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The Dark Half |
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The Dark Half |
We begin with a sequence of disturbing grotesqueness: Thad Beaumont, a youth who has discovered an affinity for writing, is undergoing brain surgery. His seizures (accompanied by sounds of many birds in his head) have grown increasingly more violent. The doctors detect some sort of growth in Thad's brain, and set about to remove it. When they open his head, they find not a tumor, but body parts: eyes, fingernails, and other things. The surgeon on hand removes the foreign matter, recognizing that they were remnants of a partially digested twin: the leftovers of an in utero cannibalization on Thad's part. The medical imagery here is shocking and disturbing, but still set very much in the world of real things.
Flash forward a few decades. Thaddeus Beaumont has become a real writer -- a literary author whom the critics love but the readers don't read. But he is also George Stark -- a pseudonym Thad created to write gritty, violent crime novels which sell very well. But there is a problem: George Stark's identity has been disovered. With no other choice but to reveal his "dark half," Thad and his wife Liz decide to go all out and have a public mock funeral for Stark, complete with People magazine coverage and a papier mache tombstone in Castle Hill Cematary. But, as they soon come to discover, George Stark himself doesn't like that idea. Not at all.
Soon, people connected with revealing Beaumont's pseudonym turn up dead (including the particularly brutal murder of Homer Gomanche by way of his own prosthetic arm.) All fingers point toward Thad, especially when his fingerprints are found at some of the crime scenes, but Thad can provide rock-solid alibis for most of these. Only gradually do the Beaumonts and the local sherriff Alan Pangborn (taking over for Big George Bannerman who was killed by a rabid dog several years back) come to understand that somehow George Stark has become real and is tightening his sights on Thad.
George is indeed real, but is losing cohesion in long, ectoplasmic runnels. The problem is he isn't exactly real enough; the only thing that kept him alive was Thad's writing under his name, and Stark finds he cannot write himself. There is also the business of the recurring phrase "The sparrows are flying again," which Stark doesn't remember writing. His body and mind seem to be disintegrating every moment he stays away from Thad. With an unerring determination, he goes after Thad, kidnapping Liz and the Beaumonts' twins, William and Wendy.
The end face-off takes place at the summer home in Castle Rock. Thad arrives to a street literally choked with sparrows, birds which he has discovered are historically harbingers of death. The sounds from his childhood seizures have become real as has the partially eaten twin he never knew about. The battle of wills takes place at a writing desk, Stark and Thad facing each other, trying to begin a new Stark novel known as Steel Machine. As the writing progresses, the tables are turned and Stark begins healing; consequently, Thad begins to fall apart. It is a statement of the artist losing control over his creations (which, symbolically, mirrors Stephen King's obsessive need to write). Who ultimately wins (and, dear reader, keep in mind that just because someone wins in one King novel doesn't mean he lives happily ever after) becomes the crucial question in these final, surreal pages - and what a battle it is.
The Dark Half is, aptly, one of King's darkest novels. It is unrelentingly violent, similar to the novels King wrote under his own pseudonym, Richard Bachman (who, incidentally, the novel is dedicated to). It is a layered novel, with many themes of the writer's craft and to what degree he is responsible for the consequences of that craft. The writing persona of Thaddeus Beaumont -- reserved and literary -- and that of George Stark -- violent and lending to mass-media appeal -- are both in evidence in The Dark Half. The writing styles match the apposing characters, until it really is as if Stephen King and Richard Bachman had collaberated on this novel (King originally wanted to publish the novel as a collaberation of King and Bachman, but the publishers didn't go for it; readers would have to wait until 1996's dual novels Desperation and The Regualtors to read a King/Bachman experiment.)
A book that works on many levels, both literal and symbolic, The Dark Half is one of King's best written novels, and is an terrifying joy to read. Highly reccomended.
The Dark Half holds a special place in my heart for being the first King novel I bought for myself. I saw it in a dump (a cardboard display) in 1990 at the front of Infinity Books in Quincy, a brand-new paperback printing. I bought it, but didn't read it for two years.
During those two years, I read other King books and bought other King books. But it was only when i heard the movie as coming out that I actually read the book. When i did,I got angry at myself for having waited. Oh, hell, what a great book. It made me think about my approach to writing, both my literery type and my horror type. Even at fifteen, it (along with Misery) made me think about the type of writer I was, and the type of writer I wanted to be. Perhaps this novel effected people differently, but for someone who likes to write stories, it really struck a nerve. When Stark discovers he needs to write to stay alive, it was pure energy to me. Even though I'd been writing for a long period of time, it was with this book that I gave up the ridiculous subconcious notion that writing was "wimpy" and really could be this good. So, once again, thanks Steve.
George Romero's take on The Dark Half is kind of a surprise. Surprising because I didn't think I'd like it. It isn't a great movie (but after doing Night of the Living Dead, everything pales in comparison), but it is a worthy adaption. The only real problems I have are the fact that Thad and Stark look the same (both Tim Hutton) and Amy Madigan's accent is just so wrong. I saw Field of Dreams. She was good in that. What's with the Manhattan voice in the middle of Maine? Other than that, I'd say, go rent it!