All the Stephen King fans out there, rejoice! For here I present my scintillating review of his first published novel, Carrie.

Carrie might not exactly qualify as a literary masterpiece but it is like most of King’s other novels honest. The subject is telekinesis, the power to move objects at will, the power which Carrie possesses.

Stephen King has a preface in the edition I read, in which he recounts a character–two characters actually–similar to Carrie minus of course the extra-normal powers. The underdog, the loser, the outcast shunned by peers for not being like them.

Carrie is one such teenager.

Carrie is brought up by an extreme religious fundamentalist of a mother who believes that everything is sinful in this world. She loves her mother because she’s the only person she knows all others simply make her the target of derision and hate. Traumatized by this incessant bullying, Carrie slowly realizes that she has powers which are beyond the reach of “normal” people. She can move things, and make stones fall. Indeed, in the first page, King places “Rain of Stones Reported” from where the novel picks up. The story is set in a sleepy small-town Chamberlain in Maine, where everybody knows everybody else. And for this reason, everybody who knows Carrie and her fanatical mother stays put. In the first few pages, King narrates with real gruesome skill the scene in the ladies shower where Carrie has her first period–she’s sixteen–and the subsequent taunt that ensues.

She turns to revenge as the means to combat her emotional wreckage. And so the novel builds on to inevitable climax that begins at the prom function after which Carrie devastates the entire town and herself.

The novel’s draw lies in its ability to identify ourselves with Carrie and its grimly-realistic portrayal of longing for vengeance. I’m sure thousands of us, victimized while growing up, plan elaborate fantasies of revenge even after decades have elapsed. Reading Carrie makes us feel, at one level thankful at least, that they’ve remained just that: fantasies. Carrie is simply touching without meaning to. That’s where King scores: he doesn’t describe her with an eye on garnering the reader’s sympathy for her–he lets situations do that instead. At the end of about 50 pages–and I guarantee this–you would’ve abandoned your scepticism towards stuff like people being able to move things at will.

There’s another appeal to Carrie: there’re no dead bodies in the fridge/cupboard and all other devices meant to scare you. Barring a few graphic passages the novel’s strength lies in Stephen King’s skillful exploitation of the human psyche. Then there’s technique: the novel is narrated through the first and third persons, newspaper accounts, and scholarly reports on Carrie’s telekinetic behaviour.

Carrie wins on all these counts but there’s another interesting angle to it. Those who’ve read King’s later books but not Carrie (yet) will notice the stark difference in “character development ” (how I hate that!), plot, narration, and description of situations. Personally, Carrie also serves as a good manual on “getting started as a writer.”

It is another matter that Stephen King was offered around four hundred thousand dollars for the book.

Don’t let that bother you. Read it.

Cross-posted on Desicritics.