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Carrie |
...plug it up!...
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Carrie |
Carrie is Stephen King's first published novel, released in 1974 as a midlist title from an unknown author. It was fairly well recieved and sold modestly. No one could have predicted that it was the beginning of what would become the biggest publishing phenomenon in history. But, as the novel's own opening proclaims, "No one was really surprised when it happened, not really, not at the subconscious level where savage things grow." Savage things did grow. They were planted here.
It is surprising how well this tale of a young girl with telekinetic powers holds up after twenty-one years. Perhaps it is because the novel is still intense, still vivid, and still an apt commentary on modern life. Even after years of slasher films, mass murderers, and nuclear threat, Carrie still has bite.
It is the classic Cinderella tale, with a twist. Carrietta White is the long-suffering teenage girl with all strikes against her. She is the butt of all the jokes in her high school, tormented by her peers, and saddled with an overzealously religious mother, who is coming closer to the point of insanity. What nobody knows is that Carrie is also telekinetic, able to move things with the sheer force of her mind.
What sets off the nearly dormant power in her is her first menstraul period, which happens in the girls' shower room at the gym in school. Carrie, who doesn't understand what's happening to her, screams. The other girls laugh at her, throwing sanitary napkins and telling her to "plug it up!"
One of these girls, Susan Snell, later feels sorry for what she's done, and tries to make up for it by asking her boyfriend, Tommy Ross, to take Carrie to the Prom. He agrees.
Another of the girls, Chris Hargensen, doesn't feel bad; in fact, she becomes to hate Carrie because she got in trouble for the napkin-throwing incident. And she devises a plan with her reject boyfriend Billy Nolan to take revenge on Carrie. What happens as a result of Hargensen's actions presages many of King's work to come: the last third of the novel burns with total wreckage, loss, and reprecussions.
Carrie sets the stage for much of what Stephen King will experiment with in later novels, but it is also a remarkably solid novel in its own right. Well written and chillingly realistic (even in the face of the supernatural), Carrie will resonate for many more years to come.
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The novel Carrie introduced two friends of mine into the world of Stephen King. An appropriate starting place, as it is King's first novel, but as Michael Collings points out in The Stephen King Companion (1995 ed.), Carrie is probably the least read of King's books. It's really surprising. One of the main markets for King's novels is the high school age teenager, people who would really relate to the story of Carrie and her surrouinding school. However, it still sells well enough to keep it in print, which is really all that counts.
I first read Carrie when I was fifteen, and I remember being both shocked and exhilerated by it, the sex scenes in particular. I had read several King books previously, including It, but still those scenes, Sue's and Chris's, made me think: "Oh, wait! This guy's telling the truth!" And, six years after that, I find King is still telling the truth. How about that?
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Brian DePalma, who would later go on to direct the excellent film Dressed to Kill and the Tom Cruise vehicle Mission: Impossible, brought King's novel to the screen in such a way that has rarely been matched. Carrie, the movie, went on to garner two Academy Awards nominations (for Sissy Spacek as Carrie and Piper Laurie as her fanatical mother Margaret) and wide praise. It earned a lot of money at the box office, and it might be prudent to state that without it, King may have not found his wider audience until much later (although he would have found it.)
The movie is terrific. The scenes of Carrie's home and school life are chillingly real, the prom scene is scary and devastating, and the final, chilling moment is enough to induce nightmares. Though dated by the clothing and the (well, William Katt's mostly) hairstyles, this movie is still a bright spark in what is largely a heap of bad movies made from good books. Rent it!
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"This is for Tabby, who got me into it-
and then bailed me out of it."
"'I can see your dirtypillows. Everyone will...'" - Margaret White, condemning the revealing prom dress.
"Those are my breasts, Momma. Every woman has them." - Carrie White, giving her mother a biology lesson.
"'Boys. Yes, boys come next. After the blood the boys come. Like sniffing dogs, grinning and slobbering, trying to find out where that smell is. That ... smell!'" - Margaret White, prophecising.
"Jesus watches from the wall
But his face is cold as stone
And if he loves me
As she tells me
Why do I feel so all alone?"
- Carrie White