So, I'm starting from the beginning, and I have to say that I'm super glad that I have. Carrie is a great read. I've seen the classic film a couple of times, but never dove into the book that made King a household name. I'm super into it. I've burned through it in two days. I've got about 30 pages left, but I'll probably finish that up tonight and be on to 'Salem's Lot tomorrow.
I've read a lot of King's later works, from his post master-of-horror days, and it's interesting to now go back to the beginning. There is definitely more effort behind Carrie. I can tell that King wasn't as sure of his talents, he was looking to prove his storytelling ability. There's more style and flash here than in his later works. It's not necessarily a good or bad thing, it just is. I can tell he was hungry when he wrote this bad boy, and it makes it exciting to read. Even though I already know the outcome it doesn't matter because, as with most King stories, the joy is in the journey.
And it's obvious that King himself was aware of this when he chose the way in which to tell his story. The narrative jumps back and forth between a third person omnipotent narrator, that King uses frequently, and eyewitness accounts and excerpts from text about the events in the story. We find out fairly early on in the novel that lots of people are dead and that there was a great catastrophe. Even the means by which all these events are set into motion are revealed before they actually take place in the narrative. It's like the opposite of a surprise ending, yet somehow, this storytelling choice actually helps to build the tension before the blood hits the stage rather than take the air out of it.
The best thing about the book is the character of Carrie herself. She's just the kind of honest yet amped up version of a character that I love to see out of Mr. King. Every teenager that ever lived can identify with Carrie White, who is a far cry from the Hollywood beauty of Sissy Spacek. She is dumpy and awkward, painfully self-conscious, and ruled by the barriers that she creates for herself. Carrie's tale is really no different from any other coming-of-age story ever told, except, of course, for all the TK business.
The other curious thing that I observed in reading this book during it's 40th year on the planet (that's right, count 'em, Carrie has been scaring high school bullies for 40 years) is that King actually set the book five years in the future. Was it because he thought it might take that long to get it published? Or did he think events like this were inevitable? Now we think of this story as being a nostalgically dated work, a treasure from the late 70s that captured the period with stunning insight, but at the time of its publication, it was talking about events that had yet to come to pass. Weird.
Anyway, I'll probably rent the new film version and give it a day in court after I finish the book, if for nothing else than because I want to see Julianne Moore play Carrie's mom.
SB
7-23-14
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