(Which at the very least says a lot about where the collective American mind was in the late 1970s and early 1980s.)įirestarter introduces us to a new chess piece in the Stephen King Universe known as The Shop, which would rear its ugly head again in several later King novels. In Firestarter, it’s our own government, for the second time in a row in fact, echoing King’s prior book, The Dead Zone. In Carrie, the concealed antagonist could be seen as religious zealotry, played out through Carrie White’s mother, Margaret. There are, of course, big differences between Carrie and Firestarter. And, both are going through a painful process of learning how to control their extraordinary powers. Both have unnaturally co-dependent relationships with a parental figure. While Carrie White had telekinesis (the ability to move objects with her mind), Charlie McGee’s gift (or curse) in Firestarter is pyrokinesis - the ability to start fires with her mind. It’s easy to see why Stephen King’s Firestarter was nearly the novel we never read.Ībandoning his manuscript on several occasions, King felt the book was too much like Carrie and feared he would be copying himself.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |