Day 34 : Cape Fear - A Book Review

At least once a year I go to this place in Mumbai where they have sale on used books. They are so cheap you can buy at least a dozen for the same amount that you pay for a McChicken. This is a very very dangerous place for me. Mainly because every time I go there I end up dragging a huge haul of books, which only ends up adding onto my unread pile. I am slowly catching up to them, but damn am I outnumbered here.

This book is one of those book. I mostly picked it up by virtue of name recognition. I'd loved the Scorsese movie. It was a remake of an older movie. It had brilliant performances from both Robert de Niro and Juilette Lewis. And had one of the best last shot of any movie ever. That was pretty much the only reason I picked up this book really. I am very glad that I did.

This book is really a very simple single-minded book about revenge and good guy v/s bad guy. There is a good/pure-white character and there is a bad/pure-dark character. Both of these cannot be more different from each other. And both these character now suddenly find themselves in a in a conflict that would only end with one of them being utterly destroyed.

Characters 

Max Cady - The Pure-Dark - A cold-hearted criminal filled with one hunger only. Only pure rage and thirst for revenge.

Sam Bowden - The Pure-White - A law abiding citizen who many years ago, got Cady imprisoned for rape of a teenage girl.

Carol - Sam's wife

Nancy, Jaime, Bucky - Sam's kids

Plot Summary

Well this going to be the easiest summary of any plot I've ever written. Heck, the introduction above nearly gives most of the details. The gist of it is. Cady spends his thirteen years in jail dreaming up of ways to bring terror into his arch nemesis' life. Sam Bowden leads a life of the straight arrow and tries to deal with this guy legally but law is not especially good at handling someone who has no concept of what really is. Cady is somebody who is so vicious and single-mindedly evil that there is no fear or doubt in him. And with the sheer physical size of him makes it all the more scary.

And that is where I really begin to like the book. The way the author builds the tension in the book. You see, there are hardly a dozen scenes in the book where you are actually in Cady's presence. It is always somebody else' account of his violence. That along with his own pure savagery, every moment that he does come into your pages, you sort get goosebumps yourself. I liked that feeling. It is something that very few writers accomplish in doing. This guy who I'd never heard of made that possible. I have immense respect for that.

And now for the part that I wish could've been better. As much as I liked the simple binary good & bad equation of the book. There are parts where the writer tries to explain why Cady is the way he is. He uses the Bowden for that. Which was pretty seemed very out of place for me. You don't try to rationalize why some violent serial criminal and rapist would try to rape and kill the women of your household. Also, the last few pages. I know I shouldn't be comparing the movie with the book here. But I must say in this one instance I am going to give the upper hand to the movie. The climax was awesome, in the movie. And it sucked, in the book. Period.

Just for Max Cady? An excellent read though.

Day 68 : Mr. Mercedes - Book Review

I am a big fan of Mr. King. So no matter what he writes or says or does, I am going to read/listen/support him come what may. Call be biased, but The King is the living defacto ruler of the horror fiction. Ask any constant reader of his work you will hear only praises for him.

This book is about a mass murderer who just shows up, kills over half a dozen jobless people one dank morning, and the seemingly disappears from the face of the earth never to be heard of again. He’s dubbed Mr. Mercedes by the masses owing to the vehicle he had used to run over his unwary victims. His act had caused a lot of furor and rage, media had gone 'batshit crazy' over this 'national tragedy'. (These words have started to feel so superfluous now.)

This book is also about a retired cop who was the primary working on the investigation to catch this killer. The ex-cop is now living a life of lonesome and TV robot-like addiction. He is one of those retirees who'd left a high-functioning highly-active job and now doesn't know what to do with himself. A man without purpose, at times he sits there with a revolver in front of him, building up courage to use it on himself, to find a way out of his sad lonely life. He is not built to survive in the modern age, he does not belong in the age of so much technology.

This book is also about two other characters one younger and other older in age. One male other one female. One mentally much older than he seems, other too mentally impeded to seem of her age. These characters and their perspective bring the story into the 21st century. And add the Watson to the ex-cop’s Holmes.

This book is about Stephen King trying to bring his style of impending doom and sense of human frailty into the modern literature arena that is now too cluttered with YA books and books fantasy trilogies and sexual deviation trilogies. He has introduced a trio here that he'd use in at least one other new books of his. (Finders Keepers.) A trilogy in the making? Like the Hardy Boys. It does feel queer to think Stephen King writing a Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew like books.

This is book is about Stephen King trying to bring technology into his form of scare fest. Here mostly used to solve the jigsaw puzzle of macabre. I suspect we can see something from him in this direction pretty soon. I’d definitely read that!

This is book is for the Constant Reader for whom the writer gives out little easter eggs and wink-winks with mention of his more popular works of the past. The clown, the car, the dog, the hotel.

This is book most importantly for people like me who have followed Stephen King's work throughout the decades and now at this point will ravish any smidgen of genius he outputs.

Long live the King.