Appropriately enough I finished the first book of this insane project just a few minutes before midnight.
The moral of Carrie is that should not be a bully because you can never be sure if the kid you're picking on has insane telekinetic powers capable of killing you, most of your friends, and burning your school to the ground. And effectively sucking the life from your hometown. In Maine. Although it's a relatively short book, it demonstrates Stephen King pouring on the fear factor right out the gates. Although King would explore other genres of popular fiction, his success with Carrie established horror as his wheelhouse, the genre he would quickly become the "master" of within a few years.
First books (and albums, too, but not so much movies) can be tricky. Often a lot of work to "get noticed", not to mention the inevitable rejects that came before, impact the delivery of a debut work. This results in the debut being substantially different than the rest of the author's oeuvre. Especially in music this can end up being a disastrous trap where no future album can ever live up to the debut, usually resulting in a very short lifespan for the band or artist's career. In other cases, usually more common with books, the debut is strong but uncharacteristic of anything else the author will write. The second book may be weaker, but it establishes the tone for most or all future works. In this particular case I think of popular mystery authors who usually write in series, like Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, and so forth.
To apply this to Stephen King is a little dicey in that this is not the first book in the adventures of Carrie White. I don't think anybody finished the book thinking "when's the sequel coming out?" On the other hand, from the little I know that lies ahead, I'm pretty sure King wasn't planning on using the structure or tone of Carrie in his future books. Carrie had a unique challenge in that King had no fan base or name recognition at this point in his career. If he had written a lame book, assuming it even made it past the publisher, this probably would have been it for his writing career. Thankfully, this was not the case, and the book opened the door for King to go more in-depth. Just for comparison, 'Salem's Lot is twice the length, and It is something like five times longer.
The book isn't perfect. In most lists attempting to rank all of Stephen King's books it usually lands in the upper part of the middle, and rarely/never makes a top 10 or 20 list. The length makes the book feel a bit lightweight, but again this goes back to "first book" issues. A lot of publishers aren't going to clear cut a forest to produce a book written by an unknown. Also, toward the end the suspension of disbelief gets harder to maintain. People somehow seem to just "know" about Carrie, even those that have never met her before. It feels like a punt, but who knows what the reasons were for some of the shortcuts. We'll explore this further with the screen adaptations yet to come, but the inclusion of fake book segments and articles may not be to everybody's taste. I thought it was particularly interesting that King would effectively insert spoilers into these bits. Anyone genuinely shocked by Carrie's rampage at the prom obviously did not read these.
Overall, I was pleased with the book and I can see why a movie would be released so quickly as well as understand how this essentially made the rest of Stephen King's career possible. I am looking forward to reading the novels ahead, many of which, unlike this one, rank very highly with the diehard fans.
The fake book segments and articles interspersed throughout the narrative did not work for me. On one hand, I can understand and appreciate it as an attempt to ground the fantastical events to come in a sense of reality. So, in theory I can see the logic in why King chose to use this device. On the other hand, I feel like he totally botched the execution of it. Instead of laying enticing hints of what occurred at the prom (and its aftermath) to create suspense as to what will happen at the end of the book, the way the spoilers were doled out in these passages basically left no mystery as to what would happen. Maybe it was a purposeful attempt to give a sense of inevitability and dread? Perhaps. But, either way, it didn't work the way it was intended, and only served to emphasize how underdeveloped the plot was.
ReplyDeleteInteresting thoughts! I explore the notion that Stephen King isn't a mystery author in my 'Salem's Lot post, which may explain why it was not really a surprise (by the time you get there) that the prom is the massacre that it ends up being. Speaking of 'Salem's Lot, my copy included a 1999 introduction by the author that talks about the influence of Dracula on his early work. While it's obviously the vampire-lore that ties to that book, Dracula's epistolary format primarily impacted the structure of Carrie more.
DeleteBy ignoring the epistolary structure, the movies were able to come across as tighter and more shocking than the book. I'd love to meet somebody who saw the 1976 movie without any idea of who Steven (sic) King was or the book he wrote and get their reaction.
I just rewatched the original movie, and I totally agree that it greatly benefited from jettisoning the epistolary structure. The film may have its own flaws, but it is much more effective in doling out just enough information to create anticipation and suspense. It makes me wonder how much better the book would have been it if took the same approach.
DeleteIf you have a couple hours of your life you don't plan on getting back, it is interesting to note that the 2002 TV movie is the only one that uses (loosely) flashbacks, all from Sue Snell. Being more faithful to the book certainly didn't save that one!
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