and friendship with Zero will ultimately break the curse and bring the fantasy to its fullest resolution.

Conclusion: Magic in the Everyday World

Whether it is digging holes in a dry lake bed that eventually leads to breaking a family curse, a street musician called a busker who plays at Renaissance fairs and awakens elves with a magic he doesn't even know he possesses, or elves who are deeply in love with fast cars — magic meshed with the everyday world is the direction of the new fairy tale. The overwhelming popularity of Harry Potter and his adventures demonstrates that humans, and perhaps young people especially, need magic. They need the supernatural as part of their world. Perhaps humans have always needed to be presented with the possibility that forces beyond what can be seen, heard, and touched really do exist. As human beings, we want to believe in something greater than ourselves. We want to see those forces operating in the "real" world so that, for a time, we can suspend not our disbelief, but our understanding of everyday life — and entertain the idea that all things are possible.

Works Cited

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. New York: Scholastic, 1997.

Sachar, Louis. Holes. New York: Dell Yearling, 1998.