Lollipops and Guns
I´ve read Lollipops and Guns by Robert Cormier. It's a short novel and it set in USA Massachusetts in the 20 century. Its about four young terrorists who are planning to hijack a school bus. The main character Miro´s task is to kill the bus-driver. Everything goes with the plan until Miro realise that the driver is a young girl. He gets cold feets but he knows that he has to do it. They try to calm the kids in the school bus by give them chocolate dipped in drugs. One kid died beacuse of the drugs. Can Miro really handle everything?
The novel is really interesting because the main character is changing. At first he seems really cold-hearted he doesn´t care that he are going to kill someone. But then he change.
The feeling I get when I read this story and especially when I read about Miro is very unpleasant. He is an angry person who have really bad thoughts about American people. An example from the novel, ”He had been in the United states for almost three years and was still both fascinaded and repelled by so much of what he saw. So much that was brazen,hectic, loud, raw, and coarse.” But when you read a little longer then you understand that he is really confused, he havent thought over what he is about to do. He feels forsed to do it. I think the reason why he feels forced is that his brother died very young. ”He did not fulfilling his promise” he says in the novel. I think that means that the brother also was a kind of terrorist but the didnt manage to kill someone. Then Miro feels that he has to do it, for his brother or for his homecountry. Or something.
When he understands that it is a girl who drives the car he gets the feeling that what his doing is wrong so he get cold feets. I noticed that when he starts asking the the girl questions.
He says, ” Whats your name? Kate, Kate Forrester, she answer. My name is Miro he said, he realized that this was perhaps the first time he had ever introduce himself to anyone. ” When I read that I think, why have he not introduced himself before? Is it because he never been out in the society. And when he meet a regular girl he like her. Het think she is pleasent or something.
I also feel a little sorry for him when he says that he is homesick. That is a sign that he dont want to be there in that moment, he wants to go home. To his homecountry. But in the end you dont really know if Miro will kill the bus driver or not. If the story would have contained that it would maybe be easier to judge him.
Miro is a very complex person who is really hard to understand. So to describe his character is compilcated. But in the end I think that he dont want to do this. So I think deep inside he is a better person then the other terrorists.
