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A review by ojtheviking
Pet Sematary by Stephen King
5.0
I don't want to be buried in a pet sematary
I don't want to live my life again
1983 was quite the year for Stephen King. It saw the release of three titles: Christine, Pet Sematary and Cycle of the Werewolf, all of them later adapted into some of the better movies based on his stories. In all three cases, I happen to have seen the movies first, so it's nice to now go through his bibliography and read the source material. I read Christine just a few days ago, then I've spent only a couple of days reading Pet Sematary, and both novels have been absolutely remarkable reads.
The novel itself is a slow burn, but I love the amount of time spent on humanizing and developing the characters before the shit starts hitting the fan. As a result, I feel like these are some of his most fleshed-out characters of all time. Nothing during the build-up feels like padding or tedious sections, because you end up connecting with this family, which makes the later horrific parts all the more disturbing.
Speaking of which, King has claimed that Pet Sematary is his personal pick for what he considers to be the scariest story he has ever written. While that's understandable already on a surface level, one can also surmise that this story disturbed him on a deep psychological level due to his role as a family man. He does what he does best, takes a snippet from everyday life, and adds a horrible “what if” - and I think he projected some of his own horrible fears onto the story. But that's why the story works so well; the constant potential for a tragedy to happen is a family's worst nightmare. And then, in true King fashion, he adds a supernatural twist to it.
Because the family themes are very apparent here, and I suspect King put some parts of himself into the story through Louis Creed. There's that old-school notion of the man of the house having to be the provider, the protector, the one keeping everything in order, and then the pressure and anguish when he's failing to do so. Even during a time of grief, he feels he must keep it together.
As such, the core of this story is about what many would consider to be the ultimate way to fail as a parent, and how far one would be willing to go to take it all back. It's also a story about loss and grief in general. Losing family members, pets, neighbors. How it warps our minds and eats us up inside, and we look back at the memories with pain and longing, almost living in denial for a long period, and again, wishing we could do something to take it all away and start over. But life and nature aren't designed that way, and this story warns us of what might happen if we try to cheat the system.
The way he sneaks in little references to his other stories here and there is always fun, almost like you should keep an eye out for Easter eggs. Also, it's very cool in retrospect that he's making several references to The Ramones along the way; it's surely no coincidence that these Queens punks later wrote a song for the movie adaptation's soundtrack!
While I'll, without any qualms, say that this is one of his best books, I have one pet peeve (no pun intended) about King's writing that happens not only in this book but throughout his stories in general, which is his habit of foreshadowing a bit too much until he's basically spoiling his own story at some points. Now, I'm already familiar with this story, but this aforementioned habit could have been annoying if I was completely clueless going into this and was absorbing the story for the very first time.
To give just a few made-up examples, he will write things like: “She got in her car and drove off, and that was the last time anyone would see her alive,” or: “He woke up early that Friday morning, and it and it was just like any other morning; nobody knew he only had one week left to live.”
As a comparison, I much rather prefer his other tendency, to have characters get caught in nightmares that in themselves are some sort of foreshadowing, or a type of warning, but a little bit more vague. Characters often have almost a form of premonition in these dreams, giving them a sense of dread and that they are getting involved with something they should be leaving alone. To me, that's more effective and a part of the slow build-up to the actual events. And it doesn't flat out spoil that such and such character is about to die.
However, I get that these things are his way to build some sort of anxious anticipation, little cliffhanger remarks strategically placed so that you'll keep reading to find out what's about to happen. But it feels a little bit like if you're watching a movie with friends, and someone says: “This upcoming scene always makes me cry.” They're then signaling that something will happen, and to me, that takes away some of the impact. It's a minor gripe in the grand scheme of things, but still, it does bug me at times.
That alone isn't enough to take any points away from the final score, though. I sigh, shrug, and read on, and as I implied, this is hereby one of my favorite novels by King, and it earns a 4.5 rounded up!
I don't want to live my life again
1983 was quite the year for Stephen King. It saw the release of three titles: Christine, Pet Sematary and Cycle of the Werewolf, all of them later adapted into some of the better movies based on his stories. In all three cases, I happen to have seen the movies first, so it's nice to now go through his bibliography and read the source material. I read Christine just a few days ago, then I've spent only a couple of days reading Pet Sematary, and both novels have been absolutely remarkable reads.
The novel itself is a slow burn, but I love the amount of time spent on humanizing and developing the characters before the shit starts hitting the fan. As a result, I feel like these are some of his most fleshed-out characters of all time. Nothing during the build-up feels like padding or tedious sections, because you end up connecting with this family, which makes the later horrific parts all the more disturbing.
Speaking of which, King has claimed that Pet Sematary is his personal pick for what he considers to be the scariest story he has ever written. While that's understandable already on a surface level, one can also surmise that this story disturbed him on a deep psychological level due to his role as a family man. He does what he does best, takes a snippet from everyday life, and adds a horrible “what if” - and I think he projected some of his own horrible fears onto the story. But that's why the story works so well; the constant potential for a tragedy to happen is a family's worst nightmare. And then, in true King fashion, he adds a supernatural twist to it.
Because the family themes are very apparent here, and I suspect King put some parts of himself into the story through Louis Creed. There's that old-school notion of the man of the house having to be the provider, the protector, the one keeping everything in order, and then the pressure and anguish when he's failing to do so. Even during a time of grief, he feels he must keep it together.
As such, the core of this story is about what many would consider to be the ultimate way to fail as a parent, and how far one would be willing to go to take it all back. It's also a story about loss and grief in general. Losing family members, pets, neighbors. How it warps our minds and eats us up inside, and we look back at the memories with pain and longing, almost living in denial for a long period, and again, wishing we could do something to take it all away and start over. But life and nature aren't designed that way, and this story warns us of what might happen if we try to cheat the system.
The way he sneaks in little references to his other stories here and there is always fun, almost like you should keep an eye out for Easter eggs. Also, it's very cool in retrospect that he's making several references to The Ramones along the way; it's surely no coincidence that these Queens punks later wrote a song for the movie adaptation's soundtrack!
While I'll, without any qualms, say that this is one of his best books, I have one pet peeve (no pun intended) about King's writing that happens not only in this book but throughout his stories in general, which is his habit of foreshadowing a bit too much until he's basically spoiling his own story at some points. Now, I'm already familiar with this story, but this aforementioned habit could have been annoying if I was completely clueless going into this and was absorbing the story for the very first time.
To give just a few made-up examples, he will write things like: “She got in her car and drove off, and that was the last time anyone would see her alive,” or: “He woke up early that Friday morning, and it and it was just like any other morning; nobody knew he only had one week left to live.”
As a comparison, I much rather prefer his other tendency, to have characters get caught in nightmares that in themselves are some sort of foreshadowing, or a type of warning, but a little bit more vague. Characters often have almost a form of premonition in these dreams, giving them a sense of dread and that they are getting involved with something they should be leaving alone. To me, that's more effective and a part of the slow build-up to the actual events. And it doesn't flat out spoil that such and such character is about to die.
However, I get that these things are his way to build some sort of anxious anticipation, little cliffhanger remarks strategically placed so that you'll keep reading to find out what's about to happen. But it feels a little bit like if you're watching a movie with friends, and someone says: “This upcoming scene always makes me cry.” They're then signaling that something will happen, and to me, that takes away some of the impact. It's a minor gripe in the grand scheme of things, but still, it does bug me at times.
That alone isn't enough to take any points away from the final score, though. I sigh, shrug, and read on, and as I implied, this is hereby one of my favorite novels by King, and it earns a 4.5 rounded up!