Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Okay...I just finished Carrie. I'm tired and I'm sad...this book is not terrifying; my Stephen King cherry has been popped, but not fearfully...It makes me want to cry, not because I'm frightened, but because it makes me realize yet again, that life is brutal, especially brutal to those who deserve it the least. The people in Carrie who become her victims are scared of her, and they have every right to be, but only with the clear knowledge of what they've done to her to create the monster that is hell-bent on destroying them. The reader is aware of this, but King's characters ironically seem not to realize how their even their ignorance of Carrie White and her horrible life made for a hopelessly bleak situation that could only end badly. I read King's introduction that was attached to the "new" release of the novel(the intro was written 1999); he based Carrie White on two girls that he knew growing up who were different...in a socially apparent way. It's about the what ifs? The what if all of us who are marginalized in the world, the sometime freaks, were able to exact our revenge. Carrie is not about an anomaly, a monster, a freak, it's about all of us who are terrorized by a society that doesn't agree with us or want to acknowledge our existence. It should be seen as a novel of warning...which perhaps is why it is banned now...Littleton, Co. and other small towns in the U.S. having seen what happens when people who are mercilessly teased and tormented take matters into their own hands. Perhaps we should look at what we should do to fix the way we talk to people and treat them. Thumper's mom had it right: "If you don't have anything nice to say..." And don't say you're sorry, for anything mean or cruel you've ever said to anyone. As one of the characters in Carrie says, "Sorry is the Kool-Aid of human emotions" (King 138). But I'm ranting, and I haven't even been to book club yet. I need to take my sleeping pills, read a morbidly depressing play, and go to sleep...I have a date with Kim and my yoga mat tomorrow, before I throw in my two cents about a girl from whom I can't say I don't identify with...The junkie is on vacation from the lists, with a one-way ticket to free reading...

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