I'm trying something out here, which may not be worthwhile in the long run, but what the heck. As I read through the book, I'll post some thoughts here and update as I go. I imagine this will be fairly spoiler-intensive, so you may not want to read this if you have never read the book or seen any of the movies.
May 7 (page 10): So I started this last night, so let's call May 6 the "birthdate" of the project. So what is the first line of the first Stephen King novel ever? "News item from the Westover (Me.) weekly Enterprise, August 19, 1966:" Humble! I've been fairly shielded from Carrie, so about all I knew going in was that a girl has her period in the shower and gets tampons thrown at her. And she has superpowers. That's already happened, so let's see what happens next. Other observations: the book's main scenes take place in 1979, which would be 5 years in the future from the publication of the book. Also, key in helping pinpoint the year, are interspersed excerpts from books and articles, giving the novel a semi-epistolary structure. I did not know this going in, but so far it's fitting enough.
May 8 (page 37): Given the gravity of some of the "secondary sources" used in the narrative, I'm pretty sure the worst is yet to come. To King's credit, none of the characters, except perhaps Carrie's mother, come off as purely good or evil. The "hyper-religious family making someone deranged" trope is a bit too familiar, but I see this as the problem of the reader in 2016 and not the author dredging up a cliche. I have to keep in mind this was published in 1974 and Stephen King was twelve years younger than I am now!
May 9 (page 87): Wrapped up Part 1 (Blood Sport) last night, right to the gory conclusion with the pigs. Between the opaque scheming of the "regular" narrative and the increasingly grim accounts of the fabricated "secondary sources" I can only assume that "Prom Night" is going to be a disaster of epic proportions. While I have yet to identify anyone as overtly good (although Carrie herself is an increasingly sympathetic figure), the number of overtly evil characters is growing.
May 10 (page 107): Everyone is going to die...they even said so!!!
May 11 (page 165): Damn, I expected that something bad was going to happen, but oh lordy. At this point just about everyone is awful, so I don't feel too shattered. In fact, it's a little thrilling, like watching those punk kids in the Final Destination movies find their dates with destiny. Sue Snell (who we know from the "sources" survives), however, has been fairly sympathetic for most of the book and even Carrie's mom, as twisted as she is, might actually have a kind bone in her body, even if it may only be a tiny ear bone.
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