Rage

For my first "real" blog post, I am actually not starting out with a Stephen King book, but a Richard Bachman book (which is Stephen King's pseudonym, for the three of you out there that don't know that), Rage.

This book was among Stephen King's first-written novels. He started writing it in 1966, when he was only eighteen and still in high school. It was not published until 1977 and later ordered to be put out of print by Mr. King himself, due to speculation that it persuaded young people to be violent because of its story of a young man (Charlie Decker) gunning down two teachers and holding his classmates hostage in the classroom.

Despite this novel (if it can even be called that -- its length is at just over 130 pages, which is severely short by Stephen King standards) being written in 1966, its points still ring true today. What with increasing violence in kids these days (I'm assuming that violence in high school wasn't as much of a problem in 1966 as it is now), King is perhaps a bit prophetic with this story. However, "violence in kids" is not just them bringing a gun to school and locking their fellow classmates in a classroom with him (or her). It can also be name calling or slander -- these actions can kill another human being on the inside.

Rage is not just about "violence", or a kid who's mind is so twisted that he would cause such terror. In fact, Decker's bringing a gun to school is perhaps nothing more than a catalyst to what I feel is the real point of the story -- NO ONE is perfect. It does not matter how much money you have, what kind of clothes you wear, how many friends you have, or what your sex-life is like. The point still rings true: no one is perfect, and you can't just make your problems disappear. My favorite part of the entire novel was the kids' sharing of their pasts as well as confessing to each other how they felt about one another -- the good and the bad. I think it's good to put your entire self - the good and the bad - out on the table. Sometimes, talking really does help.

This novel is not for the faint of heart by any means. It is a rather dark story, but its ending does have a little bit, if not a whole lot, of hope to give. More than any of his later novels, King (or Bachman, if you prefer), really tore open the deep wound of what makes kids tick and what happens in their minds that might cause such a scenario as gunning down two teachers and holding a class hostage. This isn't King's best work by far, but it shows a raw side of kids' lives that sometimes adults overlook - purposefully or mistakenly - and what steps can be taken to prevent such an awful thing from happening in your own life.

Happy reading,
Cody