Just Finished Reading: Christine by Stephen King

Arnie Cunningham (played by Keith Gordon in the 1983 movie adaptation) is one of those people who spend their life being picked on and bullied. If it wasn’t for his football jock friend Dennis Guilder (John Stockwell) he would have probably ended up dead in High School. But now Arnie has a new friend who can help him through life in more ways than one. A friend who whispers into his ear late at night, a friend who gives Arnie the strength to stand up to bullies and when required kill them for him. Christine is no ordinary friend as everyone who crosses Arnie Cunningham will eventually find out. Christine is indeed a blood-red 1958 Plymouth Fury and she’s aptly named because she’s got a lot of fury deep inside her and she only needs Arnie’s focus to let it out. Before too long many people are wondering just what happened to the spotty geek who crept through the shadows to avoid those intent on his painful humiliation. Those who are still alive to wonder of course……..

I’ve never been what you would call a huge Stephen King fan. I’ve generally enjoyed the (many) movie adaptations – particularly Firestarter and Dreamcatcher – but have generally avoided his books. I’m just not into horror or the idea of scaring myself on purpose. I really can’t see the point (and avoid things like roller-coasters and bungee jumping for the same reason). But, as this book has been sitting on my shelf for years – probably decades – and I’m doing the whole movie-related theme thing how could I actually avoid something so obvious. Of course like most of adaptations Hollywood use the idea of the book without necessarily following the plot of the book. It’s certainly been along time since I saw the movie (probably in the late 80’s or early 90’s) but I’m pretty certain that it was significantly different than what I read between these pages – and not in a good way. As you might expect the book – especially as it was just under 600 pages – went into a great deal more detail than the movie ever could. Unfortunately for me King spent at least 100 and probably more like 200 pages going over the same ground again and again. I guess that he was building tension (of which there was some) but laboured mightily to do so. King certainly got across a brooding menace inherent in the character of Christine complete with outpourings of sudden and bloody violence but, I thought, either undersold or oversold the effect. The movie had a clearer, because of time and media constraints, idea of what Christine actually was – inherently evil or possibly demon-possessed. The book went into great detail about how is was the deep hate of the world and everything in it embodied in her previous owner (prior to Arnie) who was, in effect, the possessing spirit which to me didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Finally I found the almost constant use of swearing (mainly F and quite a few C’s) to be frankly wearing and unnecessary adding very little to the story. All-in-all I was rather disappointed with the whole thing. It certainly hasn’t turned me on (or back on) to Stephen King probably because it’s really just not my type of literature. I know many people worship the ground he walks on, but I’m not one of them.