How influential was Christine?

[mrcthedj]

When I was a pre-teen I had, mostly thanks to Mr. King, already decided I was going to be a writer. I began "cutting my teeth" by imitating Mr. King. Oddly, the most influential book I read at the time was "Christine." This was the first book to demonstrate how different techniques could be used within the same book to tell a story. Recall that the point of view shifts from first person to third person and back to first person. When I was 13 I wrote a story called "The Mailbox" about a, well, mailbox, that was abused by some people for no reason. The mailbox then wrote letters to its owner explaining how to "correct" the abusers. The adults I showed the story to were very encouraging and now, twenty-four years later, I am a writer because of it.

[ItaliaQueen]

i just watched christine on video ace at was!!!!!!!!!!

[Mr. Palmer]

CHRISTINE is one of my biggest inspirations. It was the first Stephen King novel I read and I was totally floored by it (even now I still annually read it).

Like you, all these years later, I'm a writer due partly to that book.

[wally wonder]

neat-o,mrcthedj. i'm curious though. do mailboxes go for all that 'innocent until proven guilty' stuff? jury of peers? etcetera? i'm going to have nightmares tonight. thanks. not that i ever abused a mailbox. been wrongly accused before, thing is.

[michal]

It's always nice hearing that someone who precude his dream managed to get what he wanted. Good on you friend! And I don't even like Christin that much, but of course, I haven't read it at the impressionable age of 13 and perhaps lost something because I haven't.

[ItaliaQueen]

I want to go to America to see that car he wrote about!!!!!

[scarywriter]

I want to go to America to see that car he wrote about!!!!!

You'll have a hard time doing that. You don't see too many '57 Plymouth Furies (Furys?) on the road these days. But, you're welcome to come on "across the pond" and try. We'll welcome your visit.

[mrsbreece]

I thought Christine was one of the least influential of King's books/movies. I generally love the story lines in King's books, but this one I just didn't see as heart jumping...maybe I just missed it. Stories like 'Salem's Lot, The Long Walk, Pet Sematary, Insomnia, It, among others are the best!!

[scarywriter]

I thought Christine was one of the least influential of King's books/movies. I generally love the story lines in King's books, but this one I just didn't see as heart jumping...maybe I just missed it. Stories like 'Salem's Lot, The Long Walk, Pet Sematary, Insomnia, It, among others are the best!!

I have to strongly disagree mrsbreece.
while Christine may not have been as "deep" as some of King's othe works, it was hugely influential. Basically, a straight ahead horror story, references to it can be found in all sorts of pop culture arenas, as has been discussed in this thread. Whether you like the book or not, it has embedded itself in America's pysche. If you walk down the street and ask a dozen people to tell you who Stephen King's Roland is, many will give you a blank look (and I feel sorry for them because of that) but ask those same dozen if they know who Christine is, and I'll bet they do.

[Ranger_Strider]

I think perhaps Christine resonates with some CR's and not so much with others because there is a connection to the Automotive Subculture at play. The Automotive Subculture is defined for my purpose as that cross section of American society the has a worship for all things car or motor-assisted-transport-related; I'm going to refer to such people as 'motorheads'.
Motorheads are the people who keep professional racing in business; they will actually pay money to watch cars blatting and belching around a tarmac oval for 3 or 4 hours on the weekend when they could be enjoying some restful and rejuvenating peace and quiet for free somewhere else.
Motorheads are people that can't bear to let anything go that ever rolled along making noise and spraying pollution into the air. As a result they have rusting hulks on blocks in their front, back, and side yards, are are actually physically distressed if someone suggests that they get rid of one. Thier heart rate spikes, eyes bulge out, and spittle flies from their mouths as they scream about their constitutional right to destroy property values for blocks around.
Motorheads are people that can and do have a $20,000 Harley Davidson parked in the garage of a house with peeling paint, broken windows covered in cardboard and a perpetually unkempt yard. You ask them why is it so(?), and they reply that maintenece and upkeep costs on a home are out of their buget. Meanwhile they have plenty of time on evenings and weekends to ride around giving the public at large dirty looks with their unwashed faces because of some deep seated insecurity that without all the biker trappings and posing that someone might just beat them up because they aren't coming off as properly tough and dangerous.
Motorheads are people that will do almost anything to own a ridiculously expensive, or large, or flashy car (were basically taking about low-people here), up to and including ripping off others like a common theif to get it. Plenty of doctors, lawers, bankers, and other so-called professionals fit into this category right alongside pimps and drug-dealers.
So, it is my thesis that Motorheads are like any other junkie: they can hardly see all the problems that are growing from that central addiction. They have taken something that is a simple solution to a resonable need (that of efficeint means of conveyance), and perverted it into the central point of their lives.
Motorheads might be people that think Christine is some kind of standout achievement in SK's body of work.
Sorry Motorheads, but I wouldn't encourage a Heroin addict either.
This ought to spark a few flames, eh folks?