I’m LOVING Stephen King enthusiast James Smythe’s articles as he rereads King’s works in chronological order. This week is particularly good – RAGE.
Smythe points out that Rage is the only King novel you can’t buy in a local bookstore. That’s because King had it pulled from publication. He chronicles some copy-cat events, including 14-year old Michael Carneal’s December 1997 rampage.
Smythe writes:
Carneal wasn't the first: Jeffrey Lyne Cox held a class of students hostage at gunpoint in 1988, inspired by the novel; Dustin L Pierce did the same in 1989, down to the detail of imprisoning his algebra class; in 1996, Barry Loukaitis killed his algebra teacher and two others, before holding the rest of the class to ransom. At his trial, Loukaitis even said that he tried to model his life after Decker. All three had read the book, and they were young and impressionable. (Crucially, though less sensationally, they were also all bullied and tormented at school.)Smythe makes personal connections to the novel, discussing his own struggle with being bullied. He concludes by telling us,
“In the best possible way, I hate Rage: I hate it because I hate Decker, and he is the book in its entirety.”The full article is great! Check it out HERE.
Well, I hope the review is right when it's said people won't identify. Call me paranoid but a line from The Stand occured to me when I read this post:
ReplyDelete"They were a couple of outsiders, and Outsiders hatch plots. It's perhaps the only thing that keeps them sane...There was a whole company of outsiders on the other side of the mountains. And when there are enough outsiders together in one place a mystic osmosis takes place and you're inside. Inside where it's warm. Just a little thing, being inside where it's warm, but really such a big thing. About the most important thing in the world".
Smythe also makes, to me a mistake about thinking a criminal thought and the act itself. I think it's more a matter of making a problem bigger.
ChrisC
What a great article, thanks for sharing. I am about to go grab my tattered edition of the Bachman Books collection and give this controversial tale a re-reading.
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