cwalrus
June 25th, 2009, 12:40 PM
I finally finished reading Cujo and if ever there was a story where Murphy's Law prevailed, it's this one. As I was reading, I thought how could so many things go wrong at the same time leading to that tragic conclusion. From the hole in the grass containing the bats that no one knew about to Steve Kemp writing that note to Vic right before the business trip to the Calmer's stoping their mail service preventing the mail man from discovering Donna and Vic along with many more things that fate just conveniently tilted against Trenton family just leads me to believe that SK must have really been in a dark place when writing this.
There are a few points that I wanted to discuss. These are just observation and reactions.
1. The first thing that struck me at the end of the book was that SK kind of broke the 4th wall in a literary sense as the narrator. This may be just a minor thing but I noticed at the end of the book, the very last paragraph, he writes:
"The small cave into which Cujo had chased the rabbit was never discovered. Eventually, for whatever vague reasons small creatures may have, the bats moved on. The rabbit was unable to get out and it starved to death in slow, soundless misery. Its bones, so far as I know, still remain there with the bones of those small animas unlucky enough to hav tumbled into that place before it."
The phrase that captured me most at the end was "so far as I know." I don't recall so far another instance where SK invokes his role as the narrator as much as he does here. Usually, the narrative voice stays pretty much in the 3rd person omnicient perspective (unless a character in the story is actually the narrator) and even though we know it's SK telling us a story, the narrator (for me at least) is sort of a neutral presence that the reader usually attaches his or her own perspective to. When you compare that the the beginning of the book with the "Once upon a time . . ." opening it's almost as if Cujo was a some sort of twisted bedtime story SK was telling his audience and the end was just a tidy way of shrugging off the child-like questions that the audience might ask like "what happened to the rabbit?" I just found this interesting.
2. SK seems to want readers to purposely recall Frank Dodd from the Dead Zone, but never explicitly states that Frank Dodd actually posesses Cujo yet Frank Dodd's presence is clearly felt throughout the book so much so that Sheriff bannerman briefly imagines that it's really Frank Dodd attacking him. I'm still not sure what to make of it. While it's clear that the story of Cujo takes place in the same universe and location as the Frank Dodd segment in the Dead Zone, the narrator never specifically tells us that Frank Dodd has taken over Cujo's rabid brain or body. Frank Dodd is just like a lingering ghost in a quiet town that wishes to forget anything unpleasant, but Sheriff bannerman remembers and so do iother people. The story's fascination with monsters especially the whole thing about the monster in Tad's closet seems to indicate that perhaps a supernatural presence was behind the tragic events but that mostly it was just fate. Things just happened to fall into place so that events unfolded the way they did. Cujo happened to get rabies, Bannerman happened to be sent alone at the last minute instead of with a partner, the mail man happened to not bring over the Calmer's mail. If any of those things had not occured the way they did, maybe this stopry would have had a happy ending. I don't think Frank Dodd's spirit or whatever supernatural thing that was left from that ordeal in the Dead Zone could have caused all that.
3. Another thread seems to suggest that since Tad died, this was cruel book, but I don't agree. I might have a greed if Cujo had gotten to kill Tad but Tad died of dehyrdation and not from Cujo ravaging him so even though it's tragic that he died, at least the monster didn't get him which was his biggest fear. It looks like Donna and Vic will piece their lives back together with a reaffirmed love. The whole story could have ended with Vic leaving his wife and blaming her but they both blame themselves for different reasons and they will work together to live with that guilt. It's not a happy ending but it's not the worse ending that SK could have come up with.
4. I'm not sure if I'm reading too much into this but I think maybe the Calmer family part of this novel might have been SK's way of showing the misgivings he had about success. There's no way for anyone to know for sure without asking SK himself but the conclusions that Charity and Brett come to during their Connecticut trip basically reinforce the perspective that Joe Calmer had about "successfull" and "rich" people. Brett's observation about Holly and her credit cards and the way she showed them off along with how these relatives seemed to parade their wealth around them seem to suggest a certain underlying resentment of success and wealth. While Joe Calmer was far from a perfect man, he did display love and compassion at certain time and he seemed to reinforce his son with a certain kind of working class moral code that held a resentment for "pencil pushers" and anyone whio buys something with money when they could have built it with their bare hands. Might this be SK's way of saying that he still has a certain respect and admiration for what he had accomplished as an unknown struggling writer with a family before his success with Carrie? Hard to know without asking him. I guess it's never good to psychoanalylize an author based on his work, but I couldn't help it in this case.
Anyway, I would appreciate any responses to these observations and of course any new observation. Overall, it's not my favorite story. I liked The Dead Zone and Firestarter a lot better, but Cujo was a fascinating read nonetheless.
There are a few points that I wanted to discuss. These are just observation and reactions.
1. The first thing that struck me at the end of the book was that SK kind of broke the 4th wall in a literary sense as the narrator. This may be just a minor thing but I noticed at the end of the book, the very last paragraph, he writes:
"The small cave into which Cujo had chased the rabbit was never discovered. Eventually, for whatever vague reasons small creatures may have, the bats moved on. The rabbit was unable to get out and it starved to death in slow, soundless misery. Its bones, so far as I know, still remain there with the bones of those small animas unlucky enough to hav tumbled into that place before it."
The phrase that captured me most at the end was "so far as I know." I don't recall so far another instance where SK invokes his role as the narrator as much as he does here. Usually, the narrative voice stays pretty much in the 3rd person omnicient perspective (unless a character in the story is actually the narrator) and even though we know it's SK telling us a story, the narrator (for me at least) is sort of a neutral presence that the reader usually attaches his or her own perspective to. When you compare that the the beginning of the book with the "Once upon a time . . ." opening it's almost as if Cujo was a some sort of twisted bedtime story SK was telling his audience and the end was just a tidy way of shrugging off the child-like questions that the audience might ask like "what happened to the rabbit?" I just found this interesting.
2. SK seems to want readers to purposely recall Frank Dodd from the Dead Zone, but never explicitly states that Frank Dodd actually posesses Cujo yet Frank Dodd's presence is clearly felt throughout the book so much so that Sheriff bannerman briefly imagines that it's really Frank Dodd attacking him. I'm still not sure what to make of it. While it's clear that the story of Cujo takes place in the same universe and location as the Frank Dodd segment in the Dead Zone, the narrator never specifically tells us that Frank Dodd has taken over Cujo's rabid brain or body. Frank Dodd is just like a lingering ghost in a quiet town that wishes to forget anything unpleasant, but Sheriff bannerman remembers and so do iother people. The story's fascination with monsters especially the whole thing about the monster in Tad's closet seems to indicate that perhaps a supernatural presence was behind the tragic events but that mostly it was just fate. Things just happened to fall into place so that events unfolded the way they did. Cujo happened to get rabies, Bannerman happened to be sent alone at the last minute instead of with a partner, the mail man happened to not bring over the Calmer's mail. If any of those things had not occured the way they did, maybe this stopry would have had a happy ending. I don't think Frank Dodd's spirit or whatever supernatural thing that was left from that ordeal in the Dead Zone could have caused all that.
3. Another thread seems to suggest that since Tad died, this was cruel book, but I don't agree. I might have a greed if Cujo had gotten to kill Tad but Tad died of dehyrdation and not from Cujo ravaging him so even though it's tragic that he died, at least the monster didn't get him which was his biggest fear. It looks like Donna and Vic will piece their lives back together with a reaffirmed love. The whole story could have ended with Vic leaving his wife and blaming her but they both blame themselves for different reasons and they will work together to live with that guilt. It's not a happy ending but it's not the worse ending that SK could have come up with.
4. I'm not sure if I'm reading too much into this but I think maybe the Calmer family part of this novel might have been SK's way of showing the misgivings he had about success. There's no way for anyone to know for sure without asking SK himself but the conclusions that Charity and Brett come to during their Connecticut trip basically reinforce the perspective that Joe Calmer had about "successfull" and "rich" people. Brett's observation about Holly and her credit cards and the way she showed them off along with how these relatives seemed to parade their wealth around them seem to suggest a certain underlying resentment of success and wealth. While Joe Calmer was far from a perfect man, he did display love and compassion at certain time and he seemed to reinforce his son with a certain kind of working class moral code that held a resentment for "pencil pushers" and anyone whio buys something with money when they could have built it with their bare hands. Might this be SK's way of saying that he still has a certain respect and admiration for what he had accomplished as an unknown struggling writer with a family before his success with Carrie? Hard to know without asking him. I guess it's never good to psychoanalylize an author based on his work, but I couldn't help it in this case.
Anyway, I would appreciate any responses to these observations and of course any new observation. Overall, it's not my favorite story. I liked The Dead Zone and Firestarter a lot better, but Cujo was a fascinating read nonetheless.