Bullets, Busey, & Bachman

I finally got around to watching Silver Bullet. I know, I know, it’s about time right. In the mean time I’ve been plugging away at reading and actually finished Thinner as well as watched the movie.

So let’s jump right in. Shall we?

 

Silver Bullet (1985)

I was not expecting much from this movie. This is actually one of the reasons why it took me so long to watch it. But, I was pleasantly surprised. That is, I didn’t hate the movie. It’s not something I’ll probably ever watch again, but it wasn’t torturous to watch or anything like that.

The movie was just about what you would expect form an 80s werewolf movie. Semi-decent acting, cheesy looking werewolf costume (fun fact, they actually started filming the movie before they had a complete costume), and a very “dated” feel to the movie.

As far as comparisons to the book go, they followed the story mostly well, but made a few changes for the sake of pacing. The book takes place over the course of 12 months (January to December), with the werewolf attacking once a month (you know, full moon time and all). The movie started near the end of the school year and ended on Halloween, so a much shorter time frame. They also didn’t make it very clear the amount of time between each attack, but it seemed more frequent than once a month. I do believe at one point the characters theorized that the werewolf was always the werewolf, he just got more powerful at full moon time. I’m not completely up to date on my “werewolf lore” so I’m not sure if this is common or not.

The only other major change was that they made the uncle (played by Gary Busey) a much larger character than he was in the book. While he played a big part in the book, he wasn’t really around much (that I recall), but of course, when you’re casting Gary Busey, you want to give him as much screen time as possible. Not that Busey is like a big star or anything, but he was probably one of the main draws for the movie at the time (not that he’d pull in a huge crowd now or anything, he did go a little crazy). Actually, I don’t even know if he was a big draw back then either, I’m just theorizing.

The title of the movie, besides the obvious reference to the method of killing a werewolf, is also the nickname given to the motorized wheelchair that Marty (the main character) rides around in. Something he didn’t have in the book.

All in all, the movie was decent, but not one I’m going to probably ever watch again. But, if you’ve never watched it and you are a fan of werewolves, you should probably check it out.

 

And that brings me to Thinner.

I should probably give you a brief summary of what Thinner is about, just so you know. This would be the part of the blog where you’d stop reading if you are concerned about spoilers 🙂

Thinner tells the story of William (Billy) Halleck, an overweight attorney, and his encounter with some gypsies who pass through his town. After winning a huge case, Billy and his wife are on their way home from celebrating when Billy’s wife decides to do a little “inappropriate celebrating” in the car. Billy, distracted by this, doesn’t see an old gypsy woman run out in front of his car and runs her over, killing her. But, being an attorney has its perks, and the judge and local sheriff help him get off scot-free. This doesn’t sit well with the old woman’s father, who takes justice into his own hands and places a curse on Billy. And what better curse is there for someone who is morbidly overweight? The curse of getting thinner…. And thinner…. And thinner…. Billy starts losing weight at a rate of 2-3 pounds per day, regardless of how much he eats. Well, not exactly regardless, the one day he skipped lunch he lost 6 pounds instead of 3. And the rest of the book follows Billy as he tries to get the gypsy to take the curse off of him.

Thinner is the “last” of the Bachman Books. That is, it was the last book published by Stephen King under the pseudonym Richard Bachman before he was found out. I say “last” because King thought of Bachman as “dead” after he was discovered (the cause of death being cancer of the pseudonym) but still eventually published 2 other books (to date) under Bachman’s name “posthumously”. It was also Thinner that lead to King being discovered as Bachman. This is sort of ironic because while it was the “last” Bachman book, it was also the “first”. That is, the four previously published Bachman books were all books that King had written at some point and then decided to publish under the pseudonym. However, Thinner, was the first book that King sat down and purposefully wrote “as” Bachman. It was also the first book that was published under Bachman’s name in hardcover format (it even included a bogus picture of “Richard Bachman”). Shortly after it was published, the discovery was made. It was made so soon after, that when it was published in paperback it was released under King’s name. All the previous Bachman books when republished now will say “Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman”, (even the posthumous ones). But not Thinner, it just says “Stephen King” on the cover.

Fun fact: At one point in the book, one of the characters says that what is happening to Billy is “like something out of a Stephen King novel”. This was included to try and distance King from the Bachman name, because people were starting to get suspicious. Clearly it didn’t work very well.

One other thing I enjoyed about this book was noting the datedness of some of the details. The story itself isn’t dated, but at one point Billy goes to McDonalds and orders 3 Big Macs, 2 large fries, a coffee milkshake, a cherry pie, and some cookies and the whole order comes to a total of $6.90. I wish you could get the much food at McDonalds today for that price 🙂

I really enjoyed this book. It’s a little crazy, and a little out there, and doesn’t really have any depth to it. But it’s fun. If you haven’t read it before, you should definitely check it out.

And now the movie.

Thinner (1996)

For all the good things to say about the book (fun, crazy, out there) there are……… not as many bad things to say. That’s a good thing, right? Well maybe not.

The movie wasn’t horrible by any means, and I enjoyed watching it more than Silver Bullet, but not by much. And I certainly wouldn’t watch it again. It felt very much like a made for TV movie. Which I think is actually a step down from “B grade” movies. With a “B grade” movie, you know the movie is going to be bad, and so do the people making it, and that’s the fun. With a made for TV movie, somehow the people making it think it will be good, and it just comes across as if everyone is trying too hard. And that’s what this felt like…. The only problem was it wasn’t a made for TV movie. You can forgive the made for TV actors for trying too hard because, well, it’s just made for TV. But in a real, full swing production, movie, you expect better (unless you know going in that it’s a “B grade” movie).

The biggest problem with this movie is the premise…. In that, you’ve got to have an actor go from 250+ pounds at the beginning to 120 some pounds at the end. And since they didn’t get Christian Bale as the main character, that means they had to use a fat suit. (Side note: if you haven’t seen The Machinist, you should go check it out and see just how dedicated Mr. Bale is to his craft.) And the fat suit was not very well done and was quite obviously a fat suit.

The acting was also either lackluster, or over the top. Whereas Billy seemed almost comical at times, I found myself bored by the gypsy and not intrigued at all.

As far as the story goes, they followed it pretty much to the letter. The few details that were changed were really pretty insignificant, until the end. Again, this is where spoilers are going to come in…. In order to have the curse lifted (because Billy eventually gets the gypsy to give in though some very unscrupulous means) he has to “put it into a pie” (i.e., cut his hand open and bleed into the pie) and then have someone else eat the pie. Since the pie is now cursed, anyone who eats it will die. Billy’s plan is to have his wife eat it (in the book it’s because he blames her for the accident, she doesn’t believe him about the curse, and she tries to have him committed to a mental hospital; in the movie it’s because he thinks she’s having an affair). In the book, Billy comes home and gives the pie to his wife and goes to bed expecting his wife to eat it. But, his daughter (who he thought was spending the night at a friend’s house) comes home unexpectedly. Billy wakes up to find two plates in the sink. Figuring out that his daughter came home and shared a piece of pie with her mom, Billy sits down and eats a slice himself.

Pretty bleak (which, to be honest, I like).

In the movie, Billy comes home and gives the pie to his wife and then goes to bed. Again, the daughter is supposed to be at a friend’s house. When Billy wakes up, he finds his wife dead in bed next to him. He goes downstairs and sees two plates in the sink. Then his daughter comes in and says she came home early and had some pie for breakfast, then leaves. Billy, knowing what will happen to her, starts to take a bite of the pie, but the doorbell interrupts him. He answers it and finds the man he thought his wife was having an affair with, his doctor. The doctor is surprised to see Billy (and just what is he doing there if he doesn’t know Billy is home) and Billy invites him in for…… some pie.

This ending, while bleak (the daughter we know is going to die) paints more of a victory for Billy as he also gets to “get” the doctor. Though we don’t know if he will be having a slice himself or not. Apparently, the original ending was more like the book, but test audiences didn’t like it, so the producers insisted on a change (much to the director’s disapproval).

 

I’d have to say, over all, the movie was ok. I probably enjoyed it better than Silver Bullet, but not enough to say I’d go watch it again. Also, it’s a little harder to recommend than Silver Bullet. With Silver Bullet I can at least say if you are a fan of werewolf stories in general, you should probably try it out. But with this one, there isn’t really a “niche” to recommend it to. It’s not even really that much of a horror story (at least, not horror in the sense of jumps and frights and scares and gore and stuff). So really, the only reason to watch this movie is if you’ve read the book and liked it and are curious.

The book though, I’d recommend that. It was fun.

 

And there we go. Up next is Skeleton Crew, a short story collection. I’m actually a few stories into it already, but I have a movie to watch and I’ll wait until have that to do my first chunk of blogging for it. Hopefully, I’ll be watching the movie this weekend and I can get this whole blogging thing caught up and back on a reasonable schedule.

 

Thank you for reading.

Arnold, Acting, & Accents

The Running Man arrived this week, again, and without any dents, cracks, or scratches this time. 

Let’s jump right in shall we?

 

The Running Man (1987)

Oh man, where do I start?  I suppose at the risk of beating a dead horse, I can say that the movie was at least better than Trucks.  And actually, I suppose if I was just watching the movie and had nothing to go off of, it might have been a little more enjoyable.  Maybe.  But as far as saying that this movie is loosely based on the book, loose would be a definite understatement.

I suppose rather than try to list everything that was different; I should just start with listing the things that were the same.

They idea of the dystopian future America where the economy is ruined is the same.  The main character’s name (Ben Richards) is the same.  The name of the show he winds up on, The Running Man, is the same.  And that is pretty much where the similarities stop.

While I won’t list every difference, there are some major ones I should point out.  First of all, Ben Richards is not a down on his luck everyman in this movie.  He is actually an ex-police officer who has just broken out of jail.  Richards was put in jail because he would not follow orders and fire on an unarmed crowed of protesters.  Ironically, upon his escape, he is listed on the news as a fugitive who was in jail for shamelessly gunning down an innocent unarmed group of protestors…. 

The other major notable difference is with The Running Man show itself.  In the book it involved running away from the “hunters” and the contestants were free to travel all over the world.  Basically, they were set loose, given a head start, and then had to see how long they could survive in the world (with the deck stacked against them of course).  In the movie, the show involved placing the contestants inside an arena (a very large arena, but still a limited space) where they had to get through each of 4 different quadrants within 3 hours while being chased by the “stalkers”.  Quite the different premise indeed.

Now that I’ve discussed the differences that bear mentioning, I’d like to just talk about the movie for a little bit on its own.

The movie was…. Ok.  It was your typical 80s action flick set in a tattered futuristic America movie.  And by that I mean it was full of lackluster acting, cheesy puns and one-liners, and of course, 80s attire.  As my wife pointed out, it’s always interesting watching movies from the 80s that are supposed to be set “in the future” because the feeling you get from them is never a “futuristic” feel, but always a “yep, this is an 80s movie” feel.  Although, I’m sure 20 years from now they will say the same thing about today’s movies.  Although, there seems to just be something about the 80s that is just so…… 80s… that I don’t think any other era really captures quite the same.

As far as the acting goes, as much as I love Arnold Schwarzenegger (who plays Ben Richards), he was definitely not chosen for his acting ability (as is typically the case with Schwarzenegger films from this period).  It seems that at the time period, Arnold was typically cast for his body, and his ability to deliver those cheesy one-liners in his thick Austrian accent.  The rest of the acting in the movie was also pretty mediocre.  Actually, the best performance, I felt, came from the TV show host, Killian, who was played by Richard Dawson.  Dawson, if you don’t know, was the original host of Family Feud, so he was very much in his element as the host of The Running Man.  He even got in a few of his Feud trademark sayings during the movie.  Even outside of hosting the show, I enjoyed Dawson’s portrayal of Killian very much.  Speaking of trademarks… I definitely had to hold my hand to my head and sigh when at one point Richards turned to Killian and said “Killian, I’ll be back”.  Yep…. They went there….

I was also disappointed we didn’t get to see more of the other shows that were mentioned in the book.  In fact, we didn’t get to see any of the ones mentioned in the book, and we only got the briefest glimpse of one other show.  We got to see a brief shot of Climbing for Cash (or Bucks, or something like that).  The show involved a guy climbing a rope with packets of money stuck to it, as he reached the money he had to stick it in his shirt, or to his body somehow, all the while he has a pack of Dobermans nipping at his heels.  I think there was a big missed opportunity to not explore any other type of shows.  In fact, until the point we saw the blurb of Climbing for Cash, I had the feeling that the only show in the movie version of this world was The Running Man.  So, in that light, I’m glad they at least at one other one that was mentioned, but I would have like to see more.

Overall I would say I was mostly disappointed with The Running Man.  I felt that the book itself would have made for a very interesting movie.  Unfortunately this was not that movie.  I would love to see someone today try to make a movie that follows the book better, as I think it would be a very exciting movie. 

One last fact.  At the time this movie was made, it still wasn’t known that King was Bachman.  So the opening credits say “Based on the novel by Richard Bachman”, and none of the producers or directors knew that the book was really written by Stephen King.

 

And that’s all I have for you.  I’m making decent progress though The Gunslinger, so I should be back fairly soon with my review of that.

 

As always, thank you for reading.

 

Roadwork, Richard, & Running

I finished Roadwork last night. I would say that I don’t have a lot to say about it, but it seems that every time I do say that I end up having a post a mile long. So instead I’ll just say I don’t know how much I’ll end up saying and leave it at that.

 

If you’ve never read Roadwork before, allow me to give you the briefest overview of what the book is about. The book follows a man by the name of Barton Dawes. The city where Bart lives has decided to add an extension to the freeway which will go right though Bart’s neighborhood. As a result, Bart (and the rest of his neighbors and several businesses, including the one where Bart works) is forced to relocate. Bart, however, does not accept this very well, and the book is about his slow mental breakdown as he struggles to keep his house.

Struggles is not really the right word though. What he really does is just flat out deny the reality of what is happening. He goes about his life pretending to everyone around him that he is doing what he is supposed to be doing. He tells his wife that he is looking into new houses, but always comes up with some excuse as to why he isn’t buying one yet (termites, not a good deal, etc.). He tells his boss that he is working on signing a new lease for their business to move into a new building, giving excuses as to why he is delaying and waiting until their option from the city runs out. But, the reality is that Bart is doing nothing. He is not looking at houses; he has no intention of that. He is not going to sign the new lease; he has no intention of that. In fact, it comes across that Bart really has no intention of doing anything. Well, eventually he has intentions of doing “something”, but I’ll let you read and discover what that is on your own. I will tell you this though, Bart’s inaction eventually cost him his job, his marriage, and one might say even his sanity (though one might also say that his sanity was gone to begin with, which is why he failed to act in the first place).

As always, I’ll get to my thoughts on the book closer to the end of my post, but first, here are a few things I found interesting about the book.

The first thing is that we don’t actually learn Bart’s name until page 19 of the book. For the first several pages, he is only referred to as “he” during the narrative sections of the book. I found this to be somewhat interesting. Reading so far into a book and getting somewhat “invested” is a little odd when you don’t even know the name of the person you are supposed to be invested in. I don’t know that this really had any overall effect on anything; I just found it to be interesting.

The second thing is we never actually find out where this story takes place. The name of the city is never mentioned, and neither is the name of the state. There are some implications as to this being somewhere probably in the middle of the country, but nothing is ever stated specifically. That being said, this marks the second book not to take place in Maine. However, Maine is mentioned a couple times, so the prize for the first book to not mention Maine at all is still up for grabs (yep, even Danse Macabre mentioned Maine, more than once. Danse doesn’t qualify as “not taking place” in Maine since it was non-fiction and didn’t really take place anywhere, but since it did mention Maine a couple times, I thought I’d share that with you).

Next up on the interesting list, Bart works in an industrial laundry. There is one point in the book where there is a brief mention of the folding machine nicknamed “The Mangler” (so called because of what it would do to you if you got caught in it). And of course, this is interesting because King wrote a short story called The Mangler about just such a machine (you can view my post about that story here if you need a refresher).

In relation to where Bart works, there comes a point in the story where Bart is told that had he not sabotaged his career he would have been on track for an executive vice president position which would have paid $35,000 a year. I only bring this up because I always find it fascinating to read older books and think about just how much has changed since the time they were written. Here we are with a guy potentially being offered an executive position with a salary that is smaller than what some people make in their starting positions now. And ultimately, this book isn’t even that old yet. Granted, it takes place a few years before it was actually published, but not that many. It’s just amazing to me sometimes how much in our society has changed so quickly.

The last thing I want to talk about that I found interesting is actually something I’ve talked about before. If you’ll remember from my post on Cujo, I talked about how the main character made a comment that if her situation had taken place in a book, someone would have come along to have helped them (which, and I didn’t mention this before as I only just thought of it, is a little ironical because the fact that it is a book is probably the only reason that all of the events that needed to happen actually did happen to leave her in that position….but I digress). Anyway, this book also pulled the “let’s specifically say something to try and make this more real only to call more attention to the fact that this really is a book” card. Twice!

The first was early on in the book when Bart is talking to someone and says something that didn’t quite come out the way he wanted it to and he makes the comment (or thought) that it’s “only in books that people say everything right the first time”. To which I make the same comment as I did before – that it’s only in books (or so it seems) that people make the comments about what only happens in books.

The second event was later on in the story, and was a little… different in delivery than these other two examples. Bart is talking to someone about his life and how things are going and he makes the comment that “I get the feeling I’m a character in some bad writer’s book”. HA HA. So now, not only are we pulling the “this is real not a book” card, but were also commenting on the author. What makes this kind of extra funny is that this is one of the books that King originally published under the name of Richard Bachman (I may have forgotten to mention that earlier, so there we go). So is this perhaps some subtle comment by King that, “Yes, I know this isn’t the best book I’ve done, deal with it”? Probably not, but the line made me smile nonetheless.

 

So there we have it friends. That is Roadwork. It is definitely not the greatest book you’ll ever read (if you chose to do so), but it is by no means the worst one either (so why not give a try?). It’s by no means a bad read, and I’d recommend it if you’re a King fan or you want something quick and easy. But don’t expect anything big to come from it. The story is pretty simple and the character development is pretty basic (I know, pretty shocking for King, right? But then again, this is “Bachman”, so…). I got the feeling at times that some of the character “relationships” were just included because they would be expected to be. I didn’t get a lot out of the interactions between Bart and his wife. I suppose part of that is to show just how distant the two have grown. So I suppose in that sense things worked just how they should, because the interactions between them felt forced and unnatural. But they felt that way in a very simplistic way, not in the way that you could tell the author was really trying to convey a sense of distance between the two, but rather in a way that almost conveyed a sense of “I don’t know what to do with these two, but they have to interact, so here.”

One thing I did appreciate about the book is that a little bit of time was taken to explain some of the reason why Bart reacted the way he did. It seems for a while that he is just going crazy for absolutely no reason, but we eventually learn part of the cause and it actually does create a little bit of sympathy for him. A little bit. There still really is no excuse for his actions. But learning the why at least lets us feel a little sorry for the guy, but just a little.

Over all I did enjoy the book. It wasn’t exactly gripping in any way and as I mentioned, a lot of the relationships felt superficial and forced. The writing certainly wasn’t King’s greatest, but you have to keep in mind this was an early work of his and there is likely a reason why he published it under the Bachman name instead of his own (I mean, he could have chosen not to publish it at all, and that would have been a loss. A small one, but a loss nonetheless). That being said, the book was still fun and enjoyable for me, even the second time around. The best part was probably the short little epilogue at the end where we find out that (SPOILER, if you’re worried about that type of thing. It’s only slight and doesn’t ultimately affect the overall story, so you should be good) the highway extension wasn’t even necessary. The city simply had some extra money it had to spend on building roads and so it decided to use it (so it wouldn’t lose it next year). Thus, Bart’s whole livelihood ended up being ruined simply because of the government machine. HA.

 

And that’s about all I have for Roadwork. Up next is The Running Man, which is also a Richard Bachman book. It’s a little shorter than Roadwork, so I may be back pretty quickly. Or we might have a new baby soon, in which case who knows how long it will take me to get back. Either way, I will be back at some point.

 

As always, thanks for reading.

Walking, Warnings, & Winners

Add another book to the completed column. I finished The Long Walk. I’d say I’m on a roll, but I think that it’s a little too soon for that. I don’t think one book really constitutes a roll. We’ll see how long the next book takes and then we’ll see what we can say about rolls.

 

Well, I don’t really have anything else to ramble on about, so let’s just get right to The Long Walk.

 

If you don’t know what The Long Walk is about, then allow me to tell you. I won’t really give too much away that you wouldn’t find out reading any jacket covers or anything, so don’t worry too much about spoilers. However, as always, just to be on the safe side, I’ll let you know that if you don’t want anything ruined, then tread carefully.

The Long Walk focuses on a sporting event, of sorts, titled The Long Walk (imagine that). The concept of The Walk is pretty simple. 100 boys gather every year and walk. If while walking you trip, stumble, or drop below 4 miles per hour, then you are given a warning. You are allowed 3 warnings, after that, the next time you violate one of the previous restrictions, you are given your ticket and are out. The walker who is able to stay in the race until the other 99 have been issued tickets is the winner.

That may not seem all that exciting, so you are probably wondering what the catch is. Well, the catch is this (and here is where spoilers may start coming in, so be warned). The “ticket” you receive is actually a bullet. That’s right. The Long Walk is a walk to the death. Last man standing (literally) wins.

Now, you might be asking several questions. I’m not going to assume that I could guess what all of them are, but allow me to take a stab at a few of them. You might be wondering why. Why would anyone participate in this type of event? Honestly, I’m not sure at all. Of course, the book takes place in somewhat of a futuristic United States. The Walk seems to have become somewhat of a national spectacle. And for some reason, it seems that in any kind of story like this, futuristic Americans are always pretty bloodthirsty. Many of the boys almost consider the fact that they were chosen to participate as a huge honor. At least, at the beginning they do. Once The Walk gets underway, and a few boys have been given their tickets, some of them have second thoughts. The other reason why someone might possibly consider participating is that the prize for the winner is the ultimate prize. And by ultimate, I mean ultimate. You pretty much get to pick anything you want, and I’m pretty sure it’s an unlimited prize. I got the understanding that you could choose anything you want, ever, for the rest of your life.

The concept behind the book is pretty grim, and also pretty simple. Which is why it’s is pretty surprising that the book can remain intriguing for as long as it does. Every time I would look at how much was left, I would think “how can there be that much left, there is no way this book can keep being exciting for that long”. After all, all the book is about is a bunch of boys walking. However, somehow King (or should I say Bachman) is able to keep things going. The thing that keeps the book going the most is the interaction between the boys. While it would seem that it would be in ones best interest not to get too attached to any of your fellow walkers, since they are all going to die at some point, somehow the boys seems to form little packs of friends that band together. Of course, this friendship is not too deep, as ultimately, if you are to win, you have to hope your “friends” don’t, and that of course means they die. I must admit, there were times when the walkers tended to act against their best interest. Lending a hand to help another walker would seem like the last thing one would do and yet it happens more than once. I guess when you are fighting for your life; you don’t always make the wisest of decisions. Couple that with the fatigue (mentally and physically) of the walk itself, and some of the things that happen begin to make more sense.

Now, let’s revisit the rules for just a brief second. You might remember I mentioned you were allowed only 3 warnings before receiving your “ticket”. While this is true, if that were all that there was to it, the walk would probably end up being pretty short. However, the one caveat to this rule is that, if you happen to receive a warning, if you are able to walk for a whole hour without receiving a warning, one of your warnings is removed. Some walkers even use this to their advantage earlier on, taking a few warnings in exchange for a minute of rest and then “walking them off”. While this strategy seems to be a good one, the downside is of course you have to keep walking and have no room for error. And that room for error becomes necessary when your body starts to wear down and “protest” the continued walking. Muscles begin to ache and cramp and you can’t stop to rest and stretch, or risk drawing a warning (if you have some to spare). The last thing you’d want is to build up 3 warnings taking a rest, then having a major Charlie horse 30 minutes later…

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. The concept seems simple, but the interaction between the characters helps drive the story along quite well. Trying to imagine what would be going though someone’s mind makes the book quite interesting to read.

 

I don’t have much else to say about The Long Walk. If you want to know more, you’ll just have to read it for yourself 🙂

 

Next up is The Dead Zone. I’m not exactly sure how I’ll blog after finishing it, as there is a movie and a TV series to watch too. I’ll probably read the book, watch the movie, and start the series before blogging. The TV show was actually quite popular and lasted for 6 seasons, so I definitely won’t be finishing it before movie on, or else who knows how long it would be before I get started on the next book. So I’ll just have to play it by ear and see how things go.

 

Oh, and one more thing to say. My sister got me a great book for Christmas entitled The Lost Works of Stephen King. In contains a bunch of unpublished short stories and early works. The book itself is unauthorized, and even says right on the cover that neither King nor anyone in his family participated or authorized the book. But, I’m excited to read it none the less. I’m thinking I’ll probably add it to the end of my list. So it will be a while before I get to it, but I’ll get there eventually, and I’ll let you know how it is when I do 🙂

 

As always, thanks for reading, and I’ll be back.

Rage, Richard, & Removal

I finished reading Rage the other night.  It was an enjoyable read, but I’ll get more into that a little bit later.  If you’ve never heard of Rage before, don’t worry, there are probably several good reasons for that.  It is definitely not of King’s more popular books. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are people out there who have read a decent amount of King’s work yet have never heard of Rage.  I’m also sure there are plenty of people who have heard of it, but never read it.

The first reason why many people may not have even heard of the book is that, for the first 8 years of this book’s publication it was not associated with King’s name.  Rage is the first book that King published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.  There have been numerous discussions about why King published books under a pseudonym.  On the FAQ section of Stephen King’s website, he answers the question by stating that at that time in his career, publishing companies had the feeling that the public would only readily accept one book by an author per year.  As a way around this, many authors would publish books under a pseudonym.  This would not only allow them the extra income of more than one book per year, but allow them the freedom to “try” things they might not otherwise.  King, in his introduction titled Why I Was Bachman (found in the 1985 collection The Bachman Books) states that, while he did publish under a pseudonym, he didn’t do it to avoid those books being associated with his name.  In fact, Rage was one of the first books he submitted for publishing, before Carrie even, it simply wasn’t selected at the time.  He also says that, if he had been a little more confident in standing up to the publishing companies, he probably could have had these published under his own name at the time.

The second, and probably more important, reason why many people have possibly never heard of this book, and definitely the main reason why some people have never read it has nothing to do with the publication name, however, and everything to do with publication itself.  Put simply, this book is no longer in publication.  I think it may actually be the only book that King has written that is not in publication any longer.  All of the other “Bachman” books have been republished under King’s name.  And, while rage was included in The Bachman Books, it was never published on its own.  You might be wondering why.  The answer is actually quite simple.  King requested it be removed from publication (and as a result, The Bachman Books was also removed from publication).  I am fortunate enough to have found a copy of The Bachman Books in a used book store a while back, so I have been able to read this early work.  I have not yet been able to find a copy of the original publication, but my search continues.  But enough about that, I’m sure what you really want me to talk about is why King himself asked for this book to be taken off the self.  Well, I’ll tell you.  But first, let me tell you what the book is about (um, yeah, I suppose a “spoiler alert” would be appropriate here, although most of what I’m about to say is either hinted at in the description, or happens in the open few chapters).

Rage, at its surface, is about a disturbed high school student, named Charlie Decker, who takes a gun to school, shoots two teachers, and holds his classroom hostage for several hours.  At its core, there is more to the book than this, but I’ll get to that in a little bit.

After school shootings became more rampant in the late 80’s and 90’s, Rage was found in the lockers of several kids who performed these shootings.  After one particularly bad shooting that resulted in the death of 3 students and the injury of 5 more in 1997 when a copy of Rage was found in the student’s locker, King decided it was time to pull the novel from print.  At the time, it was only available in The Bachman Books, so that too was pulled from production.  King is not sorry that he made this decision.  He has said over and over again that he is glad the novel is no longer available.

Now, I am not usually one to support the idea that books, movies, or video games are to blame when children go bad (and I certainly don’t wish to turn this in to a debate on the subject), but as King himself made the decision, I can certainly respect that.

Well, now that I’ve gotten all of that out of the way, how about we actually talk about the book a little bit before I end this post?

As I said before, Rage, at is surface is about a student holding his classmates hostage, there is more to it than that though.  Not much more, but more.  The real meat of the story is the conversations that unfold in the classroom between the time that Charlie shoots his algebra teacher and the time he lets the students go.  During these few hours, Charlie engages on a journey through his childhood with his fellow students in an attempt to convey what brought him to this point (and, perhaps to try to discover it himself).  What makes this story so effective emotionally (and perhaps unbelievable for some….. and maybe what was the true inspiration for some to try to emulate – I’ll get to this in a bit) is the fact that, rather than be put off by Charlie, over the course of the hostage situation all but one of the students actually begin to accept Charlie and feel for him.  Some of them even begin to share some of their own stories and the whole scene almost turns into a “let’s all get it out there” situation.  To say that this is “unbelievable” for some is perhaps an understatement.  Even while reading it myself, I couldn’t help but think “No way, no one would actually befriend the guy who just shot their teacher in front of them and could easily turn the gun on them”.  And honestly, the book is not all that believable in that sense.  But it is still somewhat powerful.  Even though you know this wouldn’t really happen, you still can “feel” what is going on for each and every student in the room.

I mentioned you could see the “inspiration” as well and I’d like to talk a little bit about that.  Before I do, let me just say that I have no professional background in psychology or anything like that at all, so these are all just my (non-expert) opinions.

I suppose that, in some ways, deep down, most school shootings are about acceptance.  I don’t want to get too much into it, but I think that in some cases, the shootings are sparked by a lack of acceptance and a desire to get revenge.  This is of course a very simple explanation, but I think that it’s not entirely unreasonable.  So what would someone think if they are an outcast and they read a book about someone much like themselves, who is able to actually get his classmates to like him?  If that individual already has emotional and psychological issues, they might be tempted to see if it could work for them.  Thus, the “success” of the main character in this book is most likely why this particular book has been found in many lockers.

There is one more issue that I think contributes to the emotional power of this book.  King was a high school senior when he started writing it.  And when he decided to publish it under the Bachman name, he did very little editing to it.  So the novel is, in effect, straight from the imagination of a high school age student.  I think, once you know that, it becomes obvious when you read it.  All of the “unbelievableness” of the book makes much more sense because it is just that, the fantasy of a high school student.  The book works emotionally because the author understood exactly what the characters were feeling and wanted.  The writing isn’t anything spectacular.  In fact, there are many times when the writing seems very juvenile (because, hey, it is).  But the emotion is there.  The characters may not have a whole lot of depth to them, and the back stories might seem fanciful and contrived (again, they are) but you can’t escape the emotional pull.

All in all, I enjoyed this book.  As I said before, I understand and respect King’s decision to pull this book.  However, I think it is still a “good” book.  It’s not a masterpiece, and the writing won’t blow you away or anything (um…. No pun intended there).  But it will hold you.  Is it a book that is appropriate for young audiences?  No, mostly likely it is not.  But I think someone who is older can read it and appreciate it.  They might not relate to it as much as a younger reader would (again, because of the age of the author when it was written), but that’s ok.  This isn’t the type of book I would read over and over again.  But I did enjoy it.

That’s all I have for now.  Thanks again for reading.  Next up will be Night Shift, which is King’s first published collection of short stories.  For its size, somewhere around 300 pages, this book is going to take me a long time to get through.  This is because there are 9 movies to watch along with it.  And since I only get 2 discs at a time through Netflix, this will be a slow process mostly due to turn around time.  Also, two of the movies are for the same story, and Netflix doesn’t carry either of them.  So I will have to rely on Blockbuster for those, and I only get 1 disc at a time there.  I’m not complaining though.  Well, not exactly, but I’ve already expressed a little bit of my remorse in an earlier post, so I won’t get in to that again.

But, just because it will take me a while to get through the book, don’t think you won’t hear from me soon.  I think the best course of action with a book of short stories is to blog as I go, especially since I want to talk about each individual story, at least a little bit.  So I’ll be back after each story to keep you updated on the progress.  I also think the best way to handle the movies, since there are so many of them, and since the associated stories are so short, is to combine the story and movie posts into one.

So if that all makes sense to you, great.  If not, don’t worry, I don’t exactly know what it’s going to look like myself so we’ll find out together.  All I do know is that I’ll be back soon with some thoughts on the first couple stories in Night Shift.  And remember, if you want to know exactly what stories are coming up, you can reference the road-map.