Rage

Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses. 

Homer, Iliad, Book 1 (trans. Robert Fagles)

Whenever I would think of the title of this book, I automatically thought of the Iliad, which opens with the word, 'Rage' (wow, I did remember something from 'The Epic and Myth in Western Civilization,' a class I took my freshman year!).  Stephen King's Rage is somewhat different in tone, of course, but it ties back to this sentiment that has long been a vital part of Western literature.  In fact, he ties back to a lot of different books within this short novel.  I was actually surprised to find that there were such interesting elements to it--the last time I read Rage was probably at least fifteen years ago and I thought that it was a bit dry.  This time around, I discovered that it also confronts several themes that arose in his other contemporary novels.

Spoiler alert: no one walks around with a knife in his/her back.  That's one theme that is lacking.

If you're interested in reading this book, you may find it hard to get a copy.  Stephen King originally published it as Richard Bachman and I remember reading it in the anthology of his Bachman books when I was younger.  This collection is no longer readily in circulation.  Some school shooters have claimed that they found inspiration in this book and King decided to pull it.  My local library did not have a copy.  My local academic library, on the other hand, did.  So there are still versions of it out there, but it may be challenging to find.

The Bachman books differ from King's other novels because they are not as reliant on horror and the supernatural--although they do have science fiction and some of them are pretty horrific, just not in the 'vampires just took over your town' sense.  Rage, in fact, has zero horror, apart from the fact that a student takes a classroom hostage, although we learn quickly that he is not actually that scary in a sense.  Messed up, yes.  I felt that in a way, this story was akin to Carrie since it featured teens who felt ostracized, except that this time there was no telekinetic massacre.  Actually, while sharing aspects of their lives, it seems that the students learned that they had more in common than they thought.  Is it weird that this book reminded me of The Breakfast Club?

The main character, Charlie, is the narrator for this story, so we learn several of the reasons that he has such rage.  Most of it is directed at his father, whom he sees as a threat to his mother.  I need to retract what I said in my previous post: of the Stephen King novels I have read so far, this one is the most Oedipal.  This theme is in no way subtle.  But Charlie's father is a terror and abusive--one incident that takes place when Charlie is a child is not too far removed from Jack Torrence breaking his son's arm in The Shining.  But in this case, the father is not repentant and Charlie's rage continues to seethe.  I'm not sure if it was just the first-person narrator or the quirkiness of his expressions, but he reminded me of a slightly more psychotic Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye, even borrowing some of the vocabulary when Charlie calls one of his classmates a phony.  Both Holden and Charlie are aware that they are not all right, even if they are unsure why that is.

At the periphery of Rage is a town that hides its secrets behind closed doors, much like in previous books as well.  This time, they come into the open from a variety of narrators since the classroom hostages are allowed to share their experiences.  This exchange helps to normalize them, demonstrating that they are not so far removed from each other (Breakfast Club, anyone?).  There is only one who does not: Ted Jones, who faces the rage from his classmates in the end and is the only student who is injured during the stand-off--Charlie does kill two teachers, though, which is why I believe King wanted the novel pulled.  In a way, this book sends a strangely positive message in that all of the teenagers are shown as experiencing rage, but in the end finding a way of confronting it.  I think that the subtext here is constructed by hearing about the lives of the adults that surround them: if they don't learn ways of finding happiness now, they could repeat the mistakes of their dysfunctional parents.

I think that the best part of Rage was the fact that it was only 131 pages in my edition.  I'll look back on this fondly when I get to The Stand (1152), which is not all that far off.

Also, I have a tip for Stephen King if he wants to write things under a pseudonym and not be found out: don't set your book in small-town Maine.