Stephen King Books
Carrie (1974)
Stephen King Books
Carrie (1974)
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Books |
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If only they knew she had the power.
Commentary Strangely enough, Carrie may be as far as Stephen King ever deviated from straight narrative storytelling in his entire career. It's not very far at that, but it is far enough apart to make the story interesting and engaging. Rather than simply following a course of events, King frequently breaks the course of the narration to include excerpts from various fictional publications regarding the event that the novel itself revolves around. The method is effective, mixing technical discourse on telekinesis with the emotional content of the story to draw the reader along. In keeping with another common theme of King's work, there's also no real "villain" involved in this story, simply a confluence of forces yielding an undesirable conclusion. The end result is that this story feels very real. Compare Carrie, for example, to 'Salem's Lot, with it's singular villain at the lead, and you can see the difference. While the Lot may be charming, it is this story which carries (no pun intended) more impact to the reader simply because it hits closer to home. This book isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, though--don't get me wrong. While it's truly amazing for a first publication, it's still more than a little rough around the edges. It fortunately does not suffer from King's occasional ... of the word processor, but the storytelling style and voice that became more and more evident as Steve's career developed is much less apparent in this story. Who would I recommend this book for? Well, as usual, the book is good for anybody who has some time to kill and wants an engaging story. King has been occasionally accused of overdeveloping his backstory, but I think that in this case the backstory is integrated well into the overall story, allowing it to stay engaging, rather than dragging in places (as, say, Insomnia might). Parents may or may not want to steer their children clear, as it does include some rather frank discussion of menstruation, and the book itself concerns itself in a higher sense with the trials of puberty, but there's not much here that I would find objectionable. All things considered, the only thing that stops me from giving this piece five stars is the fact that it does feel just a bit rough around the edges, without the flow and fluency that is typical of King's later work. Overall, however, a wonderful read. -- Brian Seiler, Amazon Quotes from the Book "And so there was nothing else to do. It was either laugh or cry, and who could bring himself to cry over Carrie after all those years?" "They're all gonna laugh at you!" |
