Category Archives: Books

Carrie: Episode 1, First Period

I first read Carrie, the debut novel of Stephen King, during my final year of high school in 1978. I quite liked the novel, and it sparked a King fandom that lasted about a decade before the author just sort of slipped off my reading pile. There was no break with King, no novel that so offended me in some manner, as has happened with other writers, that drove me away, but just a gradual drifting into different tastes. I have never been a hater nor a great fan of Brian de Palma’s feature film adaptation of the text. I am more partial to his other psychic-teenagers movie, The Fury, so there is no inherent need to defend de Palma’s version over others as this newest adaptation by Mike Flanagan arrives.

Flanagan has adapted the novel into a limited series show of eight episodes, each titled after an aspect of high school with the premiere episode having the punning title of First Period.

Amazon Studios

From the start of this first episode, it is clear that Flanagan is making significant changes to the text in his adaptation. Carrie White’s father (Tahmoh Penikett) is not an absent figure in Carrie’s life, but a doomsday conspiracist whose untimely death forces the home-schooled Carrie (Summer H. Howell) into the public education system and her mother Margaret (Samantha Sloyan) into the workforce in order to maintain custody of her child. While Margaret is portrayed as hyper-religious, Flanagan pulls back from the gross caricature of both de Palma and King, crafting a character that is a little more credible than Piper Laurie’s inspired performance. Laurie breathes life into a role that is little more than a collection of tropes and exaggerations. While I myself have no religious convictions or beliefs, I find overly zealous Christians so common in King’s works and in so many others, to be a tiresome and unimaginative antagonist.

Updating the story to the current age, Flanagan gives us a high school with security guards and metal detectors at the entrances and a far more diverse student body than that lily-white set that populated both Maine in the 1970s and King’s novel.

Just like both previous adaptations, Carrie White is not an overweight, pimpled religious zealot, but a conventionally attractive young woman already testing the boundaries of her mother’s worldview and dogma. Soft-spoken but outgoing, Carrie, ignorant of the realities of the modern age, thrilled to the be engaging with school and what she imagined to be other people her own age as obsessed with reading as she is, enters the school happy and hopeful. Instead, the events of her first day in a public school traumatize her.

When the series showed Carrie navigating the metal detector and bag-search screening to enter the high school the thought passed through my mind that Flanagan was not going to take up valuable screentime to also show us an active shooter drill, a routine in many schools these days that traumatizes both staff and students.

I was wrong.

Ewen High does indeed have an active shooter drill on the very first day back after the holiday break. The students and staff are shown as bored with the routine, having followed the script for years, but Carrie, ignorant of even the existence of school shootings and the practice nature of a drill, is understandably terrified and, in her terror, ignites her telekinetic talent that will drive the story’s horrific conclusion.

It is the next day that brings one of the most recognized sequences to life, Carrie’s first menstruation. Kept ignorant of the realities of biology, Carrie, convinced that she is dying from this unprovoked and inexplicable bleeding, is taunted and torments by the other young women who hurl tampons and pads at her while chanting “Plug it up!” sparking another burst of terror-triggered telekinesis.

Flanagan’s most divergent change from the text takes place here, with an abrupt scene change to some unknown location, where another young woman psychically experiences Carrie’s terror and her telekinetic outburst before reporting it to some unseen authority.

This adaptation also spends some of its screentime exploring the home life of the story’s chief antagonist, the bully, Christine (Chris), who conceived of the horrific prank that ends in tragedy for the town. It has been decades since I read the novel, and I have no memory of any pages being devoted to Chris and her inner life. I have a vague memory of her brutal boyfriend and possibly of his enjoyment of running down dogs with his car, but it is possible that memory is tangled with the novel Christine and not Carrie. I do not believe that Flanagan is trying to generate sympathy for Chris, but only further episodes will reveal his intent. I can say that it is hard for me to have sympathy for the poor little rich girl who torments those lower down on the social ladder, no matter how horrid and idiotic her father may be.

I am intrigued enough that I will not only continue watching the series but I shall also continue avoiding the spoilers and discussions that are already roiling on social media. Since this was deployed with the binge-model of release, meaning that the entire series became available on Amazon Prime Video, instead of the more traditional model of releasing an episode a week, social media is already flooded with opinions and arguments from people who have devoured the entire show. I prefer the weekly release; not only does that avoid the issue of different discussions at different levels of knowledge about the show, and not only does that help build attention from week to week as people tell others about the program that they are watching, but for me personally it makes it more likely I will not watch the show at all. For some reason, when the entire thing is available at one time, I am disinclined to even start it. Even when I do, I rarely watch more than a single episode at a time. Sadly, while researching actors’ names and such for this post, I became exposed to some of the text-shattering twists that Flanagan has crafted for his version of Carrie, robbing me of the fun of speculating what might be happening at the unknown location.

Still, I expect that I will watch the rest of the series, possibly one or two episodes a week until I finish. I adored Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep but did not care for his adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House, so we will have to see where his Carrie ends up.

“It’s Not a Romance; It’s a Love Story.”

The Book is not Always Better

It is a commonly held assumption that a movie adaptation is always inferior to the novel from which it was adapted. Setting aside the rather obvious and massively important aspect that these are radically different media with very different needs to serve to be successful, there are still plenty of examples where in a direct comparison the film version is superior to the prose. Now, ‘superior’ this matter is entirely a matter of personal preference and not an objective one, but here are a few examples of adaptation that in my opinion were better on the screen than on the page.

Warner Brothers

The Prestige – Adapted by Christopher and Jonathan Nolan from the science fiction novel of the same name by Christopher Priest. The Nolans dropped entirely the framing story set decades after the death of the feuding magicians, the concept of ghosts created by strange quantum mechanical devices, and, in perhaps the best move of all, even the inciting incident that ignited the war between the performers. With a cleaner plot line, only one fantastic bit to suspend disbelief, and a much more powerful reason for the two to bitterly hate each other, the Nolans crafted a deeply powerful story about blinding obsession.

Universal Studios

Jaws – Adapted from the novel by Peter Benchley by a school of screen scribes that included Benchley, the film which birthed the modern blockbuster, is the straightforward tale of a New England seasonal community that becomes the hunting ground for a massive great white shark. The film deleted all of the novel’s melodramatic cliches, the police chief’s unhappy marriage, his wife’s age-driven insecurity and infidelity, Hooper’s own issues being the little brother to an athlete, and even a mafia sub-plot that drives the mayor’s insistence that the lethal beaches remain open. Instead, the film is very simple and direct, subtracting nearly everything that distracts from the story of a dangerous monster shark but adding depth to Quint’s character by gifting him the USS Indianapolis backstory. Perhaps someday, in their quest to keep the franchise alive, Universal will produce a prestige limited series more faithful to the novel and find the results disappointing.

The Hunt for Red October – Adapted from Tom Clancy’s first published novel, the story of a technologically advanced Soviet submarine being stolen and gifted to the Americans by its defecting officers was adapted to the screen principally by Larry Ferguson, and Donald E. Stewart with additional work by John Milius, launching a franchise that encompasses feature films and television series that continue to this day. Clancy’s novel struck me as overly jingoistic with the American forces hardly even capable of putting a foot wrong and even their reservists out flying the Soviet’s lead air combatants. Stripping away the ‘America can do no wrong’ attitude of the book for a more balanced presentation. Removing Ramius’s ‘denied Christianity’ sub-plot from his motivation streamlined the story and left the audience with something more accessible and which required a much lower level of suspension of disbelief.

Novels and movies are very different media with very different challenges, and it is best if when you go to see an adaptation that you set aside the expectations that grew in your mind from the book and let the film be what it is. It may be better, it may be worse, but what it is is its own thing: accept it as that.

Still Not My Skill Set

Let me make this clear with upper case characters in bold:

I WOULD NEVER USE AN A.I. GENERATED BOOK COVER.

What I will do is use A.I. to mock up an idea for a cover, one I would use as an example of my thinking with a human artist who could then help me realize my vision or dissuade me from making a noob mistake. So, should I be so fortunate as to work with an artist to craft a cover for my ’80s, cinephile, gay, ghost story, here is a starting point for something that might work as a cover. (Note, A.I. added the text ‘A Novel of Old Hollywood’ which this is not, despite a passing reference to ‘Poverty Row’ studios .)

A.I. Generated

To prompt this image, I used a photograph of the now retired Ken Cinema located here in San Diego California which served as inspiration for the fictional Kensington Theater the main character’s joy and life and the source of his terrifying troubles. I think if I were working with an artist, I would ask them to remove the generic city skyline from the background, give us more of the sky, and make it night with nothing but stars overhead. I would also ask that the sidewalk in front of the Kensington be lightly populated with people in costumes waiting for the midnight screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. But, in general, I kind of dig this concept for a cover.

Not My Skill Set

So, I have been tinkering with a book cover for my werewolf novel, The Wolves of Wallace Point. I am actually unlikely to self-publish the book but the thought continues to run through my head.

I have no graphic training and very little talent in that art, but I did have a concept, an idea for something that I might like even if it was out of step with current trends in book cover design.

Decades ago, and I am talking like 80 years, one accepted design school for books was to have the cover very simple, one or two colors as your background, some very simple design elements and the text of the title and the author. No illustrations, no paintings or photographic elements, a cover stripped down to bare minimalism.

So, using Claude, because I have no experience or skill with photoshop or the like, and public-domain clip art, I knocked together this cover. It’s not sized for a paperback or hardback book, but just the front image of an eBook, but you know, I think it kind of works. I don’t consider it to be an A.I. made cover, though I used an A.I. to help me make it. I selected the color, the font, the clip-art paw prints and used Claude to execute my vision much quicker and much more easily than if I had tried to learn enough Photoshop to achieve the same effect.

Hogfather, Outrageous Fortune, and the Unexpected Connection

This past couple of days my sweetie-wife and I watched the Sky One production of Hogfather, an adaptation of the novel by Terry Pratchett, as part of our holiday traditions. The other holiday movie we often watch at this time of year is Rare Exports from Finland.
After Susan, Death’s granddaughter, has rescued the Hogfather—a Santa Claus analog—from the beings that wanted to destroy him and through that action destroy humanity’s capacity for imagination, she is told by her grandfather Death that humans need to practice believing in the little lies, like the Hogfather, to be ready for the big lies like Justice and Mercy. The theme, stated quite plainly as television is wont to do, is that without imagining such things as justice, how can they be real?
This year this ending and theme struck me quite differently. I had finished my horror novel Outrageous Fortune just a few weeks earlier and its themes were still fresh in my head. Part of the novel’s philosophical grounding is that the universe is utterly indifferent to human existence. It would be wrong to describe the universe as cold, as that implies at least some consideration. It is indifferent, not capable of having any consideration of human behavior and by extension no possibility of punishment or reward. There is existence and only existence as far as the universe is concerned.
Morality, the novel puts forward, is purely a personal perception, but it is also a trap because once it is perceived and recognized, then that knowledge is imprinted permanently on the perceiver’s mind. To recognize that an action is ‘immoral’ within the perceiver’s subjective understanding means it will remain immoral to that person. Whether you do or do not perform that action, the morality of your action is yours to carry as part of your identity regardless of the universe’s indifference. One does not ‘create’ justice; one recognizes it in oneself, or one is ignorant of it.
Pratchett’s work stipulates that belief creates an objective morality, but mine postulates that it never exists objectively but only subjectively, which is the only way we really experience life anyway.

More Thoughts on Frankenstein

Not so much about del Toro’s recent and lush production but more thoughts about the source text and the way people interpret it.

It is a common thought that the creature is a sad and pitiable character, his pain understandable, and perceives Victor Frankenstein as the true villain. The vain and self-centered scientist abandons his creation the moment he lays eyes on its unconventional appearance, leaving the poor creation in a monstrous body to suffer the indignities of a cruel and heartless society.

And as far as that analysis goes, it is correct, but it elides several aspects of the text and the horrific events that spring forth from it.

The creature, after finding shelter and hiding amongst a family, teaches itself to read and eventually becomes quite well-read and self-educated, skilled in understanding complex philosophical texts and arguments. This element is often deployed to portray the creature as sympathetic. To me, it is an element that renders him even more evil.

It is after the creature has obtained such mental heights as having read philosophy and advanced texts that it plans and executes the murder of a young child, framing an innocent girl as the murderer so that she is killed by a lynch mob. Neither the child William Frankenstein nor the young woman Justine mistreated the creature in any manner. Their lives were mere tools to be wielded in the creature’s quest for vengeance. They were not people with lives and emotions to be considered but things to be manipulated and abused for the creature’s self-important goals. These were not mad, spur-of-the-moment killings, but actions that were cold, calculating, and utterly indifferent to the pain they inflicted except that they troubled Victor.

Yes, Victor is horrible as well. Once freed from the grips of his obsession, he abandons all responsibility, but honestly, his sins are far less than the monster’s.

I Hate Cliffhangers

Now, I am not talking about chapters that end in cliffhangers or individual episodes that leaving you on tenterhooks until the next week. I am talking about the end of novels and the end of season crap where the story is not completed and the reader or audience has to wait for the next book or season, which sometimes never arrives, to see resolution of the character’s current crisis.

I am of the firm belief that a novel or a movie or even a season of a television show should present a complete story. The Discworld or Hornblower novels are great examples of a series that executes this flawlessly. Each book is its own tale, complete with establishment, conflict, and resolution but leaves enough in the air, enough unwoven threads that new stories can arise from them.

A Season for Slaughter the fourth book in an SF series by David Gerrold left the main character stranded in the jungle in dire danger and the fifth book, some 32 years later, still has not been released.

Severance, the Apple TV+ series, appears to be telling a complete story over multiple seasons but ended the first on a cliffhanger and I suspect that they are going to do so with the second. (I know the second has concluded but I haven’t reached it yet.) I do not expect all the answers to be presented by the end of the second season, but I want more than one or two. If the series is going to present mystery upon mystery without resolution, then I am going to drop it.

Querying; the Bad and the Good

Querying, for those who do not know, is the process of sending an introductory letter along with samples pages from a project and often a full synopsis of the novel to agents seeking representation. Agent representation is pretty much essential if one is pursuing traditional publication versus going the self-published route. (Nothing wrong with self-published, a number of terrific novels have come out that way, but it is far more work as the writer adds graphic design and other jobs to their already full plate. It is not for everyone.)

I have two novels that I am currently in the query process, both horror stories, one folk/cosmic, the other a take on werewolves in an isolated Rocky Mountain town. The querying process is quite a test of endurance.

Agents, when they are open to queries, receive hundreds per month and as such their passes when they decline to explore representation further are fast form letters sent impersonally. I hold no ill-will over such procedures, reading and passing on submissions is work that generates zero income, they do it for the same reason the writer is submitting it, the hope, the dream, of finding that perfect match that leads to a great and wonderful future.

The standard form nature of an agent passing leads writers to engage in ‘rejectomancy,’ trying to divine meaning from the impersonal response. It is possible but of a very limited scope.

I mentioned that agents get hundreds of submissions. Far more than they would desire but it is the nature of the beast. They have absolutely no need, inclination, or motivation to invite even more, so if the form actually does invite further submissions, that does tell you something. Sadly, it doesn’t tell you why that particular work got the pass, if it was the concept, it the agent has something close to it already out to publishers, or if the subject just didn’t ‘click’ with the agent. What I can surmise is that it was not the actual writing competence. They have no time to waste hoping someone shows improvement. So, if you get one of those, though the pass hurts, rejoice that your writing did not actually suck.

My Two Unpopular Takes on Frankenstein

rankenstein is not science-fiction.

The Creature/Creation is not sympathetic.

There is not a small number of people and fans who want to count Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly’s 1816 novel as one of the first if not the first work of science-fiction. I disagree, but not because I want to dismiss such an influenceable work. Frankenstein is one of the most important works of literature. Two hundred years plus after its publication we still not only debate and adapt the work itself, but the theme of irresponsible creation echoes in so many works it would be futile to list them all. Both HAL9000 and the Terminator owe a debt to Shelly’s vision. But the fact that so much science-fiction mines that productive vein that she uncovered doesn’t make the original science-fiction as well.

In a work of SF, the method of the fantastic is vitally important to genre. Taking a Pegasus to the moon is not science fiction, but using a cannon to shoot myself there is. Method defines the genre. While Shelly may have been inspired by Galvanism it is absent from the text. In fact, in the text of the novel Shelly doesn’t just hand-wave her way past how Frankenstein created life, she leaves out the method entirely. She leaves it out because the method is unimportant to her theme and her subject. She wasn’t interested in how he created life only the ethical issues that raised. Verne’s trip to the moon is built upon the method of getting there and far less interested in what that means. Shelly’s creation of life ignores the ‘how’ but explores the why and the consequences. Frankenstein is one of the most important works ever created but it is not science-fiction.

The Creature is not sympathetic to me because it comes off to me as a dangerous, murderous, narcissist. Much has been made about how the doctor abandoned the creature, leaving it to suffer torment in isolation. That’s fair enough and is Shelly’s point, but the creature’s actions following that are impossible to justify.

While I think we can agree that vengeance is at best a questionable course of action, and had the creature’s vengeance been directed solely at Frankenstein it would be far less reprehensible but that it is not how the text unfolds.

To make his creator suffer the creature not only murders a child only because the boy is a relation to his creator but then frames an innocent woman to suffer the mob justice for his own crime.

When the creature confronts his creator in the ice caves of Switzerland, he proclaims that no being could love as greatly as himself but hurt and abused he swore to hate as greatly. He betrays the classic profile of a narcissist, his own feelings are paramount and those of others, such a murdered child, grieving parents, or those unjustly lynched for his crimes are of no consequence. There is precious little difference between the creature taking his violent vengeance on innocent bystanders and the mass murders of American murdering strangers.

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Robert Mitchell Evans

Literary Saboteur