Revival Journal #5: The Final Stretch

I finished reading Revival tonight, and so I'm going to talk about it.  If you haven't read the book, it goes without saying that you shouldn't read an article about the end of the novel -- right?  Ultimately, I don't care.  I think people who whine about "spoilers" are pretty lame.  But then, I hate surprise parties and always manage to get my wife to tell me my Christmas present early.  Anticipation is better than surprise.  That's why a good novel taste better the second time.

Setting:
I run in the middle of the night; walk really.  And I listen to Stephen King.  Often I can't listen to King, because I have friends with me.  We have started a route that takes us up a steep hill that looms over our town.  Ont he top of the hill is a water tower and a massive red light -- probably to mark the spot so local aircraft don't hit it.  (?)  It is a military town.  It is awesome to stand atop the hill and look down on the desert city.  29 Palms is a lot like Space Mountain.  Awesome with the lights off.

We usually take the paved road up the mountain; the one that winds back and forth until you suddenly peak in front of a water tower.  But there is another path; a friend and I found it the other night.  It's not easily recognizable  because it's dirt, and it's steep.  Really steep.  It's been smoothed out by rushing water, I think.  I only took it once with a friend, who had to crab walk  to keep from tumbling down.

I did something tonight I don't usually do when I'm out alone.  My wife asked me not to take the dangerous path through the gullies (huge rain ditches that are like canyons in the desert), so instead I decided to try the mountain.  Again, I don't do this alone because -- well, who knows what you'll find atop a hill that overlooks the city late at night.  But, remembering the path that goes straight up the mountain, and the moon beaming down bright -- I decided to go for it.

And here's the cool part.  As I was trudging up the side of that mountain, the final chapters of Revival began to play out.  And what happens?  Pastor Charlie and company take a trip up the mountain.

The setting where the final scenes of Revival play out is great.  A mountain cabin in a great storm; lightening cuts the sky up.  On complaint I might lodge about the mid-portion of the novel is that King spends a lot of time telling us things, but he leaves out interesting settings.  He makes up for that in the final chapters as we go to the mountain cabin to raise the dead.

The dead ladies name is Mary.  Most certainly a nod to Mary Shelly.  When Mary is brought to life, bad things happen.  Very bad things.  And I guess it would be nerve wracking to listen to in any situation; the car, in bed or even on a sunny day.  But at 11:30pm on the side of a mountain, the wind blowing, it was pretty freaky!

A Short Analysis:

I like Revival a lot, because the end pays off.  It is dark, reminding me of the tone of 1922 or Pet Sematary.  There is a healthy dose of Science Fiction

My real complaint is that it takes far too long to get there.  There are so many characters, I lose track of whose who.  Some parts are like reading the phone book -- someone who was mentioned on some other page pops up again, but they aren't that important.

I could have used a lot more of what we got at the end.  Not the tail end, where people start dropping like flies.  I mean up on the mountain.  Mary and Charlie are disposed of quite quickly.  There is no real struggle, no wonder in the readers mind if Jamie is going to make it.  (Well, it is first person.)  But not just that, King doesn't give time to develop the story on through.

Mary Shelly gave the monster in Frankenstein some breathing room.  He got to roam about and cause some mischief  -- but our Mary never gets that opportunity.  So we spend a lot of time building up to the creation of a monster that never goes anywhere.  (Yes, gang, I do understand that Charlie is the real monster, bla bla bla.)

The horror in Revival isn't the Mary-Monster anyway; nor is it Charlie -- it's death.  And that nagging question: What lies beyond?  Jamie sees something terrible, and carries that vision of the afterlife with him.  In that sense, things are carried beyond Pet Sematary, as King dares to lay at least a big toe on the other side of the pond.  What we get a glimpse of is the dark side of Sheol.  King doesn't give us doses of hell and fire and brimstone; but ant overlords.  You know, it seems ridiculous looking back on it, but at the time when I was reading it (on a mountain) it was scary.

So I enjoyed the novel a lot.  King is like a cat chasing a mouse.  The mouse is death and the ugly side of resurrection.  But once King catches his mouse, he kills it too quickly.  I'd be happy if he'd played with his dead -- not dead -- mouse a little longer.

Faith:

It's been hinted in some corners that maybe King is taking his digs at people of faith in Revival; or that organized religion is going to take a blow.  Well, if Stephen King can knock it down, it wasn't organized from on-high anyway.  I was ready for some heavy handed preaching in Revival -- some uncomfortable digs at faith.  But I found the opposite -- for the subject matter, King is very reserved in his commentary on faith itself.

People of faith are not attacked in Revival; people who have faith in a single preacher -- or prophet -- or evangelist -- or TV personality -- are laid waste to in Revival.  I don't think the reverend in Revival was ever really a preacher.  I realized early in the book, this guy never had real faith.  So when he turns on God, it's not surprise, because he was already there.

Charlie's god, his Golden Calf, is electricity.  "Secret electricity" is what Alfred Hitchcock would call a Mcguffin.  Something added as a plot device to simply make things work.  Charlie might have once had a passing interest in God, but he's a servant of electricity.  He believes electricity can heal the body, and perhaps bring back the dead.  Hey, why mess with a Pet Sematary when there's good ole electricity?

There is a price to pay, Revival would suggest, for chasing after false prophets hoping for a miracle.  As the old preacher, R.G. Lee, would say, "The devil pays in counterfeit money."

What Charlie does is turn from the legitimate work of pastoring and shepherding a Methodist congregation to churning our miracles at revival meetings for profit.  He goes from pastor to showman.  And we've all met preachers who were more showman than man (or woman) of God.

King plays fair because his keeps the commentary from Jamies perspective.   And Jamie is allowed his doubts and opinions -- he's the narrator.  What would be uncomfortably preachy and heavy handed in the third person, works fine in first person narrative.

While the novel is pessimistic, it's not anti-God.  It's anti-fake-preacher. These fakes are the biggest threat to Christianity itself.  Benny Hinn and the whole TBN crew that like to make Jesus a flashy word before they pass the plate and fake miracles are actually the problem.  They aren't advancing the Gospel, they're advancing their bank accounts.  They embarrass those of us who do believe with their carny like shenanigans.  They make many people of deep faith, who do believe in miracles -- without the aid of electricity -- appear foolish.  But King does people of genuine faith a kindness.   He moves Charlie out of the church house before he begins the real crazy stuff.  Better yet, the church has the gumption to remove him.  So what ole Charlie does, he does on his own, not under the authority of a congregation that could fire him, but can't find the will.

I think King's publishers were overly concerned about him offending people.  They put out warnings that this was a dark novel -- like William Castle having doctors in the theater lobby to check your heart before you went in to see his scary movie.  (Check out "William Castle and Stephen King")

After-Effects

WOW!  Those after effects were no pretty, were they?  I don't have much to say, except that I really didn't see that coming.  I know, many of you did, and you're just sooo smart!  But I didn't.  Suicide is nasty business, and to have just about everyone Jacobs healed take their own life was pretty bold on King's part.

I liked the idea of Jamie being a key of sorts that allowed the door to be unlocked.  It was also pretty cool that he was able to shut that door.  But honestly, it just wasn't hard enough for him to get the door shut.

I like those corny parts where King -- Jamie -- says things like, "I would stop writing, but I have to, if only in the hopes that maybe it will turn someone else back from the horrors I've seen. . ." (that's not a quote from the book.)  Moving toward the final events, King uses heavy shadowing that lets the reader know the book is about to get a lot darker.

Revival is a great book.  Best read in the dark.  Alone.

It's one of those books that leaves me anxious for the movie version.  This is the kind of movie (no one would do this) that would be great in black and white.