This is not a story about a car. For some reason (pretty obvious reasons, actually), I remembered this book being about a jealous car. Maybe that was more pronounced in the film (which I don't remember at all) but it's what stuck: Christine the car as a jealous and protective girlfriend to Arnie. But Christine isn't jealous at all. She's not even sentient. Or alive. Or self-driving. She's the phylactery of the accidental lich, Roland LeBay, who drives her when she's off killing anybody who looked at Arnie funny. Not she! It! It's a fucking car being driven by a dead guy! "She" doesn't ever do anything on her own!
Christine's probably also the easiest metaphor to recognize in 20th century fiction since she's a Plymouth Fury representing Roland LeBay's, um, fury. Maybe even his "mouth fury" if you want to get even stupider with the metaphor! Stephen King spends an inordinate number of pages making sure the reader understands that Roland LeBay wasn't some supernatural genius who tried to become a lich. He was just this really fucking angry guy who pissed on everybody close to him and who had, in a supernatural way, an instinct for the supernatural! Because of these instincts, he manages to create the phylactery which keeps him living after death. He makes sure his daughter chokes to death in the car as blood ritual to prepare his soul's container. Then his wife "commits suicide" inside the Fury (in quotes because maybe Roland had a little something extra to do with that, you know? To really crank up the power of his soul's vessel! Remember, he had an instinct for these things!). By the time Roland's reaching the end of his life, he seeks out a young body which he can possess. That's Arnie Cunningham (name probably chosen to invoke Happy Days and thoughts of people in the '70s returning to the '50s).
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I was surprised that this was a story about a lich. Technically, I guess it's a case of possession as Roland begins to possess Arnie's body. But with the whole Christine as the device which enables Roland to live after death, and how it was ritually prepared (by accident and Roland's instincts, of course! Not actual magic! Roland wasn't a witch. He was just an angry dude, you know? A FURIOUS guy who loved to ply his mouth! No? Did that not work? Whatever), it really feels like a story about a lich.
I don't have too much else to say about this book. It was probably too long for the meager plot within it. The bookended sections narrated in first person by Arnie's friend Dennis are just awful as King tries to emulate a seventeen year old kid (maybe a 21 year old kid as I think he's "writing" this four years after events). The middle section with the third person narration is much better and the momentum it gave me while reading it helped me get through the second Dennis Guilder part.
Just like every previous King book, women are portrayed by how big a boner they give the male main character. So loads of males would probably really enjoy that aspect since I've been around enough guys who, when they first see a beautiful woman, will say, "I wonder how tight she is?" In this book, Dennis loves to remember, over and over again, how Roland LeBay said to Arnie while trying to sell Christine, "Nothing smells better . . . except maybe pussy!" I wonder if men learned to speak like that from reading Stephen King books?! It's an Ouroboros of male chauvinism! You know the Ouroboros, right? That snake that sucks its own dick? Best mythological creature ever!
I don't think Arnie ever fucked his car but I wouldn't place any bets in Vegas that he didn't. Everybody who got in the car always wrinkled their nose because of a weird smell. I bet it was all the rags soaked in semen hidden under the seats.
Christine's probably also the easiest metaphor to recognize in 20th century fiction since she's a Plymouth Fury representing Roland LeBay's, um, fury. Maybe even his "mouth fury" if you want to get even stupider with the metaphor! Stephen King spends an inordinate number of pages making sure the reader understands that Roland LeBay wasn't some supernatural genius who tried to become a lich. He was just this really fucking angry guy who pissed on everybody close to him and who had, in a supernatural way, an instinct for the supernatural! Because of these instincts, he manages to create the phylactery which keeps him living after death. He makes sure his daughter chokes to death in the car as blood ritual to prepare his soul's container. Then his wife "commits suicide" inside the Fury (in quotes because maybe Roland had a little something extra to do with that, you know? To really crank up the power of his soul's vessel! Remember, he had an instinct for these things!). By the time Roland's reaching the end of his life, he seeks out a young body which he can possess. That's Arnie Cunningham (name probably chosen to invoke Happy Days and thoughts of people in the '70s returning to the '50s).
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I was surprised that this was a story about a lich. Technically, I guess it's a case of possession as Roland begins to possess Arnie's body. But with the whole Christine as the device which enables Roland to live after death, and how it was ritually prepared (by accident and Roland's instincts, of course! Not actual magic! Roland wasn't a witch. He was just an angry dude, you know? A FURIOUS guy who loved to ply his mouth! No? Did that not work? Whatever), it really feels like a story about a lich.
I don't have too much else to say about this book. It was probably too long for the meager plot within it. The bookended sections narrated in first person by Arnie's friend Dennis are just awful as King tries to emulate a seventeen year old kid (maybe a 21 year old kid as I think he's "writing" this four years after events). The middle section with the third person narration is much better and the momentum it gave me while reading it helped me get through the second Dennis Guilder part.
Just like every previous King book, women are portrayed by how big a boner they give the male main character. So loads of males would probably really enjoy that aspect since I've been around enough guys who, when they first see a beautiful woman, will say, "I wonder how tight she is?" In this book, Dennis loves to remember, over and over again, how Roland LeBay said to Arnie while trying to sell Christine, "Nothing smells better . . . except maybe pussy!" I wonder if men learned to speak like that from reading Stephen King books?! It's an Ouroboros of male chauvinism! You know the Ouroboros, right? That snake that sucks its own dick? Best mythological creature ever!
I don't think Arnie ever fucked his car but I wouldn't place any bets in Vegas that he didn't. Everybody who got in the car always wrinkled their nose because of a weird smell. I bet it was all the rags soaked in semen hidden under the seats.
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