So, two week vacation–and a perfect time to take a break from Stephen King. I’ve gotten a bunch of other books, and it’s time to read a couple of them. So, up next is Armada by Ernest Cline, The Affinities by Robert Charles Wilson, and Starbound by the great Joe Haldeman.
And then on to Thinner….
I’ve said before that this is my favorite King novel. Again, which may seem odd, as it was co-written. And this time around, I was able to sort of pick out some passages that I’m pretty sure came from Peter Straub–but not much at all. There are a couple of obvious British terms (someone in costume is referred to being in “fancy dress”, “mold” is spelled “mould”, and so on) but the story is seamlessly blended between the two of them.
There are a couple of times where it appears that they did “you write a chapter, and then I’ll write a chapter”. For instance, there is one passage where there’s a woman in the street by a corpse of a dead dog. In the next passage, it is again referred to as “a” corpse, not “the” corpse as you would expect, as it had been previously identified. But so what. Minor, minor issues.
This really is your classic quest novel–and really, if you’ve read one, you sort of know how things are going to shake out. But for whatever reason, this doesn’t come across as predictable. You really don’t know if Jack is going to make it. It’s easy to say at the end that “obviously he was going to win, he’s the hero!” but you don’t so much feel that in the book. Jack is a 12 year old kid, facing horrors that grown adults couldn’t face, WALKING ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE US BY HIMSELF. When you’re in the book, there is no way that you can say “he’s going to make it”. And if you are a parent, it’s so easy to replace Jack with your own child, and think about when your kid was 12, and try to imagine how well he or she would do on this journey.
That’s the appeal for me. I mean, let’s face it–we all want a quest. Something dangerous, with life-altering consequences, that we may not succeed at.
Let me just say that I love Wolf.
I know that I’m not really saying much about the book, but I don’t really think I need to. I’ll let it speak for itself.
OK–without a doubt, hands-down, this is my favorite King book. Which may be odd, since it’s co-written with Peter Straub. HOWEVER, this book feels like King, much more so than Straub. I’m going to have to look into this a bit and see if I can figure out who wrote what, and how much. I’ve read this one quite a few times, and I always come back to it when I need a good quest. Because that’s what it is, at it’s core. It’s an archetypal quest story. It’s got a young protagonist, who doesn’t understand what’s happening, but still has great responsibility thrust upon him. It’s got a villain, who is evil throughout. It’s got loyal companions. We go through the Territories right along with Jack. We feel his fear. We see him grow. And above all, we are pulling for him to succeed.
THIS IS A GREAT BOOK.
One of the great things about reading is that the more books that you read, the more connections and references you find. Stephen King uses “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” word-for-word in Christine, and while it sounds cool, it’s better if you’ve read Hamlet. So, before we really get into this, I have to ask–have you read the Harry Potter books? Cause get this: Christine is a horcrux.
Now, by this point hopefully you realize that these posts are absolutely full of spoilers, but this one is perhaps going to be a bit more spoilery than usual. So, if you haven’t yet read Christine, and are planning on doing so, I’d recommend that you stop here. BUT please do yourself a favor; read those Potter books and brush up on your knowledge of horcruxes.
OK, so I mentioned in the Christine intro post that I hadn’t read this in forever, and didn’t really remember it. I am pretty sure that I sort of dismissed it as just a book about a haunted car. But King is never really that simple. It’s not so much the car; it’s really more Rollie LeBay. This was a man who hated EVERYTHING. Everything except for the car. And over time, those feelings of hate (and love–but again, only for the car) really left an impression. Really put an essence into Christine.
Back to Harry Potter. I sincerely hope that you’ve read those!! Voldemort hates everyone and wants to live forever, so he fractures his soul and hides the parts of it in inanimate (well, not all of them) objects. And he needs to kill someone each time to do this. And as we find out, regular old folks are very much affected by contact with horcruxes.
In Christine, LeBay hates everyone but Christine. And as we see later in the book, he actually offers his daughter up as a sacrifice, ensuring that she dies inside the car. So Christine is all set up. And if you notice, Arnie didn’t really start having troubles until LeBay died. Because he didn’t really die–Christine kept his soul “alive”. And so, just like a horcrux, Arnie became sullen, angry, paranoid, and eventually completely possessed.
I don’t know if JK Rowling ever read Christine, but after I finished it, horcruxes were very much on my mind.
There really is so much more to this story than just a possessed car. Like a lot of King’s stories, we have an outsider, someone who never really fits in, who feels very much like everyone is out to get him. In fact, Arnie Cunningham is pretty much Harold Lauder. And like Harold, Arnie really was just a kid who got involved with something that he never understood, that really was only out to use him. And also like Harold, Arnie managed to come to himself at the very end. Perhaps at the time when it really mattered.
I think that a big reason as to why this book works is the fact that most of it is written from Dennis’s viewpoint. If it was from Arnie’s, we’d see what was happening to him. We’d be right there in his head the whole time. We’d understand. But we get Dennis, who can’t see inside Arnie’s head, and has to make some logical leaps and guesses. Just like we do.
I did really enjoy this one. As I’ve mentioned before, often times King’s version of foreshadowing is sort of along the lines of “And that was the last time he ever saw Johnny–alive”. He doesn’t do that in Christine. Everything is very subtle, and open-ended. When it comes down to the finale, we know everything goes South–Dennis says as much before he fills us in on what actually happened–but we don’t know how bad, or who makes it out. It makes for a seriously tense read.
The only thing that really didn’t work for me was all of the “ghosts” that were in the car. I get LeBay–that makes sense to me. But I thought that when Christine stopped at Don Vandenberg’s station with a car full of dead folks, well, that was a little too much for me. Still, even though the concept of a haunted car full of ghosts seems pretty silly, King pulls it off. Again, mainly due to the strength of his characters. It’s really a story about Dennis, and what happens to him. There just happens to be a haunted car that gets it’s “hands” on his best friend.
Confirmed: Pet Semetary came out in November of 1893, Christine in April.
Whoops.
I am pretty sure that I have all of the rest in order, though.
Christine. Now, I think that I have gotten these slightly out of order. In the great big master list on King’s website, it lists Pet Semetary as having been published first; however, there is no reference to Pet Semetary at all in my copy of Christine. They were both published in 1983, but I am starting to think that Christine was first. Oh well.
Now, Christine is one of those books that I read 30 years ago and never picked up again, for whatever reason. I seem to remember not being so impressed. But again, it was a long time ago, and by this point most of what I remember about it is a cross between the movie version, and the ” ‘Ello Guvnor” episode of Regular Show, so we’ll see what happens.
I’ve already gotten started with it, and so far, so good. I’ll be back at the end!
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