I'll make you mad if you love Stephen King and can't see past your love to look at the work itself. I don't care.
The latest King novel, The Institute, does not live up to its rave reviews thus far for me. Granted, I'm not through it, but I'm well in. And thus far, it feels like little more than (dare I say) a Simpson's Episode.
Like many other novels, we are given extraordinary kids with great power. Think Carrie. But, on the other hand, don't think Carrie. Because what made the engine in Carrie work was that she was an extraordinary kid in a circumstance any kid could find themselves in. The institute gives us neither a believable setting nor believable characters; rendering it little more than cartoonish. We could handle one or the other, and still feel a connection. Add to this awkward super-kid plus and unreal situation -- bad guys who are nothing more than cardboard characters with "BAD GUY" written on their head, and the Simpsons would be a welcome relief.
Look, we all get what King is doing. He can't hint around anymore. He's blasted it all over social media -- this is about kids detained at the border. And that might be a great situation for a King novel. But this isn't it. This is just page after page of super-kids verses "BAD GUY." Will superkids win? I have no doubt.
The Institute doesn't really mirror Carrie at all. It is a painful reminder of Firestarter. Which I liked, by the way -- a lot. But this isn't it. I'm game for government bad guys and superkids. But guess what, we already have that novel. King is just remaking his own stories while Hollywood remakes their movies every fifteen years.
Showing posts with label Carrie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carrie. Show all posts
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Top 10 Iconic Horror Movie Moments
Hey, I like anything that gives me two Stephen King films with two Alfred Hitchcock movies.
CARRIE is still floating around out there!
Indie Book Promo posted: Check out this beauty that came across my desk today! The First Edition of Stephen King's classic novel and hit movie, "Carrie." (facebook.com/indiebookpromos)
Stephen King Meets Judy Blume in ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT'S ME, CARRIE
The Ringwald Thater will be running a parody musical titled, "ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT'S ME, CARRIE" Talk about mash-up! The musical promises to combine the best of Judy Blume novels witht he "creepiness" of Stephen King.
. . . . . . . . . .
It's the 1970s, and pre-teen Carrie White and her religious nut of a mother have just moved to an idyllic New Jersey suburb. There she is befriended by a group of girls and together they form The PTS's (Pre-Teen Sensations) where they talk about boys and wait impatiently for their periods to arrive. But we all know that Carrie White and blood don't mix. As the girls gear up for the big school party, will everything go off without a hitch? Don't bet on it!
Featuring a jukebox full of 70s pop songs, ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT'S ME, CARRIE promises to be a bloody good time (sorry, we couldn't resist)!
Featured in the cast are Meredith Deighton (Carrie), Lauren Bickers (Mrs. White), Brittany Michael (Nancy), DeAnnah Kleitz-Singleton (Gretchen), Katy Schoetzow (Janie), Dyan Bailey (Laura Denker), and Joel Hunter (All the Men).
Dyan Bailey will direct with choreography by Katy Schoetzow. Set design by Gwen Lindsay, costume design by Lisa Melinn, and lighting design by Brandy Joe Plambeck.
ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT'S ME, CARRIE opens Saturday, October 11, 2014 and plays through Monday, November 3, 2014 at 8pm on Saturday and Monday nights with 3pm Sunday matinees. Ticket prices are $20.00 for Saturday performances, $15 for Sunday shows, and Monday nights are HALF OFF the original ticket price at only $10 a ticket. All students can now receive a $5 discount off normal ticket price on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday performances (available at the box office the day of the show with valid student ID). Tickets can be purchased at www.TheRingwald.com or at the theatre box office. The Ringwald box office opens 45 minutes before performances and tickets can be purchased with cash or Visa/Mastercard.
The Ringwald opened their doors seven years ago on May 11, 2007 with Fatal Attraction: A Greek Tragedy. Quickly, The Ringwald became a mainstay of Detroit's theatre community. Past Productions include: Angels in America, Into the Woods, The Motherfucker with the Hat, August: Osage County, When the Rain Stops Falling, The Bad Seed, Making Porn, The Book of Liz, Rent, and Love! Valour! Compassion!. The Ringwald was named 2009, 2012 and 2013 Best Theatrical Troupe by Real Detroit and Best Place to See Local Theatre in 2010, 2011 and 2012 by the readers of Metro Times.
Awesome Movie Art For Carrie and Misery!
From skuzzles.com:
Earlier in 2014, Skuzzles partnered with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Studios and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment in developing artwork for 13 cult classic horror films. The DVDs and Blu-rays feature illustrated limited edition artwork created by a collective of incredible artists from all over the globe (Ghoulish Gary Pulin, Jason Edmiston, Todd Slater, Randy Ortiz, Josh Budich, Justin Osborne, Paul Shipper, Gregorz Domaradzki "Gabz", Francesco Francavilla) . The films are offered at all major retailers, including Best Buy, Walmart, Target, Best Buy Canada and Walmart Canada. The films can be found on Blu-ray for $7-9, and on DVD for only $5-7.
THANKS BRYANT BURNETTE! thetruthinsidethelie.blogspot
1970's Stephen King
This is reposted with permission from: ridethenightmare.blogspot.co.uk
1970s Stephen King
1970s Stephen King
by Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
I only really started reading King’s fiction in earnest about three or four years ago (I had read 1987’s The Eyes of the Dragon as a fantasy-reading teenager and a few short stories in my 20s). After sampling a few novels, novellas, and short stories from his early, mid, and ‘late’ career (the dude churns out so many books that his ‘late’ phase is ever becoming his ‘mid’), I decided I wanted to try to read his output chronologically. I’m not super strict about it, but it’s fun and somewhat enlightening. I’ve now finished his 1970s publications (not every one of the Bachmans, but all the Kings).
King is a fascinating phenomenon to writers and publishers who don’t quite know what to make of his practically unparalleled success as a bestselling author. Is it a fluke? Sheer luck? Some sociological phenomenon? I suspect it’s real talent mixed with a certain uniqueness and, yeah, probably some sociologically driven moment-in-history ‘luck’ too. And also due to the fact that the guy is maybe the hardest working writer ever – or the most prolific hard working writer anyway. And, still further, that he felt personally challenged and driven, despite his success, always desiring to be better as an artist, and actually getting better through endless practice and growth.
Anyway, at the very least I think I’ve discovered that King did come out of the gate really, really strong in the 1970s, his debut decade. Most of those novels became almost instantly iconic and have probably only become more so – not just due to cinematic adaptations of varying success and quality, but due to King’s own original narrative and imagination behind whatever form of cultural production the stories take (not at all unlike Mary Shelley’s first novel and the endless mutations of Frankenstein monsters it yielded – her genius is ultimately behind them all). Here’s my brief report on each one. (I don’t think there’s anything massively spoiler-ish in what follows, but this discussion is mostly for those who have also read the books already.)
Carrie (1974)
In a weird, twisted way this somewhat threadbare little first novel seems like an ‘All-American’ classic. Or the kind of twisted classic America really needs in its canon. It’s the Prom Gone Wrong teen novel full of sincerely believed-in telekinetic powers, graphic language, and claustrophobic social and sexual mania. It luridly describes a horrifically repressive, isolationist, and mentally ill version of religious fundamentalism brutally crashing into a cynical secular high-school hedonism and hate – the resultant copiously bloody mess of fire and broken steel is very much the car wreck you can’t tear your eyes away from.
In a world now tragically and terrifyingly overfull of school shootings and bullying (and it’s sadly easy to play that scenario out to the international level), this somewhat pulpy (but always promising more than that, as King ever does in his fiction) little book is one of the central narratives for our times. In terms of the writing, it’s definitely King still finding his feet, but it’s pretty smartly done for all that and an uncharacteristically short number anyway.
‘Salem’s Lot (1975)
I wish I could have read all of these novels as they came out in the 70s. I think the impact must have been like a fetid roar and a raking of claws to the face. I suspect it was all so fresh and ferocious back when it first appeared, especially to the general audience it so immediately reached. I wish I could’ve read King’s vampire novel when it came out more than any of these other early works. It must have been exquisitely thrilling to encounter vampires in a contemporary, small town setting for (one of) the first time(s).
King really hits his stride here in terms of his trademark gregarious tone, his plentiful ‘porch-swing’ sort of storytelling. The autumnal New England setting is gorgeous in its Bradbury-esque bitter-sweetness. The prose is occasionally marred by a slightly lazy Lovecraftian floridity when describing Gothic elements of the story, moments which made me cringe and laugh simultaneously. But overall I think King has more or less matured as a writer at this point. The characterisation takes solid hold and the monsters are lean and mean and nasty, either killing off or taking over some already nasty characters as well as more tragically offing or enslaving characters you root for. But I have to admit that reading the novel in the midst of our oversaturated day and age of Mod Vamps, King’s stab at the genre didn’t feel especially vivacious. It was, of course, refreshing that the vampires were simply inhuman blood-drinking overlords from some darkness in the Old World come to roost in the New World – instead of (poorly written) tormented teens or detectives or whatever. And King’s vampire book can still be very profitably mined for themes in my pet area of ‘theology of monsters’ since a priest’s earnest soul-searching about ‘traditional’ vs. ‘progressive’ Christian faith are a central conceit and concern of the novel. It’s quite powerful in that regard actually. At any rate, it’s good classical monster fodder if not as remarkable and original as the rest from this era.
The Shining (1977)
Uh oh. Now it really hits. By his second novel, King had more or less matured into a young prose craftsman. In his third novel he intentionally ups the ante for himself. He wrote in a 2001 introduction to The Shining that it was a crossing-the-line sort of novel for him and he felt that was the case as he wrote it. He decided to go deeper and darker with his central character, creating a hybrid protagonist-antagonist. I think I’d say this is one of King’s best books that I’ve read so far. It is one of his most internal. If Kubrick’s visually brilliant film version is an exercise in atmospheric and rather inexplicable horror, King’s novel is nearly the opposite. It’s one of the most inwardly labyrinthine tales I’ve read. The characters are trapped inside the endless interlocking and haunted rooms of the infamous hotel and we are trapped inside the endless interlocking and haunted rooms of the characters themselves. It feels almost like the entire novel is a series of counterpoised internal monologues. It also features King’s ability to nest story within story, reaching back and back into characters’ lives to round them out and make you care about the horrific tragedy they endure in the chilling preternatural circumstances at hand.
Of course, it’s not really just the craftsman’s ‘rounding out’ to make his characters effective – you feel like King wants to know why they are the way they are as much as you do and he’s just digging up the dirt on them and publishing his finds. Indeed, King tends to have a very ‘juicy’ or ‘gossipy’ tone that makes you turn the pages to know why So-and-So has become so warped. He even ends up getting you just as invested in the antecedent warping of the mothers and fathers or whoever that have warped the character all this backstory began with. It’s a feat to make fellow writers feel very, very jealous. (Philip Roth’s The Human Stain is the main other example I’ve run into of this endlessly stacked and breathlessly related backstory characterisation.) I’m often surprised we don’t all just wish King ill in our jealousy and insecurity in the face of his obvious God-given talent. He’s nothing if he’s not a hard worker. He has clearly sweated, bled, and cried to achieve what he has achieved. But he started with the Gift, there’s no doubt. And some of us can’t help being a rather sick shade of green with envy. But he wins you over. Ultimately, you just go: ‘You lucky dog. Good for you. And thanks.’ (It helps a lot that he’s so disarmingly humble, honest, and charming when he comes out from behind the authorial curtain and talks frankly to his Constant Readers in introductions and notes.) There are enough differences with Kubrick’s film to keep you going even though you essentially know the novel’s story already if you’ve seen that film. It’s good.
Night Shift (1978)
Ah, now this is just a delightful collection of short stories. I admit it has a bit of personal history with me that adds to its glow. I was very ill with the flu and trying to meet an essay deadline and take care of five children (also ill) while my wife was out of town when I read most of the stories in here. They enthralled and appalled me deliciously and soothed my overwrought brain through a tough time.
They’re all early stories, most of them first published in ‘gentleman’s magazines’ (what the hell is so gentlemanly about viewing pornographic photos of women will always be a mystery to me). The earliness of the material shows. This is not always King at his best in terms of skill, but it is often King at his best in terms of sheer imagination and verve. And sometimes in terms of skill too, to be honest.
A few of these stories are some of the most gripping suspense stories I’ve ever read – even when they were about themes or scenarios I wouldn’t normally be the least interested in. Most of the stories stick pretty firmly to more or less familiar horror genre territory. But there’s an originality and flare here! I nearly tossed my cookies once or twice at just a few descriptive words of gore. I’m still haunted by one or two of the monstrous images. I even cried at the end of one of them it was so tragic and poignant! This is pulp fiction in the best sense: sensational and thrilling and chilling and pleasantly garish.
There are also a few in here that push beyond that. ‘Night Surf’ and ‘I Am the Doorway’ are two of my very favourite atmospheric horror pieces. The former gives a tantalising slice of dystopian post-apocalypse (it’s apparently a first-run at the material that will make up The Stand) and the latter is, for my money, one of the best contemporary translations of Lovecraftian ‘cosmic horror’ I’ve come across – simple and impossible and inexplicable and cree-eepy. The collection contains one of King’s New England small-town elderly ‘voice’ pieces too (it’s one of the things King does best and I think it might still largely be a secret to the majority of his readership and the critics). The yarn is called ‘Gray Matter’ and it too is an exemplary contemporary take on Lovecraft, but this time his more terrestrial horror. Many of the stories have King’s infectious emphasis on the potential malice of inanimate objects, which could be analysed fruitfully by those interested in ‘object-oriented ontology’ and the like. The story ‘Trucks’ (upon which was based the hilarious and awesomely bad Maximum Overdrive movie) was a great little piece in this vein. Many like it in the collection are fanciful exercises in grim imaginative play and some are delightfully absurd, such as ‘Battleground’. ‘The Lawnmower Man’ (utterly unrelated to its later film ‘version’) and ‘The Children of the Corn’ are other standouts of the weird. Lots of good stuff in here. A great addition to the 70s output.
The Stand (1978)
I actually lucked upon a first-edition paperback of this book, so I’ve only read the 70s cut version and not the later 90s expanded version. But even this earlier shorter version is the longest thing King wrote in the 70s, coming in at around a thousand pages. It’s a beast. Once again King tops his previous game. Now he shows he can do thrilling, page-turning characterisation for a whole sprawling cast of characters, not just a few. This is high-octane King in the form of plague-decimated and supernaturally haunted post-apocalypse. The scope is nationwide and the tone is brutal, warm, chilling, and visionary by pretty quick turns. I don’t think I really took much of a breath until about halfway through. This is one of a number of King’s tales that turns the USA’s highways and geography into an epic painstakingly journeyed quest-scape of darkness and light. King has mentioned a number of times his desire to emulate Tolkien in various ways, but specifically in a North American instead of British setting. Though King and Tolkien couldn’t be more different in so many respects, King does manage to capture that feel of a very long and costly journey on foot through terrible dangers and against towering odds that is central to much of The Lord of the Rings. He succeeds in reminding me how incredibly large and diverse and scary and beautiful the sheer landscape and roadways of modern North America are, an ample testing ground for the souls that travel through it. I think the middle of the book lags a bit, but it picks up again and I wouldn’t have wanted to miss anything. I do think most of the real power and magic are in the first half. I’m actually looking forward to reading the later revised and expanded version someday. It’s definitely a long, strange and dark adventure I want to revisit.
On a different note: I have to say, it seems to me like it’s some kind of well-guarded secret that this is a flat-out Christian novel. No, no, not ‘Christian bookstore’ fiction or the like. It’s got all the copious profanity and graphic content so characteristic of King, which alone would disqualify it (thank God) from getting anywhere near the sanitised industry of ‘Christian fiction’. (Whether King goes overboard with graphic content is whole other issue.) Think more along the lines of Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy. Regardless, The Stand is decidedly not merely a generic Good-vs-Evil or Triumph-of-the-Human-Spirit saga. Crucial to its whole plot and theme is the ‘intervention’ of the Christian God himself – yeah, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that deity. I’ve probably never read so much actual prayer in a modern novel (indeed, this spiritual activity recurs throughout King’s works, even those that are otherwise in no way blatant about matters of faith). God-given visions and faithful obedience to God’s call are key characteristics of the story.
The Christian characters are downright attractive too, real people with real flaws and struggles who nevertheless shine in their integrity and leadership – as do characters who are not explicitly ‘of the faith’; it’s not that King portrays the Christian characters better than the rest, but simply as good as some of the other admirable players in the drama, something many (most?) modern writers seem unwilling to do, if they acknowledge the existence of people of faith at all. King wisely weaves in doubt and agnosticism and so on also. He’s not beating anyone over the head. You can take the side of rationalist reductionism or conscientious epistemic doubt if you want. But real supernatural faith is right there on the table too. And this is the early King we’re talking about here. Not some later ‘converted’ King. And he’s only going to go on developing and circling back to this blatant Christian spirituality in the face of horror again and again in various later novels and stories (1996’s Desperation is a shining instance). And The Stand itself remains one of King’s single most celebrated novels. Why does no one really talk about the central Christian aspect of it? At any rate, it’s a book for everyone, regardless of worldview, a classic of contemporary urban fantasy writing and the kind of rich and engrossing tale you can really live with for a while.
The Dead Zone (1979)
This seems like it’s probably the least known of the 70s books, but to me it’s probably the very best – indeed, one of the very best of King’s whole canon out of what I’ve read so far (and I think I heard somewhere that King himself felt that way about it). Except for ‘Salem’s Lot, the rest of the novels from this era I would only call ‘horror’ fiction in a hybrid sense: they are woven as much of ‘realistic’ thriller or suspense fiction and paranormal fantasy and adventure fiction and just plain ‘homespun’ social drama as they are of actual horror tropes. There’s certainly enough of a centring emphasis on supernatural fear and grotesque violence to warrant his label as a horror writer, but anyone who’s read more than a few books by him will surely have discovered that there’s just so much more to him than that label implies.
If I’d never heard of King before and the first thing I read by him was The Dead Zone, I seriously doubt I would have labelled it a horror novel. It is very dark, very magical and mysterious, at times incredibly menacing or nerve-racking, and there’s a serial killer subplot in there that is indeed out and out horrifying. These are all elements that could be found in, for example, a Neil Gaiman novel and we don’t call Gaiman a horror writer. We call his work ‘dark fantasy’ maybe and there’s a significant distinction there. I think a lot of what King writes could be better described under this rubric than bald ‘horror’. Anyway, The Dead Zone is primarily a highly poignant character-driven tale of deep loss and coping with that loss. It describes a man finding purpose in choosing to do good with what gifts tragedy has left in his hands whether he wanted those costly gifts or not. It is social and political too, as all of King is, but whereas The Stand was his most blatant book in this era on spirituality, The Dead Zone is his most blatant on politics. Indeed, the political baddie in this book is as terrifying as any supernatural baddie in King’s others. And the novel makes contemporary socially-torn America seem every bit as dangerous and scary as post-apocalyptic America. Yet this is such a personal novel too. It’s rather beautiful, the paranormal powers and the people both. (It’s worth noting that King gives a much more gentle and sympathetic portrait of a religious fundamentalist mother here, almost in counterpoise to the one in Carrie that opened this decade’s publications – and he also provides an alternative example of a more admirable faith in the father in this novel.) He really crowned his first decade with this book I think. It’s slightly less furious than the rest but no less urgent and searching. It’s like he’s taking a deep and calming breath before plunging on into the 80s (which turned out to be a troubled drug- and alcohol-fuelled, if still wildly successful, decade for him). Good show, Mr. King, good show.
Addendum: The Long Walk (1979)
This is the only of the 70s Bachman books that I’ve read so far. By the end of it I was really won over. This is quality disturbing dystopian fiction, ultimately very effective in its mesmerising and inexorable brutality. I do quite a few miles of walking in getting to where I need to every day. Doing so during the days in which I was reading this book invested those long-ish walks with a heightened sense of perception and urgency (and maybe, to be honest, a hint of terror!). If the […vague SPOILER…] ‘dark figure’ at the end of the book is akin to the ‘ragged figure’ that Flannery O’Connor spoke of in the introduction to her novel Wise Blood, then King’s The Long Walk may be the darkest and most brutal version of the (otherwise rather saccharine) ‘Footprints’ poem ever created. Indeed, the whole of King’s output strikes me, theologically, as something of a long and variegated Dark Theodicy. Don’t get me wrong, King is no C. S. Lewis. He’s not a Christian apologist. His method is very different (though complementary I would maintain). Theodicy is odyssey for King. He throws every amount and kind of monstrous evil and suffering at his journeying characters and then shows faith, hope, and love somehow, in at least some of them, miraculously surviving the onslaught (again echoing Tolkien’s own sort of Dark Theodicy). King does not at all deny the plausibility of Lovecraftian ‘cosmic horror’ or Nietzschean nihilism, that we are utterly alone in an utterly indifferent universe. These worldviews are given a full and fair and even rather seductive hearing in all of King’s works, indeed a particularly compelling one in The Long Walk. And yet, in King’s fiction, ‘these three remain’ (1 Corinthians 13:13). Just look at the self-sacrificially communal actions of the protagonist Garraty and the friends he has made out of his competitors by the end of the horrific Walk, even in the face of inexorable death and tyranny. That’s just one in a long line of such examples throughout King’s fiction. We are all of us on the terrifying and self-revealing Long Walk and it remains to be seen whether at the end of the line we are awaited by the sinister Major and his Prize or some other figure harder to see in all this obscuring inhumanity. What will we become during the journey? That’s what King’s fiction seems to ask. ‘This inhuman place makes human monsters’ is a refrain in The Shining. But not all the characters were turned into monsters by the hotel’s malevolent influence. Some made it through, wounded but wiser – and even, miraculously, more humane, more fully human. This redemptive motif is often left out of King’s public persona (usually crafted by others, not himself). For example, his words toward the end of his 2001 introduction to The Shining are often quoted and memed: ‘Monsters are real, and ghosts are real, too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.’ I’ve even passed this one on myself on social media. It’s a cool little sound bite. But, inexplicably, what King wrote right after that cool little sound bite, the conclusion to his introduction, is never included: ‘That our better angels sometimes – often! – win instead, in spite of all odds, is another truth of The Shining. And thank God it is.’
So as I say, King comes out of the gates very strong in his first decade of writing. He’s made his mark and in some ways has no need to say anything further. Yet I am so very glad he did. I think some of his very best stuff is yet to come in each of the subsequent decades, probably including the one we are currently in. The quality of the writing in the 70s, as throughout the rest of his career, is mixed – mostly quite good I think, and doing some things better than anyone else. The good for me far outweighs the ‘bad’ and the bad is often trying to get at something good. I don’t, like others, fault King for being ‘homespun’ or ‘sentimental’. I mean, come one, surely part of his genius is being something like Lake Wobegon in Hell, or Mark Twain meets H. P. Lovecraft, or Norman Rockwell meets Hieronymus Bosch. I only fault him for his at times faltering or out and out unsuccessful execution of that sentimentality or rocking chair storytelling. But no writer is perfect and King has hooked me for good. Maybe in another five years I’ll be able to do a report on the 1980s Stephen King. (In the meantime, I’ll definitely review some individual novels from time to time, including some more recent stuff like Doctor Sleep.)
The Shining Scared King
10,000 Magazines, #9993
People Weekly, March 7, 1977
Frank Sleeper's article about King was written just as the Shining was published, and a novel about "a flu" was being edited.
"It's the first time I was actually scared as I was writing," says Stephen King, 29, about his latest chiller, The Shining. The novel set in the shuttered Colorado resort hotel filled with menacing spirits centers on the father who is unable to control his rages."The article discusses King's sudden wealth, and the trappings that go with it -- via 1977. That would be an uh, color TV!
I like these old magazines with King articles because it gives us glimpses of things a little closer to when they happened. So King discussing his work on The Shining is a little different in 1977 than it is in 2014. It was still fresh. And, as you'll see in the quotes below, it was pretty raw.
HOSTILE AT THE STANLEY:
"I felt very hostile to my children there," says King. "I wanted to grab them and hit them. Even though I didn't do it, I had severe guilt feelings because of my brutal impulses."RAGS TO RICHES:
Four years ago King was earning 6,700 a year teaching English at the Hampden Academy in Hampden Maine. He and his family were living in a trailer and his car was ready for the junk yard. "We had taken our phone out, because we couldn't pay for it," says King. He was moonlighting in an industrial laundry. "There was a woman whom I met at the laundry, very strange, always quoting the Bible," says King. "I thought, if she has children, I wonder what they're like. That's where I got my idea for Carrie."
King got a $2,500 advance for it, and movie rights sold for $35,000 plus a percentage of the movie gross. The paperback rights brought him another $200,000. "Tabby cried," King recalls. "We called all our relatives. It took eight months for it to sink it."
In 1975 Salem's Lot, a nightmarish tale about vampires taking over a Maine community, achieved another hefty paperback sale and a movie price of $250,000.
The two books have sold over three million copies, and King now reigns as the book world prince of horror. "Money actually makes you a little saner," says King. "You don't have to do the things you don't want to do."LIFE:
His success has not slowed his productivity. He writes for two hours each morning and has finished a fourth novel about a spooky flu epidemic. "My wife reads everything," he says. "I set a lot of store by her opinion. I think Carrie is her favorite because once, when gave up on it, and threw it int he waste basket, she fished it out. She told me it was terrific."
Born in Portland Maine, King recalls a hardscrabble early life. His father, a merchant mariner, left King's mother when the boy was two. Steve, an English major, graduated from the University of Maine, where he met Tabitha, who was studying history. Except for their $150,000 three bedroom house in Bridgton Maine, the King's live a fairly modest life. "But we certainly have more material things than before -- a Cadillac, a four year old color TV," says millionaire King. "We go to the movies. We swim in the summer. We went to Hawaii for a couple of weeks, and we went Florida."
King likes to ski cross-country and play the guitar and a friendly game of poker. He takes pills to keep his high blood pressure under control. He also munches on aspirin to ease his migraines. "They are strictly a work symptom," he says.On a personal note -- I'm sitting in a hospital room with my wife, who is reading me this article. She's here for high blood pressure. She paused when she read that, raising an eyebrow.
For King writing horror fiction is like psycho analyzing yourself in public. "I'm externalizing my own fears and those of many others," he says. He admits a few of his literary predecessors -- like Poe and Bram Stoker -- were peculiar types. But insists, "I'm the nicest sort of fellow you'd want to me."Someone ought to write a book discussing King and Poe.
How Carrie Changed Horror
www.horror-movies.ca has an interesting article titled, "10 Ways Stephen King’s Carrie Changed Horror."
1. Made horror literature viable again
Gwendolyn Kiste notes,"along came an English teacher from Maine to shake everything up. Carrie became his first foray into a genre with which he’s now practically synonymous. Today, he’s still one of the most recognizable names in popular fiction, and that’s not even specifying horror. Love him or hate him, he’s changed our world forever."2. Proved book-to-film adaptations can be great
3. Transformed adolescent milestones into horror tropes
4. Made a female character a strong protagonist (Never mind that Star Wars and Princess Lea came out about the same time)
5. Made a female character a strong antagonist
6. Dealt with bullying before it was a hot button issue (Well, there was Rebel without a Cause)
7. Gave us every single Stephen King book & film that’s come since
Kristie writes, " without Carrie, we might never have visited the Overlook Hotel in The Shining, learned to be careful where you bury your pets (and children) in Pet Sematary, or worried that undead kids might be floating outside our window a la Salem’s Lot."
Now here's a point I disagree with. The heart of Kriste's argument is that because Carrie did so well, it freed King to go on writing bestsellers. And I hear this sentiment quite a lot. But I take issue with it. If Carrie hadn't been King's break out novel, then Salem's Lot would have; and if not the Lot, then the Stand, or Cuo. It's not that the single story of Carrie was good; it's that he consistently turns out good stories. So he was bound to rush onto the American landscape. In this case, it's not the story --but he who tells it.8. Got horror nominated for major Oscars.
9. Showed us (more than once) that remakes are no good
10. Reminds us why we’re so happy high school’s over (I couldn't agree more!)
Every Generation Needs A Carrie
Joseph Lee at 411Mania posted an article comparing and contrasting the three screen versions of Carrie.
Lee's opening line strikes me as odd; "why has Carrie been done three different times and we're still waiting on a proper film version of IT?" Well, we are waiting for a proper film version of Stephen King's IT -- but Carrie has been properly done, in my opinion.
Lee calls Carrie King's most "average" work. I don't know about that. I think Carrie is special, and not just because it's King's first novel. There is a magic to the book every time I read it. So it might not be the "sprawling epic" of the stories that would later come; but it is still dark and powerful. Most important, we identify with Carrie.
Lee begins by comparing Spacek, Bettis and Moretz in their role as Carrie. Truth is, I like them all. "Moretz looks like a Hollywood actress on a Hollywood set," Lee complains. Bettis also doesn't get his vote, as he feels she "seems more like she's trying to act weird than someone who just is weird." His favorite lies with Spacek who he says, "knocks it out of the park."
He then compares Piper Laurie, Patricia Clarkson and Julianne Moore in their role as Margaret White. Clarkson was the "worst" aspect of the 2002 version, Lee says, calling her performance boring. So with a knock-out punch to Clarkson, he then compares Laurie to Moore. For him, a lot boils down to "plainness." Both with Carrie and Margaret, he wanted them to be as plain as possible! Once again, the classic takes the prize as far as Lee is concerned, giving Laurie his vote. For what it's worth, I think I would have gone with Moore on that one. In many ways, Moore made Margaret make sense. Not only did I know she was crazy, I had a sense of understanding what her rationale was and how she got there.
When it comes to what Lee terms the "Bad teens," Lee picks the 2002 television version. On this I agree. In fact, in almost every aspect I think the television version is better than it gets credit for and can stand toe to toe with the film adaptations.
When it comes to Tommy Ross, Sue Snell and Miss. Desjardin, Lee once again gives his nod to the 76 version. So far it's not looking so good for the new Carrie in Lee's book.
And, of course, there has to be an opportunity to compare shower scenes. (Seems like that line should be in a discussion about Psycho.) Lee completely ignores the 2002 version, calling it forgettable, and casts his vote with the 2013 version.
the 2002 version is the most forgettable here, as I actually forgot that movie had a shower scene. The 2013 version, besides being kind of creepy since Moretz was fifteen or sixteen when it was shot (the camera likes to linger a little too much), adds in the new technology we have now, as her friends decide to record her first menstruation and post it on Youtube. How they get away with what is clearly a very serious crime is another story.
Moretz plays Carrie as rightfully scared given her circumstances, but also hurt by what her peers are doing to her. It's Spacek's worst scene in the 1976 version and in terms of acting, is probably Chloe's best in the 2013 version.The prom itself is also an important scene that has to be compared. But Lee doesn't do much comparing, as he goes straight for the classic, delcaring "The 1976 version clearly wins here. It not only includes practical effects, but the superior direction of Brian de Palma." The 2002 version looses his vote because of what he deems bad special effects. To each his own.
It's interesting that all three movies have a different ending. Lee's choice is again the classic 76 version; as it should be if it comes down to the two movie versions. After all, nothing really new was offered by the 2013 movie. It followed DePalma's lead note for note, even giving us the strange crucifixion.
Lee hated the 2002 ending, calling it, "just terrible."
Carrie kills her mother like she does in the book (stopping her her heart) but then she fakes her death and moves to another town with the help of Sue. You see, the 2002 version was actually supposed to be the pilot for a TV series. It got terrible ratings and the series never happened. I can only imagine how awful a TV show about Carrie would have been. Would she be like The Incredible Hulk, moving from town to town as the beast inside her comes out when she gets too angry?Know what -- I liked it. It managed to surprise me the same way Carrie's hand reaching from the grave surprised viewers of the 1976 version - but in a good way. I didn't jump out of my seat afraid, I jumped up so glad to have a happy ending to this story. Everything in me was prepped to take a heavy emotional beating, when the show surprised me with some real creativity.
I still think Carrie would make a great resident of Haven.
And which movie is truly the best? Lee has a magnetic pull toward the 1976 version, and that's where he goes. So why did he begin his article saying we are still waiting on a proper film version of Carrie?
As he wraps things up, Lee gives an interesting nod to Rage: Carrie 2, calling it a "better remake."
It's an updated tale set in the 1990s, with ties to the original but telling it's own story. I say that as someone who's not a huge fan of The Rage because of the fact it kills off Sue Snell for no reason and its very much a product of its time. But it's a better movie, in my humble opinion, than either the 2002 or 2013 versions. At least it tries to be it's own thing with the spirit of its source material.Just to spice things up -- my vote goes to 2002.
The full article is at: www.411mania
Which Carrie is your favorite?
Classic King Is Coming Back
Cemetery has announced a return to Stephen King's "Doubleday Years." Six volumes that will include Carrie, 'Salem's Lot, The Shining, Night Shift, The Stand and Pet Sematary. Carrie will feature an introduction by Stephen King and an afterword by Tabitha King. It also features six color paintings by Tomislav Tikulin, and "Special Bonus Features Exclusive to This Edition!" What's that mean? I dunno.
It's interesting that the Doubleday books were cheaply produced with sometimes awkward covers. Who was that on the cover of Carrie? Is Cemetery Dance purposefully righting this wrong?
From Cemetery Dance:
www.cemeterydance.comThese are the books that launched King's career and made him a household name, and our special editions will be beautiful and oversized volumes like we've published for From a Buick 8, It, Doctor Sleep, and many other King books over the years.
The first title in this special six volume set is Carrie, which will be published later this year and is available for preorder immediately. Other volumes in this series will follow approximately every six months after that and several acclaimed artists are already creating stunning art for these books. These special editions will feature exclusive bonus features such as introductions, afterwords, artwork, and even deleted material in some cases.
We expect extremely strong demand for these special editions of Stephen King's extraordinarily popular early books, and collectors who preorder Carrie directly from us will be the first collectors offered the opportunity to order the next volume before the general public.
Please note that our last Stephen King Gift Edition sold out in just ONE WEEK, so please don't wait because you could miss out and there will be NO second printings.
"These were the ghosts which kept trying to come between me and what I was writing, kept insisting that I combine them, somehow, into a story that would tell what could have happened if there really was such a thing as telekinetic energy..."— Stephen King, from the introductionSpecial Features Exclusive To This Deluxe Special Edition:
• An introduction by Stephen King detailing why he wrote the book
• A lengthy afterword by Tabitha King discussing the book's unbridled exploration of adolescent terror, sexuality, and the unknown
• Deluxe oversized design (7 inches X 10 inches) featuring two color interior printing as part of the page design
• Printed on a heavy interior specialty paper stock that is much thicker than the paper in a normal trade edition
• Epic wrap-around full-color dust jacket artwork by Tomislav Tikulin
• A different full-color dust jacket for the Artist Edition painted by Tomislav Tikulin
• Six full-color interior paintings by Tomislav Tikulin
• Interior artwork will be printed on a heavy glossy stock and tipped into the book
• High-quality embossed endpapers and fine bindings for all editions
• Full-page reproduction of the telegram Doubleday editor Bill Thompson sent Stephen King to announce the publisher was buying the book
• Extremely collectible print run that is a tiny fraction of the TENS OF MILLIONS of copies of this novel you've seen in bookstores over the last 40 years!
Get it at cemeterydance.com
Carrie by Stephen King (1974): Her Long-Time Curse Hurts But What's Worse Is...
I really like Will Errickson's blog, Too Much Horror Fiction. It's like a cave full of horror books from the 60's and 70's.
His article on Carrie was great -- and, he graciously allowed me to repost it here. Be sure to check out, toomuchhorrorfiction.blogspot.co.uk
I especially like this line, "Carrie is no freak, but desires a normalcy she knows she'll never have --" Okay, now read the article. It's good.
orginally posted at: toomuchhorrorfiction
So asks a survivor of Prom Night, the name the media has given to the tragedy that befell Chamberlain, Maine, on the night and early morning of May 27/28, 1979. Despite all the investigations and interviews and biographies and memoirs about that unbelievable event, it's a question no one can answer. It's a question that leapt out and haunted me deeply when I read it, because it is an innocent, honest question, one that intuits the unimaginable changes and dangers humanity faces if the powers that Carrie White had at her command are also shared with unknown people the planet over. With no answer forthcoming, both its terror and its perception are enhanced. With such invisible forces at the hands of our fellow man, what hope would any of us have to survive such rage? Always at the mercy of someone who can... well, as an academic commentator on the Prom Night horror posits: For if Carrie White is the truth, then what of Newton?
I read Stephen King's debut novel Carrie 25 years ago when I was in high school - when I read the bulk of his then-published works - but found it mitigated by its classic '76 De Palma film adaptation, so it's always been at the bottom of my list of King books to reread. But with the release of this new movie version I knew it was time for a revisit. And found the novel was spectacular. I was pleasantly surprised, nicely creeped out, at the power and conviction this little book still has. Had King written it later in his career, I imagine he would've expanded on the characters - the home lives of Carrie's classmates Chris Hargensen and Sue Snell, Principal Grayle, and even that half-assed '50s-style greaser Billy Nolan would've been fascinating reading - but as it is, Carrie is a lightning-paced unassuming thriller that has moments of real electric shock and real human emotion.
The infamous opening gym shower sequence alone, of menstrual blood and sanitary napkins and the horrifying chant "Plug it up, plug it up, plug it up" is surely one of the most humiliating moments in horror, and still taps into that cringing shadow in us that is both the bullied and the bully. Fewer than 10 pages into his first novel and King has given us one of the greatest imaginings of abjection in pop fiction.
Like Bram Stoker did in Dracula, King uses a variety of sources to tell his story: there are AP teletypes and passages from science journals, academic books like The Shadow Exploded, transcripts of court depositions, popular magazine interviews with Carrie's neighbors, Sue Snell's own memoir. None has the complete truth; only King's omniscient voice fills in the gaps and satisfies the ignorance and unknowns all the other documents ultimately labor under. Nor does he disguise the tragic climax; we know right away that many people died and the town destroyed in a massive conflagration from these sources. The uneasy suspense this generates, as we wait for all these accounts to converge, is masterful.
+Cover+Alex+Gotfryd.JPG)
A staple of King's fiction to come, class conflicts are prominent at the outset. King clearly delineates the economics of his characters and the town. Lots of talk about adults joining country clubs and living in the right neighborhood - the hypocrisy of the middle-class, the bourgeois values that are ultimately a facade for the same hatreds found in someone like teenage queen sociopath Chris Hargensen. Once a high school teacher, King's depictions of the ins and outs of the teenage social cliques feels real, as do the administrative politics of principals and teachers.
The girls who assaulted Carrie are given a week-long detention - avoidance of which will result in suspension and loss of prom tickets. When the girls' gym coach, Miss Desjardin, pushes Chris and screams at her when telling the girls how far over the line the girls went and gets personal ("if any of you girls think I'm wearing my teacher hat right now, you're making a bad mistake"), Chris Hargensen thinks her lawyer father will sue the school and fire the coach. But in the novel's most satisfying scene, slick legal eagle Daddy Hargensen is sent packing by Principal Gayle after Gayle states the school can easily sue Chris and her cohorts for criminal assault on Carrie White.
Daddy can't do anything for Chris now. This enrages her, of course, so she turns on the one girl who wants to be an adult and accept her punishment and move on: Sue Snell, the novel's ambivalent heroine. This tension is explicated perfectly in a soda shop confrontation:
How dare Sue think she's better than the rest of the evil children who assaulted Carrie White? This pecking order of high school society, so often a mainstay of popular entertainment even for people decades removed from the setting, is seen in sharp relief. While Chris gets an almost erotic thrill - probably no "almost" about it from the vibe of her and Billy's trysts - from doling out "punishment," Sue is ashamed, even mystified, of her involvement with the shower incident, and this is the impetus for her getting her boyfriend Tommy Ross to ask Carrie White to the senior prom. Poor doomed good-kid Tommy, huh? No good deed, etc.
Still, Sue is uncomfortable about her own motives and afraid to examine them too deeply, lest she discover a jewel of selfishness glowing and winking at her from the black velvet of her subconscious. Does she enjoy a manipulative power over Tommy, as Chris does over Billy? Tommy comes across as utterly sincere in his brief relationship with Carrie White. But Sue must protect what she has: And having something she had always longed for - a sense of place, of security, of status - she found that it carried uneasiness with it like a darker sister. Ah-ha! the reader should think, and this darker sister has a name, it's right there.
+Cover+-+Neil+Stuart.jpg)
Mother Margaret, our true villain, is almost unbelievably deranged. Her religious hysteria is her sole characterization, and even in her back story we find that she was always maniacal. Carrie's powers have exposed themselves when she was a child, and the infant was only saved by her late father. Their arguments are exhausting, leaving you drained, despairing even. What adolescent could live in such choking insane environs? In times of stress and rebellion, Carrie makes her talents known as she flexes flexes FLEXES and terrifies Margaret with whirling dervishes of plates, tables, knickknacks, bursting lightbulbs, etc.... except now Carrie is practically an adult, and Margaret has little say any longer. No more will Carrie be dragged into the prayer room, the altar, the worst place of all, the home of terror, the cave where all hope, all resistance to God's will - and Momma's - was extinguished.
And what of Carrie herself? King is sympathetic but not sentimental. Her thoughts and impressions are scattered everywhere, in parenthetical snippets and well-drawn passages of her inner life: her utter fear of being tricked again, her bewilderment about the most basic facts of physical life, her growing confidence in her skills - her dressmaking and her unfathomable power - as well as her growing distrust of her mother... and perhaps a tiny hopeful glimmer that her prom night with Tommy Ross will be no trick. Carrie is no freak, but desires a normalcy she knows she'll never have; in a school notebook she sadly quotes Dylan: "Till she finally sees that she's like all the rest." No, her mother is the freak; Chris Hargensen might be one too, but Carrie is the one with the tragic flaw, that power that allows her an otherworldly vengeance upon the guilty and the innocent alike.
And finally: the devastation that has been foretold rolls out in the final third of the book and it's breathtaking. King fills in his climax with interviews from survivors, ordinary men and women in the thrall of unimaginable powers; in bold-faced objective AP wire reports; more quotes from his academic sources. Fires burn out of control with no firefighters available, nearby towns send in equipment and men but much too late, and if we look at these flash points on a municipal map, we can pick out Carrie's route - a wandering, looping path of destruction through the town, but one with an almost certain destination: home....
Many of the surviving townspeople inexplicably know Carrie White was responsible, even though they did not know her on sight. As they saw her on the streets wreaking her havoc, they knew. How did they know? the investigators ask; how did they know Carrie if they'd never seen her before? They knew it. They just did. Her psychic emanations, her desperate flailing about in pain and despair, impress themselves upon the besieged and innocent townsfolk. And when Sue finds the pig-bloodied and mortally wounded Carrie and is overwhelmed by the swirling images psychically transmitted... Sue still can't help but think the bleeding freak on this oil-stained asphalt suddenly seemed meaningless and awful in its pain and dying. She thinks that, and she stumbles away, screaming, and then of course, oh but of course, she feels the slow course of dark menstrual blood down her thighs.
We actually do find out that the origin of telekinesis is genetic, so perhaps not all is lost in confronting it. But perhaps all is, as a science journalist ponders: If overt TK ability occurs as a part of puberty, and if this hypothetical TK test is performed on children entering the first grade, we shall certainly be forewarned. But in this case, is forewarned forearmed? If the TB test shows positive, a child can be treated or isolated. If the TK test shows positive, we have no treatment excpet a bullet in the head. And how is it possible to isolate a person who will eventually have the power to knock down all walls?
If this is truth, what will happen to the world? What of Newton?
In a recent New Yorker article that refreshingly refrained from the sort of backhanded complimentary tone which that mag often adopts when talking about bestselling writers of pop fiction, the perceptive author writes "Carrie succeeds because it feels accurate about things that are unreal... There are lots of writers who tell it like it is, but only a few who, with such commitment and intensity, tell it like it isn’t." Goddamn right. Commitment and intensity, that's what I want!
And there's a comfort I find in revisiting King's prose and storytelling - for better or worse - a feeling of settling back with old friends, with his familiar stylistic tics and peccadilloes, the warmth of his humanity and the coldness of his horrors. You can trust King. Sure, he may get some of the details wrong - a slip into cliche or a banal metaphor, a weak phrasing, a character from central casting - but as we all know, when King is good he's great, his commitment paramount, and you can read it, see it, fucking feel it, from the very first pages of Carrie, his very first book.
His article on Carrie was great -- and, he graciously allowed me to repost it here. Be sure to check out, toomuchhorrorfiction.blogspot.co.uk
I especially like this line, "Carrie is no freak, but desires a normalcy she knows she'll never have --" Okay, now read the article. It's good.
Carrie by Stephen King (1974): Her Long-Time Curse Hurts But What's Worse Is...
By Will Erricksonorginally posted at: toomuchhorrorfiction
What happens if there are others like her?
What happens to the world?
So asks a survivor of Prom Night, the name the media has given to the tragedy that befell Chamberlain, Maine, on the night and early morning of May 27/28, 1979. Despite all the investigations and interviews and biographies and memoirs about that unbelievable event, it's a question no one can answer. It's a question that leapt out and haunted me deeply when I read it, because it is an innocent, honest question, one that intuits the unimaginable changes and dangers humanity faces if the powers that Carrie White had at her command are also shared with unknown people the planet over. With no answer forthcoming, both its terror and its perception are enhanced. With such invisible forces at the hands of our fellow man, what hope would any of us have to survive such rage? Always at the mercy of someone who can... well, as an academic commentator on the Prom Night horror posits: For if Carrie White is the truth, then what of Newton?
The infamous opening gym shower sequence alone, of menstrual blood and sanitary napkins and the horrifying chant "Plug it up, plug it up, plug it up" is surely one of the most humiliating moments in horror, and still taps into that cringing shadow in us that is both the bullied and the bully. Fewer than 10 pages into his first novel and King has given us one of the greatest imaginings of abjection in pop fiction.
+Cover+Alex+Gotfryd.JPG)
The girls who assaulted Carrie are given a week-long detention - avoidance of which will result in suspension and loss of prom tickets. When the girls' gym coach, Miss Desjardin, pushes Chris and screams at her when telling the girls how far over the line the girls went and gets personal ("if any of you girls think I'm wearing my teacher hat right now, you're making a bad mistake"), Chris Hargensen thinks her lawyer father will sue the school and fire the coach. But in the novel's most satisfying scene, slick legal eagle Daddy Hargensen is sent packing by Principal Gayle after Gayle states the school can easily sue Chris and her cohorts for criminal assault on Carrie White.
"You apparently haven't realized all the implications of in loco parentis in this matter, Mr. Hargensen. The same umbrella that covers your daughter also covers Carrie White. And the minute you file for damages on the ground of physcial and verbal abuse, we will cross-file against your daughter on those same grounds for Carrie White."
Hargensen's mouth dropped open.
Hargensen's mouth dropped open.
"Aren't you getting to be the Joan of Arc around here? I seem to remember you were in there pitching with the rest of us."
"Yes," Sue said, trembling. "But I stopped."
"Oh, aren't you just it?" Chris marveled. "Oh my yes. Take your root beer with you. I'm afraid I might touch it and turn to gold."
How dare Sue think she's better than the rest of the evil children who assaulted Carrie White? This pecking order of high school society, so often a mainstay of popular entertainment even for people decades removed from the setting, is seen in sharp relief. While Chris gets an almost erotic thrill - probably no "almost" about it from the vibe of her and Billy's trysts - from doling out "punishment," Sue is ashamed, even mystified, of her involvement with the shower incident, and this is the impetus for her getting her boyfriend Tommy Ross to ask Carrie White to the senior prom. Poor doomed good-kid Tommy, huh? No good deed, etc.
Still, Sue is uncomfortable about her own motives and afraid to examine them too deeply, lest she discover a jewel of selfishness glowing and winking at her from the black velvet of her subconscious. Does she enjoy a manipulative power over Tommy, as Chris does over Billy? Tommy comes across as utterly sincere in his brief relationship with Carrie White. But Sue must protect what she has: And having something she had always longed for - a sense of place, of security, of status - she found that it carried uneasiness with it like a darker sister. Ah-ha! the reader should think, and this darker sister has a name, it's right there.
+Cover+-+Neil+Stuart.jpg)
The Black Man grinned at her with his jackal mouth, and his scarlet eyes knew all the secrets of woman-blood.
Mother Margaret, our true villain, is almost unbelievably deranged. Her religious hysteria is her sole characterization, and even in her back story we find that she was always maniacal. Carrie's powers have exposed themselves when she was a child, and the infant was only saved by her late father. Their arguments are exhausting, leaving you drained, despairing even. What adolescent could live in such choking insane environs? In times of stress and rebellion, Carrie makes her talents known as she flexes flexes FLEXES and terrifies Margaret with whirling dervishes of plates, tables, knickknacks, bursting lightbulbs, etc.... except now Carrie is practically an adult, and Margaret has little say any longer. No more will Carrie be dragged into the prayer room, the altar, the worst place of all, the home of terror, the cave where all hope, all resistance to God's will - and Momma's - was extinguished.
And what of Carrie herself? King is sympathetic but not sentimental. Her thoughts and impressions are scattered everywhere, in parenthetical snippets and well-drawn passages of her inner life: her utter fear of being tricked again, her bewilderment about the most basic facts of physical life, her growing confidence in her skills - her dressmaking and her unfathomable power - as well as her growing distrust of her mother... and perhaps a tiny hopeful glimmer that her prom night with Tommy Ross will be no trick. Carrie is no freak, but desires a normalcy she knows she'll never have; in a school notebook she sadly quotes Dylan: "Till she finally sees that she's like all the rest." No, her mother is the freak; Chris Hargensen might be one too, but Carrie is the one with the tragic flaw, that power that allows her an otherworldly vengeance upon the guilty and the innocent alike.
And finally: the devastation that has been foretold rolls out in the final third of the book and it's breathtaking. King fills in his climax with interviews from survivors, ordinary men and women in the thrall of unimaginable powers; in bold-faced objective AP wire reports; more quotes from his academic sources. Fires burn out of control with no firefighters available, nearby towns send in equipment and men but much too late, and if we look at these flash points on a municipal map, we can pick out Carrie's route - a wandering, looping path of destruction through the town, but one with an almost certain destination: home....
Many of the surviving townspeople inexplicably know Carrie White was responsible, even though they did not know her on sight. As they saw her on the streets wreaking her havoc, they knew. How did they know? the investigators ask; how did they know Carrie if they'd never seen her before? They knew it. They just did. Her psychic emanations, her desperate flailing about in pain and despair, impress themselves upon the besieged and innocent townsfolk. And when Sue finds the pig-bloodied and mortally wounded Carrie and is overwhelmed by the swirling images psychically transmitted... Sue still can't help but think the bleeding freak on this oil-stained asphalt suddenly seemed meaningless and awful in its pain and dying. She thinks that, and she stumbles away, screaming, and then of course, oh but of course, she feels the slow course of dark menstrual blood down her thighs.
We actually do find out that the origin of telekinesis is genetic, so perhaps not all is lost in confronting it. But perhaps all is, as a science journalist ponders: If overt TK ability occurs as a part of puberty, and if this hypothetical TK test is performed on children entering the first grade, we shall certainly be forewarned. But in this case, is forewarned forearmed? If the TB test shows positive, a child can be treated or isolated. If the TK test shows positive, we have no treatment excpet a bullet in the head. And how is it possible to isolate a person who will eventually have the power to knock down all walls?
If this is truth, what will happen to the world? What of Newton?
In a recent New Yorker article that refreshingly refrained from the sort of backhanded complimentary tone which that mag often adopts when talking about bestselling writers of pop fiction, the perceptive author writes "Carrie succeeds because it feels accurate about things that are unreal... There are lots of writers who tell it like it is, but only a few who, with such commitment and intensity, tell it like it isn’t." Goddamn right. Commitment and intensity, that's what I want!
And there's a comfort I find in revisiting King's prose and storytelling - for better or worse - a feeling of settling back with old friends, with his familiar stylistic tics and peccadilloes, the warmth of his humanity and the coldness of his horrors. You can trust King. Sure, he may get some of the details wrong - a slip into cliche or a banal metaphor, a weak phrasing, a character from central casting - but as we all know, when King is good he's great, his commitment paramount, and you can read it, see it, fucking feel it, from the very first pages of Carrie, his very first book.
Carrie Paperback
Carrie paperback -- AWESOME! Notice the lack of giant lettering "STEPHEN KING." In fact, the author is completely underplayed on both the front and back. -- Thanks Shaun Lawton!
Young People Are Still Tuned In To Carrie
Altadna Library gave teens 11-17 the opportunity to give a Teen Choice award to their favorite novel. The award went the 2011 novel Divergent, by Veronica Roth. The teens gave honorable mention to Black Cat, 2012; Inheritance, 2011; and Diary of a Wimpy Kid, 2007. And then – right in the middle of those books was Carrie, 1974.
So the earliest book before Carrie was 2007 -- and then they choose a book 33 years its junior. Why? Because Carrie continues to connect with readers.
Why do you think Carrie has such lasting power?
(altadena.patch.com)
Vintage Carrie Paperback
Looking for a copy of Carrie the other night, and my kids brought me the original movie cover paperback. I forgot I had it! It's pretty tattered (not by me) and even the cover is creased. It's really a cool copy because it so reflects the times.
What makes it different:
1. The cover shows a blood drenched Sissy Spacek.
2. Title: "CARRIE" by Stephen King Author of 'Salem's Lot. These days covers say, "by the author of Under The Dome" or some current title.
3. There are movie pictures in the middle.
4. The list of books in the front only have one other King title, 'Salem's Lot. The rest are other authors. No, "Other books my Stephen King" with a long list.
What vintage King books do you own that are cool? (they don't have to be first editions, just stuff that makes ya happy)
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