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Deeper Meaning...Secrets in Pet Semetary
There are only four books that have truly evoked dread (not horror, but dread...that over-whelming, paralyzing fear of something working beneath the surface) during my reading experience. They are: The Haunting of Hill House, The Stand, The Road and Pet Semetary.
Pet Semetary.
One thing about the horror field is that it is very difficult to write in. Using only words to create a feeling of dread is a tremendously difficult task. Someone once told me that trying to hit a fastball was the hardest thing to do in all of sports. I don't know if that's true, but it's a good way to look at horror books: trying to create dread with words alone is the hardest thing to do in writing.
Pet Semetary does that. Like all great fiction, it tells a story on the surface but has "something deeper" woven masterfully into it. I believe that Mr. King wrote this novel to tell a story, then saw the thread gleaming throughout and decided to strengthen it. Pet Semetary is a novel of secrets. As a writer who was inspired into action by Mr. King's books, I have no credibility to make this assessment, but I'll do it anyway because that's how I roll.
**SPOILER ALERT
Consider immediately the misspelling of the second word in the title. "S" instead of "C". A careful play on a very likely child's spelling error, or something clever that King did to enhance the book's core? Let's go further, shall we? Consider Jud's comment to Louis "the soil of a man's heart is stonier, Louis. Just like the soil up there on the Micmac burial ground. Bedrock's close. A man grows what he can, and tends it." I believe that here we have Jud referring to the secrets that men keep. They stay tightly buried in our hearts. It's a nice play against the secret that they actually discover, and notice that in the history Jud tells Louis, it's always the men: the man who first buries the kid, the men who go after him. Jud is the one who brings Louis to the burial ground, passing his secret along. And then we have Jud talking to Louis about how he used to frequent prostitutes but never told his wife (another secret). Of course, Louis revives the cat and then Gage, and he keeps it secret from his wife. In the end, not only does Louis's secrets kill his wife, it turns her into something worse. Is it not a scary thought that a couple can be married all their life and harbor such secrets from each other? The underlying dread is always there, kept as a secret, and passed along to the next person to use. Without the secret, that dread wouldn't exist. If Louis just said, "Rachel, I have to tell you about this place...this burial ground." And if he had shown her, do you believe the book would have had the same sense of hiding, secretive dread? I don't know, but I think so.
anyway, that's my take on it. Sure to be one of the long read horror books. If I ever become a successful writer, and get the chance to talk to Mr. King about the art and craft, I would see what he thinks about this assessment.
PET SEMETARY played a huge influence in one of my earlier books, except my secret spot doesn't bring things back from the dead, and it's deeper theme is not about secrets but how "life is a carcinogen", which is to say that the moment you are born, your body is assaulted by cancer causing agents, and that sometimes there is an agent which is too big (like an abusive spouse) and it accelerates the process. The writing is juvenile in some places, and rife with cliches, but what do you want from a kid that wrote the book when he was 22?
I only wish mine was as good as PET SEMETARY!
Happy Haunting,
Rob H.
Originally Posted by GNTLGNT
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