Fone Bone
Matt Zimmer
Here's the deal. I am going through every bit of Stephen King and Stephen King-related reading material I own. I will be writing reviews for everything. I want the mods to understand something up-front. Unless every single one of my reviews is commented on, there WILL be double-posting. A LOT of it. If I wind up getting warnings and infractions for it, then every single review will need to have its own separate post on this board. The double-posts won't be done because I'm spamming. They will be done so as not to clutter up the board with Fone Bone reviews.
Again, if that actually needs to happen, the mods can warn me and close the thread. But I think a catch-all thread for my Stephen King reviews instead makes more sense.
Finally, since I will be jumping from book to book in every single review, I am posting every review inside spoiler tags. I suggest any posters do the same and put the name of the book they want to discuss outside of the tags, and the discussion itself inside tags. Not everybody will have read everything so we'll try to be courteous to them.
Here we go. We'll start with Carrie.
Carrie by Stephen King
Again, if that actually needs to happen, the mods can warn me and close the thread. But I think a catch-all thread for my Stephen King reviews instead makes more sense.
Finally, since I will be jumping from book to book in every single review, I am posting every review inside spoiler tags. I suggest any posters do the same and put the name of the book they want to discuss outside of the tags, and the discussion itself inside tags. Not everybody will have read everything so we'll try to be courteous to them.
Here we go. We'll start with Carrie.
Carrie by Stephen King
I have decided to reread and review all of the Stephen King books, related books, related comics, and Kindle stories I own. I don't own everything, but I own a lot. We'll start with Carrie.
As these reviews go on, you might notice something interesting and unusual about me. I don't much care for Stephen King's earlier career. 'Salem's Lot is pretty good, and The Stand is great, but I find most of his output from the 1970's and 1980's overrated. In the 1980's it is especially so. I think his output then was mostly outright bad.
But Carrie is an interesting book. I don't think it's a GOOD book, but it's a thought-provoking one. I don't think King himself likes it. He feels distant from Carrie White and mistrustful of Sue Snell's motives. I'm going to be going after a LOT of his material pretty harshly coming up (particular his Richard Bachman output) but the fact that King finds the bullying and cruelty of this book distasteful suggests to me that as amoral of a book as Rage is, Stephen King himself is a good guy. I think of another similar creator of a bully, Joss Whedon, and his bogus regret over how easy it was to write Angel's cruel scene to Buffy after they made love for the first time on Buffy The Vampire Slayer. The fact that this was hard for King instead impresses me. Knowing that Whedon came up with that brilliant nastiness off the top of his head, while King chucked the first draft of this in the garbage after a few pages makes me like and respect King. Even as an young writer, where I dislike much of his work.
I find King's mistrust of Sue interesting because the book DOES get inside her head, and her and Tommy's attempt at atonement to Carrie by having Tommy take her to the prom is something both characters feel sincerely about. I think it's interesting King himself questions that no matter WHAT Sue thinks, if she's full of it deep down. I also really love the outcome that Sue essentially becomes the new Carrie White in becoming the town pariah and widely hated. I think the survivors at this point blame Sue even more than they do Carrie. I'm not saying Sue deserves that. But I think at least one of the girls who threw the tampons in the shower did, and she's elected, mostly because she's still alive.
I really dug the scene with the principle and Chris' lawyer father. I don't see that scene praised a lot, but I think in the entire book, just because of that, he is Carrie's biggest and truest advocate. What's nice to me about it is that on both Miss Desjardin and AND Sue's end, a lot of their token kindness towards Carrie is due solely to their guilt over their cruel reactions to the shower incident. They are both secretly disgusted by her. Principle Grayle himself has none of that baggage, and threatens to sue Chris on Carrie's behalf solely because he's awesome. And it saddens me the guy felt the need to resign at the end. In reality, I think he was the one adult doing his job right.
Speaking of adults, this is Stephen King's first freaking book, and already Margaret White remains one of the most unspeakably evil and insane characters he has ever created. 50, 60 books later I think probably only Annie Wilkes is worse in that department. King has plenty of evil characters. And plenty of insane ones too. But for most, those that are both, usually their madness is somewhat measured, (for instance in the case of Brady Hartsfield in Mr. Mercedes) so they don't get caught. The fact that no social worker busted down the Whites' door ten years ago after her public violent outbursts is the real adult failing of the story.
Unlike Annie Wilkes, I do think Mrs. White has a single good point: Unlike Annie, she has an actual moral code. The fact that she both repeatedly fails it, and is completely misinterpreting what God could possibly want of her doesn't change that fact. It wouldn't occur to her to keep an incriminating "Family Memories" photo album of her crimes like Annie did in Misery, because Annie knows deep down her behavior is wrong, and Mrs. White believes she's actually on the side of Angels. And if you want to claim that makes her crazier than Annie, then maybe. What I will say is I also find her less vile for it.
King's casual and gross use of the n-word (something I will repeatedly be hammering him on in upcoming reviews) is present in his first novel, although only once. But it's a pretty gross use. As much as the language of IT disturbs me, it's different to hear that in Henry Bowers' voice, than in Sue Snell's. For obvious reasons. For Bowers it's a demonstration of his evil. For the narrator to suggest it's going through Sue's head makes it seem like a normal utterance.
There are also a few slurs against Vietnamese in the story too, but at least the boys using them are treated like idiots.
I like the book. Because Stephen King doesn't,. I like the fact that it makes him uncomfortable. Whenever King writes something deplorable, that I believe shows a profound lack of conscience on his end, I always think about the fact that Carrie White and Sue Snell scare him, and am comforted by that a little. ***1/2.
As these reviews go on, you might notice something interesting and unusual about me. I don't much care for Stephen King's earlier career. 'Salem's Lot is pretty good, and The Stand is great, but I find most of his output from the 1970's and 1980's overrated. In the 1980's it is especially so. I think his output then was mostly outright bad.
But Carrie is an interesting book. I don't think it's a GOOD book, but it's a thought-provoking one. I don't think King himself likes it. He feels distant from Carrie White and mistrustful of Sue Snell's motives. I'm going to be going after a LOT of his material pretty harshly coming up (particular his Richard Bachman output) but the fact that King finds the bullying and cruelty of this book distasteful suggests to me that as amoral of a book as Rage is, Stephen King himself is a good guy. I think of another similar creator of a bully, Joss Whedon, and his bogus regret over how easy it was to write Angel's cruel scene to Buffy after they made love for the first time on Buffy The Vampire Slayer. The fact that this was hard for King instead impresses me. Knowing that Whedon came up with that brilliant nastiness off the top of his head, while King chucked the first draft of this in the garbage after a few pages makes me like and respect King. Even as an young writer, where I dislike much of his work.
I find King's mistrust of Sue interesting because the book DOES get inside her head, and her and Tommy's attempt at atonement to Carrie by having Tommy take her to the prom is something both characters feel sincerely about. I think it's interesting King himself questions that no matter WHAT Sue thinks, if she's full of it deep down. I also really love the outcome that Sue essentially becomes the new Carrie White in becoming the town pariah and widely hated. I think the survivors at this point blame Sue even more than they do Carrie. I'm not saying Sue deserves that. But I think at least one of the girls who threw the tampons in the shower did, and she's elected, mostly because she's still alive.
I really dug the scene with the principle and Chris' lawyer father. I don't see that scene praised a lot, but I think in the entire book, just because of that, he is Carrie's biggest and truest advocate. What's nice to me about it is that on both Miss Desjardin and AND Sue's end, a lot of their token kindness towards Carrie is due solely to their guilt over their cruel reactions to the shower incident. They are both secretly disgusted by her. Principle Grayle himself has none of that baggage, and threatens to sue Chris on Carrie's behalf solely because he's awesome. And it saddens me the guy felt the need to resign at the end. In reality, I think he was the one adult doing his job right.
Speaking of adults, this is Stephen King's first freaking book, and already Margaret White remains one of the most unspeakably evil and insane characters he has ever created. 50, 60 books later I think probably only Annie Wilkes is worse in that department. King has plenty of evil characters. And plenty of insane ones too. But for most, those that are both, usually their madness is somewhat measured, (for instance in the case of Brady Hartsfield in Mr. Mercedes) so they don't get caught. The fact that no social worker busted down the Whites' door ten years ago after her public violent outbursts is the real adult failing of the story.
Unlike Annie Wilkes, I do think Mrs. White has a single good point: Unlike Annie, she has an actual moral code. The fact that she both repeatedly fails it, and is completely misinterpreting what God could possibly want of her doesn't change that fact. It wouldn't occur to her to keep an incriminating "Family Memories" photo album of her crimes like Annie did in Misery, because Annie knows deep down her behavior is wrong, and Mrs. White believes she's actually on the side of Angels. And if you want to claim that makes her crazier than Annie, then maybe. What I will say is I also find her less vile for it.
King's casual and gross use of the n-word (something I will repeatedly be hammering him on in upcoming reviews) is present in his first novel, although only once. But it's a pretty gross use. As much as the language of IT disturbs me, it's different to hear that in Henry Bowers' voice, than in Sue Snell's. For obvious reasons. For Bowers it's a demonstration of his evil. For the narrator to suggest it's going through Sue's head makes it seem like a normal utterance.
There are also a few slurs against Vietnamese in the story too, but at least the boys using them are treated like idiots.
I like the book. Because Stephen King doesn't,. I like the fact that it makes him uncomfortable. Whenever King writes something deplorable, that I believe shows a profound lack of conscience on his end, I always think about the fact that Carrie White and Sue Snell scare him, and am comforted by that a little. ***1/2.