Christine – something prehistoric had awakened

There were two main reasons why I decided to read Christine. Firstly, since I began my Stephen King reading journey, I’ve been discussing his books with a colleague at work who has been reading King for literally decades. She recommended Christine and said she just found the concept of an inanimate object becoming possessed fascinating. Secondly, if you’ve read my blog about It, you’ll know how much I love the story – It is probably the best King book I’ve read (so far). Christine makes an appearance in It so this made me intrigued about the book. I am not going to go into detail about the story itself because I want to focus on how this book is connected to King’s other work and his overall cosmology. I have not yet read The Dark Tower series so much of King’s cosmology is still unknown to me however as I am reading his work I am making connections to his key concepts.

So who (or what) is Christine? Christine is a car, a red and white 1958 Plymouth Fury to be precise. The year 1958 (1957 – 58) reoccurs in Stephen King’s books and to me the year is a clear connection between Christine and It. I wouldn’t be so bold as to say Christine is the prequel to It but the entity possessing Christine (and LeBay) in my mind is the same as the entity – or certainly a manifestation – of It.

Although Christine is a 1958 Plymouth Fury, she was actually manufactured in 1957. It, the book, is set in two times periods, 1957 – 58 and 1984 – 85, so Christine’s existence corresponds with Its first time period. If the entity that possesses Christine is the same as It, what is It exactly? It (also referred to as Pennywise and Bob Gray) apparently originated in a void containing and surrounding the Universe. It arrived in our world in a massive, cataclysmic event similar to an asteroid impact, in the place that would, in time, become Derry, Maine. It arrived on earth in prehistoric times and existed before our universe was created by the Turtle who is his natural enemy.

Chronologically, It comes after Christine however I read It first. When I read the passage below from Christine, the connection was confirmed. The passage is the aftermath of when Christine, with the help of the corpse of Lebay, kills Buddy:

“From the far side, Christine’s engine ranked up into an exhaust-crackling bellow of triumph that struck the frowning, snow-covered uplands of Squantic Hills and then echoed back.

“On the far verge of Squantic Lake, some ten miles away as the crow flies, a young man who had gone out for a cross-country ski by starlight heard the sound and suddenly stopped, his hands on his poles and his head cocked.

“Abruptly the skin on his back prickles into bumps, as if a goose had just walked over his grave, and although he knew it was only a car somewhere on the side – sound carried a long way up here on still winter nights – his first thought was that something prehistoric had awakened and had tracked its prey to earth: a great wolf, or perhaps a sabre-toothed tiger.

“The sound was not repeated and he went on his way.” 

 I interpreted this passage to reveal that the young man who heard Christine, intuitively felt that the entity was prehistoric. The young man heard Christine when the entity had just killed Buddy. I am of the opinion that the entity that possessed LeBay and Christine is the same entity as It. I haven’t heard this theory bandied about by other Stephen King readers, I came up with the theory myself so I haven’t fully developed it or worked out its significance.  

Christine was first published in 1983, the film was released the same year, so this year celebrates its 30^th anniversary. Below is a link of an interview Stephen King had with Randy Lofficier in 1984 about Christine:

http://appleworld.ekmdigitalvault.com/DVPublic/appleworld/PAF/CHRISTINE-INTERVIEW.pdf

The interview gives great incite to King’s intentions when wrote Christine. King is asked whether Christine is evil herself, of whether LeBay makes her evil. King replied that this was an issue ‘the film people’ wrestled with and decided that the car itself was the source of evil. In contrast to the film, King stated the book suggests that it’s probably LeBay. As I’ve already stated, I think the source is much bigger and older than LeBay!

 I really enjoyed the film and loved the theme tune! The story is slightly altered, but compared to other King adaptations, it’s not bad. I definitely recommend watching the film after reading the book! The book does drag in parts however it is definitely worth pursuing to the end! I enjoyed Christine, it’s not King’s best book but it’s a must read as Christine plays an iconic role making numerous appearances in the universe of Stephen King.

The Running Man – making his last stand.

The Running Man is set in the future, the year 2025 to be precise, where America is run by a totalitarian government and television game shows are bloody and all-pervading. Reading this final story from The Bachman Books, I am more and more convinced that Suzanne Collins must have drawn inspiration for The Hunger Games directly from The Bachman Books canon.

 Although this dystopian novel is set in the future, it is littered with imagery that roots it in the period of when it was written – first published in 1982. Other dystopian novels (e.g. Nineteen Eighty-Four) avoid using expressions and imagery specific to when it was written; this avoids dating the novel and can make it timeless. This was not achieved here: it’s supposed to depict the future but similarly to Space 1999, as we’re now in the 21^st century, the imagery just seems a bit naff!  However like other works of King, you could see it as being set in a parallel universe, where attitudes and technology haven’t really progressed since the 1970’s.

 As I was about half way through The Running Man, perhaps just before, I was feeling that this book was my least favorite book out of The Bachman Books and this is probably still the case. This book has its moments and I have to admit, I probably got a bit over excited when the town Derry made an appearance.  

 I thoroughly enjoyed the ending and I’m glad it was a surprise for me, so if you haven’t read The Running Man, keep it that way and STOP READING NOW.

As I was reading towards the end, where Ben Richards is hijacking the plane, the story leads you to believe that Ben Richards is going give up and give into The Network (the embodiment of State oppression) similarly to Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Whilst you’re being led to believe this, there is also numeric referencing to 1984, confirming the connection in my mind to the book.

 There is a reference in the book of Ben Richards making his “last stand” and when I finished the book and thought about it, I related this to The Stand. The reference to Ben’s last stand was before you are lead to believe that he will give up and give in. But just as you think it’s going to end like Nineteen Eighty-Four, Ben follows out his hijack and flies the plane into a skyscraper that belongs to The Network. Reading this story post-9/11 you feel slightly uneasy, similarly to Rage when real life events replicated the fiction.  Of course I am not suggesting a causal link between The Running Man and 9/11!

 Ben Richards did make his last stand and didn’t give into the system. I have previously written a blog about The Stand and mentioned how I was completely thrown by the dark and depressing message at the end of the book: “Life was such a wheel that no man could stand upon it for long. And it always, at the end, came round to the same place again.”

After reading The Running Man however, I saw the message in The Stand in a different light and in a bizarre way, I found positivity – this obviously needs explaining!

 After reading The Stand, I kind of felt, well what’s the point? Individuals went off to make their stand against Randall Flagg and ultimately failed. Now that I have read The Running Man, I feel that in life, you must make your stand even if it makes no substantial difference otherwise your silence is acquiescence to the status quo. Now I’m not necessarily justifying what Ben Richards did, but the old cliché might be appropriate: one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter.

 Like Charles Decker and Barton George Dawes of The Bachman Books, Ben Richards is an agent of anarchy. I wouldn’t really describe Raymond Davis Garraty an agent of anarchy however I think a separate blog needs to be done about The Bachman Books that comments on the common themes linking the four stories.

 The Running Man is the only story of the Bachman Books that was adapted into film: it is nothing like the novel and is simply awful! Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Ben Richards – how ridiculous! Stephen King in ‘The importance of being Bachman” commented’: “Ben Richards… is about as far from the Arnold Schwarzenegger character in the movie as you can get…”

 To be honest, The Running Man film, released in 1987, is really just an Arnold Schwarzenegger film, he even says in the film, “I’ll be back.” How lame. Ben Richards in the book is really a lone wolf and an agent of anarchy whereas Arnie is the leader of a small army of resistance against the state. Arnie gets the girl who he tried to take hostage to Hawaii(!?) and they all lived happily ever after. It’s a god awful film and at best is very loosely based on the novel so is probably not worth an hour and 40 minutes of your time.

 The book redeems itself towards the end, the story works excellently with the other stories in The Bachman Books so it is well worth reading. When reading The Bachman Books, I recommend you read The Stand before, maybe you’ll see the same connections as I did.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s all Roadwork!

We find out in the prologue that Barton George Dawes (“Bart”) thinks that what’s going on is a piece of shit but we don’t know exactly what is going on. After the prologue, the story jumps three months ahead and we find Bart buying a heavy-caliber pistol and rifle supposedly a gift for his cousin so he says to the shopkeeper. We find out this is a lie – we don’t know why he is lying but it immediately creates an unsettling atmosphere.  

 I have to be honest, when I was first introduced to George and Fred in the gun shop, it wasn’t immediately obvious to me who they were and perhaps they’re not supposed to be. Bart has an internal duologue between characters George and Fred; they are presented in the story as if they were real external characters, I thought this was a brilliant device to attempt to present what it might be like for a schizophrenic.

 We later find out the details of what was going on in the prologue. The city council is undertaking a highway extension project and the new road once built will go right through both Bart’s house and workplace. Because of this, Bart is both responsible for finding a new facility for his workplace as he’s one of the managers and finding a new home for him and his wife Mary.

 Bart buries his head in the sand over the reality of his situation; he lies to his wife and work and pretends he is going to sort out everything. The shit hits the fan he gets caught out and as a consequence loses his job and separates from wife in a very short amount of time. As the story progresses we find out that Bart and Mary’s young son died from brain cancer several years earlier. Bart is unable or possible unwilling to deal with his emotional ties he has to his workplace and the house that his son grew up in. It was after the death of his son when George and Fred made their appearances.

 Bart’s immediate existence after losing is wife and his job becomes quickly chaotic. I think this demonstrates how quickly a supposedly normal life and quickly fall apart.  Bart gets in contact with a local mobster in an attempt to obtain explosives, after being dismissed by him as a crackpot, Bart assembles a load of Molotov cocktails to damage the highway constructive equipment causing a slight delay to the project.

 As Bart is unemployed he spends his time driving aimlessly. On one journey he picks up a young female hitchhiker and eventually has sex with her and later acquires hallucinogenic drugs from her. Bart eventually accepts the payment for the sale of his family house from the city council. Now that he has substantial money, he offers it to the mobster for a load of explosives which is accepted. He also gives money to the hitchhiker who moved onto Las Vegas to help her with her education.

 On the day that Bart has to leave the property, he has wired the whole house with the explosives and barricades himself inside. When the police arrive, Bart shoots at them with the guns he has acquired and wants the media to capture the event. Bart manages to make the police allow a reporter into the house to tell him what’s led him to do this. When the reporter leaves the house, Bart tosses the guns out of the window, sets off the explosives with destroys the house with him inside.  

 For me, the story dragged in parts but the ending was well worth the persistence. I am really glad I read this story and I think it fits well with the other Bachman Books. Below is an extract from King’s introduction to The Bachman Books, “Why I was Bachman”:

 “Roadwork was written between ‘Salem’s Lot and The Shining and was an effort to write a ‘straight novel’. (I was also young enough in those days to worry about that casual cocktail-party question, ‘Yes, but when are you going to do something serious?’) I think it was also an effort to make some sense of my mother’s painful death the year before – a lingering cancer had taken her off inch by painful inch. Following this death I was left both grieving and shaken by the apparent senselessness of it all. I suspect Roadwork is probably the worst of the lost simply because it tries so hard to be good and to find some answers to the conundrum of human pain.”

 King initially thought Roadwork was quite poor and was in two minds about having it reprinted, thankfully at the time he decided to have it reprinted in order to give readers an insight into his personality at the time.  In a new introduction to the second edition of The Bachman Books, King stated that he had changed his mind and that Roadwork had become his favorite of the early books. I’m glad King changed his mind about Roadwork. I would say it’s my favourite out of The Bachman Books however it is still very good and compliments the other stories well.

 To my knowledge, no one has bought the rights to adapted Roadwork into a film however I would love this story to be adapted it would have to stay true to the book though! This book should not be skipped in The Bachman Books, I definitely recommend it!

The Long Walk (to nowhere)

I began to read The Long Walk by default because it is part of The Bachman Books. I bought an early edition of The Bachman Books in order to read Rage so after finishing Rage, I moved straight onto The Long Walk. As I began reading The Long Walk I soon felt that Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games, must have been, at the very least, heavily influenced by this book. I first made a connection with The Hunger Games to The Bachman Books when I started reading Rage because Rage is a first-person narrative. It is pure speculation, but I do wonder whether Suzanne Collins read The Bachman Books as a canon shortly before she developed the idea of The Hunger Games.

 It has been described that The Long Walk is set in a dystopian present, however bearing in mind that the book was first published in 1979, really its dystopian modern history. Although it was first published in 1979, Stephen King has revealed that The Long Walk was the first novel he ever wrote when he was a freshman in 1966-67.

 The cliché “it’s the journey not the destination” is, unoriginally, truly fitting for this story.  King does not plot – it is the theme, a truly morbid theme that develops in this story, much like the development of a character. After just saying that King does not “plot”, I’m not going to give a plot summary here because adequate plot summaries exit elsewhere and for this review I don’t think it’s necessary. There is no huge narrative twist to the story in fact the outcome was obviously to me from the beginning, Ray Garraty wins the competition – The Long Walk. However that is why this story is not about the destination (certain death for all but one), it’s about the dialogue between the contestants on their journey and what they experience.

 Similar to Rage, The Long Walk it’s set in reality albeit in a parallel universe. King truly has the tremendous skill of creating a grotesque and macabre atmosphere that is rooted in reality. It is only until the very, very end of the story that the seemingly supernatural makes an appearance in The Long Walk. When Ray Garraty is the final contestant in the competition and thus the winner, a dark figure makes an appearance. Immediately before I started reading The Bachman Books I read The Stand so my interpretation of the dark figure was that it must be The Dark Man, Randall Flagg. This would be one of my questions I would pose to King if I ever met him.

 We probably will never see a film adaptation of Rage unfortunately however a film adaptation of The Long Walk apparently will eventually happen! Film director Frank Darabont, who directed The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and The Mist, has secured the rights to the film adaptation of The Long Walk. Darabont has not given a timeframe for the adaption stating he would “get to it one day” however he also stated that he plans to make it low-budget, “weird, existential, and very self-contained.” Brilliant!

The Long Walk is a thoroughly good read and is a definitely must for Stephen King reader, it was his first book after all! I would recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of or who has read The Hunger Games because I truly believe this book heavily influenced Suzanne Collins.

 

 

Be all the Rage

Introduction

 Rage is unlike any other Stephen King book in the literal sense, it’s his only book that can’t be bought from a bookshop as it’s been withdrawn from publication.

 When commenting on Rage, different themes are involved so there will be need for further blogs related to the book. Nevertheless I will mention the themes in passing in this introduction that I think need separate blogs.

 The two broader themes that are connected to Rage are the First and Second Amendments of the US Constitution: freedom of expression and the right to keep and bear arms.

 The specific theme relating to Stephen King is his pseudonym Richard Bachman because Rage was the first book published under King’s pseudonym.  Separate blogs for these themes will eventually appear on King of Macabre.

 

Background (and how you get yourself a copy!)

 I discovered Rage through watching the Stephen King documentary Shining in The Dark. If you haven’t seen it – watch it! It’s easily accessible on youtube. In the documentary Stephen King stands outside his childhood house and points to a bedroom window and explains that it was there where he wrote Rage and Carrie. Below is what King says in that part of the documentary verbatim:

 “I’ve written a lot of books about teenagers who are pushed to violent acts but with Rage it’s almost a blueprint in terms of saying, this is how it could be done and when it started to happen, particularly there was a shooting thing in Paducah, Kansas where three kids were killed in a prayer group and the kid who did it, that book was in his locker and I said, that’s it for me, that book’s off the market. Not that they won’t find something else… I don’t think that any kid was ever driven to an act of violence by a Metallica record or by a Marilyn Manson CD or by a Stephen King novel but I do think those things can act as accelerants.

 “The real questionable violence in America, as opposed to say violence in England or Scotland, those places, is you only have to correlate one thing and that is the difference in the availability of guns. Guns are what it’s really about. But there’s a whole culture of violence in this country and I’d be the last person to deny that I’m a part of that but I’m only a child of my culture.”

 As soon as I listened to this for the first time, I was completely drawn in – I just had to get myself a copy of Rage. Literally, I was watching the documentary on youtube, I paused it and went straight on Amazon. I was in such a rush to purchase a copy. The book has not been banned rather it has been withdrawn from publication. No new copies have been printed since the late nineties so you can only obtain copies from private sellers or buy used copies.

 When I searched for Rage on Amazon, one of the first results I saw was for an unused 1983 edition for over a £1, 000! I started to worry that I would have to depart with serious money just to read this book. I quickly scanned down and saw a result for a used copy for £23.98 and in haste I thought that this was the cheapest I was going to get so bought it immediately.

 I get my Amazon purchases delivered at my work and when I received it I immediately ran to a colleague of mine who also loves Stephen King to show it off. She was very impressed and started flicking through it and then said, “I didn’t you know you read in French?” My heart literally sank! I had bought a used copy of Rage in French! When I looked back at the Amazon page it did say, albeit in small writing, that it was in French – my bad! I bought in haste and excitement so neglected to read that part. I’ve kept the book figuring it’s an increasingly rare commodity now so you never know it might be worth a lot more in years to come.

 Learn from my mistake! Currently you can actually read Rage very cheaply. Rage used to be part of The Bachman Books, so if you buy an older edition of The Bachman Books, it will contain Rage. The latest editions available from bookstores do not contain Rage. I bought a used copy (in great condition) of The Bachman Books containing Rage off Amazon for an amazing £2.80 and I didn’t have to pay p&p! So not only was I able to read Rage, I could also read: The Long Walk, Roadwork and The Running Man as well. A whole separate blog is needed to go into King’s pseudonym Richard Bachman so I won’t go into it here.

 I am fascinated and passionate about censorship including self-censorship and freedom of expression. A blog will follow at some point discussing this theme using Rage as a case study so I will explore this then.

 

Review

 Unlike most of King’s books, there is no paranormal or supernatural activity (yes, there is a distinction). Although the events that take place could happen in reality, the story feels surreal, the reactions to Charles Decker seem detached from reality. I’ve read reviews about Rage that criticise this surreal quality and suggest that the book is “wrong” because some of the events “just wouldn’t happen in reality”. This analysis completely misses the point of what I believe Stephen King achieved with Rage.

 Just because Rage is set and rooted in reality, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the reader should expect realistic outcomes.  Rage is a very short book compared to The Stand and It and could easily be read in a day. I really want to encourage any Stephen King readers who haven’t read this book to read it!

 I got totally engrossed in Rage. My last experience reading in the first-person was the Hunger Games books and I have to be honest, by the third book I got quite frustrated by it. I felt with Rage however that a first-person narrative worked perfectly.

 Because I knew the general story, Charles Decker kills two of his teachers and holds his algebra class hostage, the shock value wasn’t there for me. There is a slight twist at the end which I was unaware of and it was this that I actually found disturbing – this is the emotion you want after reading a Stephen King novel! I won’t reveal the twist at the end in this blog, not because I don’t believe in spoilers but because if you’re reading this and haven’t read Rage, it’s a wonderful dark surprise!

 I’ve read negative reviews of Rage and as Stephen King has withdrawn the book from publication, many readers may miss the opportunity of actually reading it. My view is, go out of your way to get a copy of Rage, it’s cheap and you’ll get the other books in the Bachman Books, approach the book impartially and enjoy!

 

 

  

 

 

The Stand… (until The Fall)

Nearly the same size as It, I have recently conquered The Stand and I’m so glad I did. Unlike nearly all the other Stephen King books I’ve read, I had no idea what I was letting myself in for when I began reading this epic novel. I had previous read ‘salem’s Lot where the source of fear was vampires, literally, however the source of fear in The Stand is completely plausible, an influenza pandemic. I was completely freaked out by swine flu in 2009 so I immediately related to the concept.

We find out that the US Army developed a weaponized strain of influenza which got accidently released that eventually kills 99.4% of the world’s population. The Stand tells the story of disconnected characters in different parts of America who survived the flu nicknamed “Captain Trips”. What links these dispersed characters are shared dreams of a 108 year old woman referred to as Mother Abigail, the embodiment of good, and nightmares of an evil being named Randall Flagg however he goes by many names such as the Dark Man.

As only a handful of the population survived, the survivors attempt to find fellow survivors. The dreams of Mother Abigail draw the survivors to her home in Nebraska where they find out that Mother Abigail is a real person and asks those who have found her to start a community in Boulder, Colorado. This community attempts to re-establish a democratic society and most of the main characters form a governing committee of this community calling it the Free Zone.

Meanwhile, Randall Flagg is setting up a rival community in Las Vegas which is a brutal tyrannical dictatorship that plans to overtake the Free Zone. Out of the survivors of America, most survivors are drawn to Flagg’s community. As you read The Stand, the feeling of the book is that in essence, the story is a battle between good (Mother Abigail) and evil (Randall Flagg). You eventually find what “The Stand” means the leaders of the Free Zone must stand up against Randall Flagg.

I got totally engrossed in Lloyd Hendreid’s story (a “villain”) involving the Markham v South Carolina case. Now I don’t know if this is a “real” case in The Stand or whether Lloyd’s lawyer made it up to manipulate Lloyd’s evidence in order to get him off in his murder trial. Either way, I think the judgment of the case carries an interesting concept: making people on death row wait a long/indeterminate time for their execution is cruel and unusual punishment. This jurisprudence means that the death penalty is still permissible, but if the defendant is found guilty, the system can’t be allowed to faff around with lengthy appeals: the death penalty must be carried out swiftly.

I really hoped I would learn more about the Markham case and see Lloyd’s trial play out, alas this didn’t happen. I wasn’t going to dwell on this theme in this blog much, if at all, because it doesn’t really play a big part in the novel however reading about Richard Ramirez’s death today brought me back to the death penalty theme. Richard Ramirez was convicted of multiple crimes and received the death sentence in 1989; he died of liver failure in 2013 and was still on death row appealing 24 years after his sentence.

I have to be careful that this blog doesn’t become about the death penalty and Richard Ramirez so all I’ll say on the matter is that although the Markham case is seemingly insignificant in The Stand, I can’t help thinking that Stephen King put this fictional case in for a reason and there is a message in it. It could well be a statement unrelated to The Stand, but I believe it is a statement nonetheless and the whole subject matter needs to be in another blog so I will leave it at that for now.

Lloyd Hendreid becomes Randall Flagg’s right-hand man however my favourite villain (apart from Flagg of course) is The Trashcan Man.  There is an amazing fucked up scene with Trash and The Kid, the scene is almost on a par with the Losers’ Club sex scene (see my It blog). It’s the type of material that after you’ve read another 200 pages or so, you start to think: did I really read that!?! Of course the TV series adaptation didn’t attempt to portray the scene, but I think it could have done as I believe The Kid is an adult or could at least be portrayed as an adult.

I bought The Stand TV series on DVD when I was about half way through the book in preparation for when I would finish the book. The TV series is 4 episodes, I have to admit, as I was over half way through, I allowed myself to watch the first 2 episodes. It didn’t spoil the storyline for me and in a way it was a helpful recap of the story line as the TV series is fairly true to the book. I have to say, when I saw Stephen King play a cameo role, I went a bit hysterical, what a treat!

I allowed myself to get fully involved in the Free Zoners battle to defeat Randall Flagg and I was beginning to think that they would all live happily ever after – well the rug was well and truly pulled under my feet! Mother Abigail had the shining however she was not necessarily a supernatural being. Although she lived to 108 years old, she eventually died. Randall Flagg is most definitely a supernatural being and ultimately is it is this quality that saves him.  

I could be wrong about this, but it almost felt that “The Stand” was an overall pointless expedition as The Trashcan Man would have brought in the nuclear warhead into Las Vegas regardless and it would have detonated because of Trash’s chaotic nature. If the four members of the committee stayed in the Free Zone, all of them would have survived and Trash would still have been chaotically responsible for bringing down Flagg’s regime (but not Flagg of course).

I was first introduced to Randall Flagg in The Stand and I am excited to read more about him in The Dark Tower series. An aside, another exciting Stephen King event happening this year is the release of “The Dark Man” which is a poem about the genesis of Randall Flagg – I cannot wait to learn more about him!

Randall Flagg manages to escape Las Vegas before the nuclear warhead is detonated thus survives. His survival of the explosion is portrayed in the TV series adaptation, but the adaptation is completely sugar coated. The adaptation ends with Fran and Stu happily remaining in the Free Zone not knowing whether people can change but optimistically hoping that their new-born daughter(?!) named Abigail will. This is not what happens in the book; they have a son (not biologically Stu’s) called Peter, named after Fran’s father, they plan to leave the Free Zone as they are cynical about the new governing committee in the Free Zone. Stu asks Fran, “Do you think … do you think people ever learn anything?” Fran responds, “I don’t know.”

The book ends with Flagg waking up with amnesia on a beach somewhere in the South Pacific. There he begins recruiting adherents among a preliterate, dark-skinned people, who worship him as a deity. We are left with this chilling statement:

“Life was such a wheel that no man could stand upon it for long. And it always, at the end, came round to the same place again.”

 

So what have a learnt? Ultimately, whatever regime man tries to implement in whatever guise, it will not stand forever. Whatever the regime, it will not be able to change human nature; to hope otherwise is a mere utopian dream.  Nothing last forever and history will continue to repeat itself. I was becoming an optimist half way through the book; well the end certainly changed that! I’ve left this blog quite depressingly but this is what I love, you don’t read Stephen King for happily ever after! The Stand is a brilliant book and is a must read.

 

My next Stephen King read is The Bachman Books including Rage.

’SALEM’S LOT – a vampire novel

This is the fifth Stephen King novel I’ve read and the first one I’ve read where I was completely unfamiliar with the story. This meant I had no real expectations – which can be a good or a bad thing. Essentially the book is about a haunted house and vampires that reside in the small town of Jerusalem’s Lot (abbreviated by the locals as ‘salem’s Lot).

I read It (the novel) immediately before reading ‘salem’s Lot and I think this may have influenced my judgment on the book. It is a huge book so lots of content, the characters are thoroughly developed and you end up having an emotional attachment to them. This is what I guess I was looking forward to when I started reading ‘salem’s Lot but it just didn’t happen for me.

’Salem’s Lot is Stephen King’s tribute to Bram Stoker’s Dracula placed in 20th century small town America. Vampires are the source of fear in the literal sense and the way they’re defeated is through religious paraphernalia such as crucifixes and holy water. ’Salem’s Lot is therefore a traditional horror novel so if that’s your bag, I’m sure you will enjoy it.

I much prefer psychological horror so it was difficult for me to relate to this novel. The first half of the book starts of slowly and vampires are barely even hinted at. The character development was beginning to spark some interest, although this book has far too many characters for its size, and there was some really good commentary about the Catholic Church’s modern view of evil as opposed to its traditional understanding.

The second half of the book completely changes pace and becomes a vampire-hunting splatter novel killing off nearly all the characters that you almost cared about from the first half. This I suppose was a device to lull the reader into a false sense of security and if the reader devours vampires and in-your-face-gore, then they’re in for a treat. I however didn’t enjoy the “treat” so finishing the book was a bit of an anti-climax.

I really wanted to like the book, mainly due to the fact that it is one of Stephen King’s personal favourites and also because so many Stephen King readers rave about ’salem’s Lot. However I must be honest, although there were parts I enjoyed and it is well-written, I just couldn’t connect to the overall plot.

Although finishing ’salem’s Lot left my slightly disappointed, I am no way put off from carrying on my project of reading through Stephen King and I have already started reading my sixth Stephen King novel The Stand.

The double zero

Charles Raymond Starkweather (November 24, 1938 – June 25, 1959)

Read all about It!

1376 pages in 14 days. I have to admit, finishing Stephen King’s It in two weeks was a massive achievement for me. In my opinion, it’s not the type of book you could put down for a few days or even weeks and then pick up again. The structural flow of the book commands to be consumed at a constant speed in order to fully absorb everything this epic tale has to offer. I fell in love with this book.

I know I will eventually read this book again but with a much sharper analytical eye as I believe this story on one level can be seen as an elaborately obscure allegory for child abuse. This hypothesis however will be for another blog. The story has so many layers that each deserves separate analysis; the purpose of this blog however is to give the book a general review and it includes spoilers.

I had watched the film adaptation of the book awhile back so I had a basic idea of the general plot to the story. After reading the book and then re-watching the film adaptation, I realised that the film is merely a skeletal frame of the story with the flesh very much missing. The film completely strips the story of the subplots which is actually what makes the overall story so brilliant.

The reader is introduced to a subplot in chapter two about the gay community in Derry which to me was a fantastic surprise. Unfortunately this subplot is very brief however the story overall is peppered with references to Derry’s homophobia. Watching the film adaptation disappointingly, the viewer would have no idea homophobia was an issue at all in Derry.

The book not only deals with homophobia but also racism, misogyny, domestic violence and child abuse. Unfortunately just like the gay community in Derry, these issues just don’t appear in the film adaptation. If the film included these themes, it would be much darker and would provide a better context for the overall story.

It’s probably a generational thing, but I didn’t find the film scary at all, in fact the opposite, I found it comical. I liken my reaction to the It film to the Exorcist, the parts that were meant to be scary are just fucking hilarious! Therefore if you’ve watched the film and not impressed, don’t let this put you off reading the book because the book is truly a masterpiece.

It should be mentioned that this book has a couple of controversial scenes of children on the cusp of adolescence having sex or engaging in sexual activity. The first scene is of a boy masturbating another boy and the other is young Beverley Marsh having sex with all six boys of the Losers’ Club one by one. These scenes in writing aren’t paedophilic but as an adult reading it, the territory gets murky. These written scenes could certainly not be made into film as it would effectively be child porn. One has to tread very carefully when dealing with paedophilia in art and literature.

There are a couple of overt paedophilic references in the book; we find out that young Beverley Marsh’s father Alvin Marsh had the desire to sexually abuse her although actual sexual abuse is not explicitly mentioned. Also on a number of occasions, an incarnation of It, Bob Gray, offers young Eddie Kaspbrak a blowjob. I am strongly of the opinion that the subtext of this book is predominantly about child abuse and how a child copes with the trauma as an adult.

I know these scenes have upset a segment of Stephen King readers however I would say this comes with the territory. If you read Stephen King or work similar to his genre, you should be prepared to be disturbed, shocked and even offended. These scenes, that are certainly uncomfortable, cannot take away the brilliancy of this book.

There is going to be a re-make of the film adaptation of It in a couple of years which I will definitely watch but I fear it will make the same mistakes as the first one. What would be truly amazing is if It was made into a TV series and included all the subplots. Also the TV series could actually explain the origins of It (and the Turtle) which again the film just doesn’t explain.

Stephen King’s It is a masterpiece and I would encourage anyone who is curious to read It! The film is ‘meh!’ but is unintentionally hilarious in parts. The book and the film just cannot be compared, I don’t mean like The Shining novel versus Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, there is just far too much content in the book for it to be made into a film (even though the film is 3 hours long!). Just Read It!

Map Drawn Up: At least for now

KING OF MACABRE I have realised is at present a blog that is documenting my courtship to marriage of Stephen King. The fact that I’m only on my fourth book means that I cannot be considered an authority – at least not yet – on Stephen King. I am happy to say that I have to some extent mapped my way forward with his work.

Since posting ‘Novel Navigation’ I was sent a link to the ‘Stephen King Universe’ and here it is:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cmmJvItL6XE/UFjb6kdOlRI/AAAAAAAACac/uPpEHx2bG1Q/s1600/Stephenh-King-Universe-FLowchart-900px.jpg
Looking at this flowchart for the first time just filled me with childish excitement!

It’s brilliant because there are references in his books that the reader will only pick up on if they have read one of his other books. I experienced this for the first time when I read Misery and found a reference to The Shining’s Overlook Hotel.

I am pleased therefore that I read The Shining before I read Misery because it enabled me to pick up on the reference. The flowchart connects the references in his books so it can be used as a navigating tool to decide what order a new Stephen King reader could take. I am not suggesting however that a new reader must be read in a strict chorological order because that’s certainly not the route I’m taking.

I have found out that there is no general consensus among Stephen King readers about what order to read his work in and to be honest, I’m quite glad that this is the case. It really depends on what the individual reader finds appealing. His work is quite diverse so not all of his books therefore will appeal to the same reader.

The books that I have read so far, I have already had an awareness of, either because I have seen the film or by references in popular culture. After I have finished It, I am going to read The Stand which is a completely new story to me so I’m quite excited to start as I have no expectations.

I did read good advice on a forum today and that this, “the key is persistence.” Sometimes there are passages in any book where it feels a chore to get through it and if you are unfamiliar with the overall plot of the book, it might be tempting to give up. The Stand is a meaty book and I don’t know much about it so I will need to bare this advice in mind.

I have previously mentioned that there are significant Stephen King events happening this year and one which I did not mention is the TV adaptation of Under the Dome airing in June. Again, Under the Dome is a meaty book which I don’t know much about but I do plan to read it so I can then start to watch the TV series when it begins to air.

Luckily, I’m getting good practice with tackling a huge book at the moment reading It.