The first anthology of short stories in this long journey. This one contains some goodies that were made into movies: Graveyard Shift, Lawnmower Man, Children of the Corn, Quitters Inc + The Ledge (in combination they became Cat's Eye), Trucks (Maximum Overdrive - directed by Stephen King), and The Mangler. If you blinked, you missed most of them.
I am sure that Children of the Corn, is responsible for a fear of remote cornfields. I can say that I have not been in a cornfield, before reading/seeing the movie or since. I am also not likely to venture into one. Table of Contents:
Charlie Decker holds his class hostage after shooting and killing two teachers. Prior to this incident, he beat a teacher that had bullied him with a lead wrench, almost killing him. Yet, the students identify with him and I identify with him. Not his methods, mind you, but his sentiments.
Charlie is a character that is eaten up inside by his lack of power in his own life. He has terrible gastric distress and feels disconnected from life and the people around him. The students that he is "holding hostage" echo this feeling - one of them says that she feels that life is not real. I don't know if this is typical for all teenagers, but I know I felt that way in my teens. It is an odd thing to be told by everyone around you that you need to act like an adult, yet the authorities refuse to let you be one. Old enough to have a baby, yet not old enough to make a decision about your future.
Charlie acts out in the only way that he can fathom. His childlike behavior is rewarded with adultlike consequences and in today's world he would be sentenced to life in prison for his actions. When we do not instill our children with a sense of responsibility nor recognize mental illness, terrible things happen. We are all in this together and this story really brings that home for me. King wrote it as a means of sharing his feelings from high school and I think it is interesting that this sentiment still exists more than 30 years later and bullying, school shootings, and murders are just getting worse. Instead of being out of print, this book should be on everyone's shelf as a warning for what happens when we treat others as invisible.
I happened to hear this song today and thought how much it echoes this story.
This is the first of The Bachman Books, and also the very first Stephen King work that I read. Most people equate King with horror, but I think that he lives beyond that genre and is a skilled fiction writer. Not sure you believe me? Well, you probably enjoyed "The Green Mile," or "Shawshank Redemption," or "Stand By Me," just to name a few.
King has mentioned that his inspiration for this novel is the frustration experienced as a teen in high school. I think many people can identify with that. Perhaps too many, since the paperback of this novel became associated with a number of high school shootings. After an incident in 1997, where a copy of rage was found in the students locker, King asked that Rage be taken out of publication. I am not a fan of censorship, but I can understand why someone might feel that their work was inspirational in a not so healthy way. This novel is still available in The Bachman Books.
