Chapter 20: The Inventing Room -- Everlasting Gobstoppers and Hair Toffee 

ALRIGHT I'm on a REAL LAPTOP with an actual keyboard and my kindle app on my phone. My actual Kindle was murdered in a backpacking "accident" last year and I THOUGHT I might get a new one for XMAS but I was WRONG! Oh well. So our heroes recently lived through watching their peer be sucked through a very wide pipe in a candy-processing factory, then drank chocolate out of the non-contaminated river. Well, I guess there's only one hero, because Grandpa Joe, the shiftless layabout, is NOT a hero. Grandpa Joe is the laziest person on earth. 

To Recap: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a lovely book that I loved as a kid. However, there are some dark themes - the Oompa Loompas are clearly slaves, Gum Chewing is the absolute worst sin a child can commit and will leave you with permanent scars, and old men who prefer to lay in a bed with three other people instead of working are, apparently, charming. 

Charlie and not-pals are on a boat made out of sugar, in a river made out of chocolate, inside a factory. The boat is a "viking style" boat and has literal slaves are rowing it, despite the fact that it is a river which has a current. I'm not sure if they are paddling upstream or not. I'm still marveling at the size of this place and trying to remember why the Romans didn't really have a navy. 

Mr Wonka yells at his people to stop the boat. They stop the boat in front of the "most important room in the entire factory" according to Mr Wonka. Mr Wonka has another competitor callled "Old Fickelgraber" which really sounds like a slur to a Jewish candy magnate but IDK. There's also a Prodnose and a Slugworth. I'm certain only Slugworth made it to the film. Allegedly, no Oompa Loompas have been allowed in this room. I would like to see a diary from an Oompa Loompa and get their story. 

Wonka skips around the room, tasting things and smelling things and stirring things. He seems rather likable in these passages. I also believe that the original film (which I have seen approximately 10^100 times +1) nailed this scene and really captured Wonka's love of the craft. He introduces us to the Everlasting Gobstopper, which, in fiction are supposed to last forever. In real life, they last approximately 3 minutes. Wonka also has an Oompa Loompa chained up in a room, sucking on an Everlasting Gobstopper non-stop for the past year. I'm disturbed. (The text never specified chains, but ...) 

We are introduced to hair toffees, which make hair grow. Only they work too well, and someone has to mow an Oompa Loompa's beard. I'm sadly reminded of Tobias and his hair plugs. 

Which doesn't really make sense as a connection but ... man, that show went off the rails in the last season. 

End chapter with a cliffhanger about something mysterious and amazing. 

Chapter 20: The Great Gum Machine

It's a very short chapter and ends before we even get the gum inside of Violet's mouth.