“’Salem’s Lot”, by Stephen King

 

405 pages, Doubleday & Co., Inc., ISBN-13: 978-0965772419

I first became aware of Stephen King’s ’Salem’s Lot when I saw the 1979 miniseries starring David Soul, the recently deceased Lance Kerwin, Bonnie Bedelia (mmmmm…Bonnie Bedelia), James Mason and, can’t forget, Reggie Nalder as Barlow, the scariest vampire there ever was. I thought the series rocked and it scared the bejesus out of me – of course, it was made at a time when vampires were still thought as being evil, undead things that wanted to suck your blood and kill in order to survive, not as a bunch of pussified emos who whined about everything and were as scary as a hamster. No, these were real vampires, and so while in the midst of my high school Stephen King kick I read ’Salem’s Lot in order to compare it with what I already knew.

Mostly, the book is as good as the series, although there are numerous differences between the two – especially the character of Barlow (or Kurt Barlow, if you really want to know). In the series he’s scary AF, with grey skin, evil red eyes and incisor fangs (rather than canines) which were weird and scary and…well, just damn. Kurt Barlow from the book, however, is rather more mundane, a prototypical vampire who dresses well, is urbane and well-spoken and not nearly as frightening – or interesting, truth be told. I guess it just shows what an impact the series made on me that I can find a vampire to be so pedestrian; if I had read the book first then maybe my disappointment would be reversed and I’d be let down by a monstrous Barlow.

The rest of the characters in the book are fleshed out and given personalities so that, when they are turned, their loss actually feels real (those instances when they speak as vampires are surreal). For ’Salem’s Lot is vintage early King, one of the books that cemented his reputation as a master of modern horror. There are chills and frights and gore and blood aplenty, but it is the characterizations that set him apart in that he invests the time needed to make his characters real people so that, if and when something awful happens to them, it hits you the reader that much harder. My experience with King petered out sometime in the 90s, so I don’t know if he kept this up, but its there for all to see here in ’Salem’s Lot.

And, damnit, ’Salem’s Lot is a horror book about vampires as they’re meant to be, as I said in my screed above. While once human, they are something else now and just don’t continue on living – er, make that “living” – as if nothing happened, or as if their new vampirism is just a lifestyle choice. The idea that we would want to become one of them should be absurd, if not downright evil. All of which is obvious as one reads this book, for the one thing that is made clear is not only are vampires a mockery of the living, they also no longer have any free agency, seeing as they are now pawns of Barlow and must follow his dictates. This, then, is perhaps the evil at the heart of ’Salem’s Lot: the reduction of people to drones.

I haven’t picked up a Stephen King book in an age, but after having read ’Salem’s Lot that’s all I need to know as to how good a writer he is (or at least, was).

“The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat”, by Eric Jager

 

242 pages, Crown, ISBN-13: 978-0593240885

I saw the movie The Last Duel before reading the book that it was based on, The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat by Eric Jager (that’s Jodie Comer on the cover, by the by). The movie bombed, which was a damn shame, as it was an excellent retelling of a little-known event that illustrated just how different the people of the Middle Ages were from us – and, after having read the book, I appreciate the movie all the more so for staying true to the facts; or at least, the facts as are known to us (well, except for the third act, which is mostly modern-day fiction dressed up as historical interpretation).

So, what’s it about? In a nutshell, French knight Jean de Carrouges challenges his former friend, Squire Jacques Le Gris, to a judicial duel – trial by combat – after Jean’s wife, Marguerite, accuses Jacques of raping her on January 18^th, 1386. What follows is a detailed retelling of the lives of the participants, the events leading up to the alleged assault, the trial at the Parlement de Paris and thence the actual duel itself, with all of the other players and events surrounding these events brought in to flesh out the tale. And all in a slim 242 pages, no less (but there’s a reason for that, as you’ll see below).

Many historians have issues when it comes to writing in that they often write for one another and not the public at large, making their work very much inside-baseball and inaccessible to others outside of the club. But Jager’s work reads almost like a medieval romance in which a brave knight rights a heinous wrong done to his lady fair. Except that it actually happened. The difference being that the knight in question, Jean de Carrouges, is as difficult as person as one could imagine, while his antagonist, Jacques Le Gris, is as charming a noble as a nobleman should be. Switch their personalities and you have the perfect story (Marguerite is mostly a cypher).

Jager tells a spirited tale, laying out all the details while stating that, where history is silent, he provides his own invention while always listening to the voices of the past. Indeed, he contradicts a great number of them, which suppose that the whole event was a false accusation since there is no real evidence of the crime other than later recountings of the tale which varied more and more as the years went by – in fact, he presents relevant arguments as to why he believes such tales are false, arguments that are quite detailed and compelling. The number of latter-day historians with an opinion should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever read history.

As to why all of this information could be imparted in such a thin book, well, it’s because Crown, for some ungodly reason, decided to use the smallest font ever when printing this thing. Seriously, there were times when I had to utilize my iPhone’s camera in order to zoom in and decipher the print, it’s so damn small. I guess tiny type means smaller book which means fewer costs which means greater profits. And only at the cost of a comfortable reading experience – I mean, I’m just the guy reading your book; why should my needs matter to Crown? The Last Duel was enlightening and entertaining, a rare twofer for a work of series history – but find a copy that has larger type.

“The Crimson Petal and the White”, by Michel Faber

 

 

838 pages, Canongate Books, ISBN-13: 978-1841953236

I miss Borders and their overstock aisles; I mean, Barnes & Noble has their own overstocks, as well, and the old location in Rochester, Michigan, once had a whole mess of used books – but, I dunno, Borders seemed to have more variety or something; maybe I’m remembering through rose-tinted glasses, but it was from Borders that I picked up The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber, one of the few novels I read in my earlier days, seeing as I was all about history and biography for so long. In a nutshell: The Crimson Petal and the White is set in Victorian London and revolves around Sugar, a peculiar prostitute (and wannabe novelist whose work is “a tale that throws back the sheets from acts never shown and voices never heard”); Agnes Rackham, the ideal Victorian wife who is of naïve and delicate femininity; and the man they share, William Rackham, the unwilling and bumbling owner of a perfumer who is married to Agnes and cavorts with Sugar.

To say that this is the novel that Dickens wanted to write had he been unrestrained by Victorian propriety (and the need to make a quid) may be stretching things. But as much as ole’ Chuck stretched what he could in his writings, he couldn’t go as far as Faber and his freedom in our culture of shock and awe (and utter lack of any standards). London life during Victoria’s reign is shown in all of its glory and gore as high and low collide and interact in ways neither party could have expected. And all told in the manner of one of those omniscient, self-righteous Victorian narrators who tells the reader exactly what they should be thinking and/or feeling as he (it’s probably a “he”) spells out the depravity of the situation. Indeed, if not for all of the sex and shit one could very well imagine it was Dickens himself describing the scenes within, such is Faber’s skill at recreating the cant of respectable Victorian boilerplate.

There are other characters to be found as well, Dear Reader: there’s Henry Rackham, William’s brother and the middle-class answer to Gladstone in his quest to reform prostitutes while suffering “nightmares of erotic disgrace”; Emmeline Fox, Henry’s compadre in the Rescue Society (those trying to reform prostitutes) whose unrequited love for Henry is both obvious and touching; the madam Mrs. Castaway and the loathsome Colonel Leek; William’s companions Bodley and Ashwell, the kinds of friends you know will get you into trouble…which is why they’re your friends. In short, the characters are fleshed out and not just representatives in some morality play as their decisions have real world consequences they didn’t necessarily see coming – just like us. Likewise, the setting of Victorian London is familiar and yet shown in a new, darker light, and made all the more dramatic for being so.

The Crimson Petal and the White is one of those honest books that will stay with you long after you have put it down for the last time – perhaps Sugar says it best, when describing her own magnum opus: “You fancy this book will amuse you, thrill you, rescue you from the horror of boredom, and that having consumed it, you will be left at liberty to resume your life as before. But this book is different. This book is a knife”. And brother, does it ever cut.