REVIEW: CARRIE

Cover photograph by Kamil Vojnar/Getty Images

CARRIE

BY

STEPHEN KING

ISBN: 978-1-444-72069-3
Pages: 242
Publisher: Hodder
First published: 5 April 1974
This edition published: 13 October 2011

On the cover:

Carrie White has a gift - the gift of telekinesis.

To be invited to Prom Night by Tommy Ross is a dream come true for Carrie - the first step towards social acceptance by her high school graduates.

But events will take a decidedly macabre turn on that horrifying and endless night as she is forced to exercise her terrible gift on the town that mocks and loathes her...

   Carrie is Stephen King's debut novel, but there is really nothing that tells you that. This reads more like the work of someone who has been writing for quite a while. Someone who has already found their voice, an author who is sure of himself. 

   It becomes clear pretty early on that this novel does have a theme that I'd argue is the Stephen King trope - growing up/coming of age. In this case it is also in some ways a retelling of the "ugly duckling" tale... Except this being King, there's not a Fairy Tale happy ending. The story stays quite far away from that.

   Carrie's coming of age in this novel is something that happens on several levels. There's what happens in the shower at the beginning of the book, her telepathy, and her going to the prom. The last one is the central event of the book, the place where all that Carrie is comes together and reaches a peak.

   Before I go any further, I have to talk a bit about the structure of the novel. I have already said that this is not structured as novels are as a standard, and it isn't. This novel does not have one continuous narrative text. There is a storyline that, with a few exceptions, is continuous, but it doesn't consists of one narrative text. It's a narrative text that is interspersed with book excerpts, official testimonies, and excerpts from news reports/news wires.

   This shouldn't really work. It is disruptive to a "clean" narrative, and something like this will usually mess with the readers "immersion" into the novel. Here it doesn't do that, instead it adds to the atmosphere of what is going on. And it even increases the tension that is building. In my opinion much more so than if this had been handled with different points of view. (There are different points of view in the novel.)

   I mentioned tension in the previous paragraph, and to me that is what best describes what this novel gives you. There's not really much suspense, we are told early on that something major will happen. So even if you somehow have managed to completely miss anything about what Carrie is about, you will not be surprised that something happens.

   What makes this great is that the lead up to the events is a constant building of tension. You know there will be a bang, and at times you almost hold your breath waiting for it to come. There is a sense of impending doom hanging over everything that happens, and a lot of what we learn adds to that feeling. Everything, in and around Carrie, builds up the level of tension. And when all that is finally released, it almost comes as a relief.

   Carrie is a very interesting and sympathetic character. What we learn about her, both about her school life and her home life, makes us feel for her. She is definitely an "other", an the treatment that she is given because of that is something that is both thought-provoking and unpleasant to read about. This is however not a novel that is heavy handed when it comes to trying to make you feel empathy with Carrie. That is something that happens naturally as we learn about her. And even towards the end of the book, it is clear that she is pretty much an innocent.

   There are other characters here than Carrie. Three of them are important parts of the narrative. These characters does not only serve to give us a glimpse into those things that Carrie is not aware of, they also gives us a perspective on Carrie as a person. In this way they are supporting characters, but they are important and integral to the story. 

   This is a very short novel, but one that gives you much more than its page numbers would suggest. The story is excellent, once it has hooked you it will not let you go until it ends. And along the way it will give you a page-turning, tension filled, journey through the darker corners of growing up as an outsider.

   There is no doubt that this is a powerful and accomplished novel. It is arguably one of King's best ones, and is essential for anyone who is a fan of his writing. In my opinion this is also an excellent place to start reading King. And I urge anyone who has not read any of his novels to pick it up. This is Psychological Horror at its best, and a great introduction what makes King such a popular writer.

BONUS LINK: You can see some of the covers Carrie has had through the years over on Hodderscape.

BONUS FACT: I was 44 days old when this novel was first published.

STEPHEN KING REVIEW INDEX

LINKS: Stephen King  Hodder & Stoughton

REVIEW: IT

IT

BY

STEPHEN KING

ISBN: 978-0-451-16951-8

Pages: 1090

Publisher: Signet (Penguin USA)

First published: 15 September 1986

This edition published: 7 August 1987

On the cover:

[A picture of Stephen King]

Text below from King's website.

It began for the Losers on a day in June of 1958, the day school let out for the summer. That was the day Henry Bowers carved the first letter of his name on Ben Hanscom's belly and chased him into the Barrens, the day Henry and his Neanderthal friends beat up on Stuttering Bill Denbrough and Eddie Kaspbrak, the day Stuttering Bill had to save Eddie from his worst asthma attack ever by riding his bike to beat the devil. It ended in August, with seven desperate children in search of a creature of unspeakable evil in the drains beneath Derry. In search of It. And somehow it ended.

Or so they thought. Then.

On a spring night in 1985 Mike Hanlon, once one of those children, makes six calls. Stan Uris, accountant. Richie "Records" Tozier, L.A. disc jockey. Ben Hanscom, renowned architect. Beverly Rogan, dress designer. Eddie Kaspbrak, owner of a successful New York limousine company. And Bill Denbrough, bestselling writer of horror novels. Bill Denbrough who now only stutters in his dreams.

These six men and one woman have forgotten their childhoods, have forgotten the time when they were Losers . . . but an unremembered promise draws them back, the present begins to rhyme dreadfully with the past, and when the Losers reunite, the wheels of fate lock together and roll them toward the ultimate terror.

   This is King's most well known work, maybe it's mostly because of the TV series, but I think that the very short title helps people remember it.

   IT is a Horror novel, but it is also a novel about a group of friends growing up in the USA in the late 1950s. And it is actually the latter that makes this novel really stand out from other Horror novels, and makes it a masterpiece.

   Not only is the novel composed of two main themes, as I wrote above, it also has two different timelines. One of them is the summer of 1958, and the other is the present day - more specifically 1985.

   These two timelines does not exist independent of each other, they are closely related and we mostly see 1958 as a recollection from the characters viewpoint in the present day. This structure works incredibly well, it allows King to stretch out the suspense in a way that would otherwise be difficult to pull off. It also means that the novel, despite being over one thousand pages, does not feel padded. I can't think of anything that could be cut from the book without weakening it.

   The characters of the book are so fully realised it's not hard to think of someone you know that they could represent. And the way they come together in 1958 will most likely be very familiar to anyone who has grown up a place where playing unsupervised outside was allowed. In fact this part of the novel is so well done that you could remove all the Horror elements and still be left with a great story.

   Even as adults King's characters are an interesting gang. Even though we only get glimpses of what has happened with them in the years between 1958 and 1985, it is enough to see what made them turn out the way they did. Much of which has links back to the events of the summer of 1958.

   I mentioned above that King uses the revelation in 1986 of the events in 1958 to stretch out the suspense, and there is a lot of suspense in the book. There are a number of horrific events happening, and that we often get to see them unfold through the eyes of children makes them that much stronger. I'm not easily scared by books, but there were scenes in IT that made me sweat. King really gets you close to the characters, and this gets you invested in the events unfolding on the page to a degree few authors manage. 

   The ending of the book does not disappoint either. We slowly learn how the past and the future are connected, and when we finally get the revelation of the final piece in the connecting puzzle - It makes perfect sense, at least it did to me. 

   The only real let-down is that it has to end at all. After spending so much time with the main characters it was kind of hard to let them go, I for one wouldn't mind continuing to follow their lives.

   There's a good case to be made for IT being King's best novel, and it is certainly among the absolute best he has ever written. This is a novel that can't be missed if you are a fan of Horror, and even if you are not you are doing yourself a disservice if you don't read it. Simply put, this is a must read book.

Reviews: The Shining  Bag of Bones  11.22.63  Four Past Midnight  Just After Sunset 

Links: Stephen King  Penguin (USA)