Month: January 2013

I had my yearly performance review today, which I think went well. It was over and done with first thing this morning.

After that, it was pretty much just an ordinary day. I can’t tell you how glad I am that it’s a Friday, though.

This evening, on the train home, I finished reading Stephen King’s Carrie. Having only just watched the movie, and generally being a fan of King’s work, I was curious about the book. It definitely feels like a first novel; some of the themes and techniques that would later seep into King’s other books are on display here, but they’re handled less gracefully. You can see how the book would have struck a chord in 1974, when it was first published, how it could feel like the emergence of a new literary voice (which is what it turned out to be). But I also think you’d have a tough time arguing that it’s King’s best novel, or even one of his best.

I was also curious about it because there’s a new film adaption of it coming this year. And this, I should warn you, is where I venture deep into spoiler territory. The new movie purports to be “a more faithful adaption” of King’s book, but the thing is, Brian De Palma’s version isn’t unfaithful at all. Most of the differences between it and the book are negligible, and mainly slight differences in tone. Carrie, I found, was actually a much less sympathetic character in the book. She doesn’t deserve what happens to her there either, but she does learn to take a certain amount of joy in it, if only because it’s the only joy her troubled life allows. There are moments when she’s quite mean, and while it is the meanness of a wild animal backed into a corner, it doesn’t make her more likable. Sissy Spacek is very likable in the movie, on the other hand, and so what happens to Carrie at the prom seems all the more tragic — and not just inevitable — because of it.

The main difference, as I see it — and maybe the only significant one — between King’s book and De Palma’s movie is the number of people that Carrie White kills. In the movie, it’s practically everyone at the prom. In the book, it’s practically the entire town. And it’s that thought, that all we’re going to get out of a “more faithful adaption” is a higher body count, that worries me.

Oh sure, there’s also a lot more about telekinesis in the book, and about the town itself — the novel is framed as a patchwork of newspaper clippings, book citations, and interviews more than a decade after the fact — but none of that feels particularly vital to the heart of the story. (It is, in fact, where King’s book starts to feel a little creaky.) De Palma’s movie tells Carrie’s story mostly through her eyes; I don’t know that anything is gained by re-framing it through the eyes of her victims and survivors. Even if that is the author originally intended it.

And yet, the new movie was directed by Kimberly Peirce, the director of Boys Don’t Cry, which suggests it could at least be interesting. Carrie is the sort of character that might benefit from a female perspective. And the trailer doesn’t look awful… I just question how necessary it is.