horribly familiar: The Cell, by Stephen King

Posted by kenshin03 on Oct 5, 2009 in books | 0 comments

It had been more than a decade since a Stephen King novel landed in my hands, yet the experience of reading “IT” has been so vivid and profound that to this very day, it remains as my personal benchmark for judging good fiction and compelling story writing, not to mention the tongue twister perpetually imprinted in my head that is “he-thrusts-his-fists-against-the-post-and-still-insists-he-sees-the-ghosts”.

So it was both nostalgic and refreshing to find myself picking up a copy of “The Cell” before boarding a plane from Delhi to Bangalore, and reading it throughout the entire week that followed. About three pages into the book, you know there would be no turning back. Half a chapter was all it took for a master to throw the world into a burning inferno and have his readers completely hooked. Like an invisible virus, the uneasiness and horror could travel up the pages and take over your nerves, controlling the rush of adrenaline at will.

Only that it didn’t deliver upon the promise it started. In my opinion, the story began to take a dive towards the cliche around the time of death of Alice Maxwell, and ended in a climax so familiar that it treaded upon Resident-Evil-like cheesiness territory. It was also puzzling to see how the zombies suddenly developed abilities to levitate or read minds, only to be obliterated in a blast later.

If that were some points King was trying to depict (i.e. struggles between human during times of adversity.etc.), it was sadly lost in between the passages devoted to describing how bits of torn flesh dangled below the lips of one super zombie. Like many other reviews for the book from Amazon, this was King playing safe and being a caricature of himself. A “produced-by” effort destined to go straight to cable channels rather than theatres.

From a forgotten corner of consciousness, the creepy face of the IT clown made a triumphant grin before submerging back into darkness again. For that brief second, his cold eyes triumphantly declared: “try harder next time, pal”.

No related posts.