Christine Journal 9: Final Death Count

I finished my drive through Christine last week. I enjoyed the book very much.

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Frustrations:

While Dennis' narration is used to set the stage, and then to conclude things, it really doesn't work for me. The first person narration leaves a lot out, and this is particularly revealing at the end. There are spots where Dennis passes out, and the reader is dropped into the dark with him.

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For instance, exactly what happened to Arnie and how it happened is left rather confusing to the reader. If King had been giving the narration directly, we would have gotten very very specific details. But Dennis is drugged up, seeing everything in a haze at the end of the novel.

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And, it feels like a novel that can't find an end! Dennis manages to talk on and on in the final pages, without giving the reader wanted information. What happened to the heap of metal that was Christine? Well, Dennis has thought of that too -- but he doesn't know.

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Strength:

What makes Christine a great horror novel is the middle section. King, in his own voice, gives edge of your seat narration that is way over the top. He is descriptive, creepy, and sometimes all out gory. It's wonderful. Bodies are left everywhere, and the tension between the characters is thick.

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At the heart of it, the raw -- almost joyful -- horror of Christine makes the book work. King loves dishing this story out, and you can feel it. Characters get knocked off like domino's falling in a line, and as a reader, you can't wait for the next death scene.

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It is strange that the book is a mix of serious "novel" and raw horror. There are times you get the feeling that King might be taking this a little too serious. But then, he always recovers and gives us another sweet Christine scene.

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Characters

The characters in Christine work; but they aren't King's best. Lea's scenes are almost painful. She's very wooden; cardboard. Some of the best scenes are with Arnie and his parents. Fights spiral out of control as the family comes unglued. King gives us a picture of a healthy family environment through the eyes of Dennis, who's parents both love and trust him.

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Of course, my favorite character is Christine. She has a life of her own, and some pretty awesome abilities. We're talking super-hero stuff. In particular, her ability to regenerate makes her a formidable foe.

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The Movie:

After reading the book, the movie paled. In fact, I had trouble watching it to completion. Scenes from the book were there, but not with the same energy. And some wise guy had rearranged a lot of the scenes. So stuff that happened mid novel are at the opening. For instance, Arnie is threatened by Buddy before Arnie even sees Christine. This makes no sense.

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I enjoyed the book so much that I don't think any movie could do it justice. But what does come across on screen is almost an altogether different story. People have the same names, and I could pinpoint scenes from the book -- but they just weren't as much fun. There wasn't any sheer delight when Christine dished out her sweet revenge. It is, I guess, rather hollow after reading the book.

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FINAL DEATH COUNT:

Well, my not so accurate death count comes to a final tally of 13.

1 by Suicide.

1 by choking.
1 by running over. (3x forward, 3x backward. Nice job, Christine.)
10 more by auto.
--attempted murder: 1 by choking. Creepy!

Christine Journal 8: CarNage

The death count continue as I finish the second "part" of Christine. At the end of part 2 the narration returns to first person. Once again, I am saddened at the transition. It was tough saying goodbye to Dennis, but I got used to King's voice as he narrated the story. It was truly gruesome at points.

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There is one scene in which a prominent character (a not so nice guy) is safe and sound in his house. Outside he spots Christine. Never a good sign! And, as with previous murders, Arnie isn't driving. Sometimes victims see a corpse driving. In one case, the car was full of people Christine had killed! Most often, she's just empty.

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In this scene, our friend spots Christine out on his lawn. But he's safe and sound in his own home, right? Wrong! I thought this was brilliant. Because King went where we feel safe and invaded the safety with his haunted car. Christine blasts a hole right through the house. I like it, I like it a lot!

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The police work in Christine seems amateurish. Of course, I'm not a cop, so I really have no clue. But the way they go at this case is nuts!

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Christine's ability to regenerate after an attack is awesome. I mean, it makes her crimes very difficult to trace. Obviously it is helpful when she is in serious attack mode. She goes to war for a while, then backs out, recovers (it's like catching her breath) and then finishes the job.

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I do wonder why this book is not more popular with King readers. Does King pull off the haunted car motif? Yes, like only he can.

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The Writing:

Always impressed that this book is just pure horror. Here's a wonderful paragraph:

Leaning out of the window no less then six inches from his own face, was a rotting corpse. Its eyes were wide, empty sockets, its mummified lips were drawn back from a few yellowed leaning teeth. One hand lay whitely on the steering wheel. The other, clicking horridly, reached out to touch him.

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The dead thing beckoned him, grinning, and the car's engine suddenly screamed, piling up revs.

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"Catch yourself a drink, asshole," another voice whispered hoarsely, and Buddy Repperton leaned forward in the back seat, extending a bottle of Texas Driver toward Don. Worms spilled and squirmed through his grin. Beetles crawled in what remained of his hair.

sigh.

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The Fury roared across the living room, knocking Will's La-Z-Boy armchair onto its side, where it lay like a dead pony.

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Revised DEATH COUNT: 8
1 by Suicide.
1 by choking.

1 by running over. (3x forward, 3x backward. Nice job, Christine.)

5 more by auto.

--attempted murder: 1 by choking. Creepy!

Christine Journal 7

As promised, the death count on Christine continues; see below. I look forward to the final tally. Sorry, no names -- that would be a serious spoiler. But I will say that the deaths in Christine are adequately terrible to qualify as a genuine hard core Stephen King novel. No Big Jim style deaths as of yet.

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So far chapter 36 has been the best. In fact, I would suggest that it is the kind of stuff that makes us say, "So that's why I read Stephen King!"

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I think I like this book because it's nothing but pure horror. It's not a political statement or a social commentary. Not opposed to those -- but this is just pure terror. There's no attempt at literature; King just grabs you by the throat and says, "Hey, there, want to hear a good story?" And with prose that are incredible he carries us into one messed up story.

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A few more spooky things about Christine:

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1. Repairs: No one ever actually sees Arnie making repairs on the car. Serious work gets done on her, but even the guys at the shop never see Arnie doing the work.
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2. Odometer: Have I mentioned that the odometer runs backward? -- fast! Now that's cool.

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3. Corpse: Christine isn't just alive. . . she's haunted. A ghost is actually attached to her. Note: "A man was standing there. Only it wasn't a man at all; it was a corpse. A rotting corpse in green pants. It was shirtless, but a back brace splotched with gray mould was cinched around its blackening torso. White bone gleamed through the skin stretched across its face. 'That's it for you, you shitter,' this starlit apparition whispered." ahhh, refreshing! Both gory and spooky. I like it a lot! And how's this: "The corpse of Roland D. LeBay held out its decayed hands to Buddy Repperton and grinned."

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4. The writing is King at his best. Another quote, because the writing here is SO GOOD! "On the far verge of Squantic Lake, some ten miles away as the crow flies, a young man who had gone out for a cross-country ski by starlight heard the sound and suddenly stopped, his hands on his poles and his head cocked. Abruptly the skin on his back prickled into bumps, as if a goose had just walked over his grave, and although he knew it was only a car somewhere on the other side -- sound carried a long way up here on still winter nights -- his first thought was that something prehistoric had awakened and had tracked its prey to earth: a great wolf, or perhaps a saber-toothed tiger."

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There's a lot more that's just this good... maybe better. I'm not sure King could have delivered these kinds of prose from Dennis' lips. When I started reading, I thought: Why did King switch tenses midway through? I know, he says he did it because he got stuck when Dennis landed in the hospital. I wondered why King didn't simply rewrite the first half of the novel in third person. I now see that the two voices (first and third) make the novel stronger. We needed Arnie's buddy to give us a tender look at the nerdy high schooler. However, the later scenes in the novel require things from another point of view. . . perhaps even Christine's!

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Revised DEATH COUNT: 6

1 by Suicide.

1 by choking.
1 by running over. (3x forward, 3x backward. Nice job, Christine.)
3 more by auto.
--attempted murder: 1 by choking. Creepy!

Christine Journal 6: Everything changes

Mid novel everything changes. Things get darker and the death toll starts climbing. The narration makes a shift from first person to third. It's painful at first. I was used to Dennis' outlook. King effectively took us inside the head of a high school student. It was great! But after a football accident lays Dennis up in the hospital, King takes over the narration in 3rd person. And it is certainly Mr. King speaking now, not Dennis. The narration definitely becomes more ominous.

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Things that will spook you out in Christine:

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1. Dreams: I can't think of many King books where dreams play such a vital role in building the suspense. The Stand has a lot of dreams, but they serve primarily to advance the plot and get everyone headed the same direction. But dreams in Christine are darker. Dennis and Leigh have some pretty vivid dreams about the car.

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2. Loss of time: The car has a hypnotic effect over Arnie. He loses sense of time and place while driving alone. He ends up at home, but can't remember where he's been.

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3. Car repairs: Christine has the ability to -- heal. That's right! The car can repair its own damages. Of course, Arnie pours love into the thing, but the machine itself does the hard work. Glass goes from being broken to whole again. Dents just pop right out. (Where do I buy myself one of these things?!)

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4. Arnie repairs: Probably the spookiest thing about Christine is the changes it effects on Arnie. As he works on the car, he begins to transform. First for the positive; his acne disappears and his looks get better. But then as the novel goes on, he begins to look more and more like Lebay. This is first spotted by Dennis.

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5. The radio: The radio is set for a 50's oldies station. When Arnie or Leah try to change it, it always goes back to the 50's music. Stranger, as Arnie drives he begins to hear news casts from the 50's. Warnings about Russian build up and a response from Ike. Retro news, Arnie wonders. But the reader is pretty sure -- this isn't a rebroadcast! Christine is somehow drawing the radio station up out of time.

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Revised DEATH COUNT:
1 by Suicide.
1 by choking.

1 by running running over. (3x forward, 3x backward. Nice job, Christine.)

--attempted murder: 1 by choking. Creepy!

Christine Journal 5: S.K. Is Messing With My Head!

A while back I posted "Stephen King will mess with your head." Reading Christine is no exception.

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The novel revolves very much around high school life. This is true of a lot of Stephen King's early work. Of course, King taught school for a while, so he experienced school at two levels. Most of us finished high school and didn't look back. On to college and then the "real" world. King writes as a man who's memories of high school are fresh.

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I dreamed last night about high school. Nothing truly terrible, just one of those tense dreams where I knew I was supposed to be somewhere but couldn't remember where my class was. But it's that memory of forced submission. It's like prison, a place paid for by the State teens are forced by law to attend. Worse, the other inmates! Actually, I had a great high school experience, but it was still filled with its own share of uneasiness.

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What made us uneasy in high school? Not just the jocks and the jerks -- the Carrie's and the Arnie's were part of the mess. Those of us who were pretty much "none of the above" were put in the awkward spot of being caught in the middle. Watching the harassment -- unsure if we should defend the Carrie's and Arnie's or ignore the torture they were enduring. These kinds of tensions were completely gone by college. There's not many people getting tortured in college (that I know of). Of course, there's still hazing, but somehow it's all on a different level.

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I have degrees on my office wall -- insurance that I will not have to go back to school. And high school is far behind me. Almost forgotten -- if not for the kindnesses of Stephen King. As we are taken into Arnie and Dennis' world, we are returned to the old state run prison of high school.

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Stephen King will mess with you head: http://talkstephenking.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-stephen-king-will-mess-with-your.html

Christine Journal 4

Something you would never pick up on from the movie Christine is the correlation between Christine's restoration and Arnie's appearance. As Arnie makes Christine look better, he starts transforming physically. It's really a cool observation that Dennis makes. "My first thought was that Arnie's complexion had improved in tandem with Christine's." He goes, at the request of Arnie's father, to the garage to have a look at Christine.

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This leads to Dennis' second observation: Christine's improvements are taking place in a "strangely haphazard way." For instance, the antenna is replaced, and half of the front grill is replaced. Now this is interesting not only to Arnie, but to Darnell, who later says he doesn't even know where you could buy half a grill! I love the way King builds the mystery of this. King gives enough hints to keep the reader imagination running wild and hungry to turn that next page.

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The character of Will Darnell is deeper than presented in other media. Darnell is the owner of the do it yourself auto shop where Arnie stores Christine. Dennis' father gives him some of the back story to Darnell, and just the sheer description of the auto shops office draws a clear picture of Darnell.

Christine Journal 3: DEATH COUNT

I watched Red Dawn a while back at a "guys night." The DVD had this awesome button, a death count! Every time someone got shot up, the death counter at the bottom of the screen would go up. It was really cool. I think Christine is worthy of a death count. So far I'm at 2, but I think there's much much more to come.

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DEATH COUNT:

1 by Suicide.

1 by choking.

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The choking is really terrible, since it's a child. So far Christine is a monster very much like Pennywise -- she preys on the weak. In the case of Christine, thus far, it is a child and a distraught mother. Be interesting to see if such a pattern continues.

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LeBay's brother offers to tell Dennis the morbid history of Christine. The offer comes, very appropriately, in a graveyard! I like that. The actual history isn't retold there, but the first meeting takes place at LeBay's funeral.

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Knowing what he knows about Christine, Dennis has every reason to freak out. Why does he stick with Arnie? That's the kind of question a high school teacher could ask his lit class. However, Christine is probably banned from schools.

Christine Journal 2

Just a few more notes:

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Dennis' Family:

The narration from Dennis' point of view remains solid and energetic. We get a glimpse of family that's very all American. Much more healthy than most families presented in a King novel. In fact, Dennis' sister even celebrates her -- gasp -- period. A different world from Carrie White. this family is internally strong and loving. We even get a glimpse, from that awkward point of view, of Dennis knowing when his parents want it.

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By the way, when Labay dies (Christine's old owner), Dennis has an experience that is really incredible. I won't tell you what it is, but it's good!

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This is a young mans novel. King writes brilliantly from the teenagers point of view. He understands that for some school is like prison. Already there is a lot of tension for the stories protagonist, Arnie, who does not come from such a stable family. Arnie is at odds with his parents, school mates and peers. He generally reacts hastily to tension, and epically anything having to do with Christine. This is cliche, I know -- Arnie senses a love from Christine that he doesn't get anywhere else. But he also invests himself in Christine unlike he does anything else.

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What King still (as of Chapter 10) hasn't shown the reader is why Dennis is such good friends with Arnie. It's obvious why Arnie would befriend the level headed, sports jock, cheerleader magnet Dennis. It is not so clear why Dennis feels any kinship to Arnie. Does he see him as something of a project? Don't know. But the dialogue between them is great and very natural. Often Arnie, his needs and temper, dominate their conversation. Arnie doesn't take much interest in Dennis' life.

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Dedication

Slow me! I just realized the book is dedicated to "George Romero and Chris Forrest Romero. And the Burg." Chris is short for Christine. I wonder. . .

CHRISTINE Journal 1

I Like This Book:

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Remember in third grade when you had to do a book report? I feel like holding this up in front of the class and saying, "I like this book. It's a good book. I think everyone should read this book."

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This is a first read for me, and the truth really is that I'm really enjoying it a lot. I put off reading Christine because I enjoyed the movie so much that I foolishly thought I had a pretty full grasp on the story. It's about a car, how much more can the book have that didn't make it to the screen? As I read, I am discovering what a masterful job was done with the movie. However, the book is much more than I expected.

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This is a novel built on characters as much as it is cars. The first section of the book is told in chatty, first person prose. King takes his time building the story, but it's not the kind of slow build up that can sometimes leave the reader frustrated that nothing is happening. I've enjoyed every single scene of Christine so far.

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Of course, a lot of what King is doing at the outset of Christine is showing what a loser Arnie is while also introducing us to the car. Arnie's family is basically disfunctional while Dennis is, at least so far, from an apparently strong family.

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This reminds me of a dark version of John Knoll's "A Separate Peace."

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The books tone looms with darkness, but in a fun way. I suspect, from an interview I read, that Christine was not an easy or smooth writing process. We'll see if any of that bleeds through to the final cut; but at least at the first 7 chapters, this thing really has a lot of playful strength.

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Words:

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Some of King's descriptions are classic! I'm always interested in how King writes. He once complained that no one ever asks him about the language. I'm not sure what someone would ask, because King has such a natural command of the words that you aren't really aware of how good he is unless you pull away and look.

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Here are a couple of my favorite lines so far. These come from a dream sequence that's outstanding. This is menicing to say the least!

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"suddenly the engine begins to rev and fall off, rev and fall off; it's a hungry sound, frightening, and each time the engine revs Christine seems to lunge forward a bit, like a mean dog on a weak leash . . . and I want to move . . . but my feet seem nailed to the cracked pavement of the driveway."

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"For that first spinning moment or two, I hadn't even been sure if I was big or little -- there was only that dark, terrifying and overmastering image of the car lunging forward a little each time the engine reved, dropping back, lunging forward again, the hood vibrating over the engine-bucket, the grille like steel teeth --"

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a mean dog on a weak leash. . . the grille like steel teeth . . . nice.

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JOURNAL ENTRIES:

The purpose of the journal entries is to serve simply as notes as I read. These are not full reviews, simply my personal impressions. Leave it to Collins, Lilja, Spignesi, Vincent and Beahm to give full, critical reviews -- I'm just a dude who likes reading.