Book Thoughts: Carrie (Stephen King)

As you all should by now know my favorite author is Stephen King. I like the way he writes, his style, his ‘voice’ as they say. He can weave a story and using nothing but his words, paint a vibrant picture in my head.

 

King’s first published novel was Carrie back in t1974. The book has spawned three movies to date – with another re-make on the way supposedly to be released sometime around Halloween 2013.

 

The story centers around Carrietta “Carrie” White. The daughter of a staunch bible-thumping Jeezus howling evangelistic mother, Margaret White (Carrie’s father was said to be the same way, but is deceased in the novel). The way the book describes Carrie makes me picture a somewhat pudgy (though not fat) girl with a pale, pimply face. Not at all consistent with Sissy Spacek, but then again, that’s Hollywood for ya.

 

King takes us through the mind of this girl as her special telekinetic powers are beginning to show themselves. To be sure there were a few instances early on in Carrie’s childhood that gave her mother a hint that the devil was in her, but those were rare. The powers really begin to come in as a 16 year old Carrie experiences her first period in the showers after gym class. Horrified that she’s bleeding – her mother, it would seem, had never explained this to her (I can only assume that she was absent that day in school when the nurse took the girls into a special class about that stuff).

 

That’s where the second most famous scene associated with Carrie happens, with the girls in her gym class throwing tampons and pads at her yelling “plug it UP, plug it UP, plug it UP”. Later in the book, not quite the end, but really the beginning of the end, comes the absolute most famous scene, the one with the pigs blood. In between those two milestone events, we are taken on a journey. Some into Carrie’s past and some into her mother’s past (she claims she had sex only twice, both times resulted in pregnancies – the first was stillborn, the second was Carrie).

 

Carrie is horribly bullied in school, all the way through school. If she were in school today, she’d probably be the poster child for some federal anti-bullying campaign. Given what kind of religious kook her mother is, combined with her appearance (I keep seeing her with stringing hair and shiny, oily skin) it’s not a wonder she was treated so poorly. Kids are going to be kids after all, and at their most base, I firmly believe all kids are mean as snot until they are learned better by their parents and teaches (and their peers but usually only after a good ass-whoopin’).

 

It is clear to me reading this, that it is one of King’s early works (of course it is, it was his first). His prose isn’t as polished as it is today, almost 40 years later. His backstory isn’t as in-depth. On the other hand, the novel is only a few hundred pages long, far short of his 1K+ page works of today.

Literary Thoughts: Honk & Holler Opening Soon

Sometimes I run out of things to read. In those dire times, I'll usually fumble through the 5/8 selection of books to find something. Now, the 5/8 gets most of her reading material from my mother. This means, the books - at least from my view - aren't the greatest tomes. Usually rather pointless meandering stories about people from small dusty towns who have names like "Drake" and go about doing things like having babies in the Wal Mart.

"The Honk and Holler Opening Soon" is not much of an exception to that general rule. It was penned by Oklahoma native Billie Letts and follows a mish mash group of characters who don't seem to fit together well. The book it titled from the restaurant at the center of everything. It was supposed to be named "The Honk and Holler" but when Caney (the owner) ordered the sign, he was three sheets to the wind and in a drunken mistake, messed it up.

Caney is a wheelchair bound Vietnam veteran who hasn't left the diner in 12 or so years...since he opened it. His waitress is Molly O who had a big hand in raising Caney. Soon joined by people with names as unreal as Vena and Bui. See what I mean about strange names? It is almost as if these types of books want to try so hard to be more real or something, they the authors would never use a name like "Steve" for the main character. All the primary characters have names like that. Not ones you'd find very often in the real world. And of course, you have to through in some jerk guy who is bigoted and misogynistic to cause trouble for everyone involved.

The whole time I reading this book, I'm thinking, if it were a movie (it would be chick flick - natch) that Natalie Portman would have to play the role of Vena. And maybe Sigourney Weaver as Molly O. The whole thing reminded me of a movie I'd seen with the 5/8 several years ago where Natalie Portman played a girl who was homeless and pregnant, and ended up living in the Wal-Mart, where she had given birth to a baby. Then I realized, the reason for this was because that movie was based on a book by the same author. Déjà vu all over again.

It isn't that I disliked the book. It isn't that I felt it was a waste of time reading it. It just didn't grab me. This isn't a work where I was anxious to get back to reading it. Except after the half-way point, where I just wanted to get it over with and move on to something interesting. It wasn't a horrible read. It was rather quick, but just not all that interesting for me. The chicks will dig it though, I have no doubt.

Literary Thoughts: Knights of the Black and White

I'm not a big fan of fantasy literature. Sure, I've read "Lord of the Rings" and "Watership Down" and they were  enjoyable. But mostly, I'm not into reading stuff where people are named stuff like 'Glimmermear', just can't seem to get to into it. I mean, seriously, if you have refer to a glossary just to pronounce the names, it's just too much work to make for an enjoyable read. But I digress...

Jack Whyte is an author I hadn't heard of when I ran out of reading material and was at the local Dillon's store where I managed to find this book. It is book one of the "Templar Trilogy". Now, I've always been a sucker for the mysteries of the Knights Templar, the Priory of Sion, ancient Church societies and the like. So I picked it up. He starts his tale just before the first Crusade in the mid 11th Century. Knowing this, I was a bit curious how he would handle the Crusades and subsequent occupation of Jerusalem and other areas of the Middle East.

And true to any author in today's climate who doesn't want to have a fatwa issued against him, or be branded a racist, the occupying Muslims were all nice, peaceful folks until the Franks from Christendom invaded their land and brutalized everyone. And even after that, the Muslims (along with the group who were to become the Knights Templar) were the only people who had any honor.

Now, I don't mind books that are critical of the Church or Christianity. I loved Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons" (even more than his "DaVinci Code"). And I know that throughout history, and especially in the early part of the second millennium, the Church was full of people who were only out for themselves. People who, by birth order, were pretty much forced into priesthood and what not. But come on, could Whyte not find one single Church official that would display at least some modicum of Christian ideals? For him, every pastor, bishop, cardinal and pope, everything they did, they did for some ulterior, self-gratifying motive. In addition to that, there must have been twenty or thirty pages, peppered throughout the book, where he kept repeating how evil and dishonorable the invaders from Christendom were. Once or twice, and I can get the message, but over and over ad nauseam. It started to remind me of that 50+ page speech given by John Galt in "Atlas Shrugged" (I have to be honest about that, I didn't read the whole speech).

But his misrepresentation of history aside, the book wasn't all bad. His descriptions of the people and the surroundings and the activities were well thought out. The story, while a bit slow to get rolling, did start to click along at a good pace once Jerusalem was conquered. I'm certain that I will finish the trilogy when the others come out in paperback - if only because I'm a sucker for stories of the Templars. Kind of like I'm a sucker for time travel movies, no matter how badly they stink, I can't not watch 'em.

Just Read: Cell by Stephen King

  I'm a pretty big Stephen King fan. I can't say I'm a huge fan. I haven't read all his books. I haven't read any of the Bachman books, so maybe I'm just a fan, and not even a big fan really. My favorites from him are The Stand and The Dark Tower series. I'll have to admit the final Dark Tower book kind of fizzled though. It didn't seem like his heart was in it. Almost as if he wrote it just to get it out of the way, to be finished with Roland and Jake and Detta and the rest.

The Stand, for the uninitiated, is an end of the world story. An extremely dangerous, genetically engineered super flu virus (nicknamed "Captain Tripps") is accidentally released from a government facility and eliminates 2/3 of the world's population. Coming into the midst of this is Randall Flagg. Flagg is, I believe, one of the greatest, and most evil villains since Darth Vader.

Cell is another try by King at an end of the world story - with zombie types thrown in for good measure. But it falls far, far short of The Stand. The story centers around Clay Riddell who is a graphic artist and things are just looking up for him. He sold his graphic novel "Dark Wanderer" and was about to be rolling in the dough. Well, maybe not rolling, but at least he could provide a better life for his wife and child. That same day, everyone who had a cell phone went completely bonkers. Some sort of pulse was transmitted essentially wiping out their minds, leaving only the most basic emotions. Riddell is in Boston, and his wife and kid are up in Maine (natch!). The story follows Riddell and a few others picked up along the way, on his quest to find his wife and son, while trying to avoid becoming food for the zombie "phoners".

King's usual character development is non-existent. While the book does suck you in, it just doesn't, I don't know, doesn't 'get you there.' I don't know how else to explain it. It is almost like King didn't even really write this book. It reads like a book that is written in the style of King, as an homage to him, but not by him.

It is a good story though. Maybe he was channeling Bachman, and this is the way he wrote the Bachman books (as I said, I've never read any of them - just not that much of a sci-fi fanatic where books are concerned). Or a graphic novel. It would have made a great graphic novel. Maybe King should have dropped a line to Frank Miller, or Klaus Jansen or John Byrne and had them illustrate it. I probably would have enjoyed it more if he'd done that.