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High praise from a non-fan May 6, 2002 (33 of 35 found this helpful)
As the title of my review states, I am not a fan of Stephen King. I don't hate his work but at the same time I don't wait for his next book with bated breath either. He is just an author whose books never ever appear on my 'must buy' list.
Saying that, however, his novel "Christine" is a cracking read. The scares are subtle; tugging at your subconscious rather than going for your jugular vein. There are no ghouls lurking and not much violence either...at least not until the latter half of the book.
Readers who are looking for gore will be disappointed and should look elsewhere. Basically, "Christine" is about a possessed car. You don't own Christine. She owns you. And now she owns Arnie Cunningham; a shy, geeky kid with a bad complexion. Arnie loves Christine. He'll do anything for her and no one should stand between him and his beloved car. Or else.....
Stephen King does a wonderful job here. What could easily have been a cheesy story of an evil car on a killing spree, we have instead a story of obsession, possession and the stain of past crimes "reaching out to the present". More subtle, more frightening than a simple 'bad car kills people' plot.
We also get to learn the history of the car and its first owner but King doesnt give all the details. In fact, more questions are raised intead of answered. That, I think, is a mark of a good horror story. Let it be ambiguous. Dont answer all the questions. Let the reader draw his/her own conclusions. Its scarier (and thus, more fun) that way.
Stephen King is still not one of my favourite authors but I am willing to give credit where credit is due. "Christine" is indeed a good yarn and deserves the 4 stars that I'm giving. Coming from a non-fan, that is high praise indeed.
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To Mr. King: "WE'RE NOT WORTHY!!!!!" Oct 20, 2000 (12 of 12 found this helpful)
The two strongest things in Stephen King's writing are his storytelling and his ability to craft vivid, believable characters. This book is a prime example of both of these talents. It is the story of Arnie and Dennis, two high school seniors who have been friends since they were five years old. Arnie has always been the "outcast" kid in school and Dennis has stood up for him countless times. That friendship is put to the test when Arnie falls in love with Christine, a 1958 Plymouth Fury in desperate need of restoration. The purchase of the car puts a strain on Arnie's relationship with everyone around him, including Dennis. Their friendship was, in my opinion, the central theme in the book, rather than the supernatural events surrounding Christine. Those could have been removed entirely from the book and the power of the friendship would still be there. The story wouldn't be quite as gripping and it wouldn't truly be Stephen King, but it would still be a very good read.
The first and third parts of the book were told in the first person narrative from Dennis' point of view. This made for very powerful reading. King manages to tweak the readers feelings in exactly the way he wants by doing this. When Dennis ends up in the hospital for a couple months with a football injury, the narration changes to third person for the middle third. Although not quite as emotionally powerful as the first and third parts, this section of the book is meaty in its own way. We see Arnie changing from the shy, "loner" character from the first part into the nearly unlikeable character in the third part.
I think this book has the most depressing ending of all of Stephen King's books (at least of the ones I've read). The reason for this is the fact that he makes you care for the characters. The reader wants everything to turn out okay for everybody. King had no compunction whatsoever about doing things to his characters. If he'd tied it up in a sappy, "everything's okay" ending, it might not have been as powerful. Less depressing, but less powerful nonetheless. This book has jumped to near the top of the list of my favorite Stephen King books. Highly recommended.
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Only King could pull it off Dec 10, 2002 (10 of 10 found this helpful)
It is a pity that no one writes like this horror anymore. Even old King himself. Christine is a perfect round-the-camp-fire story with chilling moments, incredibly real characters and a sad, very sad feeling washing over you.
I don't know about anyone else but I liked 70's and 80's King's more than anything he wrote in 90's (except Dreamcatcher and Wizard and Glass) In those days King was writing horror in a way no one has written and no one will ever write again. Christine is a very fine example of his unique writing. Maybe there are better horror books than this (and than Stephen's whole bunch)but as a whole they lack something King's books (early ones at least) were carrying. Christine is not only a demonic car book, as many mentioned here, it is one of the most agonizing love and coming of the age stories, with a very depressing atmosphere and very tragic ending. This is what makes Christine (and all King books) so terrific: The real horror of the world is essential in his books: People we love die...people we love leave us...we remain alone in the world.we lose...you lose...
Christine is a story of three youngsters and a love triangle, comprising an unbelievably real and evil car. These four are tangled in a complex love affair: On the one hand, Christine is trying to triumph and spread her evil, on the other hand, the youngsters are trying to beat her and keep their sanity. Arnie seems to be the scapegoat and the weakest link with his repulsive outlook, dysfunctioning family and a hungry longing for love, respect and admiration, which he lacks and which Christine offers him....but at a very regretful price.
Then there is Dennis...Arnie's best friend with all the good things Arnie longs for...Both see Christine at the same time...But Christine is an expert in knowing who is the weakest link, and easily picks up her victim.
She starts to process Arnie into becoming something which her evil aims will be satisfied...then surprisingly, Leigh, a wonderful girl, steps into Arnie's life and becomes a light of reason for Arnie and, not surprisingly, the lifetime enemy of Christine. Now Christine should get rid of her...as well as Dennis and a few other fellows who mistakenly treat her bad...
Then Dennis and Leigh fall in love...Arnie learns this... and all the story becomes tangled in a way impossible to untangle.
All this seems pretty silly, doesn't it? But in King's hands it wonderfully works. It is, in fact, a very fast paced story and it flows smoothly that the pages flip almost on themselves. The writing is veryþ vivid and energetic, as if Stephen was himself the bad Christine.... Along with the story, you are tangled with those four characters...you are drifted along with them helplessly into an ever-growing climax full of suspense, horror, breathless reading and tension.
Christine is a very good story and a very good horror story...but also a very good loser yarn, which only King could pull off and which would be a total flop in any other hand. That must be the reason why people come back to Stephen's books again and again in flocks after so many years and books although he does not (stubbornly) write anything like this (or Pet Sematary or It or Salem's Lot). He always talks about the loser inside us. Perhaps he knows better than all the people in the world that it is really a very hard thing to beat real Christines and he is trying to tell this all along those years.
Read it...There is so much in Christine.
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Compelling ride ;> Nov 2, 2000 (10 of 11 found this helpful)
Yes, this is one of King's best. Christine seethes with teenage angst, first love, dysfunctional family life, and of course, Christine, that witch on wheels. Was there ever a more creepy and original monster? I had shied away from reading this one for a long time because I thought it would be silly. And I never saw the movie for the same reason (I mean, remember Cujo?!) Anyway I finally caught the movie one day on TV and watched it from the beginning, and whoa... I did like it. The actor who played Arnie was awesome, whoever the heck he is. So I ordered the book. I was glued to it. The characters were so engaging and real, King at his best. The kids, Arnie and Dennis and their friendship which becomes strained as Arnie goes from geeky to freaky - very well written. Arnie's infatuation then obsession with Christine which changes his whole personality is extremely well-done, and the resulting tragedies - well they're horrible (duh, that's part of the reason I read King's books.) To be horrified and creeped out while King's stories have you in their intense grip - delicious! So after all, the book isn't really about the death-car. It's about a tortured kid who loses it, and his friends and family who can't save him, just like real-life.
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Long But Engrossing May 31, 2004 (5 of 5 found this helpful)
Nothing gets in the way of a boy and his car---NOTHING, not even his girlfriend. Not even his best friend from childhood. NOTHING. Especially if it's Arnie Cunningham and his Christine, a 1958 red-and-white Plymouth Fury who earns her name and then some over the course of this book. This is Stephen King's 1983 classic Horror novel CHRISTINE.
Having seen the feature film, made later the same year and starring Keith Gordon as the nerdy, much-picked-upon Arnie Cunningham, I can say that this book certainly places the terrifying screen images I remember into a whole new context---indeed, into a whole new dimension. You see, in the film, the car itself was just plain evil---as illustrated by the song "Bad To The Bone" by George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers being played at both the beginning and the ending. In the book, it's a lot less simple than that: It's not just that Arnie becomes obsessed with Christine, who influences him to become evil; the focus is more on Christine's evil previous owner, Roland D. LeBay. Over time, Arnie gradually metamorphoses into LeBay, who's described as being "always angry" and refers to his enemies as "sh*tters." (In the movie, Arnie comes up with that word himself.) There are subplots involving the delving into LeBay's past, as well as dealing with Arnie's parents. In the movie, Roland D. LeBay still sells Arnie the car, but he is no more consequential than that. Interestingly enough, in the book, it is Arnie's father who is the sympathetic parent, with the mother being a harridan; in the movie, it is the other way around.
Typically for a Stephen King book versus the movie, the body count is higher in the book. Will Darnell, the fat, coarse body-shop owner (and Arnie's boss) meets an especially prolonged end in the written version. [SPOILER ALERT: The only majorly disappointing thing to me about the book was Arnie's rather anti-climactic end. In the movie, he is killed while in Christine; in the book, he is killed in a car accident along with his mother on the snowbound Pennsylvania Turnpike.]
I liked the unique narrative structure of CHRISTINE. The book is divided into three sections: The first is narrated in the first person by Arnie's best friend Dennis Guilder, the mid-section changes to a God's-eye third-person point of view, and the final section goes back to Dennis' first-person narration. It's a very interesting technique, perhaps odd, but I think it works for this novel. Of course, there are plenty of King witticisms that us fans have come to love about his writing---CHRISTINE is chock-full of them! It's because of this that I forced myself to read slower---and believe me, I had to read a lot slower than usual, because CHRISTINE is a real page-turner! I really didn't want to miss the sarcastic observations, ironic musings and other King witticisms than have become a trademark. I definitely recommend reading CHRISTINE; it is quite enjoyable, no matter if you saw the film version first or not.
RECOMMENDED; AGES 16 & UP
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR STEPHEN KING FANS