Why Is Carrie By Stephen King So Popular?

The novel is a slow burn. It takes a long time to be with Carrie in her miserable home and school life. Each incident of pain and humiliation is drawn out for maximum impact. As well as each of her mother’s scripture-quoted abuse. The prom and the resulting massacre are like a volcano erupting after centuries of pressure. The film, on the other hand, is a completely different experience in terms of pacing. The movie establishes Carrie’s miserable life efficiently enough in the shower, at the prom, in the locker room and at home. Then it whisks the viewer along at a quicker, more suspenseful pace to the night of the prom. The film builds dread to a known event (you see the bucket being prepared for her in the laundry room) whereas the book prepares the reader for the event in such a way that by the time it happens, it is horrifying and heartbreaking in equal measure – it is an inevitable emotional release for Carrie. Both book and film are excellent in their own way.

Man, remembering the ending of this book is like trying to remember a particularly disturbing and disgusting nightmare. I never read such a book by King before, and it’s typically NOT his style to leave readers bereft of closure and extremely, excessively unsettled. So after all that drama traversing across the entire country or whatever King came up with for that bit, the last few chapters take place in Kashwak, some tiny desolate town in the heart of nowhere, that’s supposed to be the refuge for ‘phoners’– the insidious Phone People organization responsible for the horror he experienced. And here’s the twist for you– a big one– Kashwak isn’t a refuge. In fact, it’s a very large, pulsating cell phone tower. The signal is reprogramming all the phoners. They all become one big, mindless, docile monad, completely bent to do whatever their new "primary controlling unit"– i.e., “The Tower”– wants them to. Jordan, the little son of the main character– it’s Clayton– was one of them already. But then, very nobly for King, for what he manages to accomplish in the end– very guardedly, ambivalently, and vaguely, though still effectively– the devastated and heart-broken father manages to prepare a makeshift detonator, runs to the heart of the monstrous structure, and– an act of superhuman, relieved mercy– blows up the core of the phone-tower monstrosity. The book ends with that explosive event and then– extremely hauntingly– continues months after the event. In that setting, a completely, devastatingly broken man– the odious, greatly bitter main character– is left all by his lonesome walking South. And he can hear something in the distance– extremely, unthinkingly, constantly and eerily and vocally and annoyingly ringing, jangling– a phone. And that was apparently the whole, ultimate "point" of this heartbreakingly dark, second-rate horror novel by the perhaps declining author Stephen King. Yeah– until the signal is stopped, the infamy will continue forever.

To me, the two biggest differences between Kubrick and King’s endings are their tone and purpose. Kubrick’s is elegant and eternal, cold to the point of making the viewer shiver. King’s is messy and somehow cathartic, giving the reader closure on his beloved characters. Not to say one is better than the other, but they’re two very different movies trying to accomplish two very different goals. The book’s goal, after all, is to make you care deeply about a set of characters and then bring them to some kind of resolution that speaks to their journeys. So Jack dies a hero, not a monster. Wendy survives in some measure of dignity, not as some helpless victim. And Danny is left with some kind of burden to carry into the future, to be sure, but it’s a burden he can, in time, learn to carry. And, overall, it’s a ‘warmer’ ending to a far more horror-richt movie than Kubrick’s version. You feel you’ve gone on a long and grueling journey with people you came to care about deeply, and in the end, they found some peace.

'The Institute' by King is a children facing extreme horror story, albeit without Pennywise. It’s interesting to note how a group of kids can form relationships under duress, much like the Losers Club. The children in the story are simply laboratory subjects, and how the system can attempt to break their spirits is real and deadly. That fire extinguisher from Chapter 1 still haunts me to this day, months after I read the book.

A number of readers have expressed their frustration on Goodreads that the protagonist does not achieve a dominant, overwhelming victory in the end. I don’t think this is the case – her storyline is developed throughout the entire novel, and in order for her to grow as a character, a clean and dominant victory would have been an unacceptable triumph. The ending is superb, just as worn, and just as beset with problems as the rest of the novel. In her exhausted, exhausted state, the protagonist arrives at a completely new understanding of herself. It’s not a victory of the athlete over her opponents – it’s a victory of the spirit over sport.

Horror fans know that ‘I Am Legend’ by Richard Matheson is his masterwork. This influential book redefined the concept of vampires and inspired many movies and TV shows, including the recent film with Will Smith. Another very scary book by Matheson is ‘Hell House’, a typical haunted house story, very well written. Even his short stories are great, like ‘Duel’, a very fast paced, relentless thriller. I guess what makes his work so special is the combination of Horror and human drama. For someone looking for great and intelligent scary books these three novels are a perfect read.

This physical relationship is written with a great balance of tension and tenderness. Every touch (a hand on a shoulder, sharing a bed, desperate kissing) is charged with history and emotion between the two characters. There is also desire and physical attraction to each other, written in a way that is appropriate for YA readers and further defines the two characters in relation to each other. It’s not gratuitous sex. Instead, it naturally occurs as Simon and Baz grow closer. The two are shown as desirable queer teenagers, without being fetishized. This is so very important to represent in YA and ‘Carry On’ does it so very well. They are simply a normal part of a romantic relationship.

One of the things that stands out about this classic novel is its pacing. Although the book is not long, it slowly sets the reader up to fully experience life on a farm with this family. We get to know them, the setting and even the dog in little details of everyday life before the main story begins. Because of this slow build out, by the time disaster strikes the reader is fully entrenched in the world of the novel and feels all of the pain and anguish that the main characters do. In contrast to many modern novels that hurry along to try to rush the reader to the ending, ‘Old Yeller’ earns every bit of emotional impact through its masterful control of detail and pace.

It really depends on what you like in a suspense novel. The first, ‘Flowers in the Attic’ is gothic suspense at its very best – isolate a group of people, add a lot of cruelty, and then let them slowly find out the mother’s betrayal. The rest of the books are in the revenge thriller category and, while not as good as suspense, are very suspenseful in a different, more aggressive way. So if you like very quiet, psychological suspense then read only ‘Flowers in the Attic’. But if you like a lot of suspense and lots of shocks in a decades spanning, very dramatic and very melodramatic suspenseful novel with lots of action then read them all. Just be warned though that there is a huge change in tone as you go through the books.

I followed along with the fan translations of the updates as they came out, and then read through all the forum speculation on how it would all end up (tragedy? so sweet and saccharine?). And the author managed to hit the perfect note – acknowledging the darkness of the characters’ pasts, but choosing to go with a light, hopeful ending instead. Not what I was expecting, no, but it makes so much more sense for the characters than it would have otherwise. All the long, analyzed posts in the discussion threads after the final chapter about healing and forgiveness, etc. prove that it’s not a simple happy ending that would elicit that kind of response.